MEAT

Thee Tourettes have no home but the road. They have rarely spent more than three consecutive days in any one place in their entire tumultuous lives. Contracted by their illustrious manager, Pinky Tourette, to play a week at the world’s largest arena, Rungrado 1st of May Stadium in Pyongyang (capacity: 114,000), they stole across the border each day to guzzle soju and play video games with local kkangpae in Seoul. Luckily the border guards at the DMZ were big fans of the band and now own souvenirs from the seven sisters, including signed posters, chlamydia, and, in one poignant case, a locket containing Sleepy Tourette’s toenail clippings.

During their triumphant three-month residency at Madison Square Garden, Thee Tourettes hired several downtown punk bands* to don wigs and lip-sync to their hits onstage while the band themselves took off to slither and slink through the Pine Barrens in search of the Jersey Devil. Noted music critic Lester Bangs was the only observer to voice suspicions about the MSG subterfuge. Curiously, Lester’s not reviewing concerts anymore. Imagine that.

Thee Tourettes are famed for their chameleonlike nature, as evidenced by their hard, scaly skin and slit eyes. Also their tendency to morph between styles over the years. Their hardcore period was marked by a ferocious sonic violence that rivalled Germs or Discharge, captured on the collectible 7-inch EPs “Mouth Full of Fucks,” “The Man Who Farted Perfume,” and the groundbreaking Riot Grrl masterpiece “Playing with My Finger.”

Although the band now disavows their one-off lounge classic -- purportedly recorded live in a drunken jam session the first and only time it was played -- there’s no denying the power, the immediacy, and the enduring musical influence of their massive chart-topper “The Cabernet of Dr. Caligari.”

And who can forget their smash international crossover hit, the east-meets-west spiritual punk anthem, “Should I Namaste or Should I Go?”

Progressing from strength to strength, Thee Tourettes continue to attract new fans with each release and garner high praise from publications like Wank magazine and online influencers like buythiswebsite.com. A new Thee Tourettes album is always a musical bacchanalia, an occasion for celebration, a world-shattering cultural milestone matched only by the sinking of Atlantis and the death of the dinosaurs.

Their Valentine’s Day EP, Noises from the Bedroom, was acclaimed as a masterpiece before it was even written – that’s how good it is. Exploring the many facets of love, lust, and lollygagging, it has been adopted as the official soundtrack of Northeast Freedonia’s Olympic rock/paper/scissors team.

Their newest, nearly hour-long album, Demolicious, was recorded in 18 minutes and mixed during a commercial for erectile dysfunction pills. (Spoiler alert: side effects of the pill include depression and hair loss. Luckily, there’s a pill for that. Sadly, side effects include erectile dysfunction.) Demolicious compiles orphan songs from the past half-dozen years, including a bonus track of the tearful lament “We the Donald,” written during the 2016 presidential campaign and unreleased until now.

Go on, indulge yourself in the primal scree that is Thee Tourettes. You won’t regret it.

Or maybe you will. Whatever.

*Among the bands to portray Thee Tourettes during their MSG residency were The Circumscissors, The Bodacious Tatas, Forrest Tucker’s Tutu, The Heartbreak of Psoriasis, The Genitaliens, and The Whoa Bundies. Members of these groups later went on to high-profile stints in KISS, The Misfits, The Honeydrippers, BTS, and Cypress Hill (the cemetery, not the band).