Saturday, August 28, 2010

Turnkey - Self Titled 7"

Turnkey is another band that falls into the "super awesome and I know nothing about them" category. From what I've read Turnkey contains members of Christie Front Drive and Amber Inn, and acts as the predecessor to both those bands. From what I found this came out as a 7" in 1993 on Titanic Records, although googling Titanic records turns up 2 different labels, one is home to an artist named Technoboy and the other apparently specializes in "Early Music and Period Instrumental Music". So I didn't have much luck actually tracking down a physical copy of this. Bummer.

Turnkey sounds like they would fit nicely on the Dischord roster. Jagged and noisy but with these great hints of 90's pop rock melody. The bass is great on this awesome. It has that definitive revolution summer sound to it and really drive the songs along, leaving room for sparse guitar parts that twinkle at times, and explode in a flurry of distortion and feedback at others. Anyways, great record that really left me wanting more from this band. I think if they had released this album in 1985 it would be considered an absolute classic...but for now it's probably sitting collecting dust in record store bargain bins across the American midwest. Shame.
~AB

2 comments:

  1. I was the bass player in Turnkey, also the guitar player in Amber Inn. Before Turnkey, there were two members that played in a band called Lilawatt (one member, Eric Richter, that formed Christie Front Drive). The released a 7" that was recorded 1-10-92 and put out on Racine Records. Currently I am in a band called Dead Seeds... We just released our first 4 song demo. http://deadseeds.bandcamp.com/
    Thank you for reviewing the very dusty Turnkey record.
    -Danny

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  2. Oh yeah... Titanic Records was run by Sunny, the singer of The VSS.

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