The Putz- Hole In One reissue

With pop punk nearing the age of a sensible decision making adult in it's three decades of existence, creating it in a way that is interesting in present day is no easy task!!  It's easy to fall into sounding as a derivative or even worse, attempting to innovate it past the point of recognition but as luck has it, there's a small handful of songwriters who succeed at it still. I first heard of The Putz about four years ago from one of my friends on the East Coast. He had a lot of enthusiasm for what they were doing so I followed his tip and found that these guys from Indianapolis, IN were not only doing something good but rather great instead. Standing out from run of the mill and way off base, they play pop punk that makes you want to pull out your Queers, Screeching Weasel, and Beach Boys records for an all day binge, but also bring a unique personality to the table that is sincere, engaging, a little kooky, and utterly hilarious at times. To put it plainly, you remember who they are in one listen and that, my friends is what this small world of music we all love so much needs. I fell hard for the harmony heavy and super pop sensible "Knock It Off" in 2014, hoping for another reason to write about them immediately after and through the actions of some great people, something has manifested!!

Seeing a dire need for the songs to be placed on sacred format, Moms Basement Records decided to reissue the more than deserving first album of these guys on vinyl for the first time! From there the idea began to pick up more momentum with a beautiful remastering job done by Mass Giorgini at Sonic Iguana where "Hole In One" was originally recorded in 2009 by Phillip Hill. With everything sounding perfect, another modern day hero in the American label scene, Travis Woods added some live shots of the band into a bold yet simple and gorgeous layout he created, then it was off to the pressing plant!! Please take me seriously when I say don't wait to order this because the quantity is very limited! 100 copies were pressed to black, 100 copies were pressed to pink which I chose because it creates a lovely contrast against the cover art, and they include a download code of course! Release is today on the 27th(pretty inconspicuous date huh? Haha) and you can order it through the Moms Basement webstore! The tracks are waiting to be streamed or downloaded on the label's bandcamp page now too so go check them out! 

When I think about reissues the one thing I enjoy most is to see someone from the band talk about it instead of a writer's thoughts, so I decided to approach Billy and ask for a contribution to this piece. He answered my call with a wonderfully written recollection of the record and some cool history on the evolvement of the band as well so without further delay I'd like to hand over this space to him. 

"Looking back, it’s almost unbelievable that Hole In One ever got recorded, turned out the way did, or got released, let alone a remixed and remastered re-release…on vinyl!!! 

Now, I’d like to say that Hole In One was the result of endless hard work, timeless effort, and unmitigated dedication, but it wasn’t; it was really just an accident…

See, back in 2009, The Putz were at a very different phase in our…uh…career? Sure, if you call getting drunk and playing exclusively open mic nights, exclusively at the local dive bar, exclusively on Wednesdays a career that is. I’m pretty sure most of us do, so let’s not belabor. Now, we never harbored any delusions that we would ever become international superstars, but that didn’t stop us from being out of tune, out of key, and out of our minds. 

In all truthfulness, real talk here, we had no business recording an album at the time; furthermore, we had no business recording an album at the legendary (you’ve heard of it…) Sonic Iguana, but we did it anyway.

Our initial idea was just to capture our at-the-time-and-probably-only-to-us hilarious shtick, you know, for the annals of history. Our second idea was to just cancel and save our time and money. Our third idea, however, was to actually take ourselves seriously for a change. Mondo bizarro, I know. Well, that’s exactly what we did; we switched gears, scrapped the majority of the tracks we were intending to record, and started focusing on unfinished and unwritten material instead. 

In the end, we (surprisingly) pulled it together and found ourselves with a (surprisingly) decent album that included 16 tracks that were written, completed, and rewritten over the span of a decade, some of them during my formative years as a young school boy, and others literally in the week leading up to recording, and I’m willing to wager that most of you couldn’t even guess which were which. And, even though it may be juvenile, in terms of content and talent, Hole In One includes two very important songs for me personally: (1) the first good/decent song I ever wrote; and (2) the first song I ever wrote that I knew other people would enjoy. 

We halfheartedly approached a few individuals about the prospect of releasing an album recorded by a band no one had ever heard of, or knew existed, or cared about…yeah, well, whatever…In the summer of 2010, Hole In One was self-released on compact disc with a first pressing limited to 100 copies and a second pressing of 50 copies, and that was all. Ever. Until…

On tour in the summer of 2015, The Putz found ourselves lodging in none other than the mom’s basement (yeah, the one that inspired the record label, duh).  It was here, drinking PBR and watching South Park, that the benevolent John Proffitt, Jr. agreed to release the remixed and remastered version of Hole In One on Mom’s Basement Records…on vinyl!!!

In retrospect, Hole In One opened a lot of doorways for The Putz, not only because we had material we weren’t ashamed to send to bookers and promoters, but also because we knew what we were capable of achieving as a band. We started practicing, which led to playing more venues, which led to playing out-of-town shows, which led to playing out-of-state shows, all of which led to making fans that would become friends and friends that would become family."- Billy Putz

The Putz as they appeared on this recording...

Billy Putz- Bass and Vocals

Tyler Wrong- Guitar and Backing Vocals 

Jordan Miller- Drums and Backing Vocals

With appearances by...

Ian Johnson- Keyboards on "Once-a-Year Day" and "Idiot Over You"

Elise French- Vocals on "Bride Of Frankenstein"

Reissue produced by Billy Putz, Dougie Tangent, and John Proffitt Jr.

All songs written by Billy Putz(BMI) except where noted 

Tracks

Side A 

1. "Letdown Of A Lifetime"

2. "Not Giving In" 

3. "Your Spaceship's Taking Off"

4. "Operation: Sneak Out" 

5. "I Do(What I Want To)"

6. "Brain Dead" 

7. "Summer's Here"

8. "I Quit"

Side B 

9. "Institutionalized"

10. "You're Ugly"

11. "Once-a-Year Day"(Adler/Ross)

12. "Idiot Over You"

13. "Don't Talk"

14. "My Girlfriend's a Bonehead"

15. "Bride Of Frankenstein"

16. "Hole In One"