In the years after the Breeders record Last Splash, Kim Deal went home to the Midwest and drafted a few musicians to make a one off record of songs she had written. Initially, Kim Deal planned the Amps to be a solo project as she waited for her sister and fellow Breeder Kelley to finish her recovery from heroin addiction. Soon, the Amps flowered into a full-fledged band recruiting Breeders drummer Jim MacPherson and two local Dayton musicians, Deal recorded Pacer in the summer of 1995, releasing it in that autumn. Her typical style screams from every track, sometimes a bit too loudly. Appropriately, the album is raw, punky, and amateurish -- it's lo-fi garage punk. Not only does Deal sound recharged by recording with a new band in such a rushed atmosphere, she contributes her most immediate and bracing songs since Pod, the first Breeders album. But the key to Pacer is its primitive energy. From the brutally pounding "Empty Glasses" and the charmingly sleazy "Tipp City" to the singsong pop of "Pacer" and the fractured melodic rock of "Hoverin" and "Breaking the Split Screen Barrier," Pacer is exciting, gut-level rock & roll. Pacer somewhat recalls Deal’s earlier band Pixies, but only in the sense that both bands rely on amateurish enthusiasm to rock, and both bands have an off-kilter sense of song structure.
Wednesday, 1 April 2026
The Amps - Tipp City
The Amps were an American alternative rock band formed by Kim Deal in 1995, while her band the Breeders went on hiatus. The group consisted of Deal, on lead vocals and rhythm guitar; Luis Lerma on bass; Nate Farley on lead guitar; and Jim Macpherson of the Breeders on drums. The group was named when Kim Deal started calling herself Tammy Ampersand, and the band Tammy and the Amps which eventually became The Amps. Releasing only one album, Pacer, which was recorded at several different studios, The Amps first session, at Easley Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, was engineered by Davis McCain and Doug Easley. Deal recorded several new songs, including what would later become Pacer's only single, "Tipp City". Following the Easley Studios session, recording for Pacer continued at six other locations in total, including studios in Chicago, Los Angeles, Dublin, and Deal's Midwest hometown, Dayton, Ohio. Engineers Steve Albini, John Agnello, Bryce Goggin and others each helped record one or more of these sessions.