Cafeteria Dance Fever, “Danceology” CD

cover-cafeteria-dance-feverPutting the punk into garage punk comes Portland’s Cafeteria Dance Fever. Their new best-of collection, entitled Danceology, spans an LP, EP, and a fistful of singles on the Portland label Hovercraft. The whole compilation swings from shambolic pop on the Vaselines-on-Adderol “Ocular Evulsor,” to the slam-bang of “Puke Overboard.”

Is it dancey? If you’re fucked up six ways from Sunday on cheap booze, yes. Cafeteria Dance Fever are punk rock not in the way it’s come be these days, but in the way it used to be — getting out there with a vision and pursuing it, genre conventions be damned. However, for all the dischordant, off-key singing and strumming, this is still a pop record.

The “na-na-na” bit during “A Rainbow That Shoots Nunchuks At People”? The way Sacia croons “leeches” sweetly at the end of “Eyeball Feast Of The Horrid Leeches”? The Jonathan Richman strumming at the start of “Where’s My Bleach?” (along with what sounds like a recorder)? That’s a pop band playing at the speed of punk, and trying to keep things fun, rather than polished.

I’ll take enthusiasm over practice most days. Damned shame they’re breaking up, though. I hate finding bands as they’re on the way out. It feels like you’re mourning something you never got the chance to properly love.

The CD is $5 postage-paid from the Hovercraft store.

MP3: Cafeteria Dance Fever, “Swimming Pool”