The Beets

Emulating the brash pop-oriented punk antics of the Ramones, wielding a wacky D.I.Y. attitude reminiscent of Daniel Johnston, and gleefully idolizing The Howard Stern Show and Mad Magazine, Queens, New York's the Beets stomped onto the indie circuit in the early 2000s thanks to a couple much-hyped releases on Brooklyn's Captured Tracks. Uruguayan transplant Juan Wauters (vocals/guitar) met Jose Garcia (vocals/bass) in 2004, when they were both enrolled in a community college art class. Their first release as the Beets, Spit in the Face of People Who Don't Want to Be Cool (the first of several albums to feature Matthew Volz's scrawly, untutored artwork on the cover), came out on Captured Tracks in 2009; a single, "Time Brought Age"/"Pick Another Corner," came out on that same label the following year. The buzz about the Beets really started to hum in 2010 with the release of their second album, Stay Home; the following year found the band profiled in TimeOut New York, reviewed on Pitchfork, and (holiest of holies) discussed on Howard Stern's morning show. The band referenced Stern the following year in the title of its third album, Let the Poison Out, signing to Hardly Art and recording with Gary Olsen (Ladybug Transistor) to create their most hi-fi release yet. ~ Margaret Reges, Rovi