The Peenbeets Reviewed

The Peenbeets

The Peenbeets Get Beet Up! (Starco/General Structures Inc.)

It's as predetermined as stink on a jock strap, as natural as a wet dream: The nerdiest middle school kids turn out to be the coolest adults. Try telling that to the seventh-grade loser, recoiling from his latest humiliation as milk flies out his nostrils onto a crowd in the junior high cafeteria. It would've been no relief to class dork Greg Beets that by the time he reached puberty in his mid-20s, the rest of the world would've finally caught up. He could've cared less anyway, because the thing that separates the dorks from everyone else is that dorks know they are dorks. Acceptance of one's slot in this cruel caste is merely survival. Beets has always had an uncanny knack for drawing like-minded dweebs into his lair of dweebdom. He has led rock bands since high school. His desperate bid in the early Nineties to become King of Austin Nerd Rock failed miserably when his hard rockin' combo Noodle was proclaimed just too damn sexy. But with the Peenbeets, Beets has a chance. It's hard to imagine a debut album dorkier than The Peenbeets Get Beet Up!, the supposed soundtrack to the boys' Monkees-cum-Devo Friday night prime-time sitcom, about a group of lovable guys who still suck the nitrous out of whipped cream cans and write songs about their "Awesome Johnson[s]." In this episode, guitarist Chepo Peña loses his cultural identity ("Just Call Me Chuck!") and the guys help him get it back ("¡Viva los Peenbeets!"). Guest appearances from original ex-Peen Buzz Moran, Sexy Finger Champ Kerri Atwood, and Charlie Brown's Teacher (as The President) round out the hilarity. Don't be so quick to dismiss: Like the junior high school geek freeing himself from the umpteenth wedgie, Get Beet Up proves that there is hope for everyone.