The Strange Boys and Girls Club

The Strange Boys and Girls Club is the first album by the band The Strange Boys. It was released by In the Red Records on 2 March 2009 in the UK and a day later in the USA.

The Strange Boys and Girls Club
Studio album by The Strange Boys
Released	March 3, 2009 (2009-03-03) United States March 2, 2009 (2009-03-02) UK
Recorded	2007–2009
Genre	Garage Rock, R&B
Length	37:38
Label	In the Red
The Strange Boys chronology
The Strange Boys and Girls Club (2009) Be Brave (2010)

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	(76/100) [1]
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[2]
NME	(8/10)[3]
Pitchfork Media	(7.1/10)[4]
Pop Matters	(7/10)[5]
Tiny Mix Tapes	[6]

The album was initially recorded with labelmate Jay Reatard. However, the band was unhappy with the takes recorded in the sessions with Reatard and subsequently rerecorded the album with Orville Neeley.^[7][8] Ryan Sambol has said that this was because the recording sessions with Reatard took place at a time when the songs were still "new", and that he "hadn't really finished them".^[8] Dusted magazine reported that the recordings with Neeley were made in a disused liquor store.^[7] However, this was later denied by Sambol in an interview with Paste magazine. He clarified that this had been the case with an earlier release, recorded with Greg Ashley, not The Strange Boys and Girls Club, the recording of which took place in Neeley's garage.^[8][9]

The album was released to generally favourable reviews, attaining a score of 76% from the reviews collated by Metacritic.

Track listing

All tracks written by Ryan Sambol, except where noted.

1. "Woe Is You and Me" - 2:13
2. "They're Building the Death Camps" - 2:51
3. "Should Have Shot Paul"¹ - 1:55
4. "MLKs"² - 1:49
5. "This Girl Taught Me a Dance" - 3:06
6. "For Lack of a Better Face" - 3:15
7. "Heard You Wanna Beat Me Up" - 2:09
8. "No Way for a Slave to Behave" - 3:11 (Ryan Sambol, Shane Renfro)
9. "Poem Party" - 1:53
10. "To Turn a Tune or Two" - 2:25
11. "Most Things" - 1:36
12. "A Man You've Never Known" - 2:00
13. "Then" - 2:11
14. "Who Needs Who More" - 2:18
15. "Probation Blues" - 2:14
16. "Death and All the Rest" - 2:39 (Ryan Sambol, Shane Renfro)

Footnotes to track listing

• 1^ Listed in the album's liner notes as "Should of Shot Paul".
• 2^ Acronym for 'Martin Luther Kings'. The Strange Boys released an EP entitled The Strange Boys Will Now Forever Be Known As The Martin Luther Kings in 2008, when Sambol intended to change the name of the band. Being outvoted by the other band members on the decision, he later chose to use the name for a country music project started with his friend Shane Renfro,^[9] the co-writer of tracks 8 and 16.

Personnel

• Ryan Sambol: guitar, vocals, harmonica
• Philip Sambol: bass guitar
• Greg Enlow: guitar
• Matt Hammer: drums
• Orville Neeley: piano

References

1. Critic Reviews for The Strange Boys and Girls Club. Metacritic. Retrieved 23 September 2014.
2. Mark Deming, "The Strange Boys And Girls Club", Allmusic, no date
3. Lisa Wright, "Album Review: The Strange Boys", NME, 4 April 2009
4. Stuart Berman, "The Strange Boys: The Strange Boys and Girls Club", Pitchfork Media, 31 July 2009
5. Ron Hart, "The Strange Boys: The Strange Boys and Girls Club", Pop Matters, 26 August 2009
6. "Music Reviews". www.tinymixtapes.com. Archived from the original on April 6, 2009. Retrieved 2023-05-12.
7. Nate Knaebel, "Destined: The Strange Boys", Dusted, undated
8. Austin Powell, "The Young and the Restless", Austin Chronicle, 1 August 2008
9. Austin L. Ray, "Getting to Know... The Strange Boys", Paste, 13 May 2009

External links

• The Strange Boys and Girls Club at Allmusic
• The Strange Boys and Girls Club at Metacritic