Piss Test Don’t Care LP
The foursome PISS TEST takes shit from no one and deserves your attention. At first, I was put off by the “cartoon cop squinting at a urine sample” logo from their first EP 7 Songs 7 Inches, thinking they were some half-baked teen project, but then the opener here, “Don’t Care,” barged in with buzzsaw guitars, pummeling drums, and frontwoman Debra Fetzer’s throat-punching vocals syncopating “I don’t care what say about me / Honey, I don’t care what you think about me,” and I was left with a much, much different impression. Here lies a project steeped in Fetzer’s years in the industry, distilled to a biting yet warming liquor. She got her start in Gainesville in 1983 with the band MUTLEY CHIX, performed for seven years, fronted other bands through the ’90s, and worked on booking shows and promoting the music scene through the Hardback Café. It was at the Hardback during COVID lockdowns that PISS TEST formed and used the empty venue as a practice space. There’s a great write-up about Fetzer in The Independent Florida Alligator, if you’d like to learn more. It’s not often you see a band of this caliber fronted by a 60-year-old, but unfettered by an instrument, she throws high-kicks like she’s fighting for her life (and clearly winning), while telling it like it is with tongue-in-cheek: “I’m a she-devil / An old bag / In it all, I revel!” from “Battleaxe.” Don’t Care marks the second release from this Gainesville based-band.
