The Chubbies “American Swagger” Filthy’s Records/Sympathy For the Record Industry - This is the sort of astounding self-recorded stuff that always drove me crazy when I was shelling out thousands of dollars to engineers and studios recording records for a label I ran in NYC. Maybe, eight years ago, I read an article(in Billboard about a cd recorded for Matador for $600. So why did some of mine cost so much? Because some of the talent lacked it and couldn’t get their acts together in the studio, proof that every demo is not a Chubbies demo, like the one represented here. Jeannette is terrific, she’s a capable musician, intriguing vocalist, and apparently, a gifted, prolific songwriter - with the 10 rock ditties on this album constituting one of 23 records released over the past half dozen years. I love the simple, yet humorous, lines like “Working class girls gotta dye their own hair/then they dye their girlfriend’s if there’s colour to spare/yeah but that’s alright.” And of course all the lines to “My Rules,” - words by author Shel Silverstein “If you wanna marry me/here’s what you’ll have to do/learn how to make the perfect chicken dumpling stew/ and sew my holy socks and soothe my troubled mind” She certainly makes them her own.