Part Time Job

by Full Time Men

Overview

When you're cool, people like hanging out with you, and no one has ever accused the Fleshtones of being a band of un-cool guys. Guitarist Keith Streng, one of the group's founding members, has a long history of sitting in with fellow musicians he likes, and when he decided to make a record of his own, it came as no surprise that some of his allies pitched in to return the favor. In 1984, Streng launched a side project, Full Time Men, with an EP that also featured R.E.M.'s Peter Buck, and over the next 15 years, Streng periodically pulled Full Time Men out of mothballs to cut the occasional studio session. In 2023, Streng honored Full Time Men's body of work with Part Time Job, a collection of their vintage sides that also includes four fresh tunes. The new tracks are suitably star-sprinkled, with Buck back in the lineup alongside Dave Faulkner of the Hoodoo Gurus, Clem Burke of Blondie, Scott McCaughey of the Young Fresh Fellows. And Michael Giblin and Josh Kantor of the Split Squad, and if the 2023 recordings are less manic than what Full Time Men released in the '80s, "TOT (Toilet of Time)" is both funny and full of worthy advice, and "We Were Using" is a more temperate but similarly impassioned answer to "High on Drugs" from FTM's 1988 LP Your Face My Fist. On vinyl, the rest of the album includes representative cuts from the 1984 Full Time Men EP (which predictably blends the Fleshtones' knack for great '60s-influenced melodies and R.E.M.'s mastery of the jangly guitar) and Your Face My Fist (with fellow Fleshtone Peter Zaremba pitching in alongside Pat DiNizio of the Smithereens and Jeff "Monoman" Conolly of the Lyres), which was a wilder, louder, and more rollicking session that lived up to Streng's credo of "Rock 'n' Roll, Good Times and Wild Music." On CD and digital formats, Part Time Job delivers the four new songs, Full Time Men and Your Face My Fist in full, and two tunes from a 1999 split single FTM recorded with Andy Shernoff's the Master Plan. One of the reasons the Fleshtones have been the most enduring band from the '70s/'80s garage rock explosion is they've never run out of ideas and inspiration, and the Full Time Men recordings showed that, like his bandmates, Keith Streng has always had more than enough worthy tunes to go around. Part Time Job is just different enough from the Fleshtones to have a personality of its own while also boasting the same virtues that makes that band great. Turn this up, add refreshments, and you're bound to have a party going on. ~ Mark Deming

Product Details

Release Date:	10/27/2023
Label:	Yep Roc
UPC:	0634457129894

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Full Time Men   Primary Artist