From TAMPA TRIBUNE, September 6, 2002

SPIN THIS- By Curtis Ross

This is the sort of great, unheralded, out of no-where release that re-energizes a rock 'n roll fan's faith. If that sounds like hyperbole, it's not. With Rolling Stone proclaiming "Rock Is Back" (as if it would know), the Johnny Zoom Cheerlead Squad, along with fellow Tampa band The Washdown, should be hailed as rock 'n roll gods.

"Honey Baby Sweetie" is raw, fast and smart, a dozen songs in 35 minutes. Influences are plentiful but so well-absorbed and varied as to render the sound original. Guitarist Zoom's lyrics concern sex, isolation, um, sex - hell, who cares what he's singing about when he sings this well?

The production force feeds garage rock through Sun Studios' echo chamber for a sound as raunchy as the Hives but with a weirdly engrossing depth. This is as deeply satisfying a disc as has been heard all year.

FFFFFF
From BAYDOMAIN.COM, August, 2002

The Johnny Zoom Cheerlead Squad: “Honey Baby Sweetie”
[by] May Wiseman

Fermented burning sensations exploding from your chest could be known as heart attack, indigestion, lung funk, or love. Pertaining to Johnny Zoom and his cheerleaders your going to call on the latter and fall face first into this sapped out groove, groping your way to local record shops foretasting every weekend they play Tampa, thanking Bubba when he swore up and down “rock is coming my friend”. What a supportive guy that Bubo.

The title track “Honey Baby Sweetie” speaks in a New York starter punk vs. modern rock fusion- minus the rankle, where gonzo drummer Mark Tozian shows firmly how tight of an accomplishment his years on a kit can produce. “The Sweetest Lie” proves to be one of those fun little lover ditty’s, and is the idiomatic structure of how Johnny Zoom plays his guitar while singing lustily to his befuddled, lover-less audience. If your band is going to write a ballad, this song is the classic example of how things should sound: raw, gritty, on time and of course- to the point. Trying to distinguish Stan Bananas bass found to be a faulty maneuver- heavy bass lines used throughout on “HBS” and evident for your listening pleasure.

Almost every song was recorded live, and the sound is extremely consistent throughout the albums entirety from every Zoomer. The songs don’t run together, nor do the songs all sound the same, this is unique in itself for millennium time as is the quality. The personality in this music is pervasive, making one wonder how bodiless bands like the Strokes pass the test while true rock lies inside someone’s basement carrying independent labels. Grow your muttonchops and save your beer money- your fortunate to have a band this essential to music history in your area.



From IMPACT PRESS August 2002

Hey! I like this! This is poppy but with attitude... This is cool, stripped down pop rock played by guys that have an axe to grind.



From ST. PETERSBURG TIMES

Audio files: Go Johnny go
By GINA VIVINETT
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 16, 2002

-- Tampa's Johnny Zoom Cheerlead Squad takes its inspiration from Britpop without sounding dated or like genre fetishists. Johnny Zoom's swirling guitars, Stan Banana's curvaceous bass lines and those oh-so-wry lyrics about dames who've done Zoom wrong may remind some of the Jesus and Mary Chain, New Order or the best of the Manchester bands of the early 1990s.

The Squad plays tight, quick tunes with no shortage of cleverness. Hear the sonic mayhem of Joanie Loves Chachi, with its shout-outs to "Mrs. C." Another Doomsday is deliciously morbid. Want something sexy? The title track rivals Love and Rockets' So Alive in hypnotic eroticism, with Zoom coaxing, "You're so cute in your business suit/I wish you'd put on the leather boots."

Not all of Honey Baby Sweetie is Brit-influenced. Opener Getaway Sticks, on which drummer Mark Tozian bashes with glee, is an indication of Zoom's past: a player in a rockabilly band. That tune is all muddy American rave-rock. It's a celebration, feisty and fun.



From SCOREROCKS.com
by KIMMIE

Serve With A fringed mini and white go-go boots. It just feels right! Honey, Baby, Sweetie strikes me right off with a modernistic 60s groove reminiscent of The Velvet Underground and Lenny Kravitz (especially Kravitz' "Mr. Cab Driver") with an echoing Hives'-like production. They've got an infectious happy rock style with a nostalgic infusion... I was immediately hooked by "Roll Thru the Hay", "Stereo Receiver", "Honey, Baby, Sweetie" and "Number One Fan", among others...



From WEEKLY PLANET, December 18-24, 2002
by Scott Harrell

It's fuzzed out, yet laid-back. It's way loose, yet aptly so. It sounds like late Morphine frontman Mark Sandman fronting a hotel-lounge band that got so sick of playing the standards "the right way" that they snapped. Amid a bipolar army of rockabilly-ish outfits that either play it clean n' dated or punker than thou, The Johnny Zoom Cheerlead Squad is a welcome iconoclast. New Wave touches ("Another Doomsday"), blurrily chiming ballads ("Number One Fan")... and the coolest lo-fi sound this side of The Strokes come together to oddyly engaging effect. I wouldn't be surprised to find this CD making college-radio dents in, say Athens or Austin...