Dollyrots

Before landing a record deal in 1978, the Police dyed their collective locks blond and posed as a punk band for a bubblegum advert. That wasn’t the only time a pop trio got its break via a TV commercial. The Dollyrots actually are a punk bubblegum group — one that can add laser printer corporation Hewlett-Packard to its list of thanks on their debut CD, Eat My Heart Out. If you’ve seen the group in the “You + HP” campaign, you’re familiar with “Feed Me Pet Me,” sung with faux innocence by kewpie-voiced bassist Kelly Ogden. Like the Muffs and the Breeders, whom they’ve opened for, the Rots can simultaneously sound sugary and kick your ass. Sample this spoken-word passage from a song called “Jackie Chan”: “I’m coming after you with nunchucks and an attitude/You won’t be laughing, Ding-Dong/When I’m jumping around with your boys in my hand/Laughing . . . covered in blood!” Ogden is actually a student of Northern Shaolin-style kung fu, so you fellas down in front better cover your boys!