Ears Wide Open: Strawberry Fuzz

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Strawberry Fuzz (Photo by Jason Kramer)

Venice quintet Strawberry Fuzz make rock ’em-sock ’em music in the vein of first-wave punk-rockers and fellow miscreants such as FIDLAR, their heavy riffs coated in sheets of distortion and varying degrees of menace and disdain.

The band — singer Colby Rodgers, guitarist-keyboardist Alex Arias, guitarist Kris Miller, bassist Dashel Dupuy and drummer Andy Warren — introduced itself last year by releasing a 10-track collection of demos, “Fuzz Tapes, Vol. 1.”

Now they’re back with a three-song release, produced by Arias and led by the single “Wasting My Time.” The muscular track is simply an “all-out aggression rant about the things that I waste my time with on a regular basis,” says Rodgers. And, well, message received.

The other two songs, “East of the 405” and “Something,” are sardonic takes on SoCal geography. The former is inspired by “all our friends [who] say they will never go east of the 405 from Venice,” Rodgers says. “Something,” though, aims a dart at the elitism of the beach cities from which Strawberry Fuzz hail.

Whatever your geographical leaning, the trio of songs packs a punch. They’re playing in Venice this weekend, which sounds like a good way to burn off something Thanksgiving calories, except we never stray west of the 405.

||| Stream: “Wasting My Time,” “East of the 405” and “Something,”

||| Live: Strawberry Fuzz play at Venice West on Saturday, Nov. 26 (tickets); at La Santa in Santa Ana on Dec. 2 (tickets); and at Day 2 of Viva! Pomona at the Glass House on Dec. 18 (tickets).