Search - The Shut-Ups :: It Hurts To Be Seen

It Hurts To Be Seen is the Shut-Ups? second album, and their first as a full band. The eponymous debut CD, released in 2001 by Lookit Meee! Records, was a solo effort by band leader Don Condescending, collaborating with producer Jason NeSmith (Casper Fandango). The new record features Don?s new band, culled from Atlanta?s finest. Ben Spraker (frontman of Athens? Ceiling Fan, ex-drummer, Casper Fandango & The Cookies) contributes lead vocals and guitar work. Steve Libbey (aka Robotic Storm Cloud, owner of Imperial Fuzz Records) chips in with some guitar as well. Thaddeus Thompson (ex-Parks and Empty Spaces and regular on the Orange Hat Hour) plays bass. Drummer Darkis Knight (toured with Milli Vanilli, Billy Idol, Teena Marie and others, extra on several episodes of "E.R.") brings L.A. polish to the Shut-Ups rhythm section. The album is full of exuberant pop anthems about sad stuff sung by people you can't trust. A trucker naively hopes to find salvation in the nightclubs ("What's A Booty?"). A kindergartner discovers that his once charmed life has turned to permanent disaster when he is unfairly associated with a total loser ("Sneed"). A man feels his husbandly identity threatened by the arrival of a newborn ("Baby"). It Hurts to Be Seen is populated with such characters, all obsessed with questions of identity. It Hurts To Be Seen rings with sounds from the pop netherworld, where Gary Numan, Adam Ant, and Sparks go head to head with Randy Newman, Smokey Robinson, and the Kinks in a midnight bowling league.