KOOL STUFF KATIE

The polls were close this week, but Kool Stuff Katie ran away with it in the end to win this round of MTV's The Freshmen. "Cars" will be added into full rotation next week for the next 8 weeks. Congrats to Kool Stuff Katie and thanks to all the bands and fans that voted. - MTVU

Kool Stuff Katie is from Oregon. Remember Hootie & the Blowfish? No, no don't stop reading! I only bring them up because like the Hootie-free Blowfish, there's no Katie in this band. Thank gosh: I have an ex named Katie. This non-Katie duo are from Portland, OR and they met via Craigslist. Is there anything the internet can't do? Well I'll hereby testify that the internet can clearly make pairs, cause this army of two go together like hot on hooters. Part boy, part girl, all rock. Do they call this New Wave? I think so. They harbor tints of Punk Rock of that television, Ramones variety, know what I mean? Well get the album then, doof. - Lowcard Magazine

Kool Stuff Katie makes 1001 Records top list for Best Records of 2014! - 1001 Records

ack in the early 70s, Cheap Trick wasn't trying to do anything revolutionary. Rick Nielsen wrote a ton of chock-a-block rockers and a succession of producers added the requisite 70s AOR sheen. Which the band was (mostly) fine with. Yes, In Color was completely misproduced, but I really don't want to hear the Let It Be . . . Naked treatment of that album, either.

Cheap Trick, in other words, did not come out of the garage band movement. Cheap Trick's roots are much closer to Aerosmith than Nuggets, revisionist history notwithstanding. Just look at the producer of In Color (and two subsequent albums), Tom Werman. Werman's resume includes the 'smith, Nuge, B.O.C., the Crue . . . you get the idea.

Kool Stuff Katie replicates that early Cheap Trick buzzsaw pop-meets-rock sound better than anyone I've heard in ages. Like many modern garage acts, KSK is a duo, with both members playing multiple instruments. But Shane Blem and Saren Oliver make sure to deliver a full band sound with their songs. Blem's fuzzbuzz guitar and Oliver's knack with catchy keyboard riffs really fill out the corners. The multitracked backing vocals are also quite pleasantly 70s.

Yes, this yet another Portland entry in the indie rock sweepstakes. But KSK blazes its own trail, even if that trail is merely uncovering one that was well-traveled a mere 40 years ago. These songs are insistently catchy, and they get better with more volume.

Fun is an underrated facet of music. The set starts with a rush, and Kool Stuff Katie doesn't hit the pause button until the end of the album. One of the more sophisticated and exciting outings of last - Jon Worley

With just 10 songs, the duo Kool Stuff Katie has managed to sneak in the best debut of the year. Unfortunate band name aside, Portland-based musicians Shane Blem and Saren Oliver have crammed together garage rock, new wave, punk and a liberal mix of hooky pop music for an instantly-infectious sound that brings to mind everyone from The Cars and The Kinks to The Breeders and The Ramones.
The duo—Oliver on drums, Blem on guitar and both on vocals—manage to make a lot more noise than you'd expect from a two-piece. From the rollicking opener, "Hard Girl to Know," all the way through to the final track, the band is a sonic whirlwind of distorted chords, frenetic drumming and maddeningly catchy choruses.

A flawless execution from top to bottom. - John Moore

Premiere: Kool Stuff Katie release video for Hard Girl To Know: Oh, this is good. This is really good. Portland Oregon duo Kool Stuff Katie, aka Shane Blem and Saren Oliver, make this kind of primal garage punk/blues that infects your ears and almost bursts out through your chest, its that exciting.

Amazing really then that it was their first attempt at collaborative songwriting. Taken from their self titled album, which you can pick up here, it bursts into life with this sort of Strokes riff and girl group backing vocals, before racing off again into this sort of buzzy, primal blues. It's rocky terrain out there in Kool For Katie-land, but the speed and commitment which they tackle it only makes for great excitement in a song the pair describe as being like that thing where you ask yourself "Have you ever met a girl that drives you absolutely crazy? You can't stop thinking about her? " Thats what its about.

We're premiering the video here on Backseat Mafia today, which the band say is "Set against the backdrop of an abandoned mill, this video features fast cuts and unique angles to highlight the fun and easy interactions between Shane and Saren, as well as Kool Stuff Katie's signature style: casual yet electrifying."

Quite. Get over to the bands soundcloud to get hold of it for nothing too. - Jim-Backseat Mafia

Kool Stuff Katie is #22 on Trainwreck'd Society's Top 40 Songs of 2014 [Exclusive], just behind Spoon! - Ron Trembath

As long as Portland-based band Kool Stuff Katie consists of a male guitar player and a female drummer, and the two of them play fuzzy rock 'n' roll, they will have to endure comparisons to a certain beloved, candy-striped duo from the not-so-distant past. But whereas that other band drew heavily from the blues and glowered its way to superstardom, Kool Stuff Katie—Shane Blem and Saren Oliver, who came together via Craigslist;play an exuberant brand of classic power-pop that marries Oliver's crash-and-bash beats with Blem's chunky, buzzy guitar riffs. The results are melodic without sacrificing muscle and vice versa, ? la bands like Cheap Trick and Sloan (who play Portland on Sunday). - Ben Salmon

It would be easy to look at the composition of Kool Stuff Katie;one dude on guitar, one chick on drums;and think, "Oh, White Stripes rip-off, right?" And although this Portland, Oregon-based duo does turn out raw garage rock not unlike Jack White's former band on "Just a Thing" and "Hard Girl to Know," Kool Stuff Katie proves on its debut that it's a different beast. The vocal interplay between Shane Blem and Saren Oliver is delightful, and the New Wave-ish analog synths that buzz through songs such as "Show Me" and "Rewind" add a charming, retro-pop sparkle. - PJ Perez

Based out of probably a dozen Portland garages, Shane Blem and Saren Oliver play fuzzed up garage rock with both feet on the distortion pedals and the drums kept to the basic beats. The reference points aren't hard to identify, the Ramones on Hard Girl To Know and the juddery Just A Thing, the Beatles (and some Cheap Trick) on the power pop bounce of Cars and I Can't See and the 60s Spector meets CBGBs girl group pop of Show Me and the slow swaying, organ backed What Do You Say. Simple could have come from one of the Nuggets collections of psychedelic fuzz rock while Obscene nods to the early Who before some Jesus and Mary Chain honey drips across the acoustic closer Rewind. As the Raveonettes will tell you, it's a limited, but crowded market, but KSK have the songs and the vibrancy to stand out from the herd. - Mike Davies