Skuffed Up My Huffy, Japanther’s 2007 album, is probably one of my favorite albums ever. Like the movie 300 or the Adult Swim cartoon Spaceghost Coast to Coast, Skuffed Up My Huffy was awesome simply because it was awesome. Its lo-fi production perfectly suited the drums-bass-synth-vocals get-up of Japanther and the campy little sound clips throughout made the album a beautiful pop-culture pastiche encompassing everything awesome about indie rock, lo-fi cassette culture (it lives on!…sorta…) and Brooklyn. 
Tut Tut Now Shake Ya Butt is an interesting album, but in many ways a disappointment. Mainly because over 20 minutes of the album’s 37-minute play time is taken up by spoken word poetry reading courtesy of Penny Rimbaud, formerly of Crass. Is it too predictable, as a critic, to call this artistic indulgence of the highest order? OK, maybe it’s not as bad as an hour-long album of pure noise like Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music, true, but this is still pretty bad.
To be fair, the spoken word is pretty good, but over 20 minutes of it? Waaaaay too much. Especially considering that the seven legitimate songs on the album are all under 2:30 except for one.
Again though, all those songs are really good. Though they lack the flat out awesome smart-ass humor of songs like “River Phoenix†and “Fuk Tha Prince A Pull Iz Dum†off Skuffed Up My Huffy, they’re all power-pop catchy and as propulsive as ever.
Interestingly, the theme of romance runs very strong throughout TTNSYB. The chorus of “Bumpin’ Rap Tapesâ€, for instance, is “Call me up and tell me you love me / no matter the hour or stars that are above me.†Three songs later, the chorus of “The Dirge†is “I love you / no matter where you spend the night / I love you / no matter where you spend the night/ you can always come back to me / cuz I’m nothing and you are everything.†Wow. Luckily, Japanther still haven’t gone completely Jonathan Richmond on us though, as the chorus of “Radical Businessman†is “1,2,3,4 / fuck the cops / 1,2,3,4 / fuck the cops.â€
With a couple more actual songs, TTNSYB would have been just as kick-ass an album as Skuffed Up My Huffy. As it is, it’s an interesting EP with 20 minutes of weird spoken word thrown in…
…Yay…
Tracklisting:
01. Intro
02. Um Like Yer Smile Is Totally Ruling Me Right Now
03. Bumpin’ Rap Tapes
04. Bloated Corpse
05. Africa Seems So Far Away
06. The Dirge
07. The Windex
08. I The Indigene
09. Radical Businessman
10. Before The Sun Goes Down
11. Outro
Written by Marc Z. Grub
