Seattle's Best Kissers in the World have arrived. At least here in New York, where they were mixing their cool new EP, Puddin', and attending the annual College Music Journal Music Marathon. The Kissers, who debuted a couple of years ago with a Sub Pop EP and a tour with Social Distortion, kicked off the CMJ experience with a show at Hoboken, New Jersey's Maxwell's. Hoboken is a little difficult to get to if you ain't from around these parts, and most of the CMJ delegates chose to attend one of over 100 more easily accessed gigs that night. The Kissers attracted me, their sound guy, their manager, etc. Not that they really cared, or that the quartet didn't put on a rockin' show. Those elsewhere just plain missed out.

Best Kissers opt to bypass the Seattle grunge whatever-it-is for a more melodic pop a la that city's Flop, but a little less Beatles-esque and a lot more heavy-handed. Lead singer Gerald Collier, who sports a "Don't Let the Sun go Down on Me" tattoo on his left arm, pens catchy tongue in cheek lyrics for the hook laden songs, mainly about girls, love, and misbegotten relationships (i.e. "she won't get under me 'till I get over you"). The humor comes across heavily in the band's extremely energetic performances and at times, Collier handles the crowd almost the way a comedian would ("Shut Up!" he barked, as the sparse attendence attempted sufficient applause after the first song).

After the show, various stragglers compared the band to Squeeze all the way to Rush vocally, and musically from the Goo Goo Dolls to Cheap Trick.

"Cheap Trick?" says bassist Dave Swafford with a grin. "We take that as a No. 1 compliment."