The Judy's
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The Judy's were a Pearland, Texas-based Punk and new wave band from the late 70's and early 80's. Their best known song, "Guyana Punch", recounted the infamous Jonestown massacre, played the Hard Thymes Soup Kitchen and Beer Garden, and had contemporaries of different flavor like Shake Russell.
The Judy's opened for the B-52's, Devo and the Talking Heads. Their music was austere, lean, clean, catchy; they banged out the beat on pots, pans and smashed light bulbs that went pop, pop, POP in time to the music. They wrote songs about Gary Gilmore ("How's Gary?"), happy hostages ("Vacation in Tehran"), Son of Sam serial killer David Berkowitz ("Dogs"), Jim Jones ("Guyana Punch," with its call to come "freshen up, freshen up, freshen up"), television's wasteland ("Reruns," "T.V."), stalkers ("Trixie and the Killer"), and sex-change bliss ("The Grass Is Greener"). As a result, they had thousands of words devoted to them in Houston, Dallas and Austin newspapers. In September 1981, Texas Monthly remarked, "These kids have talent, humor and originality in abundance."
Yet the Judy's released only two official full-length albums in their career: Washarama in 1981 and The Moo Album four years later, both on the band's own Wasted Talent label. The albums were bookended by an EP recorded while the boys were in high school (Teenage Hang-Ups in 1980, which features an early version of "All the Pretty Girls"), the six-song The Wonderful World of Appliances the same year, the "Girl of 1000 Smells" single (the B-side is sung in Russian), and a 1991 farewell CD that barely waved good-bye. Now, their albums sell for hundreds of dollars to collectors, though they're also liable to show up in the racks at Half-Price Books and Records, and sell for pocket change.
In their heyday, the band was David B. Bean (Songwriter,vocals,guitars,keyboards), Dane Cessac (Drums,vocals) and Jeff Walton (Bass,vocals).
Trivia
- The design for Washarama was done by Strangers in Paradise artist, Terry Moore