Foxboro Hot Tubs

Does anyone remember The Dukes of Stratosphear?

XTC did an EP and an album under that name. It was a fun psychedelic trip with songs that sounded like they were written (and recorded and mixed) in the 1960s.

Green Day has just done their "Dukes of Stratosphear" equivalent, and they're calling themselves "Foxboro Hot Tubs." Not focusing on psychedelia so much as The Stooges, Tommy James, and The Kinks.

The album is called "Stop Drop and Roll." The packaging of this "Newly Recorded High Fidelity Record" is suitably entertaining ("Stereo records can be played on today's mono record players with excellent results."). It comes in a cardboard sleeve with the CD itself encased in a white paper inner sleeve -- like a vinyl LP in miniature (except that the inner sleeve does not have a circle cut out of the middle of it so you can read the label). The CD itself is printed to look like a scuffed-up LP ("Warning: Don't play Side B").

I haven't yet had a chance to listen to it quite all the way through yet, but what I've heard so far seems to be a whole lot of fun. My first impression is positive.

And it's cheap (MSRP of $12, easy to find online for $8).

Reviews seem to be middling to very good (Gibson, Punk News, Rolling Stone, Amazon user reviews).

They also have a page on MySpace.

There is some background on the project at Green Day Authority.