The Beets

Drawing from the Ramones' brash punk leanings and Daniel Johnston's eccentric D.I.Y. spirit while openly revering both The Howard Stern Show and Mad Magazine, the Beets from Queens, New York, charged into the indie world in the early 2000s after a pair of widely discussed releases on Brooklyn's Captured Tracks. Uruguayan transplant Juan Wauters, who handled vocals and guitar, first connected with Jose Garcia on vocals and bass during a 2004 art class at community college. Their debut, Spit in the Face of People Who Don't Want to Be Cool, arrived on Captured Tracks in 2009 and introduced Matthew Volz's scribbly, untrained cover art, which would adorn several subsequent albums; the same label issued the single "Time Brought Age"/"Pick Another Corner" the year after. Attention around the group intensified in 2010 with the arrival of their second album, Stay Home, prompting features in TimeOut New York, a Pitchfork review, and an appearance on Howard Stern's morning program the following year. The band nodded to Stern again by naming its third album Let the Poison Out, issued after they signed with Hardly Art and worked with Gary Olsen of Ladybug Transistor on their most polished recording to date.