VIA PRESS RELEASE | On the eve of their headlining performance at The Getty Museum in Los Angeles on Sunday, Bush Tetras are announcing a reissue of Too Many Creeps, their incendiary debut record, first released as a 3-song 7” in 1980 on 99 Records (Liquid Liquid, ESG).
Too Many Creeps was revolutionary in its combination of dance beats, socially conscious lyrics, and Pat Place’s unmistakable guitar sound. The news comes with the release of “Fess Up,” an unreleased song from the Creeps sessions that could have been written in 2026. Here is what frontwoman Cynthia Sley has to say about the track:
“The song was a prescient observation of the gentrification of lower Manhattan that had just begun in 1979. Little did we know how extreme it would get! We all contributed to the lyrics, and it was one of our earliest songs. It definitely reflects how much fun we were having writing songs together.”
The deluxe reissue is extended to 7 songs and serves as the perfect introduction to Bush Tetras. It adds two tracks from the Too Many Creeps sessions: the previously mentioned “Fess Up” and fan favorite “Punch Drunk.” The unreleased “In Mind A Run” was recorded around the same time as the Too Many Creeps sessions, by Patty Palladin (Johnny Thunders, Snatch, The Flying Lizards) in NYC.
This deluxe reissue is rounded out by a new remix of “Too Many Creeps” by Irish electronic musician and DJ Phil Kieran. Kieran’s remix of Tetras’ “Snakes Crawl,” from 2023, has become an underground dance classic with a life of its own and is as hard to find on wax as the original Too Many Creeps 7”.
Each member of Bush Tetras contributed something essential to the band’s unique formula on Too Many Creeps. Pat Place, just out of a stint with The Contortions, brought a guitar sound that merged rhythm and noise into riffs that fit neatly into the pocket of these tracks.
Cynthia Sley was a powerful frontwoman, able to jump from the direct social commentary of the title track to abstraction all with command. Dee Pop and Laura Kennedy’s rhythm section was so locked in and funky that they seemed of one mind. Musician magazine called their debut “an instant classic of 1980s bigbeat urban shriek.”
From the streets to the data centers, the world is currently festering with creeps of all varieties. They seem as unavoidable globally as they were to Bush Tetras in New York City circa 1980. Fittingly, Bush Tetras classic debut record will finally be back in the bins everywhere for fans old and new, sounding better than ever.
