Monday, June 21, 2004

Student Teachers - "Looks"

Larchmont, New York's Student Teachers were one of few teenage bands on the NY punk scene and had one of the first female rhythm sections in a non-all-girl band . Shortly after they began playing, Jimmy Destri (the keyboard player from Blondie) started producing the band. The song "Looks" was released on a compilation called "2 x 5" on legendary Marty Thau's Red Star label along with tracks from the Bloodless Pharoahs, Revelons, Comateens, and Fleshtones. They opened for Iggy Pop, The Ramones, Richard Hell and The Dead Boys among others. In November of 1980 they released an EP entitled "Easter 78 - Halloweeen 80" and broke up. The Student Teachers were David Scharff - Vocals, Philip Shelley - guitar, Joe Katz - guitar, Bill Arning - keyboards, Lori Reese - bass, Laura Davis - drums. Philip Shelley later founded the Mystery Dates and the Nitemares. David Scharff has worn many hats in the music industry including fanzine publisher, and record company art director and writer. "Looks" was covered in 2000 by former Soul Coughing's Mike Doughty.

Student Teachers - "Looks".mp3

5 Comments:

Blogger Mark said...

I had no idea this was a cover-- I'm only familiar with the Doughty version. According to friends who've seen him in concert, even he didn't know this was a cover until relatively recently. I guess someone tought it to him once. Crazy.

This version is good.

robot mark.

6:18 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

They had a few other releases. There were two songs that apparently only made it as far as acetate and only a few copies existed, including copies in the jukeboxes of CBs and Max's. Far as I've heard nobody has these songs in any version, but one was something about quaking. Then they had a fantastic single on Ork, Christmas Weather and Channel 13. Also, one song from the EP showed up on the Roir NY Single's Scene comp, Past Tense. For one of David's most recent projects, see:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0001AVZ7G/104-6450596-8678305?v=glance

A children's record which reunites him with Deborah Harry.

-Dan Selzer
http://www.acuterecords.com

1:01 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi

A friend recently sent me this link. It's nice to see there are still Student Teachers fans out there! I'm the David Scharff that used to be the singer in the band (that's me in the middle of the photo).

I'm in the middle of putting together all of our studio tracks, some live tracks and a short film about the band shot in 1980 for a 25th Anniversary release. I will post here when I have more information.

Any inquiries please send to david@hyloproductions.com

4:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

...The Student Teachers website is now UP!

http://www.thestudentteachers.com/

3:34 PM  
Anonymous Ricky Longo Burrows said...

Boy do I remember The Student Teachers, Bill and of course the lovely Lori my old roomie. Those were the days.

5:31 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home