'The Geeks Shall Inherit The Earth' (Part 2)

Lost Alternative Pop Gems From Hollywood In The '90s & Early 2000s

In the first installment of this series we looked at the immediate impact that the success of Weezer’s debut album had on the Hollywood music scene.

That first wave of Geek Rock bands (name taken from an early Entertainment Weekly review of The Blue Album) included musicians who grew up playing heavy metal with Rivers Cuomo in Connecticut including Adam Orth and Justin Fisher of Shufflepuck, and Kevin Ridel of Lunchbox and Ridel High.

The scene also included many musicians that came up alongside Weezer in LA clubs, like Rod Cervera and Cherilynn Westrich of Magpie and Supersport 2000, Jon Pikus of El Magnifico and Campfire Girls (who also produced the Weezer demo that helped get them signed to Geffen), and Adam Marsland of Cockeyed Ghost who once shared Weezer’s West LA home rehearsal space memorialized in the song “In The Garage.”

Meanwhile, Weezer’s peers in bands like Black Market Flowers and Baby Lemonade—as well as Popsicko and Nerf Herder from the satellite Santa Barbara scene (both featured on My Records’ geeky pop punk compilation Happy Meals, along with my old band Ridel High)—folded some Blue Album influences into their own evolving sound.

Around the same time, a younger generation of Weezer fans formed bands that dominated the scene’s second wave including Ozma, Kara’s Flowers, Phantom Planet and, a little later, Rooney (although some of those bands were decidedly more stylish than Weezer—I don’t think anybody ever described Adam Levine as a geek).

Hollywood’s Geek Rock scene was in full bloom, but it was a second major label release that really cemented it as a viable alternative rock subgenre.

The Blue Album brought Geek Rock into the mainstream during the ‘90s, but Return of the Rentals legitimized it.

Side project of founding Weezer bassist Matt Sharp (and including Weezer drummer Pat Wilson), The Rentals started out as a scrappy studio project briefly called That’s Incredible! The band—featuring a revolving “line up” of performers from That Dog (Rachel Haden and Petra Haden) and Supersport 2000 (Cervera and Westrich)—originally embraced the stripped-down indie sound characteristic of Tom Grimley’s Poop Alley Studios, where they recorded.

Sharp only had a handful of songs, but among them was a track he’d penned for Blue Album producer Ric Ocasek’s supermodel wife, Paulina Porizkova. “Friends of P.” was one of the demos Sharp shopped to record labels, but the lukewarm response momentarily took the wind out of his side project ambitions.

Those original recordings were put on the shelf when The Blue Album took off, but Sharp returned to them with fresh ears once Weezer’s debut album cycle ended.

With a little money in his pocket and a lot more experience as a professional musician, Sharp and Grimley fleshed out The Rentals’ sound with the aim of making their recordings sound more like ELO—most notably by adding Moog synthesizers.

Still unsigned, Sharp and team made a “Friends of P.” promo video that cast them as a dour Soviet Bloc band wearing grey suits and chunky glasses that took Weezer’s Geek Rock aesthetic to cartoonish extremes. The low-budget video sparked a major label bidding war that culminated with The Rentals signing to Maverick Records.

Return of the Rentals was a released in October 1995, gaining traction at radio and on MTV’s 120 Minutes. The Rentals also blossomed into a live act, headlining clubs and supporting Garbage, Blur and other alternative rock hitmakers (with future Saturday Night Live star Maya Rudolph joining the touring band on keyboards/backing vocals).

Back in Hollywood, The Rentals’ success only added fuel to the local Geek Rock fire.

If any band maximized the foundational elements of The Blue Album and Return of the Rentals, it was the talented teenagers in Ozma.

Formed in Pasadena, California, by Ryen Slegr, Jose Galvez and Patrick Edwards, the band’s line up was soon filled out by Daniel Brummel and Star Wick. They played extensively around California in the ‘90s—including several parties/shows associated with the Weezer Fanclub.

Ozma’s fortunes became further intertwined with Weezer’s shortly after they self-released their first album, Rock and Roll Part Three, in 2000 when Galvez handed a copy to Rivers Cuomo at a Warped Tour stop. The Weezer frontman loved what he heard.

The young Geek Rockers were asked to play two California shows with Weezer, followed by fan-voted opening slots on more extensive Weezer tours in 2001 and 2002—supercharging the launch of Ozma’s career.

That Weezer association coupled with an early embrace of digital music distribution and the development of their own stylistically-diverse sound helped Ozma build a dedicated fanbase that supported the release of five studio albums and a couple of live collections in an impressive indie rock career that continues into the 2020s.

Ozma also stayed connected to Weezer and The Rentals over the years, including opening for The Rentals in 2006 (with Slegr playing in both bands) and performing on the Weezer Cruise in 2011. Slegr and Brummel also collaborated with Cuomo on songs for Weezer’s 2014 album, Everything Will Be Alright in the End, and Brummel joined the band on that tour as a multi-instrumentalist/music director.

For my money, no band has more successfully carried the original spirit of the ‘90s Hollywood Geek Rock scene into the 2000s than Ozma (whether they ever fully embrace the Geek Rock descriptor or not). They’re a living example of the huge impact Weezer had on the local music scene, and how their anti-rockist aesthetic continues to permeate mainstream culture in the following decades.

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What’s your fav track below? Join the conversation in the comments.

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Lost Gems From The ‘90s Hollywood Geek Rock Scene

The Blue Album turns 30 this year, so I’ve spent a lot of time revisiting music that came out of the ‘90 Hollywood Geek Rock scene. Here are a few of those songs you might have missed, or want to revisit.

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