The Utterly Fantastic and Totally Unbelievable Sound of Los Straitjackets

Nashville instrumental band Los Straitjackets — lucha libre masks, Fender guitars, no vocals — cut their debut in July 1994 at Alex the Great Studio with producer Ben Vaughn. Upstart Records (Rounder-distributed) released The Utterly Fantastic and Totally Unbelievable Sound of Los Straitjackets in March 1995.

Most of the fourteen tracks are band originals (“Fury!,” “G-Man,” “Caveman”), with a couple of covers from the garage and surf underground (“Car-Hop,” “Della Street”). The record caught the mid-’90s roots and garage revival and set up a long run of albums on Yep Roc and elsewhere.

Weekend crowd music: driving beats, no lyrics fighting conversation, a little theater from the masks. It sits next to Dale and the Surfrajettes when the bar wants instrumental surf that still feels like a party.