toned side projects are becoming a tradition old as rock and roll itself, from George Harrison’s trippy Wonderwall Music and the Dead’s “Acid Test” recordings with famed novelist (and tripper) Ken Kesey, to Josh Homme’s all-star Desert Sessions series to, er, Wes Borland’s Big Dumb Face. Even sometime alt-stars the Breeders began as a weeded-out sidebar to Kim Deal’s day job as a Pixies prole. So ¾ of the wondrous young upstarts Be Your Own Pet are doing well for their place in rock history by holing up in a clubhouse with a bong and fresh-painted “No Girls Allowed” sign in Turbo Fruits.

While all the vanity acts named above aren’t actually very good, Turbo Fruits’ self-titled debut is more pleasurable than your average mixed bag. No point in comparing ‘em to BYOP: M.I.A. sugar machine Jemina Pearl outshrieks anyone in guitarland now that Sleater-Kinney’s out of the picture, and she doesn’t need a Blake Sennett around no matter how adept his songs are. Jonas Stein’s goofy vocals are here to doodle stupid little pictures over his power riffs like high school notebooks (where he probably wrote most of these songs). Even slumming with these goofballs he takes his guitar tone seriously, and wrings out tastefully fuzzed-up b-sides.

The most memorable track, “Volcano,” would’ve been an anthem if it gave a shit, but Thurston Moore is on the shortlist of most permissive label owners and deems it worthy of pressing straight out the garage. Like most of these, it’s all about “when you get so stoned you can’t even breathe (also see/believe/forget it’s Christmas Eve).” Of course, this trails the equally baked, “No Drugs to Use,” which sounds like the Brakes on an espresso bender, and the twelve remaining sludge beasts don’t exactly buck formula. (When the sloppy “20th I Was Blue” recalls old Meat Puppets halfway through, you begin to lose any suspicion that the sound cleans up before the end either.)

It’s weird to imagine current music that’s more gut-basic than Jet or the Hives, but even with trickier drumming and (slightly) more guitar strategy, these guys wear their big loud stupidity as proud as high-schoolers who’ve lucked into Sonic Youth’s eternally hip endorsement can. Garage rock’s so stripped to its polka-dot boxers at this point that the Willowz already used the bluesy progression of “The Run Around” on their own “Jubilee” this year alone. Though, it says something for Be Your Own Pet’s vitality that Stein cast off his version to the minor record, while the maturation-damaged Willowz are out of new tricks. And hey, the minor record has a few pleasures of its own: “Know Too Much” is such a lovely, catchy showstopper that David Johansen should cover it if he ever does another Buster Poindexter record. Did Big Dumb Face ever have one of these? God, I don’t wanna know.