Pee Shy (1993–1998) were an indie pop band from Tampa, Florida, whose clever, literate lyrics and unorthodox if primitive instrumentation led them to a brief major label career that ended just as they were attracting national commercial radio airplay.

They released two albums for Mercury Records, played with artists including Stereolab, Luna, the Village People and Shannon Wright, and twice performed at the annual South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas.

"[3] Their first public performance as Pee Shy was on September 23, 1993, at the weekly Thirsty Ear poetry reading in Ybor City's Eighth Avenue Bistro.

"[4] Early influences such as Alice Cooper, Guided by Voices, Daniel Johnston and Tsunami yielded a melancholy yet at times absurdly joyful atmosphere to the band's concerts and recordings, in which tales of youthful boyfriends, fatal car crashes and piñata-like hearts would mix with alien abductions and Wheeler's obscenity-laden response to men who harass women on the street.

Though some local critics initially regarded the band's performances as "campy" and ragged, within little more than a year Pee Shy's two cassette demos and modest touring had begun attracting national attention.

In the meantime, Pee Shy released the vinyl 7-inch Yellow Race Car on the small, Tampa-based label Screw Music Forever, containing two Wareham-produced songs that had not made it onto Monkeys.

[8] At least one industry observer called Pee Shy a victim of bad timing, since its album came out just as alternative music was experiencing a decline in sales,[9] but Juristo said the band had learned to be "more aggressive and consistent" with the next album—if there was one.

Hoping proximity might persuade the label to keep them on, Pee Shy departed Tampa Bay for New York City after holding a farewell concert at the State Theater in St. Petersburg on August 2, 1996.

In the end, the band members' hopes were fulfilled, and Mercury released Pee Shy's second album, Don't Get Too Comfortable, on January 27, 1998.

Produced by Brad Jones, who had worked on albums for bands such as Yo La Tengo, Comfortable featured a crunchier, poppier, more guitar-driven sound than Monkeys and received generally much improved reviews.

A December 2000 article in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, examining Ybor City's "bohemian" culture of the mid-1990s, held up Pee Shy as a prototypical "DIY band turned corporate sellout," at least in the sense that the members' decision to sign with a major label had been controversial with some of their friends and indie rock compatriots.

[15] Pee Shy's primary musical innovation may have been accordion feedback, a yowling, oscillating sound that Wheeler created by pressing the instrument against a speaker as she played.