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Blast Off Country Style.

MEMBERS

Chris Callahan,

Evelyn Hurley,

Mary MacCue, (1992-1995)

Phil Sweeney [Chaud Baise],

Allison Rigo, (1995-1996)

HOMETOWN

Harrisonburg, Virginia (1992-94)

Washington, D.C. (1994-)

MOST POPULAR

I Love Entertainment
C'mon & Blast Off Country Style
Rainbow Mayonnaise Deluxe

GREATEST HITS

All She Wants To Do is Ride...
Buttercup
Cutie Pie
Hey, Hey, I Love You Bitch!
Lake Eerie
Nun in a Frigid Cell
Social Firefly

ALSO

B.O.C.S. at All Music

DESCRIPTION

Talk about crazy, this quirky quartet is a bunch of geeks! Hailing from Washington, D.C., they are completely earnest while singing about space travel and how totally cool they can be while "hanging out in the basement of the school library." Blast Off Country Style was started in 1992 by lead singer Evelyn Hurley and bassist Phil Sweeney after their second year of college left them feeling bereft of knowledge and inspiration. After teaming up with Chris Callahan on drums, and Mary MacCue on guitar this luminous band was born!

RELATED ARTISTS

COTTON CANDY (Evelyn)

GOLLIPOPPS (Phil/Chaud)

HOT PURSUIT (Evelyn)

SEXUAL MILKSHAKE (Callahan)

Mary, Chris, Evelyn, Phil [L to R]
Photo by [unknown]

Mary, Chris, Evelyn, Phil
on N. Quincy Street
Arlington, Virginia
Photo by Mark Robinson

Mary, Chris, Evelyn, Phil
in Virginia
Photo by [unknown]

Mary, Evelyn, Phil
Photo by Bill Hunt

Mary, Evelyn, Phil
at their first performance
Photo by [unknown]

Mary, Evelyn, Phil
at Lollapalooza
Photo by [unknown]

Chris
Photo by Mark Robinson

The latter line-up featuring guitarist Allison Rigo.
Photo by Victoria Hurley

Blast Off Country Style
"C'mon and Blast Off"
fan-made tee-shirt
front

Blast Off Country Style
"C'mon and Blast Off"
fan-made tee-shirt
back

FUN FACT

Erin Smith, from the rock'n'roll band Bratmobile, once considered joining the band and spent a weekend in Harrisonburg, Virginia rehearsing with them.

FILM

SOCIAL FIREFLY

Performed live at King's Head Inn, Norfolk, Virginia, April 9, 1993. (via Terry Harrison).

TEENAGE UNICORN

Performed live at King's Head Inn, Norfolk, Virginia, April 9, 1993. (via Terry Harrison).

BIOGRAPHY

Talk about crazy, this quirky quartet is a bunch of geeks! Hailing from Washington, D.C., they are completely earnest while singing about space travel and how totally cool they can be while "hanging out in the basement of the school library." Blast Off Country Style was started in 1992 by lead singer Evelyn Hurley and bassist Phil Sweeney after their second year of college left them feeling bereft of knowledge and inspiration. After teaming up with Chris Callahan on drums, and Mary MacCue on guitar this luminous band was born! One evening Blast Off played a show where Mark Robinson of Teen-Beat was attending. He immediately fell in love with the group and asked them if they wanted to play some shows in D. C. with bands from Teen-Beat, thus beginning the spacy career of Blast Off Country Style!

Released in early 1994, "C'mon and Blast Off Country Style," is a compilation of Blast Off's first four singles. More than Anglo cutey-pop or Olympia riot-grrlishness, such songs as "Social Firefly" and "Teenage Unicorn" evoke Doris Day or Jackie del Shannon. Their casual and giggling approach to pop is gleefully wiggly and fresh, sounding almost as if it is the work of kids brought up at the knee of Hanna-Barbera Productions. The members of the band don't embellish their melodies with slick production or polished playing, but they still come off with a shine like Woolworth lip gloss on the girl next door. The record is full of 1950's childhood memories but with a 1990's twist. Imagine eavesdropping in on a gossipy slumber party, hearing the tuneful "Hey, Hey, I Love You Bitch!" followed by the bouncy "Teen Age Unicorn" finally ending on a hip toe-tapping "All She Wants To Do is Ride Her Bike." Blast Off Country Style songs are primitive, but tuneful, blithe, and heartfelt.

"Rainbow Mayonnaise Deluxe," Blast Off's second record, and their first full-length album, shows the band's everlasting devotion for coy packaging and amusing songs. The artwork for the disc was done by Furu of "100 Guitar Mania" in Japan, and there's more fun and excitement on this album than you could ever imagine. Occasionally emitting twangy plucks and dynamic harmonic wanderings, B.O.C.S. music in engaging, minimalistic, stripped down art. Hurley's vocals have a Kim Deal roundness as they bounce around the cheery lyrics, like in "Buttercup:" "He's the one who's always touching my cute bum/ He wears tight pants and silly make up/ And wants me to call him Buttercup." These seemingly simple singing laid-upon distortion-filled guitar and bass create an unassuming, amicable familiarity throughout all of Blast Off Country Style's music.

Blast Off Country Style have a rather endearing, quirky way with making music, and with all their charms they are sure to quickly captivate the listener, smothering them in the enthusiastic world of B.O.C.S., where everything they do is deluxe.

DISCOGRAPHY

SINGLES

I Love Entertainment
Pretty Sneaky Sis'
Giggles'n'Gloom
What Gives?
Wild West Showdown

ALBUMS

C'Mon & Blast Off Country Style
Rainbow Mayonnaise Deluxe
In My Arms

COMPILATIONS

Wakefield: Volume 1
Wakefield: Volume 2
Wakefield: Volume 3
Wakefield: The Teen-Beat Boxed Set
1996 Teenbeat Sampler
The Basement Recordings: Live At Cicero's

ALSO

BLAST OFF COUNTRY STYLE tee-shirt
Teen-Beat Circus Tour
Teen-Beat Night at O'Carroll's

RELATED

Cotton Candy
The Gollipopps
Hot Pursuit
Sexual Milkshake

SONGS

All She Wants to Do is Ride Her Bike
Barf City USA
The Boy Whose Head Exploded (Meets Electric Girl)
Buttercup
Come Out and Play
Comet Song
Cutie Pie
Demon School Dropout
The Devil Emmanuel & Lewis
Ding Dong
Eric Gafney
Far-Out-Law
Giggles'n'Gloom
Giggles'n'Gloom Reprise
Hey, Hey, I Love You Bitch!
Hey Little Man
Lake Eerie
Lonesome Johnson & the Blah Blah Blahs
Moyonnaise Rainbow
Monkey Wrench
Nun in a Frigid Cell
Social Firefly
Standard Green
Sunburn
Teenage Unicorn
Tough Luck, Trashcan!
What Gives?
Where the Geeks Are
Why I Oughta
Wiener Dude Attitude
Wild West Showdown