Reviews 5.25.09

Axemen Big Cheap Motel LP (Siltbreeze)
Boring old context: The Axemen are legendary Kiwi sound terrorists, they were active in the 80s, back when the Kiwis still knew how to bang out fantastic riffs without coating them in studio gloss or drowning them in spiderwebby melancholia. The Axemen have one stupidly fantastic double LP called Three Virgins and another only slightly less jaw-bopping disc called Derry Legend. The former is organized chaos, the latter great guitar-pop. This LP is neither; it’s a legit reissue of a 1984 cassette that makes the chaos of Three Virgins sound like a Windham Hill sampler. So, a review of this record is a more a review of you, dear reader. If you want to hear a record that evokes nothing so much as chopped salad, with great song fragments ricocheting off each other a la the more crazed sections of the Homosexuals box set (this record, according to the liners, was written in a day or something in response to a series of advertising billboards) with the occasional brilliant song shining though the confusion: then here’s your date for next Saturday. The rest of you waiting for something that makes you think you can slot it in next to the New Bomb Turks, Episode Six, Detroit Cobras, Regulations or Flamin’ Groovies, well, you’re going to want to hit the next bin over. More nearly almost free acid from Siltbreeze. –RW

Bare Wires Let Down 45 (Milk'N'Herpes)
On the title track, there's Matt Melton's trademark guitar drive, only it's softer, a lot more lo-fi and generally catchier than what we've heard outta him before. The flip, "Looking for Some Action", is more illuminating and a better representative of this band as opposed to his others (what makes one tune a Bare Wire while the other is a Snakeflower?). Bare Wires are a move away from Melton's "Biker-Psych" to something that they call "Smooth Punk" (I'm not lying). They even call it "Soft Punk". Can you believe this shit??? This is the world we live in now. Soft Punk. FUCK. Embarrassingly, I even understand exactly what they are talking about...and it works. SHIT. It's good. –MC

Bloody Gears s/t cs (self-released)
Toxic Reason-style punk rock that is played well but is also played safe. No new sounds here, though, to be fair, I don’t think Bloody Gears have any intention of breaking out of a 30+ year punk mold. Good for what it is. –SS

Brilliant Colors s/t EP (Make A Mess)
Brilliant Colors Highly Evolved EP (Captured Tracks)
Early 90s indie pop is back in a big way nowadays, no real problem with this development in this corner. I thought that sound got diverted way too quickly (and exclusively) onto the CD, and later CD-R, formats for its own good (the records got too damn long for one thing). You could still track down good shakey-grate on labels like Blackbean & Placenta, but too many of the bands by mid-decade had incorporated noisy bits that cut the songwriting quotient with pure laziness; or they went all-acoustic “Elliot Smith” world-weary sob sister on you. I bailed completely. The debut EP by Brilliant Colors brings it all back into focus, from the vocals (a very confident twelve -year -old gurl I reckon), to the stinging guitar riffs (front and center in the mix), to the references on display (late-80s K Records and mid-80s Flying Nun). It’s all a non-diabetes-inducing pop-rocks coma for all comers. The follow up on Captured Tracks goes whole-hog for the FN soundz, a bit to its detriment methinks. Where the debut effectively maps out several different styles, this one sticks to that one vein, but the flipside track, “Takes So Little”, saves it from spiraling into the froth. When the guitar leaps out of the murk and lightly slaps you across the chops about 2/3 of the way through, the band all at once seems to get a third and fourth wind and sprints up to the finish line. I love that shifting mid-song dynamic, more bands should, uh, rip off Brilliant Colors in turn. Shamelessly. Please. –RW

Calle Debauche s/t CD (Egg Helmet)
Ethnic music from an indie rock approach or, to be a bit more exact, Calle Debache sounds like a Klezmer band with a Zappa obsession and some fondness for Mickey Katz. Technically there is nothing wrong here. The musicianship is pretty insane. The playing is spot on. However, this CD would be more at home featured on NPR than sitting in my music machine. –SS

Christian Mistress s/t cs (self-released)
Got this one by mistake; it was in the tape case for a Milk Music demo. Fine by me: this Olympia band kills. It's New Wave of American Bands Influenced by the New Wave of British Heavy Metal or NWOABINTNWOBHM for short. While the vocals take a few to get into, the guitars rip like junior Judas Priest fanatics. The music does the speedy plod that is typical of the stuff on NWOBHM indie singles. A good solid four song demo. –SS

El Jesus de Magico Scalping the Guru LP (Columbus Discount)
The last thing I reviewed by El Jesus was their debut CD and I dumped on that as much as one can dump on an album, so I have to say that this record is a pleasant surprise. El Jesus has creamed up a good goo of CLE '75 and OZ '83 or so, for one long song (actually three songs strung together) that would have fit on Homestead during its prime. The album's flip treads similar territory (think mod psych + Death of Samantha). Though I gotta say that starting the side with a couple minutes of contact mic nonsense had me up to the television to see what Dr. House was doing (sending himself into insulin shock, in case you were wondering) and over to Antiques Roadshow during the commercials. Listen, you: Bad move, cut the art, keep the momentum going. Still, this is an excellent album, far far far far better than their debut. –SS

Ebonics Rock ‘N Roll EP (Daggerman)
Wow, I haven’t seen a freehand cartoon-comics-style 7” cover this ‘tarded since another local outfit name of the Neumans, from out of the South Bay, spat out a late 90s garage punk classic that this outfit could only wish they were the equal of. Which isn’t to say that this thing is bad or a waste of your hard-earned, hell, both of the B side tracks are solid punk rawk that would’ve done mid-90s Empty Records proud. Makes me think dreamily of ye olde Kent 3, in fact, before they swallered the Goofy Dada Kool Aid. The problem is a lack of ambition, a flat sound, a lack of zazz, zip or zim. Nothing jumps off this record and kicks my nads through the uprights for that extra special point. I’ll go see them live and report back… –RW

Endangered Ape Ape Shall Not Kill Ape CD-R (self released)
Smart move these Apes did releasing these songs as a demo and not pressing it to vinyl. Though there is nothing remarkable here, the sounds are promising. The band has three styles: sloppy pop punk, near melodic thug pound ala Hank IV, and Blank Dogs style spooky pop - all of it recorded loud enough to distort the sound. Of the three styles, the thug pound seems most natural for these guys. The pop punk is feh and the spooky pop is as good as any of Blank Puppy band, but who needs more of that, eh? –SS

Henry Flynt & the Insurrections I Don’t Wanna LP (Locust)
Henry Flynt Back Porch Hillbilly Blues Vol. 1 LP (Locust)
Henry Flynt Back Porch Hillbilly Blues Vol. 2 LP (Locust)
Henry Flynt Raga Electric LP (Locust)
I first heard Henry Flynt – the artist/philosophy/musician – about a year ago and upon initial listen I thought “Christ, that sounds like me playing guitar.” I’ve been fucking around on guitar since the late-80s and I can’t play worth a shit. The style I’ve developed for myself is some merge of country blues and wildly jabbing at notes, which is, on the surface, what Flynt sounds like when you drop needle on I Don’t Wanna. But listen further, and closely, and enough, and you find that Flynt’s flailing isn’t flailing, that there is a logic to what Flynt plays. Perhaps randomness plays a part in his music, but it isn’t without technique. Still Flynt’s playing is not conventional and, though recorded in 1966 with a backing band of drums, keyboards, and bass, I Don’t Wanna still sounds unconventional today. Being that it is Flynt’s “garage” record (stretch for a comparison to early Fugs, at times), I Don’t Wanna is his most accessible for those with a rock & roll background…Recorded, as well, in the mid-60s, the two volumes of Back Porch Hillbilly Blues are Flynt solo on guitar, fiddle and ukulele. Again, the roots are country blues and hillbilly music, but the playing is unconventional. Minimalist repetition and Indian drone play as much a part in the Back Porch songs as Americana. Volume 1’s highlights are Flynt sawing away at the fiddle on “Acoustic Hillbilly Live” and his pretty amazing side-long “Blue Sky, Highway, and Tyme”, a hypnotic blues that melts in the mind. Volume 2 is more far out than the first Back Porch, partially because Flynt plays nothing other than fiddle. On this volume it becomes more apparent that Flynt’s “sawing” is anything but that. Amidst the discordance and under the repetition are traditional fiddle songs. The longer you listen to the songs, the more spins of the album, the more complex Flynt’s work becomes…Finally we come to Raga Electric. Subtitled “experimental music, 1963 – 1971” it begs the question, “If Flynt’s other work isn’t experimental, how strange is this one going to be?” Drop the needle and not very strange. “Marines Hymn” is one note on guitar and chant/sung vocals, of the style psych artist Bobby Brown did a few years later. Very nice, very relaxing…until the “Central Park Transverse Vocal” starts up. Then you get elastic mouth work reminiscent of Alan Watts’ There It Is LP (also reissued by Locust) or something off the Poetry Now series of albums. Good but brief. Then Flynt takes out the guitar and goes raga, throwing more fucked up vocals atop the pick n’ drone. Side two is one long sax workout called “Free Alto.” As Flynt is not an accomplished saxophonist, the sounds are skronks and squeaks. Still, Flynt is able to “fake it” for about fifteen minutes, at times making some captivating noise…While all of this stuff was recorded in the early Sixties to early Seventies, it wasn’t released until a few years ago, and then – except for I Don’t Wanna – only on CD (I Don’t Wanna had a limited vinyl run on the Bo’Weavel label). Locust is to be commended for getting this stuff out on vinyl. Those enthusiastic about left-of-center experimental rock and ESP Disks or wish John Fahey got more extreme will be pleased. –SS

Foot Village Fuck the Future II CD (Gilgongo)
An odds and sods collection of Foot Village stuff from singles, splits, and comps. Aside from the remixes this pretty much sticks to the standard Foot Village formula of lots of drum pounding and shouted slogan -vocals. The only revelation here (if you haven't heard it already) is the 9 minute long bomb blast "Race til the End of Food", which originally (and recently) appeared on a split 12" with Black Pus. If you don't have that or have a Foot Village fetish but are missing their last year of non-album tracks, you might want this. If you are a casual fan and have enough to listen to, move on. –SS

Francis Harold The Holograms Who Said These Were Happy Times LP (Square Wave)
Are you a fan of...
1. Hatred?
2. Not having friends?
3. Being resentful?
4. Muttering to yourself in the basement all night while taking headache medicine that doesn't help at all?
5. Your existence being defined by the remorse you constantly feel for unspeakable acts you committed that you're too ashamed to even confront?
6. All of the above, plus more shit I can't get into right now because it’s just too heavy?
Well, then these mysterious lowlifes' bag is right up your dank, garbage filled alley. This is punk rock reduced to a oily puddle of antisocial sludge, no sped-up Chuck Berry riffs, no juvenile politics, no playful sense of rebellion, no post punk monotony with art school pretension - just harrowing scrape that makes the hair on the back of your neck goose-step and any passerby that hears you playing it wonder what the hell your problem is. These guys have more in common with the wail of despair a mother makes after discovering her half eaten newborn in a crib with a bloody doberman then the Ramones or the Vibrators. Its about as friendly as the ebola virus and less catchy then teflon. Shit, I haven't even got started on the cover, which is a fucking classic, in the hands of anyone else it would be a real hoot at their expense, but Francis Harold pull it off with panache. Soup to nuts, this thing is the bee's knee's if you're into elderly abuse, firebombing, or throwing wicker baskets full of kittens off of overpasses. Think Pissed Jeans with a lot more midrange, no self-deprecating humor (it might be there, but it's lost in the blast), and “whose the wiseguy that spilled sand in the grooves?” fidelity & you're in the neighborhood. This is music to listen to while you get drunk and hit a priest with your car, or to drown out the pleas for mercy coming from the people you have tied up in your basement. For the vast majority of citizenry who have way more important things to worry about then the latest apex of vicious scuzz steer clear... But for folks with inner-ear calluses that dig the comfort of extreme ugliness; drop a needle on this platter, pop an innertube under your arm and come take a dip an fragrant ambrosia sea with Francis Harold & The Holograms. –MB

Frozen Cloak s/t LP (self-released)
Guitar drum duo does hard rock instrumentals which alternate between heavy and jammy. I'd guess the influences are Sabbath, Melvins, maybe early Monster Magnet, etc. The performance is mostly fine, but the recording is not. Lo-fi works fine for garage bands and loner weirdos, but when heavy bands try it, the result is practice tape, which is what this sounds like. So the guitar has flat fuzz instead of a hearty punch in the chest and the drums are tinny and slop into nowhere. A better recording and this thing would have rocked. Too bad some of the money spent on the swank packaging wasn't funneled into a studio job. Live and learn. –SS

Frustrations Glowing Red Pill LP (X!)
Ah man, I don’t wanna do this. I like the Frustrations. They’ve released a couple stellar singles, so they are capable of doing killer stuff. And there are a couple songs here at are as good as anything they’ve done. However the band is hampered by two things: Something is wrong with the recording and/or mix. While the guitar sounds hot, the bass tends toward anemic and the drums are really boxy. There are also times in which the drums nearly disappear in the mix. So none of the songs build to a pow. Second thing is that these guys are really in need of a distinctive singer. It isn't that the vocals are bad. It is that they are unremarkable. None of the other instruments – especially on this recording – take up the personality that the vocals lack, The result is a handful of good songs waiting to be done right. Perhaps if the recording was better, I’d overlook the vocals. Or if the vocals were distinctive, the recording flaws wouldn’t be so obvious. But two strikes and you have a good sketchbook but a flawed album. –SS

Ganglians s/t LP (Woodsist)
This Sacramento band shows two big influences, The Clean and Brian Wilson – but rather than sounding like every other indie band with the same influences, the Ganglians bring it into the garage as well as into the Now. They also remind me a bit of the Celibate Rifles, a band that has drifted into obscurity for some reason I can’t figure out. So is this stuff any good. ? Hell yeah it is. In fact, being that we’ve had a string of hot days in the month of May, I’d say Summer is here and so far this is the Record of the Summer. If I have one complaint it is that this fucker is too short. –SS

Ghost Hospital D+ 45 (Teen Ape)
Sounds more like something on K Records than anything on Florida's Dying, but then again it might just be the singer who reminds me a little of Doug Martsch. Hey, no need to run. This is more proof of something good boiling down in Florida. Two bouncy indie-pop sides which play it safe until the end of each song where they either lose interest or decide to jam in some big ideas without fucking up the song. Not earth-shaking but I don't think that was their intention. Not every band needs to find their inner Hairdryer Peace, sometimes a good pop single should be be just that. –SW

Guinea Worms Lost & Found 45 (Savage)
A damn good two sider from Ohio fixtures Guinea Worms. "Lost & Found" has a late Country Teasers feel to it and "Jeans & Heels" is similar to early Intelligence, but to stop there would not be fair to the Guineas. Head Worm Will Foster has been cranking out tunes of this ilk for years and is at the point where he's found a way to translate his ideas to killer finished songs. That was true with last year's excellent "Box of Records" and it is true here. Quality stuff, worth seeking out. –SS

GG King Last of the Night Wiggers Ruff Demo cs (self-released)
Solid punk rock which draws from various KBD bands, NYC 75, Rolling Stones, and (surprise surprise) the Scum Fucs, done by some Carbonas. The punkisms balance convention with cliché. Plenty of attitude, a good amount of slop, and a spirited version of the Boxtops’ “The Letter” (which begs, it took this long for a punk band to record this ‘un?). A good demo. –SS

Hentai Lacerator Sugarsplash CDR (Outfall Channel / Realicide Youth)
There's a lightheartedness here that is obvious as soon as you look closely at the art/packaging, but it's nice to find it carried over into the sound too, which manages to be both playful and hardcore without trying too hard either way. OK, pigeon time: Hentai Lacerator's sound is some kind of grindcore offshoot, as the name-font indicates (originally one of the more reliable guides for pre-judging a band's overall aesthetic, though nowadays, with everyone appropriating everything in hopes of blindsiding with unlikeliness/uncanniness, this is becoming less and less true), blended with elements of power violence in the bipolar slow/fast/heavy/blur riff templates (ala Crossed Out, etc.) and the dual silly/earnest vocals (ala Spazz, Bathtub Shitter, etc.); traces of gore in the layered puke-bucket gut vocals and the vibe of the splattered porn and tentacle-rape obsessed hentai art; and strains of more "arty" grind like Discordance Axis in the angular, undistorted guitar parts. But what ends up reducing any potentially interesting combinations to a familiar and finally bland stock is the mud-fi recording, in the dull din of which much is lost (if anything was there to begin with: I guess we'll never know...); this hardly sounds like it's supposed to be noisecore, but that's how it got recorded. Honestly, while the band isn't bad, I think the singer/illustrator (one Robert Inhuman) should go full- time into erotic lesbian-Picachu Pikachu sci-fi manga stories, because he's a talented artist with interesting and funny ideas that come across, even as sketches. And no one ever actually listened to grindcore anyway. –FSS

Higgs Boson Music for Dark Matter CDR (John Frum)
Not the drippy jazz keyboardist but a free group from New York. I’m not sure at what level of jazzbo-ness these guys are but this has a feel-your-way-through sound to it and the drummer tends to pound more than he riffs. When the group goes crash ‘n’ bash, they tend to lose personality, sounding like any number of punk-jazz CD-Rs I’ve heard over the last couple years. Higgs Boson is best when they are at their most subdued, the highlight here being a short Out to Lunch style vibes piece – difficult to pull off as a group, but fine for the solo vibes player on this disc. –SS

Josetxo Grieta Hitzak, Eginak, Animaliak, Pertsonak DVD (Discos Trudos/Munster)
The Basque band Josetxo Grieta are not very well known. They have released on poorly distributed album (excellent!) and a couple of CD-Rs. The notoriety they have is largely due to sound anti-artist Mattin’s membership in the band (guitar/laptop). This DVD is their final release and probably the one that will turn the most people on to them. A 45-minute performance in front of a handful of friends, Hitzak…is either two songs or one long piece of music. It is difficult to tell, which is nothing new with Josetxo Grieta. Their previous releases also challenge the notion of “song”. Abstract noises give way to shattered riffs which are submerged in ur punk jams until sound fractures or a near silence takes over, instrument hum filling the room. That is on record and that is live on this DVD. However what the vinyl and CD-Rs don’t capture is vocalist Josetxo Anitua’s intensity. Rather than just sing, Anitua groans, spits, growls, pants, screams, moans, wails, and stutters. He wanders the room, stands convulsing, and collapses in a pile. Fine: lots of bands have front men who do the same, but Anitua is different. In his performance – and I hesitate to use that word – there is no showmanship. As corny as it sounds, Anitua becomes part of the music, unaware of anything but the noise that surrounds him. He is possessed. And by the end of the “show”, he looks like he’s aged ten years. As noted this is not only the final Josetxo Grieta release but it is of their final concert. Shortly after this was recorded, Anitua died. This is not only a worthy tribute to his music/performance, but is a captivating watch/listen. –SS

Kid Congo & the Pink Monkey Birds Dracula Boots LP (In The Red)
Dracula Boots is bad-ass City strut soul, complete with noised-up psych intervals bringing it into The Now. How Now? Well, their cover of "I Found a Peanut" recalls The Intelligence more than Thee Midnighters, if you can believe it. It goes on from there, tackling the expected dark, semi-spooky backdrop themes and then moving to more trad' grrrage noise "schtuff", deviating juuuuuuuust enough to keep you interested throughout. Still, this is the Kid Congo Show, and repeated spins keep bringing me back to this simple truth: this LP is essentially Kid talking over groove. The whole LP is banking on him oozing Cool. It's a successful gamble most of the time, but the best case scenario here is a vibe. –MC

Locrian Drenched Lands CD (At War with False Noise / Small Doses)
I feel safe using the word "emo" to describe the particular mood-path taken here, since it stopped meaning any one thing at least a year ago. So: Locrian does a somewhat emo version of a sub-doom/drone mutation, in a recognizably Earth/Sunn 0))) kind of orbit -but their approach to the metal side of this legacy is a bit more Bathory and a bit less Sabbath/Melvins. Which is to say it is "black ambient" played with heavyish guitars and keys, and occasional witch-shriek vocals, but when the inevitably minor chords do rip they're more melancholy and broody and cold, less stoned and crushing and warm. Outside of the picked-over corpse of metal, though, I hear good stuff like Asmorod and CMI eeriness on the 'spherics side of things, and even more good stuff like Ash Ra Temple and Skullflower on the mystic kult of thee guitar side. And while it's usually worth getting suspicious when I drop this many names in the process of trying to lay out some sense of what's new here, I'm not saying Locrian does nothing new. I like how they combine and toggle around with several of these inputs, and I'm especially sold on the tracks where they hold off the moody chords and screams and stick to drawn out, pulsing horrordream soundtracks, with time-stretch guitar weaving and droning and even chug-chugging in and out like a cross-dimensional reacharound from one genre to another. –FSS

Long Legged Woman Nobody Knows This Is Everywhere LP (Pollen Season)
I like this album, but there's no getting around that the opening song sounds like Soundgarden. It's terrible. The rest of the album reminds me of the first Dinosaur Jr album both in terms of sound and inconsistency. The inconsistent thing about this album is the sequencing - the A-side is mess, the B-side is dramatic. After a few listens I don't have the stomach to hear a band capable of such powerful psych pop get thrown around in the dryer, so I've just learned to stick to side two. Beyond Dinosaur Jr, I also hear some Bailter Space, some Bardo Pond, and maybe even the contemporaneous influence of their soon-to-be label-mates the Hospitals and Eat Skull (hell, Pollen Season is their label). This LP's worth hunting down if the aforementioned bands don't bug you, but start with the B-side and give it some time to build. –SW

Mattin, Taku Unami Attention CD (h.m.o/r)

Turn up the volume …

...............and decide for yourself .............… ........whether or not

this....... is ..........worthy .........of your attention.

I …

.......laughed, ...........................awkwardly.
–FSS

Los Microbios take care...beware! CDR (self-released)
Vermont band with a New England rock & roll sound, the kind of VU cum Modern Lovers shang-a-lang that could have appeared on Arf! Arf! back in the early ‘80s if their bands at the time stumbled a bit more and laid on the fuzz, fuzz which I have to say is problematic at times, especially when the guitar KO’s the drums. Whew. The band sounds best when they are at their most naturalistic, just playing songs. When they try to put on an act, play out characters like low down rock & roll hip hick, it sounds cliché, like a gimmick the band doesn’t need. Nothing revolutionary here, but certainly something to build on. –SS

Middle America Every Night EP (Fashionable Idiots)
An ugly little record, in only the best way. Some art forms that evoke Bon Scott choking on his vomit on an elementary school playground at 3 PM as the kiddies bop out of class bound for home have the unfortunate habit of bumming out the viewing public, as this sort of spectacle rates as just a bit “too much” in today’s overexposed, instantly cynical domus-writ-large. Middle America are thus operating in a very treacherous sonic terrain, filled with frauds, shitheels and wannabe carnival geeks. Luckily, this EP instead evokes Blight, the Nuclear Crayons and Drunks with Guns; early-to-mid 80s Negative Vibe Central. Walking this tightrope is as fraught as trying to do early 80s songwriter-pop; One false move and you’re the Cherubs or Fresh American Lamb, boys. Keep it in-house, don’t talk to the other bands at shows, stay in the van and glare invisibly out the spray-painted windows. You can’t keep this up forever without dying, so try to maximize the experience while you can. We’ll appreciate it in 20 or so years, promise. –RW

Moondog More Moondog LP (Honest Jon's)
Moondog The Story of Moondog LP (Honest Jon's)
Two more Moondog records from Honest Jon's out of London - their fourth and fifth, and both worth a look and a listen. But don't give the label too much credit: More Moondog and The Story of Moondog are exact re-releases of Moondog's third and fourth records -both originally put out by Prestige in 1956/1957, in between stuff by other unknowns like Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, etc. - and other than some handsome repackagery/remastery, they are what they were. Which is not to say that if you haven't heard Moondog you're not missing something: you're totally missing out on the Trimba, a device invented by Moondog that sounds like a heavy-swinging Navajo beat machine (AKA Sun Dance in a Box); and you're missing out on 1950s Manhattan city sounds (Moondog was a street musician for many years) and polyrhythmic jazzical counterpoint and horn rounds and the Oo, another invention. My favorite Moondog songs are always simple, shuffling, fully-in-tune-with-his-moon percussion jams, mostly tapped out in snaketime on his beautiful homemade drums by what sound like eight or nine limbs, and built up with an easy - yet - profound sixth sense (or really fifth sense, since he was blind) for sound and space and variation … it's like someone constructing a purely sonic beaver lodge out of syncopated drummings - right in front of you. The only problem with his fifties records is that Moondog was working before "Minimalism" as a genre and "Albums" as we now understand and expect them, so they're either short on content (the two 10" reissues still available from Honest Jon's) or short on context (these and the other early long-playing reissues/compilations also still available from HJ and others): the individual compositions and ideas are great and forward-minded in the best way, but they're missing the overall frame and pacing and follow-through of a full-on masterpiece and are more like grab -bags for mixtapes or hash parties or something. Still, a respectable number of these tracks are some of the sweetest-ever compositions that can be called "avant-garde" by any standard, and they hold up even better than a lot of good jazz from this era - and I mean the good stuff. Really: you have to hear Moondog if you haven't, and this is a fine place to pick up the trail. –FSS

Jeffrey Novak After The Ball LP (LMN Records)
Jeffrey Novak Home Sweet Home/Three Sisters 7” (Shattered)
Now here’s a nice little evolution that I didn’t see coming. Former garage snot-nosed one-man-bander J. Novak has cornered himself in a cabin outside Woodstock (sure, why not?) with a case of Old Grandad, a piano and a fresh new batch of sonic tonics to source, to wit; early-to-mid-70s rockin’ songwritery junque in the post-Ray Davies mode. “Post”, hell, some of the roly poly tracks on here could be Everybody’s’s in Showbiz outtakes I haven’t never heard. Novak’s got a nice slightly chirpy-atonal vocal style that sucks the schmaltz factor out of the danger inherent in going heavy via the piano rag route, but he also doesn’t really display varied vocal chops, neither. He’s trying to write effective songs that don’t rely on some of the stock schtick that dominates too many indie-punk releases these days: pointless feedback, repeating the same lyrical line over and over and over (for effect, riiiiight?), failing to find a central riff for the song to revolve around or play off of, etc. This he manages to achieve, to best effect on the Shattered-label single (which is frankly great) and on about half the tracks on the LP. The stuff that doesn’t work so good are the songs that have an almost unfinished, unfleshed feel to them, like “The Lost Parade” or “Tired Eyes”. Feels like he’s trying on a new persona but can’t quite fill it out yet. He’s aiming high on this LP, which is a lot more than I can say for many of his contemporaries. But isn’t a .500 batting average about all you can expect from a solid rock LP anyway? Solid rock LP here. –RW

Okie Dokie Bad Hammer 45 (Goodbye Boozy)
Let's hear it for the nu-skool!!! Anyone? Anyyyyone? Maybe not. T'would appear that Mr. Okie is actually Mr. Charlie Moonheart, wearing a chipped-to-shit tiki helmet (naturally affixed with 90s electrodes and PBR labels) and some other bros with a couple hours to kill in the practice room. Aided by divine inspiration and as much noise as possible, it's much more aggressive and uneasy than anything else I've heard outta these folks. Power Garage? Actually, strangely, yes. Too bad it's only a couple hairs better than ho-hum. –MC

OvO Croce Via LP (Load)
I haven't heard this Italian duo's four previous albums, but Croce Via (their second Load release) is being touted as their heaviest yet. Well, it's not all heavy all the way, but considering the fact that the band consists of a two-piece drum kit (floor tom + snare), guitar and vocals (with subtle overdubs), they certainly know how to throw some weight around. (Besides: doesn't "heavy" indie rock only exist in relation to "light" indie rock, the way sad only exists in relation to happy, night to day, etc.?) I love the drums, which are minimal, yes, but so, so metal in their perfect double-chuck bass (tom) flams and rolls that they should make all six-pedal cage-drummers rethink their kits and simplify their lives. Vocalist Stefania Pendretti has my undiluted support when she does the Sepultura growl mixed with quirky throat-gasps, and mostly the Yoko-type acrobatics and wailings please me too - but I'm less enthusiastic about the other Yoko-inherited voice she brings out on a few songs (the annoying monotone "Japanese girl" yip also used by Deerhoof and Melt-Banana and plenty of non-Japanese singers). The title translates to "Crossroad" (or "Daggerpath" or "Roodway," according to my translator, iGoogle), and while they do successfully criss-cross that swollen hump between the lowlands of emotion-driven heavy metal and high-minded art rock, it's difficult to place OvO firmly on one side or the other. But that's probably the point: they like it just fine on the fence, grazie! –FSS

Kabyzdoh Obtruhamchi Estcho 2CD (Stunned)
At its best Kabyzdoh Obtruhamchi sounds like what the Butthole Surfers if they wallowed in their dark, fucked up side rather than push their aggressively goofy angle. Unfortunately, this Russian one-person thing hits such heights far too few times to justify two CDs. Estcho contains a lot of self-indulgent, amateurish noodling and long, drawn out, navel-gazing tedium. The lead song, "Jahendra Shitzaga", is fine stuff but only over the last three minutes. Same goes with the lead song on the second CD, another "short" song, "Bendefele Kuhe." The two long songs on CD1 could have been left off, as they are so boring that they made me dread listing to the second CD. Duty prevailed and good thing: "Viva Piskadero!" and "Enptuhi Campusabba" are the winners. At ten minutes "Viva..." is just right; it is violent and hypnotic, the repetition has enough accents to keep me from wandering. "Enptuhi" is a bit too long at sixteen minutes - not enough ideas to sustain it - but it still held my interest, albeit serving as background music to a silent but flickering TV screen for part of its play. As noted, the band is actually one guy, Sergey Kozlov, and like a lot of one-person projects KO lacks a second person who could say "Hey Serge, you are boring the fuck out of me, quit noodling and move to another song". Condensed to one CD, some songs edited, and this would be a might fine thing. As it is, Estcho still needs work. –SS

Pillow Talk Down Town Unga Wunga EP (Columbus Discount)
Hyper-annoying, synthed-out retardo punk, which for about ten seconds has a Black Randy charm but then quickly becomes a cheap joke that only friends, relatives, and the entertainment-starved would enjoy. Sometimes annoyances like this charm over repeated listenings, kinda like some "so grating, it’s good"; but that isn't the case here. Multiple spins just lead to multiple disappointments. Next. –SS

Pygmy Shrews Big Time cs (Work to Death)
The Shrews remind me of a dozen of different band that blurred drunk past me in the 90s, but no names come into my head. What does rattle out of the hippocampus is metal by way of Black Flag + sludge, which is more or less the same thing, isn’t it. Throw in some Splotch-like NY art poses and you got a nice concoction of punk noise. –SS

Neptune's Folly s/t LP (Milk & Chocolates)
I'm guessing that as teens, these guys immersed themselves in Wipers and Naked Raygun records - as NF’s "hardcore that's melodic but doesn't suck" sound seems to be instinct rather than instant. The noise is sure-footed enough that the band can break convention a bit to get a spindly spiral going, something that further removes them from Just Another Band. Really, with this style of punk you either pull it off and create a record that is infinitely listenable or you suck. There is no middle ground. Neptune's Folly has made a record that keeps returning to the turn table. –SS

The Rantouls Little Green Hat 45 (Chocolate Covered)
The resurgence of interest in bubblegum pop is probably the trigger for most readers here to punch a fucking hole in their wall. As if the annoyances of the post-Exploding Hearts power-pop chumps weren't punishment enough. Whatever...calm down. I submit that The Rantouls deserve your fandom rather than your scorn, and an open ear will probably be all the convincing you'd need. A consistent live favorite act for me, I was slightly underwhelmed by their debut single, specifically because it didn't feature the tunes here, my faves outta them by a huge margin. To say that this band "feels" bubblegum would be an understatement: it's true Gum rather than a genre exercise. Innocent, playful trademarks and hit-factory qualities abound, yet there's a beer-friendly undercurrent to it all, making The Rantouls one of the last (potentially latest, assuming the milking can continue) great Bay Area Budget Rock bands, sitting atop the throne with The Flakes. And Gavin's voice is golden, you assholes. See you around best-of-year-list time, you "Little" delight. Buy one for your grand-mammy too! –MC

Royal Pendletons Louisiana Party Music 7" (Allons Records, Inc.)
Wasn't able to pluck a Normals single outta my recent trip to NOLA, but this made a worthy souvenir. It's always been kinda puzzling to me that The Royal Pendletons aren't held in higher regard: the sounds, outfits and party appetites were at roughly the same levels as any Budget Rock project. Fuck, maybe even better outfits?!?!? Location, location, location I guess. Anyhoo, Allons has made a success outta Summpi Werthiemer's (imaginary) failure by actually releasing this 45: the first and hands-down best Pendleton recordings ever, captured in some plaid rumpus room in the oh-so-early 1990s. Songs tackled? "Double Shot (of My Baby's Love)" and "What a Way to Die". Old hat, you say? Predictable? Yes...yet they still fucking smoke. It's rough recommending such a trad' single at this stage, assuming everyone with even passing interest in this has already cleaned their plate and moved on to the next course (synth-punk, apparently). BUT...Yes, Fratty garage fueled by alcohol/amphetamine, played by men with a seemingly unquenchable thirst for gash. A recipe older than any of us. Some might call it soul. Thee Olde Law states that any release touting the excavation of early demo records by a known act at their "savage, young" phase is likely to be nothing more than vinyl dogshit. Certainly not the case here, as this is my new favorite Royal Pendletons record. Put this up against yr Nice Face and see what moves you more. My money is on this. –MC

Silla Electrica Cloaca EP (Solo Para Punks)
Now, this is the current state of punk that I like to imagine in my hazy, time-immunified mind’s eye: fast without blending into puree, passionate without preachiness, quick four-note guitar solos that only underline the adrenaline rush, a sense of melody without devolving into sing-songy chanting, etc. The great part is that this band actually exists and can deliver this package at the drop of a needle. Spanish punk that channels everything about 1981 without draping themselves in cobwebs in the process. Bravura! –RW

The Slowmotions Mystery Action 45 (HG Fact)
Nothing (NOTHING!) gets me going more than a high quality Japanese punker (HC and D-Beat excluded), an all-too-rare commodity now compared to the 90s boom spear-headed by Hiroshi and Fink. One of the recent (and by recent, I mean six years back) greats in this mode was the "Make Love" b/w "Yes, Future" single by The Slowmotions (their fourth). Charting behind Zymotics and The Sneeze, that single is my #3 pick for primo Japanese Punk in the last decade: a frantic, chop'n'stop classic that I'd recommend to ANYONE. None of their other releases touch that single...with the notable exception of this new one! Assuming I've charted the course of International punk correctly, "Mystery Action" is the closest Japanese relation to the sounds of the current Danish retro crop (cue MRR reader interest), which actually works better here than I had envisioned. A strong 80s punk vibe (courtesy of Wipers worship) with trademark anthemic hints, falling just shy of fist-pump due the sheer number of sunglasses and safety-pinned ties worn by the band. Every scene's gotta stick to certain core principles, after all. The flip, "Dance" is the Japanese punk you know and love, delivered at almost hardcore speed (they seem to be friendly in that camp as well, note the label's other releases). It's as if time stopped after that Coastersride 45 and the dominant punko formula of Japan wasn't polluted by Pointed Sticks re-discovery. All balls. One of those "You'll never find it" records too, which sucks. Excellent!!! I can coast for another 4 years after this one. –MC

Snakeflower 2 Renegade Daydream LP (Tic Tac Totally)
Stones-groove from deep in their boring period (when the world -at -large began realizing that maybe Mick Taylor wasn't such a hot idea) that have me looking at my watch & tapping my foot with impatience. SF2 have a way of making the second hand rotating around the clock three and half times seem like a few orbits north of seven. I bet at least one person in this band wears a scarf when the weather doesn't call for it, and they oughta give nice (but not too nice) plaques to people that can tell the dif. between the tracks. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the vocals are way better then average - there's some real feeling & nuance - but they're topping on a musical cake that needs to be taken to the foodbank already. Come to mention: anyone claiming psyche on this LP needs to have their earholes worked over by a disgruntled union janitor with a used toilet plunger. Some of this stuff makes me picture 60's duds and maracas, an image which makes me picture murder. Worst track? “Face In The Crowd” - tries for a fearsome throb but wouldn't be out of place coming a late night TV backing band's musical fade into the the commercials for new vacuums. Best? “Younger Daze,” besides having a title that should be taken out into the street and killed with a hammer, has some nice soaring Greg Cartwright-ness to it. At least they wait until the last song to downshift into a lousy ballad - that's something (I guess). –MB

SS Boat s/t cs (self- released)
Charming DIY punk reminiscent of the stuff squeezed on comps by the early 80s San Pedro crowd, but lacking the variation of the aforementioned and anything close to sound fidelity. A good sketchbook for (hopefully) something above demo quality. –SS

Static Static Psychic Eyes LP (Tic Tac Totally)
Not enough records by these guys to say that they are one of the top punk bands going but, shit, man, my teeth are chattering fast. Like Red Mass or the Wax Museums (at least for the first two singles), Static Static cherry picks the warped loner side of vintage p-rock (Black Randy, Screamers, Simply Saucer...), changes things up just enough and injects the mess with new energy. Right now, Static Static’s music is more individual power blasts than songs. We'll see how far they both draw from their influences while coming into something that is totally their own. When faced with having to murder their mentors, most bands either implode or take the easy path of 1-2-3-4 garage band (see Spits or Wax Museums). Hopefully, Static Static aspire to count to five. I'm eagerly waiting to hear what comes next. –SS

Strange Boys And Girls Club LP (In The Red)
It took me several listens to warm up to And Girls Club (the vocals take some getting used to...how's that for polite?), but they wore me down. Good songs have a way of doing that. "Heard You Wanna Beat Me Up" and "Probation Blues" are way up there with the other heavyweights, garage-wise, but I find myself going back to the countryish tumblers like "Death and All The Rest" for the true meat of this band. One of the great by-products of the doors-thrown-wide-open head space right now is the re-emergence of the dirty, drugged youth big-banging their own universe through their bands. You can add Strange Boys to that list, go ahead. I could speak on and on and on about supposed influences, but I much prefer to think that this is just naturally what comes outta folks today who want to Rock. Fuck...please let that be true! –MC

Sunny & the Sunsets Love & Death 45 (Soft Abuse)
Time machine says 1972, when it was just starting to sink in that The Revolution was not to be and long-haired popsters started turning out cynical sounds soaked in either opiates or nostalgia or both. At least, that is what I hear in this addictive 45. "Death Cream" has a lazy knockabout Stones feel to it, which also owes a bit to Big Star. The flip, "Strange Love", reminds me of one of those songs John Lennon would close an album with. Now the problem with me (or anyone) dropping names this big is that you might think that the songs are as good as those by the names dropped or that I am trying to create some kinda hype around an otherwise average band. Banish both thoughts from you mind. Sunny & the Sunsets are not the Stones, Big Star, or John Lennon; however, they are a very good band and this is an excellent single. I'd like to hear an album. –SS

Tee Pee Aware EP (Weird Hug)
Tee Pee Heal EP (Florida’s Dying)
This band has real sonic ambitions, which will always score points in the paint from me. A band throwing some stylistic elbows is at least halfway to getting me out of my chair and becoming “an active listener”. You know, paying attention to your fucking record. Tee Pee have two EPs to work with here but I have to say, they rather fail to finish their drives on both. The one on the Weird Hug label is the static-driven, mumbling genius effort but nothing particularly pants-wetting occurs on either side. It doesn’t bore me so much as make me restless. The EP on Florida’s Dying is a more engaging affair, as more aggression is evident from the get go, but the vocals (which I think would work great in a punk context) are just too who-gives-a-fuck to keep the interest level at peak levels. I know dissolution is the point, but I picture myself standing on a concrete floor watching this band go through it’s paces and I am not feeling optimistic. I will backtrack for one song: “I’ll Cut You Some Slack” makes me think of the Slugfuckers: nice touch there. They have a couple of cassettes I need to get through, perhaps there is more to this story. Despite my shrugs, I have a positive feeling about this endeavor, the same way the non-classic cuts on a Swell Maps record are still better than a shitty band’s best efforts. Ya know? –RW

Tankj Puissance 36 kw LP (Bloc Thyristors)
Odd juxtaposition of instruments on this one by French free jazz quartet Tankj. Here we have trombone, percussion, bass, and electronics – all of them making a hell of a lot of noise. Some of this is bombast and skronk (that is as much skronk as you can get out of a trombone), some of it is a bit more subdued in volume but not in tension (the sound of a trombone squawking over a drone of electric pulse is pretty damn cool). This isn’t amateur hour. Some of these guys have been doing experimental music and free jazz since the 70s and 80s and are part of the crowd that Thierry Muller runs in. Best free jazz record I’ve heard since Gary Hassay’s Live at WDIY. –SS

Tyvek s/t LP (Siltbreeze)
The bar for this one was set somewhere deep in the cosmos: Tyvek's LP washed in on a tide of borderline-brilliant singles that mixed Modern Lovers uptempo simplicity & flypaper catchiness with a healthy splat of the playful off-kilter experimentation that made UK DIY famous, all coalesced into a happy cloud of skittering adenoid anthems that made you feel like you were in a convertible on its way to the beach no matter where you were actually listening to it. Our jittery chums painted themselves into a corner with all their previous greatness, leaving fickle lady Anticipation just itchin' to clamp her pearly whites on their keisters if their debut didn't make the rest of your record collection grow legs and run away in shame. Let's get it out of the way: 1) This album doesn't cause a thud as your lower jaw involuntarily disengages and thumps onto the floor as you sit paralyzed with awe & wonderment. 2) After gingerly thumbing the tonearm towards the grooves, this album doesn't cause a tremendous aural explosion that just leaves a shadow in the shape of the listener on the wall and the feint smell of burnt hair. 3) Nothing on this album (although “Summer Things” comes awfully close) can touch the outta-this-world moon shots of “Honda” or “Sidewalk”. 4) However, this album is great, and the last thing you will do upon hearing it is make you want to grab a torch and pitchfork and start heading towards Detroit. 5) Some of the material on this album ain't exactly new, but the tunes that got recycled are top-notch, and any crybabies that want some sympathy because an excellent song was already released in an absurdly small edition single, they're barking up the wrong record reviewer. 6) The LP has some meandering little detours that sound half-baked by their lonesome but when they romp through the tall grass as part of a cohesive vinyl whole, they fit like Legos. 7) Its not all beluga: “What To Do” bites where it shouldn't, the intended spontaneous ray of joy vibe doesn't pan out for skunkcrap and slogs slowly to the finish line instead of bursting through the polyester rope with arms raised in triumph. 8) Don't let a real clunker from clumsy town deter you, dear reader - this LP is top shelf full tilt happy racket with catchy to spare. You gotta enjoy this stuff on the rare occasion when it comes around. Why even bother otherwise? –MB

Kurt Vile & Violators The Hunchback 12" (Richie)
The majority of Vile's Constant Hitmaker LP could've been mistaken David Kilgour's last couple of solo albums, but with the Violators at his side, Kurt Vile is hitting close to those classic Clean instrumentals. Even when Vile is singing (2 of the 6 songs are with vocals) the music has that same type of throbbing tribal beat that makes songs like "Fish" and "At the Bottom" so trance-inducing. A lot of people are going to overlook this in search of the gimmicky LP of filler that Mexican Summer put out simultaneously, or the Woodsist reissue of Contsant Hitmaker, but this is by far and away the best thing the guy has made. I have hardly been able to keep away from this for more than a few hours since first the first listen... no wonder I've been zoning out at work so much thinking about the last time I listened to Screamadelica or Ride's Nowhere. It's that good. –SW

Warm Climate Edible Homes cs (Stunned)
From getting this in a batch of unsolicited cassettes to wondering if the first track was a parody of Tyrannosaurus Rex, once this pup kicked in, and upon repeated listens, I remained a bit shocked. Though Warm Climate (one Seth Kasselman) has released about a dozen CDRs and cassettes since 2000, I haven’t heard of it ‘til now. And now this great blend of psych-glam, DIY experimentalism, and Tangerine Dream/Sorcerer style prog comes into my hands and I don’t know what to say other than, “Where is the vinyl?” –SS

Wetdog Enterprise Reversal LP (Angular Recording Corp.)
I was frankly shocked that this LP let me down, seeing as how the English have always been top shelf about reinterpreting/channeling stuff in the Slits mode, which is the vein this outfit is working in. You know, Slampt Records territory, their own national backyard indie theme music; it’s the same deal with rock-a-rolla-muthafuckah!!! stuff, in that only the American bands (with an occasional OZ contender) can bang that shit out with any sincerity. Well, Wetdog have retained the right record collections to dig through before practice, but they forgot to write any really compelling songs. On one track after another, they get the atmosphere and the guitar sounds right and then…nothing. Then the next song. What the fuck!? Plus, the cover’s ugly. –RW

Wicked Witch Chaos: 1978-86 CD (EM)
Cool record here. Two sounds - the first being Richard Simms' solo (almost) instrumental DIY Prince-worship from the 80's, and the second is a muscular twelve-minute full-band Funkadelic meltdown - both hit so fuckin hard that it rattles my license plates. Most of you are going to want to hear this for the solo stuff. Simms is much more maniacal in the bedroom, loading his simple bass riffs with gritty synths, guitar shredding and psychotic head voices. This is deranged Mark Tucker style, but its much more interesting hearing this type of chaos coming from a skilled musician. The six-piece Wicked Witch is tight but more conventional-sounding, and would most likely appeal to those who've already found their way through some great George Clinton albums. It couples well with the more out-there sounds of the first 4/5ths of this, so if you're new to good funk music you get a good idea where this guy was coming from. Wild sounds like these shouldn't be a surprise coming from an Honest Jon's affiliate. –SW

Various New Kids On The Block EP (Randy)
Four-way split of tinky teeny midwest pop-a-billy from the Yolks' label. I started warming up to this Gulcher-style roots revival when that first Romance Novels 7" dropped a few years ago, but until hearing this compilation not much more has made such a strong impression. I heard the two Bad Sports singles when they came out but I honestly can not remember one thing about them. They do well here, giving the comp an energetic start, that is in and out so quickly that the thuggy title-chanting doesn't wear itself out. Day Creeper is one of the best new Columbus bands to emerge in the last couple of years. Their "Outerbelt" has the right mix of Richman, Springsteen and Rep, a combo that has had me follow them around town since last summer. Eric & The Happy Thoughts' effortlessly brilliant "Bad Days" has been bubbling in my head for weeks. I don't know much about Eric or The Happy Thoughts aside from a fantastic live show of theirs I caught last fall, but I'm looking forward to hearing some more from the ex-Romance Novels. Closing this comp is Pleadin' Bradford Trojan's acapella "Amanda", which sounds like a demo from the first Weezer album, but I won't hold it against him. It's little league but sells the romantic innocence at the heart of of this collection. Even the title of the compilation had me cringe a bit, but this is about as unpretentious as you get and I can raise a glass to that sort of conviction. –SW

Various Ten Grand Tonearm LP (Heard Worse)
Pasted-on LP cover art lends the frugal touch to this solid Aussie experimental comp of artists coming together in the spirit of generally whacked and/or wrecked shit. I’m thinking the ordering of tracks must have been done by someone with at most half an ass, because it never once seems chosen, just picked—but then it is a noise comp, so fair enough. Only one of the 14 participants even tries for True Greatness, though, and that is xNoBBQx, who do well what they always do well—despite the fact that their entire sound is built on not going or getting anywhere, and there seems to be a good chance that they’re joking about the whole thing. They make every guitar-and-drums sound except the one you’re waiting for, and then they keep on going: toggle-switching, cable-tripping, field-buzzing, pickup-twurking—plus drums that aren’t exactly “grooving” … they do it all (and their 2007 Siltbreeze LP is well worth the pain). Then before you can say “Hrmnm” the comp’s moved on to more of the grey squall and echo and crushed audio that makes me feel skull-dull like after a long morning smoking black-baked resin off a Sprite can (plastic lining and all). There are some other high-ish points: Castings brings some rhythm and energy and is, if nothing else, briefly overwhelming; Misty Lavender Doughnuts of Shame digs up some good/funny samples but can’t quite do them justice; and Arse Lunch’s nice, simple layered hypno-feedback number could safely be twice as long. Inevitable low points include pointless samples and loops, pointless droning, pointless squealing, pointless contact info and track titles, etc., etc. Like I said, it is a noise comp. (Also-reps: Loachfillet, Marco Fusinato, William de Cunting, Rahdunes, Werewolf Jerusalem, Pigs in the Ground, Mark Harwood, Sun of the Seventh Sister, rlw, Cygnus, The Vitamin B12.) –FSS

Various The World’s Lousy with Ideas Volume 7 (Almost Ready/Aarght!)
Another winner of a comp from the best franchise going. This ‘un is all Aussie and has Super Wild Horses doing primitive girl punk, UV Race sounding as “together” as I’ve ever heard them, Straight Arrows with dreamy 60s fuzz psych, and Eddy Current Suppression Ring being as excellent as they always are (how’s that for objective!). Ten years from now when mooks are trying to figure out what was good about ’00 underground rock & roll they need only turn to World’s Lousy… —SS

Z Gun 3 is now available

...with stuff on feedtime, Dan Melchior, Home Blitz, Mattin (Billy Bao), riot grrl, Die Stasi Records + lots of reviews, comics, and more.

Available from S.S. Records, Goner, Rocket Reducer, Tic Tac Totally, Permanent, Academy, Sound on Sound, Volcanic Tongue, Lonk Lonk Lonk, Florida's Dying, Apop, Revolver, Big Star, Missing Link. Weird Records, Xmist and others.

Z-Gun salutes Lux Interior

First off: The Cramps had the perfect name - a throbbing, painful, sexual/hormonal sensation from deep within female loins? Kinda just makes you wanna lay back and absorb the genius like a suntan. For me, pre-internet, small town, had a sneaking suspicion that most things were full of shit or at the very least, not for me, those Cramps records were extremely important. Not only was the music near-perfect, they were a rosetta stone for all this long overlooked subterranean detritus of American culture. I walked into a store, grabbed a Cramps LP, and a couple days later I was on the lookout for Andre Williams, Roky Erickson, The Sonics, - even the Electric Eels. The Cramps opened doors and shined spotlights on all manner of wonderful and obscure things, the best mentor you could have asked for. My experience is by no means unique, and I'd wager that many people reading this went through the same thing, and, for some, discovering The Cramps was the defining moment when you laced up your sneakers, hitched up your pants, and gave the mainstream the finger.

Bullet points:

Saw the Cramps walking through LAX in the mid-90's, on their way to catch a flight. Lux & Ivy weren't just going to throw on some trackpants and a sweater with knitted kitten on the front, they dressed to kill. It looked like a coven of medieval witches that stopped by a fetish shop was coming through the center of the airport walkway. This wasn't Iowa in the 20's, this was a major metropolis at the height of the Clinton era, but the Cramps still got stares, like Aliens landed in the middle of the terminal and were inquiring as to the whereabouts of your leader. It was amazing.

Billy Lee Riley played at a bowling alley. Parking lot was filled with big autos with pinstrips and flame decals, parked with the hoods up or the doors flipped open at odd angles. Lots of leopard skin, greased up hair & Bettie Page wanna-be's all hob-nobbing outside. Inside, Billy Lee Riley played to a 3/4 full room and there was Lux - a shutterbug of the highest order, he even had a 3D setup - up front, snapping shots left and right (he even climbed some kinda riser for a few), an excited and happy grin across his face. A wide-eyed happy fan, tickled to see his idol performing (the very same smile Lux put on countless faces).

First time I met Lux, I was a fucking mess, I had very few friends, was incredibly insecure, painfully shy, and spent the vast majority of my time alone. Met Lux at a BBQ, & talked to him and Ivy for a few minutes... Since I didn't believe in God then, and certainly don't now, they were at that moment, the closest thing I could compare in my life to actual Gods - I studied those records the same way others studied the Bible, I saw them play shows where I felt more inimitable power and spiritual fervor then I ever felt in a Church, and since my interest was shared by virtually none of my peers during my formative years, it was a private and sacred thing I took very seriously. I was shy talking to the librarian when I checked out a book, so you can just imagine how awkward and stutterey and near-unbearable I came off talking to my idols. But, Lux and Ivy thought nothing to sit and talk patiently to the irritating kid for a few minutes in the shade of a tree in the late afternoon sun. They were as kind, as approachable, and as funny as you could have hoped. I saw Lux a handfull of times after that, and he always said Hello, for no other reason then he just happened to be a very nice guy.

The same type of guy that would drive 3,000 miles to play a mental institution...

Goodbye Lux, you were one of the all-time best.

--Monty Buckles, 2.2009

Writers at Word

It has been a while. It is because we have been busy. Right now we are nearing layout time for issue three. Not sure exactly when it will be done, but lets say 2009. If we get it out in the next few weeks, Christmas will have another miracle birth to celebrate. We do know that it will have stuff on feedtime, Dan Melchior, Mattin (of Billy Bao, Josetxo Grieta, etc.), Home Blitz, Riot Grrl, and more. Stay tuned.

Reviews

Anteenagers M.C. (Illusions of the) Teens 7” (Plastic Idol)
An Anteenagers release is something like an eclipse in that it doesn’t happen very often, but when it does a small, albeit very rabid and devoted, cult population flocks out to take in the rare spectacle while the rest of humanity stays on the couch. I count myself as one of the devoted. Even got me one o’ the original membership cards back from when Mssr. Laurent Bigot was actually signing and laminating them himself, long before those newfangled plastic dealies with the barcodes started sproutin’ up. And as one of the devoted, I, for one, applaud the infrequency of their releases, as it adds up to quality control (as opposed to some contemp hot topics that come to mind, like that one that’s often found paying tribute to the Monks). So why all the fuss? Well, because these Frenchies blend up a damn good stew: an equal combination of 90’s garage-punk bite with a sharp post-punk sting, topped off with a knack for memorable songwriting. I’m not exaggerating on the memorable part either - “Let’s Not Have a Party” from their last release still randomly pops into my head and, given the constant flood of vinyl coming into my home, it’s been a few months since actually spinning it. This time around Laurent & Co. trade in the Killing Joke neg-vibes of “Party” for a more straightforward late 70s Brit sound, but with those spindly guitar-as-keyboard notes still intact. There’s a strange semblance to those bands that are usually found on Oi comps but don’t really fit the bill. Names like Menace, ATV, Subway Sect, The Lurkers, etc. keep coming to mind but none of ’em really seem accurate. Maybe it’s because in the end it just sounds like Anteenagers M.C. –JS

Bad Sports All the Time 7” (Boom Chick)
Bad Sports No Rest for the Wicked 7” (Big Action)
Call me crazy, but there could very well be a place for the (gasp) Rip Off sound in 2008. The Bold Ones EP struck me as the most solid contender in quite some time, but these Bad Sports trump ‘em by a country mile. 7 tunes scattered across 4 sides and I doubt the total running time beats 12 clicks. That’s practically an LP!!! The title track on All the Time is fucking great: mid-tempo pop with a lovey-dovey hint that’s barely detectable underneath the bombast and guitar bleed - Worthy of actually being called garage punk, specifically the variety that’s free of organ, tambourine, harmonica, a garage, etc. You know, the 90s. The rest of the tunes remove garage from the equation and rival any post-Brides Lowery Hit Factory release, no doubt about it. That Bad Sports can do both LOUD and lo-fi leads me to believe that they’ve got at least one more single in them before someone steps in to do things “properly”, thus fucking up everything good about these discs. Good god, I enjoy both platters! What the fuck??? Featuring some Wax Museum kid. No wonder… -MC

Barn Owl From Our Mouths a Perpetual Light LP (Not Not Fun)
This record benefited immensely from my expectations, which, if they were any lower out of the gate, would have been invisible even under an electron microscope. The name of the band, the pretentious quasi-spiritual title, and yet another fucking wolf-based conceit for the cover, hol-ee sheeit, could this thing have been any more derivative? I was feeling kind of guilty as I dropped the needle, just like I did after I whimsically kicked the shit out of a retarded kid on the playground when I was eight and got hauled to the woodshed by Pa. And as the white vinyl goo turgidly spun ‘round, the damn thing started to grow on me. It’s an all-instrumental effort (apart from some wordless vocalizing appearing and disappearing in the mist…) and quiet like a smart-looking pretty girl reading alone at a neighborhood bar at 7 PM on a Wednesday night. It takes more than a few cues from late 70s Eno, not the Airport/Ambient stuff but more the instrumental passages on Another Green World, or a low-tech attempt at approximating a guitar-dominated Tangerine Dream soundtrack from the same time period. It’s a very pleasant listen, surprisingly pretty at times, and, to be sure, absolutely useless on a rock ‘n’ roll level. Just have to make that clear, kids, this thing is far more likely to hit that hungrily dormant Dire Straits/Meddle part of your brain pan than the section closer to the ‘ol stem that is electrified by close exposure to Voivoid or Eddie Cochran, say. In toto, not a hippie drone record, but an old-new-wave-era stab at cough syrup atmospherics. Change the name from Barn Owl to Electric Owl and they may be onto something. “Of course it’s artificial.” —RW

Alan & Richard Bishop The Brothers Unconnected CD (Abduction)
Subtitled “A Tribute to Charles Gocher & Sun City Girls”, The Brothers Unconnected is an 11 song CD sold at the Bishop Brothers’ late Spring ’08 tour. On the road as an acoustic duo, the Bishops have created a fantastic performance of songs and pieces written or co-written by their late friend and fellow Sun City Girl Charles Gocher. It is a tribute that is both warm and powerful without a touch of sentimentality or mawkishness. No prattling about what a great guy Gocher was or how important his work is; just two guys, two guitars, and a bunch of material from a host of Sun City Girls releases, including Torch of the Mystics, Dante’s Disneyland Inferno, 330,003 Cross Dressers from Beyond the Rig Veda, and other SCG classics. Stripped down to voice and guitar, none of the songs here lose anything in the translation. Particularly effective are “Ballad of (D)anger,” “Cruel and Thin,” “The Shining Path,” and “Rookoobay.” The Brothers’ guitar work is also tops. I am not sure if this closes out the Sun City Girls – I’d be surprised if it didn’t, given Gocher’s central role in the band. If it is the last we hear of the Girls, this is a fitting good-bye. —SS

Blank Dogs On Two Sides LP (Troubleman)
Blank Dogs have been releasing masterful takes on the art-synth scene of the early-to-mid 80s for a fair bit now, pretty much being the first contemporary outfit to truly recreate the pathos and instincts that animated many of the best original artists of this style, those instincts being a wheezy entropic malaise leavened with restless, stabbing attempts to pierce the cloying murk that cloaked legitimate emotional responses. Remember how Lester Bangs went on and on and on and on in 1980 or so about how people didn’t want to feel real emotions anymore? Well, a raft of bands went to town on that concept for close to a decade (without ever really coming to a pro or con stance) and Blank Dogs have picked up the missing thread masterfully in the 21st Century, operating on a stubborn premise that goth never peaked, that emo never happened and that the Cure broke up after Robert Smith OD’d in 1984. This record, unlike previous efforts, features a bit more guitar in the mix which definitely conjurs different sonic forefathers like Kas Product or the Sleepers, this versus the Metabolist/Throbbing Gristle axis that served as the bedrock for their debut on the Sacred Bones label. The extra guitars are used to push the melody to the front of your attention, which serves to slightly lighten the dread that suffused earlier records without getting all Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me about it. No sign of a bouncy horn section yet, okay? Blank Dogs are not sitting still, which is great news for this reviewer because I dreaded having to xerox a review for a record that was itself potentially a carbon copy. Not happening here, this is still a developing story of a boy and another boy and another boy (???) dealing with their innate sense of claustrophobia by using the healing power of a music that feels like it could simultaneously clog your arteries and induce boils across your cheek. The curse of the Living. —RW

Bold Ones Open Your Mouth 7” (Hozac)
What we have here is People’s Defense Evidence #1 that the one singular and ultimately laudatory effect that the opening-up of allowable punk sounds over the last two or three years has had is that bands like the Bold Ones here are not allowed to put out “okay” records anymore. This 4-song EP is soooo close to being kinda “eh,” as none of the four songs is trying to break any new ground at all but, but, the Bold Ones feature such a canny brew of mix-n-match sonic shit picked up from unguessed powerpop/rock ‘n roll obscurities that they are ultimately rescued from their mean ambition to dethrone the Putters or the Hormones as Kings of the Bargain Bins. This is particularly true on the first track of each side, as each ditty rises above their pedestrian indie-punker trappings with things like unexpected gurl background choruses or a guitar chord that comes out of nowhere to actually achieve that precious “catchy” quality that makes you want to play it again rather than blankly toss it into a box. A product of its times, and that’s a good thing. —RW

Cat Party Jigsaw Thoughts 7” (Rich Bitch)
God damn, three records into the Rich Bitch catalog (Pop Horrors, Le Face) and I feel like I am in a fucking time machine with the gears jammed in Los Angeles 1980. Like their labelmates, Cat Party turns out a couple that could have been recorded twenty-five years ago. “Jigsaw Thoughts” is somewhat nondescript but goodly melodic, while the flip, “Entitled” taps Rik L Rik-style coolness. Nothing remarkable here, yet nothing particularly offensive to the ears. —SS

Crash Normal / Cheveu split 7” (Rococo)
How many songs can you fit into a song? No really, that’s not a typo. I’m serious. How many songs can you fit into a song? That’s what that little kid should’ve been asking the owl on those Saturday morning lollipop advertisements. Crash Normal answer the question by reaching back to their split with Splash Four, creating a kind of Crash Normal Radio: segue after segue after segue. This “radio spot” starts out with some sorta mutant garage rock riff that kicks into yet some more mutant garage somethingorother, only to be interrupted by a few seconds of alien electro-funk break-beats, and now all of a sudden we’re on the dance floor of what appears to be a European synth-wave club (hey is that Lars Finberg dancing over there in the corner?), and it’s like they’re remixing themselves while they’re playing, barely even stopping to breathe. The CN gang even foreshadows what’s to come by aping the Cheveu song’s riff, taking it apart and club-fistedly trying put it back together. Crash Normal done, Cheveu comes along to demonstrate how their hair-machine works, “Non yoo eediots, like zees.” They make it sound so easy. Buncha Flat Duo Jets twang ran through some kinda Wax Trax filter with a sweaty, amphetamine-fueled, 6’4” nutjob ranting mush-mouthed over the top o’ things. Crazy man, crazy. I get the impression that whenever Crash Normal are faced with releasing a split record with the other current Big Name of the French Underground they get worried that they’re going to be outdone so they try to cram as much head-fuck into seven inches as is Frenchingly possible, but y’know this is a perfect fit. Oh, and the answer is six. —JS

Eat Skull Sick to Death LP (Siltbreeze)
Eat Skull's first full-length album, after a debut cassette and two singles that, with limited pressings and instant music-nerd appeal, nearly caused riots, might be their ticket to the Big Time, a la Times New Viking's Rip It Off. TNV's rise to minor-league indie stardom, with its attendant mentions in Pitchfork and MTV’s John Norris' new-found love of all things 4-tracked, is either a sign that the apocalypse is nigh for the music industry, or it's just trading the term "grunge" for the equally loathsome "shitgaze." I can't imagine a more interesting time for Sick to Death to make an appearance, and I can't help but wonder if Eat Skull will get taken along for the ride. Will the brave new world of Myspace bands mushrooming by the thousands and the relentless blogging of every boom-box-recorded cassette tape finally prove itself a true meritocracy, or will the public once again reveal itself to be the gutless, bottom-feeding herd music snobs have always known them to be? Sick to Death is the most modern of records, while still showing its roots in records like Guided by Voices’ Propeller—an implied pop album, not bothering to really BE a pop album, which of course could hinder their ascent to the Big Time, depending on the savviness of the audience it reaches. There’s plenty of coherent, hummable melody (“Waiting for the Hesitation”), but you’ll have to dig for it. Its goofy, childlike folk ditties (which bring to mind not only GBV and TNV, but also lesser-known Ohio lights like 84 Nash and Tree of Snakes--at least to these ears, which admittedly spent their formative years in Ohio) sound like ghostly radio transmissions from a neighboring world. At first I thought it far less pleasurable than the 7”s, and my favorite songs were the ones that had already made appearances on previous releases (“Things I Did,” “Punk Trips”) but in truth it rewards repeated listens, and the new stuff eventually pleases as much as the old. Plus it’s got great stoner laughs throughout … in “Puker Corpse” a haunted-house voice intones “HAHAHAHAHA … WELCOME TO HELL, PUKER CORPSE!!” Not to mention the Spock-with-bong cover art. Hilarious, skeletal pop hits for scary, bleak times. —LB

Gentlemen Jesse & Joseph Plunkett split 7” (Rob’s House)
A two-songer from a pair of guys who are plainly inhabiting the rockin’-songwriter mold first championed in the post-hardcore era by Paul Westerberg, and since ruined by hordes of tight-panted emo schmucks who have sadly dominated the whole heart-on-my-dirty-sleeve genre ever since Westerberg himself slid into non-contention sometime in the late 80s. Well, Greg Cartwright (amongst others, but he’ll do for my purposes here…have you picked up his Head Shop LP with the Tip Tops from the late 90s yet?) has certainly helped to rip the chains of bondage from punker-derived types who wanna show some evidence of possessing one of the other 3,176 emotions other than rage without descending into the Purgatory of Jets to Brazil et al. On this EP, you can hear some more chains clanking to the deck, especially on the Joseph Plunkett side, where “You Ruin Everything For Me” is a palpable hit, I reckon. The Gentlemen Jesse side is a bit too flimsy to hold water, it kinda tips over when you pour your expectations into it, whoopsie. Hey DJ, let’s chill out after that Ramones/Stooges/Pussgums rock bloc with a dab of Joseph Plunkett… —RW

Girls of the Gravitron Malthusian Lovesong 7” (Boom Chick)
Holy crap, did I stumble into a Lost Recordings session for the Siltbreeze label circa 1992 here? This thing is pure Laxian nirvana, like some sort of non-discovered land bridge between the continental empires of the Strapping Fieldhands and the Terminals, a languid and fuzz-laden trip through a subterranean jukebox where Monkey 101 plays all day every day and you set your drink down on copies of A Handful of Dust beer coasters. There is a definite art-pop tingle running through this band’s veins, so it belongs more to that aforementioned label’s early indie rock leanings, versus the dust mote expositions of Shadow Ring or Charalambides, but don’t think for a second this thing is pandering to some sort of non-existant Yips fanbase, this is an animal of its own creation. Great psych-art-pop that should please anyone who keeps the Tard and Further’d comp in more than occasional rotation. —RW

Hatewave Sexual Healing 2/Free Rin(g)tones CD (Apop)
Sez the press release (yes, an CD with a vagina on the cover has a press release), ”Disgusting 4 track no-grind from poor white guys on meth and hoarse (no hippie shit)”. Well, I’ll be damned, that sounds just like what the doctor ordered (or what he would, if I had health insurance). My ears pictured Hatewave sounding like No Trend on cough syrup being dragged behind a dumptruck, and who wouldn’t raise their glass to that? But, in reality, this Hatewave CD is smack dab in the nexus betwixt metal & hardcore with a big helping of Weasel Walter spastic on the side. I’m the type that is gonna take Mo Tucker over, say Tatsuya Yoshida, & Weasel Walter’s whackwhack style is shitloads more like the later then the former. Anyway, Hatewave’s a bugfuck fast/ugly/mean/weirdo act so unserious its serious that unhappily putters along with elements o’ aformentioned hardcore & metal stuffing & no-wavey ADD skronk whathaveyou all recorded through a layer (or twenty) of shi-… I mean sheetrock. Sheetrock. I figure (this release anyway) is more some fella named Nondor’s show rather then Weasel’s, and the guitar does some awful, awful things that I’m rather fond of. All these guys are too smart and too stupid to do anything too straight, so it goes all over the place with arbitrary detours to beat the band (beating a university marching band with heavy chains). I’m an enthusiastic flag-waving cheerleader for nihilism, bad intentions, and anti-humanism, but like I said earlier, the proficiency exhibited here isn’t usually my metaphorical jazz (kind of like actual jazz, which ain’t my jazz either), but instead of a brutal case of the shrugs, the arty (but not artsy-farty) veneer saves this one from the meh pile. The fidelity gives me the impression all the amps and speakers and drums were covered with cold & wet sheets right before recording, but it’s too lo-fi to be godawful in a good-way, and not hi-fi enough to be really amplify what could be more brutal to the earholes. Cover art is some ugly, ugly shit. Not good ugly, either, but regional advertisement for a travel agent specializing in trips to countries you’d never want to go to in a giveaway glossy at the liquor store circa 1992 ugly. Fits perfect, if you ask me. —MB

Henry Fiat’s Open Sore Mondo Blotto LP (Alien Snatch)
Kind of a frustrating record here by a band I am almost always predisposed to like. It’s a rock ‘n roll record that takes no big chances, that has an extremely safe production style that makes the songs all bleed together, where each track is predictable as soon as 15 seconds of it have elapsed, and where I find myself irritated and heading to the lyrics insert for relief. And it’s in the lyrics where HFOS have always scored highest, and on this level they ain’t letting me down. “My name is Henry Fiat and I don’t like girls/Now I wanna be with Dad coz he’s really cool.” And: “Cocaine improves your tennis.” And: “Must secure the survival of the gene pool/Gotta secure the continuation of being cool.” There’s a few more winners buried in this stale twinkie, whether that’s enough for you to plunk down for it is based on whether you have fond memories of their Raw Deluxe label offering from a few years back. It’s very odd you see, because I found the Henry Fiat solo 7” to be quite fine wine, oh wellsy-well. —RW

Hiroshima Rocks Around The Matter of Facts 7” (S-S)
From the R. Crumb meets M.C. Escher cover drawing to the band’s lurching Eurothug punk, Hiroshima Rocks Around are here to marry art with the D-U-M-dumb. I’m not sure which side is which; on the sleeve it says that the A-side is “The Matter of Facts”, but the label AND the etching on the record say “Raw-Aids” is the A-side. Going with the record, “The Matter of Facts” is the winner here for me, with its initial squeal of electronic noise, dive-bombing guitar riffs, and HEAV-EE drums. I haven’t been able to write the words “dive-bombing guitar riffs” since the 90s! Come to think of it, this band has a distinctly 90s vibe to it, taking the best parts of Jesus Lizard et al but making it more limber and fun. One of the best of the year so far. —LB

Intelligence Debt & ESP 7” (Plastic Idol)
Read somewhere that the Intelligence’s newest is a return to the spittle that was Boredom & Terror. As the late great Harvey Korman would say, “You’ve got it half in the ass.” While there is a tab of B&T in ”D&E,” I don’t think it is more so than any other Finberg creation. Even the mess that is Deuteronomy (which might one day click with me) has L'Essence de Lars, and that is because while players come and go, the Intelligence is pretty much a one Lars show. You want to reach back in time for a reference, let’s pickle the old obsession of Seattle ur thud, the unlegendary Karate Party, cuz gosh darn if there ain’t some vocalese here that is vint Woodhouse. But, the music of “Debt…” is less spazz and more Great White North smart-dumb, as fine a piece of “ugh” as the Intell has produced. Der flip, “Chateau Bandit”, provides some quality backing to the big man on the A, which is precisely what a good B is supposed to do. —SS

Le Face Salvador Dali 7” (Rich Bitch)
The second single from this L.A. trio shows a greater Joy Division influence than I would’ve guessed from the excited late 70s Devo-meets-The Feelers sound of their first single, and the presence of that familiar influence on these three particular songs creates a bit of an irritating EP. I have no doubt in my mind that if these tunes placed in an album context they would fare far better, but their proximity to each other paints these guys as a lesser-Frustration, which I’m sure couldn’t be further from the group’s intentions. With an LP in the works for Dead Beat, I’m confident that the extended format will more sufficiently cover the wild terrain Le Face has hinted at with their singles. —SW

Naked on the Vague The Blood Pressure Sessions LP (Siltbreeze)
So let’s tick off the Elder Era music scenes that are being rehabilitated these days. Well, then again, let’s not. With Australia’s Naked on the Vague we have some folks tapping on the shoulder of the immediately post-No Wave NYC downtown scene, that being the period in the mid 80s typified by bands (not named Sonic Youth) like Rat At Rat R, Lydia Lunch’s varied post-8 Eyed Spy projects and hoards of Ralph Branca-types. Like those groups, the sonic landscape being proposed by the ‘Vague is windswept ‘n’ arid, bleakly greyish in color, fitfully muscular in its evocation of the pangs of despair; and yet for all of that potential misery, still capable of a stark and steely beauty, like a desert moonscape at midnight. There are some pieces on here that are as good as any noisy rock I’ve heard in years, but there are also sections that seem uninspired and kind of meandering, think: Like a soundtrack in search of an unscripted film to accompany. You do get that latter feeling from “Blood Pressure Drawing,” but any annoyance has been tempered by the great propulsion achieved by the previous two songs, “Lonely Boys” being especially strong. So what we have here is an overall uneven proposition out the gate, but there’s plenty of gristle to gnaw at on this bone, and we haven’t even cracked this case to get at the marrow yet. I’m hopeful. —RW

Nobunny Love Visions LP (Bubbledumb)
How many times are novelty records REALLY pulled off the shelf? I’m talking about intentionally wacky novelties and parodies, not the “everything is parody” ideology we sometimes subscribe to. In the current punk landscape, I know there are plenty of folks out there that define their existence almost exclusively in terms of Twizzlers, polka dots and finger-banging, and for them, novelty is their norm. But at my house, on my turntable, goofy is infrequent at very best. The last punko repeat-spin novelty that I can think of is the Donny Denim 45, a record that transcends novelty and moves into full-blown hit…and back again, gleefully (still spun almost fortnightly on my end, years later). Love Visions has that same DD quality: funny as hell with a concept to boot, yet executed in a manner far better than what the joke even calls for. The result is an LP of completely over-the-top poppy punk performed by a half-naked hobo in a fucking bunny mask, using whatever was at his disposal at the particular time. Founded essentially on fake punk, power-pop piss-take and bubblegum inappropriateness, the greatest strength of the LP is its mutant take on these genres and the inept attempts to replicate them. Instead we end up with something much more fucked…and funny. The fact that countless would-be power-poppers are currently trudging away at a number that won’t hold a fucking candle to “I Am a Girlfriend”, a song NoBunny probably thought up during a single bus station deuce session, brings me such enormous fucking joy, I can barely contain myself. The song is ridiculous any way you slice it, but it‘s fantastic song…and not alone in its greatness on this LP. Not only has the schtick yet to grate, I can barely pry the fucker off the player. Never in my life did I think I’d fall for a gutter-brained, cartoon swipe artiste, but I have. Hard. -MC

Nothing People Anonymous LP (S-S)
It’s hard to argue about their three singles ranking near the top in recent years, but with the release of each new Nothing People EP, I found myself making an unfamiliar audible huff-puff: “Imagine what they could do with an album…” They just have that feel about them. Nothing People are a band capable of making the type of long player that you can just get lost in, marvel at and just fucking play to death without growing tired of. And yeah, Anonymous proves that hypothesis irrefutably. The album is packed with the best aspects of Rock’n’Roll’s past few decades, the dissection of which could take forever. Thankfully, they do it for us over 11 songs here. To say those off qualities of proto and post punk are here in spades is apparent, but the glam tendencies of “In the City” and “Should’ve Known”, a song that melds guitar squall with legit strut in a way I doubt anyone else is capable of equaling today, are the biggest part of what makes this such a winner. The production and effects used perfectly accompany the tunes, not overshadow them, even when shit gets ominous as all hell like “State of Mine“. There’s even the song that refuses to leave your head: “Suspicious”, their “pop” number, which is simultaneously playful and sinister in way reminiscent of early A-Frames. And it’s all done by three nameless, faceless folks who sprang from the Earth with the goal of playing for sheer thrill rather than reaction. The agenda just reads/sounds different with them. A stellar, HUGE album and shoe-in for high honors at year‘s end. Nothing? Pfft. EVERYTHING. -MC

Oper’azione Nafta Cavaru LP (Siltbreeze)
“OPERA’ZIONE NAFTA is a blowjob from Luigi Russolo” reads the headline on the band’s Myspace page. I don’t really agree, as I’m not at all sure what a blowjob from the author of The Art of Noise manifesto would sound like, even in theory, but this band is really just an avant, Sicilian version of your band noodling around onstage before a show, playing snippets of whatever comes to mind (like Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D-minor—you’ve heard it—think Dracula playing a massive pipe organ). Except that your band also includes Albert Ayler and so is capable of furious free jazzish outbursts. Except that there’s no sax, only a squeaky thrift-store bass clarinet. Except that it was all captured, with every attention to the highest fidelity of course, on a Walkman, as the back cover explains. Got that? Is this helping? Ultimately, it’s a cheerily adventurous, always honest, occasionally retarded, and frequently ridiculous listen. That’s a recommendation, mind. —LB

Pink Noise Dream Code LP (Sacred Bones)
The sonic theme of this LP seems to be a sort of smothered intensity, like Pink Noise was whipping though their synthy-moody songs with an almost passive aggressive desire to undermine any exposed emotional extremes. This record should come wrapped in a prophylactic device, it feels like a layer of plastic is thrown up between the listener and the songs, even between the vocals and the songs they are supposed to be complementing. Mind you, I thoroughly enjoy this effect, it’s like someone started a band with the express purpose of frustrating their own dramatic inclinations, so songs like “The Put On” end up having the same sort of muted drag to them that some have accused the Endtables (great art punk band of the late 70s South) of languidly soaking in. Pink Noise never cut loose, but the anarchic impulse is quite palpable, like the violence lurking in a sullen teen’s glare. In this respect they are very similar in effect to the murky anger on display on certain Pink Reason songs, (especially on that band’s full length on Siltbreeze). Pink Noise, the kind of band that should record videos on Youtube using only public “security” cameras as their eye. —RW

Poppets Pre-Party 7” (Bachelor)
Poppets Get Back 7” (Plastic Idol)
Things are “lite” here, as they clearly yearn for the trash of Budget Rock through a punk Rip Off filter. Too little, too late? Well, Poppets’ Pre-Party EP recalls what Loli and the Chones would’ve sounded like had they devoted even less thought to their tunes, which might sound like a compliment, but trust me, it’s not. Get Back follows suit, only with the drum machine sprinkles taking more precedence. Sorta like salting pastrami. I hate to be a hard-ass here, but if you aren’t at least equaling Sneaky Pinks with this type of thing, might as well relegate this to parties and MySpace pages. And even then, think long and hard. Total buy’n’file stuff here. -MC

Pumice Providence 7” (8mm)
This four-song EP was recorded during Stefan Neville’s artist-in-residence at the AS200 arts space in Providence, Rhode Island. I picked this single up a day before moving from Providence to Columbus, hoping for a nostalgic homage to the city that we had both called home. I would’ve liked to hear a bit of the ole homestead make an appearance in the recording, but this EP does not stray far from the rambling folk and electronic glitch template that has characterized Neville’s Pumice moniker since its inception. The B side, however, is Neville at his most upbeat, and the playful closer, “Wholehoof,” would’ve been an astonishing left-field pop song even amidst the star power Flying Nun’s early 80s heyday. —SW

Rosemary Krust s/t 7” (Spleen Coffin)
I don’t think that I am as thrilled with this EP as others who’ve previously reviewed it. I’ve heard Charalambides and The Garbage & the Flowers thrown out as comparisons, but I just don’t hear anything on here half as good. Rosemary Krust’s singer sounds exactly like Scrawl’s Marcy Mays, but the lyrics are so juvenile and self-expressive that they could be mistaken as entries from the teenage diary of Diablo Cody. You would think that if the main instrument here is the singer’s voice, that such an apparent struggle to make good with her own voice would be the first indication that there’s something very wrong in the make-up of the band. Even in “Luskin’s Reverie,” the only song here in which the singing is subdued enough to be a moot element within the song, the music brought to the foreground is bland and regressive, sounding like Joshua Tree-era U2 with a Kim Deal bass line. Derivative in the worst sense. —SW

The Unholy Two s/t 7” (Columbus Discount)
The beginning of “Kutter” is a near rip of the Clone Defects’ “Scissor Chop” and that is fine with me as dats one of da best songs of the Nineteen-nineties. But when I thought this was gonna lurch into some Brainbombs gruntage, The Unholy Two flies into Science Fiction Comic Book Land--a kinda galloping thuggery that rides on a defective laser beam. In this hard-to-alienate-the-parents world, this is a record that will annoy ma & pa. As I am for anything that reestablishes punk rock’s secret musical cult, I very much endorse this damage. Excellent. —SS

Vivian Girls Wild Eyes 7” (Plays with Dolls)
First off, this damn thing is too short by a long shot, both sides seem to end before they begin, which demands a launch out of the chair for another replay. Sly foxes, these Vivian Girls, they’re going to get me burning off my breakfast soda pop at the rate I’m getting up to drop the needle on the title track, which sounds like it came out last week on either of the 53rd & 3rd or Bi Joopiter labels (R.I.P.). Fast strumming guitar pop, just the perfect amount of echo on the supremely confident vocals, ratta-tat drums way back in the mix; just a great indie pop single, and I couldn’t really ask for more. Oh, I will though. Apparently they released an LP in Greenland recently, so I’m left waiting for one to float to the surface near me, I’m sure this is just the tip of that severed iceberg. —RW

Welfare Mothers Long Brown Hair 7” (Welfare Mothers)
Two cool grooves here: “Long Brown Hair” captures that 70s power pop sound back when it still rocked a bit and was devoid of sacless Beatle-booted future lawyers and garbage like The Knack. It’s that semi-solid ground between Twinkeyz glam-punk and punkish rock like the Only Ones, though those names are bit to heavy to drop on these, uhhh, moms. “Bloodsucker” is a deceptive bastard. Posing as some meat & potatoes Cap’t 9’s puggishness, the guitars freak in that Modern Lovers’ “I am a little too tightass to totally wig out but I’ll give it my all” kinda freak, which, in this case, is fine & d. as it sounds like a real freak, not some peg in the hole pose. Cherry debut with punch production by Tim Kerr. —SS

XYX Sistema de Terminacion Sexual 7” (S-S)
I trolled around recently and took the temperature of people’s responses to Los Llamarada (non-invasively, I don’t want to know that much), and the consensus of the non-believers (“Poor, poor kids, is there any hope Doc?”) seemed to be that Los L’s sound is too loose and experimental, too much Royal Trux and not enough Pussy Galore. Well, here’s the punk sound from Mexico you’ve been waiting for then, wimps, XYX sounds like Los Llamarada fronted by a time-frozen twelve year-old refugee from the 1979 sessions in Finland that gave unto the world Silver’s “Do You Wanna Dance” and “No More Grease” 7”-ers. Only XYX exist now, so you can dig this shit in real time. XYX are a tight ensemble composed of practitioners of punk moderne, in the style of folks who listen to Sun Ra or ENT or The EX on their ‘phones while they go jogging through the park on their merry way to vandalizing architectural style manuals at the university library. There are ancient hints of post-punk in the rhythmic drum pounding (forward in the mix) and in the distorted femme vox chanting their Spanish couplets over the churning guitars, an archness that denies rock ‘n roll cliché while still keeping the whole operation jammed-out and non-cerebral. It’s a winning combo and a lot harder to pull off than you’d think. Another winner out of Monterrery. —RW

Yellow Swans / Ex-Cocaine split LP (Not Not Fun)
File this under "meh" and move on with your life: that’s what I did. I’ll gladly elaborate, though (it’s only fair, since both of these groups are worth checking out—just not on this record). Yellow Swans do their thing with electronics and guitar and loops and suchlike, and it’s not bad (if it was bad I would’ve said "barf" or "fart" or something instead of "meh"), but it really doesn’t even begin to grab me until the end, when almost all the layers disappear and it spaces out on a guitar loop for a solid few minutes. It’s not just the unoriginal-sounding mildtronics with blippy glitchy stylings and backwards groaning tunnel-vocals that have been done a million times: it’s that none of this is done particularly well (though at least the recording is decent), and no one should be content doing weakly what’s been done right by so many others. (I know that statement shits all over 90% of the bands currently making their way in the world, but it’s meant as tough-love encouragement: keep striving, you lame-asses!) Even when it does get good, at the end, it’s never quite transcendental (for me, anyway: I didn’t transcend), but it starts to get there—and then the record is over. That’s simply not enough to save a side-long track on a split LP: unlike, say, a live free-form/improv performance, where it’s fair to expect a large chunk of the experience to be "meh"-level journeying on the way to those moments of locked-in greatness, this is a recording, so I expect it to be edited and reduced down to its experimental essence—and if that simmering process doesn’t leave you (the band) with enough track time to fill a whole LP side, then I say keep jamming and editing and jamming and editing until you do have 15-20 minutes worth of greatness, or make it a split seven-inch, or expect middling reviews like this one.
lllllWaiting patiently on the other side of the tracks are Ex-Cocaine, who get gently busy with just guitar and vocals and percussion (mostly bongos). We’re still spiking an experimental vein here, though now with a sort of folky/rock bent, so maybe I should have foreseen that for the first ten minutes we’d be floating around aimlessly inside one chord laced with scale-based noodling and droning and some accentual cymbals and hand-drums and not much else. I’m saying, though: Even if you haven’t recently stopped smoking weed, most honest folks will agree that this is more than a little boring. I guess they’re trying to generate mood and anticipation, but any mood-setting potential is sapped by the muddy live (?) recording and the totally earnest bongos, and the anticipation I’m feeling by the end is born less out of enticement or immersion and more out of being sick of this boring track. Seriously, I know these guys can do better (the evidence is on their Myspace page alone). The Meat Puppets cover that follows only makes things worse in the long run: yes, it’s a song—and after the first 10 minutes even the most stoned/spaced/psyched among us is hurting for a song, a chorus, anything—but it’s played so plainly (it honestly sounds like a high school garage band version of Pearl Jam doing the Kirkwood bros), and with those damned deadpan bongos and the muddy give-a-shit sound . . . really, I just get the feeling this is little more than a half-hearted attempt at being the straight-queers in a sea of queer-queers. Know what I mean? No?? —FS

Yokohama Hooks Turn On 7” (Tic Tac Totally)
The Y-Hooks take a turn toward the Y-Pants though with far punkier results and way more vocal warble. Like their debut split a lot but didn’t detect any mutant funk there. Here it skits across the disc. As if someone dared them to do it, the Hooks cover the Agent Orange classic, “Bloodstains.” They throw an extra note in it, which gives the song an odd cant. Listened to it a couple times, got confused and pulled out Rodney on the ROQ to listen to the original for the nth time. Not sure if this band is in a sonic transition or just a stylistic jumping bean, whatever the case, this is telling me to pay attention for future mutations. —SS

Shine A Light Directed by Martin Scorsese
My expectations for this one were trapped in coalmine, struggling for air, but I went and saw it anyway. I dearly love the Stones, but defending them is making me out to be more and more like the Japanese soldiers in WWII who refuse to believe the war has ended, and less like someone that can distinguish their ass from third base. Should I give in to the very compelling negative arguments regarding Mick's vast overestimation of his own current sexual appeal? Well, say what you will about Jagger, the man is in shape, and after donning what can very well be argued as some of the most disturbing wardrobe ensembles of the 80s (Padded shoulders? Check. Kneepads? Check. White sweatpants? Check.) he is has toned it down a bit, & I'll give him this: the man is in shape. Yes, Keith forgot that he is Keith Richards and decided to show the movie-going public his thespian chops as a fictional pirate's father in a big budget movie based on semi-animate amusement park ride, but he is still Keith Richards. And you want to know something? You'll never hear me say a single bad thing about Charlie.
lllll Yeah, I've heard (or at least listened for a few seconds before recoiling in abject disgust) their last two decades worth of records (they all sucked), and I've thrown in the towel on every hearing another good Stone's song. And yes, I am well aware of the fact that they seem hell bent on becoming human cartoons (and I'll tactfully ignore the mortgage lender-sponsored tour merch I saw), but I'll cut them some slack: last time I saw 'em, a few years ago at the Hollywood Bowl, they were excellent. They were lean and mean and you couldn't have picked a better set list if you tried, right down to their superb “Midnight Rambler”. The guitars lacked the sterile blandness Keith has been doing his best to perfect in the studio as of late, and, most encouragingly, The Stones kept a lid on the amount of funny business. As for Scorsese, despite his recent best picture win (the fact that The Departed got Scorsese his Best Picture win is one of the many FUCK YOUs to movie lovers that the Academy has given to the public that has made them rich by ponying up the cash to see their crappy movies) his last couple movies all sucked. Gangs of New York was one of the worst movies I've ever paid money to see, The Aviator was an empty, intellectually invalid biopic with a script they must have found lying in the street, and you don't wanna get me started on Bringing Out the Dead. But he is still Martin Scorsese.
lllll Brass tacks: The Stones are inarguably one of the best rock bands in history. If you want to argue with me, you're wrong, and your mother is a whore. Scorsese, past few movies excepted, is one of the greatest living film directors. If you'd like to argue with me, you're not only wrong, but you're stupid. To top it off, the collection of cinematographers they got workin' on the movie-with the possible exception of How The West Was Won from waybackwhen-is well-nigh unprecedented. Did you see City of Men? Think that cinematographer knew a thing or two about how to photograph? Well, he worked on this movie. Did you see There Will Be Blood? Think that cinematographer can be trusted when he lights something? He worked on Shine a Light. When Terrence Malick, who directed Days of Heaven, commonly considered to be the most finely photographed films of ALL OF CINEMA HISTORY came out of retirement after twenty years to shoot The Thin Red Line and could have gotten any cinematographer in the world to shoot it, who did he pick? Someone that worked on this movie. Did you see Sleepy Hollow? Did you get want to throw a rock at the projectionist because the movie was so horrible, but were you extremely impressed with the photography like me? That cinematographer is working on this movie too. Not to mention the very talented credited director of photography, longhair nice guy Robert Richardson (true story, a few years ago Robert Richardson, Elias Merhige, and I had a conversation about a group of sheep trainers in Hanford, California. The verdict we came to? They were all assholes. Good times.)
lllll I figured if I was going to kick good judgment in the groin and go see this movie, I might as well go whole hog and see it in IMax, and that is exactly what myself and two inveterate Stone fans and dear friends of mine did. Unlike a real film critic, like that funny-looking cocksucker with the Krusty the Clown hairdo, silly glasses & bowtie, I missed the first five minutes of this movie. Like the Holocaust, it wasn't really my fault: the only place in Los Angles it was playing was Universal Citywalk, and getting from point A to point B would have Edwin Abbot rethinking geometry and Kafka knowingly nodding his head. We parked with time to burn, walked through the poorly labeled (and if the L.A. Weekly is to be trusted, structurally unsound) parking lot, into a sea of mouth breathers. Halfway to the theater we saw a guy in a jumpsuit with goggles and a motorcycle helmet hovering two stories in the air. He was over a giant industrial propeller covered in chicken wire that looked like it belonged attached to a big plane that services cargo cults or attached to one of those airboats people drive around in swamps surrounded by a protective conical sheet of transparent plastic to keep him tumbling off and splattering on the pavement in a heap of broken limbs and exorbitant lawsuits. The guy would perpendicular to the ground and fall towards the propellor, then go horizontal and the air would gracefully lift him back up, (like a 180-pound leaf over one of those propellers that propel airboats) as he did acrobatic whatnots that looked more fun then Mexico. We wanted to stay and watch, but we had a movie to make.
lllll We made our way deeper into the crowd until we were within eyeshot of the theater marquee, and then hit a near impassible gaggle of happy eyed fucks. We slogged our way though a massive pie-eyed, slack jawed moron brigade all starting at the same thing. When it seemed like we might finally make it, A filthy security guard told us we couldn't walk directly towards our destination and told us we had to go the opposite direction, and press our way back through the huddled masses, yearning to continue to being stupid. I was already fully prepared to pay $10 to park to buy $15 tickets to see Jagger's face across my entire field of vision, but having to hoof it the long way though a soup of people was nearly one indignity too many. The things I do for momentary diversions.
lllll Pressing our way through the onslaught of scum, I saw the giant signs advertising an impending Mariah Carey appearance. She was due to appear any second, right in front of the theater. You don't want to be surrounded by people who go on Thursday nights to the Universal Citywalk to lineup to see Mariah Carey, trust me. I bet outta the few hundred people there, they collectively owned less than a dozen books, and the ones they did have in their unhygienic paws were all large print strategies to win at Keno. I wondered why I bothered leaving my dirty, dark, depressing apartment and elbowed my way to the box office, where there was a massive line with an obvious vaporskull with her mouth open and both her eyes facing different directions manning the register. We groaned in pain and waited patiently, got our tickets, stepped lightly to the snack bar where we carefully explained to a chickenbrain that we would like sodas, popcorn, and chocolate peanuts and finally made it to the theater which was at maybe (maybe) at 1/100th of maximum occupancy. It was halfway though Scorsese's sad-assed intro, showing how fast he can talk and how neurotic he is during his inexplicable inclusion in his own movie. With all due respect to Scorsese (actually, on second thought, fuck him) there's a reason why Leni Riefenstahl didn't appear at the opening of Triumph Of the Will to bitch and moan that Hitler hadn't told her when he was going to show up and what he was going to be wearing. Now that I think about it, you don't really see Fredrick Wiseman whining about how the guards aren't answering his questions about where to best stand in reference to the elaborate lighting setup while they abuse inmates in Titicut Follies, nor does Hitchcock's cameo in Vertigo include Hitchcock turning to the camera and complaining to the audience how Jimmy Stewart and confess that he doesn't know how he going to cover upcoming scenes, while coming off like a big fucking crybaby.
lllll This superfluous attempt at drama, with Scorsese & his crew not knowing the setlist (which I didn't buy, you telling me the whole Stones crew doesn't know exactly what's gonna happen? My ass.) is something I was very glad to miss. After that bullshit, you do get a glimpse at just how awful being a Rolling Stone can be, having to meet every duckfucker that walks by or every wealthy skinhanger with a sense of entitlement while the Stones get dragged out like wrinkled life-sized party favors for every deep pocketed square rubber chicken dipshit that got tickets to this farce, you can see in their eyes all the people figured the Stones as solipsistic extensions of their own self-centered minds and regard Mick, Keith & Charlie as objects for their own momentary personal entertainment. Its hard to see Keith shaking hands & exchanging hollow pleasantries with the endless parade of faintly grinning rich woodholes or bullshitbag Clintons when he should be somewhere in Jamaica behind the wheel of an Aston Martin doing gram hits of top shelf cocaine off the blade of a bowie knife the size of your forearm. You can see Mick putting on his “SO HAPPY TO MEET YOU” face which looks sadly legitimate, even though he is probably thinking about the size of his personal bank account somewhere in the Caymans. Charlie, to his deep and everlasting credit, looks like he is about to catch on fire during the entire ordeal.
lllll I'm tired and don't feel like writing anymore, so I am just gonna hit the rest of this with bullet points:

- Once they (the Stones) start playing, it’s about what you'd expect. A performance movie roughly similar to every other thing you've ever seen in your entire life. Imagine a boring documentation of a current Rolling Stones performance. Finished? You don't have to see the movie now.
- It is really irritating when the silly-assed backup singer that gets offended when Mick mistakes her Queens origins for Brooklyn (really, who gives a shit--be a fucking adult) during the interminable introduction for the legion of two-bit dipshits on stage, all of whom get just as much of screen time as Bobby Keys, the only one who actually deserves it. What's with this horseshit of being proud of where you're from? Who gives a shit? Why did being born somewhere get mistaken for a goddamned accomplishment? Being proud of the country you're from is pretty dumb, the city is ridiculous, but the fucking borough? Fuck.
- Buddy Guy, who would be the only real serious competitor with B.B. King for most boring blues performer in history, is impressive, and seeing an actual black guy playing the blues (the dude they got playing the bass, the backup vocalist girl from wherever the fuck, and the guy with the shakers that looks disturbingly like Lou Reed do not count) is pretty welcome.
- Their version of “Shattered” is some, sloppy, sloppy shit. Its endearing, actually, seeing that these guys can barely get through their own tune without falling apart. In one of the interviews Scorsese occasionally shoehorns into the movie when it gets too boring, Keith says something to the effect of, "Ronnie and I are lousy guitarists, but together we're great," and he's right: the band is barely keeping their simple song together, but there are moments where you forget how ridiculous it and go with it.
- Charlie Watts is excellent as always, and plays with taste, discretion, and power, in addition to having more dignity in his toenail then most people do in their entire heads.
- Not only can you see the front row tramps, obviously cast out of whatever hooker depot they stopped by to fish for whores to stand in the front row and pretend that they are having a good time, you can see Bruce Willis, covering his bald skull with a hat. Bruce Willis cracks me up.
- Ahmet Ertgun, or, as Otis Redding called him, "Omelet", fell down the stairs and died as a result of his injuries while this movie was being filmed. Nuts, eh?
- Keith mangles the opening notes of “Satisfaction” in a pretty incredible way.
- Jack White's appearance didn't do anything for me.
- Christina Aguiliera is not nearly as objectionable as you'd expect, although why they had her sing ”Bitch,” when she actually coulda hit the notes on 'Gimme Shelter', is kind of disappointing. That should give you an idea of how good this movie is, if Christina Aguiliera and Mick Jagger singing together is "kind of disappointing".
- The ending of the movie resembles one of those rides at Disneyland where you sit in a moving box in front of a screen, the final image is meant to duplicate the feeling of being one of the Stones, walking out to their limo, Scorsese egging them on... It's awful. I don't know what anyone involved was thinking. I wish I could forget it, because it's sad. Real, real sad. Not dead puppy sad, but seeing your Grandfather fall down a set of steps sad.
- Why do they insist on showing another shot of Jagger's shimmying or Keith's arthritic knee bends or Ron Wood looking up to Keith for approval like a puppy after another long solo when Charlie is doing a wonderful drum break? I want to see Charlie, goddamnit.
- The only time the IMax is really impressive is on the shot of Buddy Guy, which ought to give you an idea of how superfluous the film format happens to be in the particular enterprise.
- Overall, the movie is tolerable as long as you're prepared to be seriously irritated, and is somewhere in the deep recess of complete waste of time and nice diversion. As for the Stones and Scorsese? Everyone gets old, and there is no sense in complaining about it. —MB

Z Gun 2 Available Now!

Hey there! Z Gun Number 2 is now available!
It is 56 pages and has stuff on Sightings, Drunks with Guns, the Fabulous Diamonds, AmRep Records, Enfant Terrible Records, film scores, and tons of reviews.

It is available through & at S-S Records, Florida's Dying, Bistro Distro, Apop (St Louis), Academy Annex (Brooklyn), Missing Link (Melbourne), X-Mist (Germany), Volcanic Tongue (Glasgow), Needles & Pens (San Francisco), Issues (Oakland), Revolver/Midheaven, Subterranean, Permanent (Chicago), Rocket Reducer, Enfant Terrible, Big Star (Adelaide), Fusetron, Goner (Memphis), and other.
Please see S-S Records' distro page for contacts and order info.

New reviews coming soon.

Reviews

Apache Boys Life 45 (Douchemaster)
Loud ‘n proud rock ‘n roll music with tuff, big-bellied production hoisting up Apache’s tasty glam exposition unto the heavens. In fact, the production is such an integral part of the charm of this power pop parking lot champeen that it almost seems as if… as if… people in rocker bands are finally able to effectively re-channel and clearly communicate the thrill that older records consistently deliver that so many modern records drown in samey blare: dynamics, motherfuckers! My theory now is that lo-fi’s attempt to return to mono in order to remove all of the gating and effects and harshly arid techno gimmickry (that ruined so many otherwise promising records from about 1983-1990) was an act of desperation to save rock dynamics for future generations. Well, Supercharger and the Motards died on the cross for you fuckers so that Apache could proudly sound like Status Quo and Supernaut, and they do (and don’t evoke the horridly leering mugging of Jack Black for even a second). Great stuff, if you have a tolerance for the explicit retro feel of this thing. –RW

Bad Drumlin Grass The Invigorating Scent of… LP (Milva Son)
This one took a while to sink in. At first listen, I pegged this crew as jamsters who rolled the tape after shemping a crapload of hemp, got so excited over their creation that they had to press it up on record. And I would have left it at that had I not given this another hearing. Well, listen two has led to listen ten and I dig this shit more and more with each spin. There ain’t nothing fancy here, just a bunch of dudes finding a groove and working their instruments. The feel is freak rock meets jazz, in a Louisville/Sapat kinda way, though not quite as hairy. While the songs are longish and jam based, the playing is compact. In other words, the Grass don’t meander off into self-indulgent droolville. While all the songs here are notable, “Moon Trek”, mutant space music gone ESP-Disk, is the star. 300 press. –SS

Better Beatles Mercy Beat LP (Hook or Crook)
Several years ago I fished the Better Beatles one and only single out of a local record store. It was sitting there, in a plain white sleeve, among a bunch of unlike titles. It looked interesting so I plopped down my dollar and brought it home. Dropped needle and was instantly shit grinning. The label said they were from Nebraska and that the record came out in the early 80s. Other than that there was no info. I wrote it up on Crud Crud and posted the songs. Chris Olson, who does Hook or Crook Records, saw it and remembered that one of the band members was a friend of his now living in the East Bay. Around the same time, the vocalist Jean pSmith emailed, informing me that there was a whole tape full of Better Beatles tunes recorded back in the 80s that had never been released. Chris had also been told of the same and took up the task of getting the stuff to vinyl. The result: archival release of the year. Why? Well, the Better Beatles are magical. On the surface you might think, “What is so special about a band covering a bunch of Beatles songs?” and you would be right if the BBs just covered songs, but they don’t. Instead they take the Flab 4s lyrics and mate them with reworked version of the songs. The results are nearly as radical as The Residents’ remakes on Third Reich’n Roll. In some cases, the Better Beatles find something that the Beatles themselves missed. A great example is the song “Paperback Writer”, which the Beatles do as if they were singing about sugar plums and fairies, not a desperate attempt at making scratch. The BBs take the pep out of the song and infuse it with a dull mater-of-factness, reminiscent of The Normal. This is how “Paperback Writer” should sound. A whole album’s worth of Beatles songs get the same rework, some very funny (“Little Help from My Friends”), others very punky (“I’m Down”), nearly all of them revealing a new fresh side to very tired songs. Great. –SS

Blank Dogs Two Months EP (Florida’s Dying)
Based in the bowels of a noted record store, the Blank Dogs have an unfair advantage on the rest of the rock & roll underground. They pretty much live in a library of good tunes, so record after record (and its been four, five this year?) is full of learned goodness. Like their dozen others, this three song EP is synth-grounded DIY weirdness, an update of cassette culture sounds of yore. The strong song here is the A side, “Two Months”, a warped pop tune with underwater vocals. “Poison Ivy” is also a good’un. –SS

Centipede East Surf Licks and The Wall of Sound for World Peace LP (Legs)
A band as skitzo at the album’s title suggests. Inside their musical mind lurks the Minutemen, Deep Purple, Gun Club, !!!, and dozens other bands, and it all comes out over four long songs. They fuse the sounds well; but, for the most part, the alt mutations don’t do anything for me. Centipede East comes off best is on the album’s closer, “Crawlin’ Out West”, a hairy neo-psych, Quicksilver on HGH jam, the only song that doesn’t change up styles within the song and instead concentrates on nailing down a groove, and then fucks with the songs dynamics. The record notes state that this is an “early version” of the song. Hopefully, that does not mean that CE has abandoned this sound, as I think the organic approach fits them best. –SS

The Daily Void Surprise, Surprise You’ve Lost Your Eyes 45 (Hozac)
The Daily Void Identification Code: 5271-684346864436-4519 CD (Dead Beat)
The Daily Void Mass Communication Culture EP (Boom Chick)
A good mess of these guys were in another band called the Functional Blackouts. While the Blackouts were good, there was something that was missing. Like many people, I bought their records hoping that this new one would be the one to project them to Wow! It never happened. They broke up and along came The Daily Void. The first song I heard by The DV was on their myspace page and it was called “Surprise Surprise…”. Holy fuck! There was a bit of a Blackouts sound there but The Void had found that missing X which their former band lacked. I played that song five times in a row and then messaged them asking if I could put it out. No luck, they had promised it to Hozac. They sent me a cdr of stuff, but others were asking and I was over committed so I took a pass. No regrets as what now sits in front of me is a nice pile of songs! “Surprise Surprise…” b/w “In the Year Zero” tops the pile and for good reason: The songs are catchy, economical, full of energy, and truck in a style that few are doing today. This is easily one of the best 7”s of 2007, in a year with many exceptional sevens….The self-titled full length is eleven songs of like tuneage. Nothing stands out as much as the songs on the Hozac single, but, as a whole the CD rips. Same goes for the songs on Mass Communication Culture. No standouts but an above average record… For their sound, the band vibes the arty side of early 80s hardcore (Saccharine Trust, Angst, Proletariat), sharpened to the no frills single mindedness of something like The Viletones' "Screaming Fist". Someone somewhere commented that had these guys been around in say 1983, they would be a reference point. Most probably so, but this is 2007 and 1983 is twenty-seven years ago. The thing that saves The Daily Void from being just another bunch of corpse fuckers is that they interject some new to the style, an immediacy that eschews nostalgia. I’m hoping that they are able to keep twisting – much in the way the great Rudimentary Peni held on to what made them them yet never settled on a sound. Wherever these guys go, this is a great place to start from. –SS

Goodnight Loving Drafted Into War 45 (Contaminated)
The only reason I could think of why people couldn’t dig the title track of this 7” is that it’s too damn catchy, or something. You know, it’s so obviously good that some residual teenage contrarian impulse must kick in and they would refuse to recognize that the production perfectly preserves everything that’s slam dunky about all those proto-whatever pop singles from 1973-5 that are making such a splash in certain dog- and outhouses at the moment. It’s totally rock ‘n roll and a sub-three minute condensation of everything “indie rock” could be, namely independent rock music with some conviction and guts that could play Conan O’Brien without making you wince. Why the fuck not, I ain’t hoping my favorite rock music stays trapped underneath one to exist merely for my private enjoyment. The flipside is about as good as any of the recent Black Lips tracks I’ve been exposed to, that is to say good but not wig burnin’. That would be getting greedy, snap this up for the title track alone. –RW

Hallux Valgus s/t cassette (Gaffner)
This French duo sounds like they are fighting their way out of an electronic cage. The drums are loud near-artless pounding and the guitar apes an animal in pain. 1 + 1 = violent jags of noise tumbling into music. But is it good? Yeah, sure, like one-twenty cc's of caffeine good. –SS

Hipshakes / Cococoma split EP (Tic Tac Totally)
The best slab of Hipshakes I’ve heard since their Slovenly 45 of a few years back, outta focus and outta control! Can you cut ‘n paste that tagline okay? Both songs are equally good garage punk, and that means they equal each other in goodnessosity, but unlike me they aren’t inventing anything new under the Yellow Ball. The flip reintroduces us to old friends Cococoma, dudes whose high-water mark after I complete the turn of their screw remains their 7” on Goner, methinks. If you are stepping out of your time machine and you’re watching a Teenage Shutdown band run thru their paces in 1966, would you really get excited when they played “Route 66” to a room full of pimples? No, you wouldn’t, but you’d tap your foot. That’s the Cococoma side of this. –RW

Jacuzzi Boys Ghost Ghost EP (Florida’s Dying)
I’ll get to the balls of the matter straight off, the longer slower track on this is the one that will milk the bulls every time, as it were. In the echoing vocals and tense atmospherics of “Komi Caricoles” lurks the essence of that “60s” psych-punk sound that every post-Spaceman 3 outfit is always trying to nail and missing. Bravo. The two flip tracks are running at a higher RPM and here we get to other danger implicit in mainlining the Sunset Strip: the dreaded early 90s Dionysus Records sound. “Age of the Giant Jellyfish” is the track I am referring to, a rinky-dink piece of cloying fluff that completely fulfills the promise of its title. Its horribleness is almost enough to derail the proximate title track, which survives wounded and is carried out of the fight by the Hero of this Story, “Kombi Chronicles”. 2 out of 3 is damn fine for a debut EP these days, man, I’ve been hearing a distressing number of O-fers lately. –RW

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion Jukebox Explosion LP (In the Red)
Shove a stick in my ass and call me a lollipop! I was dreading this record, but now I feel like a dirt of a dog for my doubts. Why the hessitation? I dunno: Maybe because the Jon Spencer jive ass hipster act got really stale, really fast and the annoyance factor was real hard to divorce from the music…and even then, Extra Width? Okay, but just okay. Orange? Snore. Then there’s the American mutton chop army who sought to emulate Spencer, and after them a hunk load of Euros who seemed more comic book than Spencer himself. But that’s the later work and the legacy. Before that there was something that made me excited when Extra Width came out and that was the handful of singles that In the Red put out, really raw blasts of fuck-it-all energy done with greasy style but not too greasy and not too stylish. In other words, the thrust doesn’t get lost in the swivel. Man, this shit smokes. Forgot what a fucker the Blues Explosion’s version of the Chain Gang’s “Son of Sam” is. Might be sacrilege to say it, but this ‘un might equal the original. Then there is the Tales of Terror-esque “Naked”. “Push Some Air” is a killer. And blah blah blah…I could go song by song but that would be a waste of time. There are 18 tunes on this album, all of them compiled from singles or recordings intended for release but never realized, and every single song on here is great. If this reviewer needed one record to break my knee-jerk about JSBE, this is it. No need to dwell on the shit I hated about this band, when something as fresh sounding as this old stuff exists. Great! –SS

Klangmutationen Weibe Messe LP (Holy Mountain)
Gah! Kuala Lumpur’s Klangmutationen play some of the most tortured free jazz I’ve heard in a long time. The label calls this “free metal”, perhaps because of the guitar, but there ain’t no metal here. Substitute guitar feedback and karrang for brutal fiddle sawing and in “In the Beginning…” you have an updated take on Albert Ayler’s “For Coltraine”, a noisy, emotionally wrecked heave into the shit that lurks in the ash heap of one’s soul, or some other dark wet place. It’s a measuring tune, something you can use to compare other songs to. That’s how good it is. The album’s flipside has two more: “Tempel & Eclipse” is part primitive psych punker, not unlike the swill that swirls around the Blackvelvetfuckere label, and part freak out. “Coda/Gently Weeping…” end things with drawn out feedback squalls, subtle bass thumps, and frantic drumming. While there isn’t much structure to it, there is an emotional center – emptiness, pain, regret – that holds the song together. This is one bleak record. Recommended! –SS

1-800-BAND / Snakes s/t 7” (Slow Gold Zebra)
In underground circles, power pop has been all about the speedy, sharp, punkish sounds – the UK and Bomp variety. The Midwestern and Big Star sound, while being acknowledged as good or, in the case of Big Star, godly, hasn’t received the same attention, at least, not until recently. Over the past year, I’ve heard great records by Goodnight Loving and The Thomas Function, two bands who embrace the laid back sound of classic mid-70s American power pop (while incorporating other influences). And now I’ve got two more bands to add to this short list. 1-800-BAND play a very nice combo of Big Star, Dwight Twilley, and Is-It-My-Body style Alice Cooper. The two songs are not pyrotechnic, but the writing and execution is so precise that I can’t help but let this play over and over. Snakes are a bit rawer, like a musically handicapped Faces, with a vocalist who immediately grates with his ruff ‘n sassy style; however after a minute or so, the ears become accustom to his Roddish growl. Snakes one song, “Fakeyed Heartscrew”, tops five minutes, and as it stumbles along, the guitar shifts into really odd runs. ‘tis a grower, this Heartscrew, but, damn, if it ain’t good. –SS

The Pharmacy Adominable EP (Tic Tac Totally)
These druggists are like a less polished Squeeze hangin' out in Henry’s Dress's neighborhood. Quality now pop that demands multiple needle drops - pretty much what you’d expect from the Tic Tac camp. –SS

The Rebel Tarscoffsky’s The Snackrifice EP 12” (Emperor Jones)
A near-excellent record by Ben Wallers of the Country Teasers. Here you've got six songs the resemble more recent Teasers, though with a bit less polish - not that the Teasers are slick, it’s just that this is less so. However, it is a bit more together, more focused that The Rebel’s previous output. As usual, Tarscoffsky has Wallers thinking about life in an underground rock band, race, and surrealism (on “Armageddon” Ben speaks of Allah & UFOs, or at least I think so. The vocals are recorded in such a way as to obscure the lyrics). Oh, yes, and then there is the patented Wallers race & jew baiting. We get a “nigger” in “Armageddon”. In “Ads Nu Gyr”, an instrumental, the words “fucking jews” are dropped in. Wallers’ symbol, a distorted swastika, is prominent on the packaging. I imagine this is Wallers trying raise some hackles and, to give him the benefit of the doubt, attempting to create discussion about the power of words or how no words should be verboten or that we are all uptight cunts who can’t take a joke. Thing is that Wallers has been baiting people with this shit for years and it is worse than old: It's predictable. In Agony Shorthand, about Wallers’ lyrics on the Teasers’ The Empire Strikes Back, Jay Hinman wrote "insistence on punctuating every record with his giggle-giggle-I'm-so-bad "transgressive words" -- "Jew", "coon", "Hitler", "blacks", "queer" etc....It appears that entire songs continue to be built around slipping said words into the lyrics, and that's about as boring as bean curd." On Terminal Boredom, I took up for Wallers,but now I am starting to turn towards Jay’s opinion. While I don’t think that Wallers is a racist or anti-Semite, his nigger-dropping is as tired now as Tesco Vee’s dyke-baiting was in 1988. The words don’t raise the political hairs on my back; nah, they tweak me aesthetically. Baiting is too fucking easy and Wallers seems too fucking smart to resign himself to it. I am not sure if his insistence on word-baiting is due to laziness, habit, or some quirk in his personality. I do know that more than half of this review has been sidetracked by a few words. Too bad, because the music is aces. Verdict: There’s a turd in this punch bowl, but the punch is still tasty. –SS

Time Life Drumlins 45 (Not Not Fun)
The rain is coming down & the wind is pumping. I’m sitting in my office listening to Time Life and it is making me depressed. Not in the “Fuck this is bad. I want to kill myself” kinda depression. At worst, bad records leave me annoyed. Nah, this is a good’un, but damn if the music isn’t dreary. Slow, creeping, soundtrack like tunes which recall that moment when early Industrialists started treading toward goth – think Psychick TV’s Dreams Less Sweet or something of that ilk. Effective and well done without goobs of pretension. –SS

Times New Viking (My Head) EP (Matador)
For those of you worried that TNV signing to Matador was gonna soften them, if this 4 song EP is a sign of what’s to come, time to quit your fretting. (My Head) contains two shockingly good DIY rockers – one of them a blown out cover of the Petticoats’ “Allergies” – sandwiched between a couple very noisy 90s style pop tunes, all of which is coated with shavings of sheet metal guitar. Pretty tuff stuff. 550 pressed and sold out in a day. Start digging. –SS

Veines s/t EP (Frantic City)
French time capsule p-rock of the Kids variety, with enough spunk to make it listenable today. Top of the pile as far as this stuff goes, but would be better live, on booze, in a dank French bar. –SS

Wizard Sleeve Mommy’s Little Baby 45 (Hozac)
Great heavy weirdness from a unit that seems to be nodding along in agreement to all of the recent Human Eye and Blank Dogs releases, units with whom they share a sense of economy, musical chops and sense of drama. And a shared love for Chrome, certainly, as “Mommy’s Little Baby” sounds like it was rescued from a tape of Red Exposure outtakes. That’s a compliment. I’d really like to hear what these guys could do if challenged with a forty-minute blank space. –RW

Various Hex LP (Hex/Enfant Terrible)
I wasn’t encouraged by the cheapo fold over paper sleeve on this compilation, as that has almost always equated to halfassery in my record digging experience. But this thing reversed my bias upon first needle drop with Laurence Wasser’s “Lydon on TV”, a perfect encapsulation of everything near ‘n dear about the old German Zick Zack label. Electronic robotic pop before MTV got their mitts on the form, par excellence. It’s true, the halcyon days when Die Krupps and Xmal Deutschland were still relevant have been back for a good couple of years now, evidenced by individual bands’ records scattered on indie labels hither and non but this Hex comp brings them all together. Of course, that means the execrable Sixteens and Vanishing are on this to act as Stygian sentinels of what can happen if certain impulses are not nipped in the bud: You can end up merely reinventing My Life With the Thrill Kill Cult or Siouxsie’s Tinderbox LP. Let the sullen children instead follow the examples set by the growling animales of Frustration, or the spacey anti-progisms of the melancholic Hval Mus, or the kitchen table electronics of Punk Soul Loving Bill, or the unabashed artpunk bashing of last year’s returning champeens, Cheveu. Or, my favorite newbie on this thing, the droll deadpan dropping-silkily-off-the-shoulder of Saralunden, who evoke the pathos of the similarly coke-charred (?) Christina of ZE records fame but sans the conscious cheez. Best vinyl comp I’ve paced the floor to since S-S’s Tete de Bebe. –RW

Various Post-Asiatic: Lost War Dream Music 2CD (URCK)
San Kazakgascar Greetings from… CD
It has taken some time but finally the efforts of Savage Republic and the Sun City Girls have influenced enough bands from various places around the globe to warrant elevating this underground rock approach to international music from scene to subgenre. Down in Southern California we’ve got a bunch of folks working under the umbrella of the Hop Frog Collective, their house organ being a label called URCK. Bands associated with the Hop Frogs are spread cross country, though many serve time in the Pacific Northwest. Over there in Louisville-town, there’s the Blackvelvetfuckere crowd, whose music ranges from mutant Beefheartian romp to Eastern tinged psych drone and that is where this subgenre applies. The Hop Froggers call it Post-Asiatic, meaning music derived from Middle Eastern, Indian, and Asian sources – or the aforementioned genre daddies and a bunch of Ethnic Folkways and Nonesuch Explorer records. Others slap the “Eastern psych” tag on this stuff, but I think it goes deeper than that. This stuff isn’t dabbling, nor is it a matter of hearing an Erkin Koray record and trying to be the next “Turkish Hendrix”. It has not only been decades since not only the first Folkways and Nonesuch records of ethnic global sounds started circulating, but many, many years since the Republic and the Girls started their experimentation with musique de la foreigners. And now that Bollywood and Bengla have a hold on hip hop producers, Eastern sounds finding their way into music as pedestrian as Beyonce and Kanye West. We are way beyond the sitar intro and backward guitar solo. I don’t know what to call this breed of bands but it includes the Post Asiatic crowd as well as the Western neo-Eastern psych people, as well as various off-genre experimenters, and perhaps a few from the electronic & dance world. I also need to note that this music is not without touches of exotica. In fact, if exotica is an attempt to musically imagine a world you’ve never lived in, to snatch sounds from other cultures and integrate them with your own, then this stuff is as neo-exotic as it is experimental. And that is not a bad thing.
If the above makes you interest in this trans-world noise, I cannot recommend more highly URCK’s Post Asiatic 2CD. Twenty-four artists give their musical take on “eastern influenced influential music”. It drifts from atmospheric to experimental, from exotic to ambient. The contributors range from pioneers like Z’ev and Muslimgauze to obscurities such as Sikhara, F-Space, and Neung Phak. URCK has also mixes in field recordings from Burma and India, which, at times, gives the collection a Sublime Frequencies feel. Is this 100% good? No, there are enough quality or interesting tracks to make it worth seeking out. This is an excellent “Post-Asiatic” primer.
San Kazakgascar come from Sacramento and, though they developed outside the “Post Asiatic” scene they share much of the same aesthetic. The songs are cleverly crafted and the playing is excellent. Jed Brewer is a hell of a guitarist who has a nice handle on the Middle Easternisms and when these guys get going it is pretty special. Unfortunately, San K. are a little too bound to their college rock roots and the band never really takes this into a different world, something they are certainly capable of. Instead their sense of humor takes over and at a few points the horrible ghost of Camper Van Beethoven comes a calling. When that happens, San K. sounds a bit hokey. Hopefully next time, they will loosen themselves up from the tight structures they’ve mastered on this record and take the international trip interstellar. Still, a good first effort. –SS

Reviews

The Alrightees s/t EP (Boom Chick)
A six song, raw-as-fuck, garage punk EP which jumps strong with the meaty “Gonna Be Free” but then quickly descends into practice tape quality who cares. I am guessing the band is young and the excitement of putting out a record trumped everything else. Okay, you got your first record out. Now make sure your next one is your first good record. –SS

Bipolar Bear / Watusi Zombie split EP (Kill Shaman)
An EP of two technically good but unremarkable bands with good but unremarkable songs. Watusi Zombie ride Blues Explosion cum Dirtbombs style riff into rawk overdrive for a song that would have been too long in the 90s when such a song was fresh (but still sucked). Bipolar Bear gets a little more wiggle room but not much. It seems like a couple times a month I get some kind of loud prog record in the mail and god help me if I can tell the difference between them. BPB is just one of many riff riff change beat riff change beat riff riff riff ad nauseam. This might be fun to play but it listens boring (except on the wrong speed: At 45 this sounds like a hyperactive punk Sparks!). –SS

Carbonas s/t LP (Goner)
One of the wonderful things about the internet is how fast hype travels. Every week brings a brand new “amazing” record and “the best band ever”, at least, that is the case if you believe what you read on the message boards. One of the most recent “amazing” albums is the new one by the Carbonas. So “amazing” is this record that pre-release tour vinyl of it is fetching $150+ on ebay. Snarf. While the Carbonas third album is indeed very good, it is certainly not amazing. For it to be amazing or even the “best record ever” it would have to turn rock & roll or at least its own subgenre in a different direction or at a minimum give the sound a twist. It does none of that. Rather, it adheres quite conservatively to the Buzzcocks + Boys + Kids formula of high energy, pop infused punk rock, a formula that has served dozens of bands well and been watered down by hundreds more. Perhaps it is surprising that the Carbonas are not one of the water-downers, but to avoid making a shitty or boring record does not constitute amazing. And even though the record is solid, at song 7 of 9, it starts to drag, something that might say more about me hearing a hundred or two variations of this album than the record itself. Still, getting weary before a 20+ minute record ends is not a good sign. That said, the Carbonas have made a very good record, most likely the best of this year’s crop of pop-infused punk and perhaps the best of its ilk since the FM Knives trekked the same path seven years ago. –SS

Digital Leather Hard at Work LP (Tic Tac Totally)
I think the last time I reviewed a Digital Leather record I suggested not playing but to use instead as a tool to scrap dog crap off the bottom of your shoe. With that in mind, I dreaded dropping the needle on Hard at Work. But I did and was pleasantly surprised. Digital Leather made a good album. Yeah, sure the lyrics blow – submoronic musings on cocaine, insanity, and heartbreak – but you gotta expect that from this guy. And the music is derivative – early Human League + Gary Numan + an assortment of obscure 80s synth wavers – but Foree does it well. As far as comtemp synth pop records go, Hard at Work is okay. That said, Comrade Wells once stated that DL is a singles band and, given that this album plays long, I tend to agree. While I am still waiting for Foree to come close to the unhinged 45 he did for Plastic Idol a couple years back…yeah, I am still waiting…. –SS

Disco Lepers The Girls of Cholera CD (Matula)
The Disco Lepers “don’t want no more American shit” and that is probably because they copped so many moves from American KBD, GG Allin, and the Dickies that there is no more room in their life for further Americanisms. Twenty-two songs of a minute or less of bratty demento punk which plays like one joke told over and over and over again. Great for sugar-addled ADD teens, not so good for someone who tires after hearing the same song done twenty-two times. Like Mr California, the Disco Lepers would have been served well by a couple of 7” eps…and then finding a new schtick. -SS

Finally Punk Primary Colors EP (Alb)
Rock & roll has these cycles of return to form and regurgitation. When things get too complex, the basics are reasserted. And part of the music’s march is gobbling up past sounds and throwing them back up. Those cycles work best when the basics are not just reasserted but reframed and when the regurgitation is a mutant meat, not just a standard food group. It’s the difference between some forward sounding band (icons such as Wire, The Fall; contemps like Cheveu, Human Eye, etc.) and revivalists/traditionalist (too many to mention). Austin’s Finally Punk are definitely a back to form band and they’ve been rooting around in the past (riot grrl, Rough Trade, American DIY), but like Tyvek, there is a freshness to their music. This eight song EP doesn’t stray from verse-chorus-verse or familiar tunesmithery, but the mix of sounds (think Chalk Circle, Bikini Kill, Kleenex, 100 Flowers, Bloody Manniquin Orch., Bratmobile) is not common. And since all the aforementioned bands truck in no frills, the styles are an easy fusion. Whether this is a conscious blend or just came to be really doesn’t matter since what is in the grooves succeeds regardless of influence. A great, smart record with some great vocals. Recommended. –SS

Human Eye Rare Little Creatures 45 (Disordered)
Two good HE romps that have them sounding like Tales of Terror + Beneath the Shadows phase TSOL + Human Eye, with some gonzoid space rock thrown in. Any other band, I’d give this an A, but in the classroom of Human Eye, this is a solid B. One gripe is that it doesn’t jump out of the grooves, perhaps the fault of making this a one-sided 7” with two song at 33 rpm rather than a proper two-sider. I crank it up and it still is too quiet. Limited to 250. –SS

Ross Johnson Make It Stop! The Most Of Ross Johnson (Goner Records)
Ross Johnson is gentleman of refinement most considerable, a fine writer with a wit both gentle and self-effacing, a raconteur without peer, and all around credit to the human race. Johnson also gets really drunk and yammers, howls, barks, lectures, screams and even sings his way through a barrage of incredible spontaneous verbal carpet bombings that have thankfully been recorded for posterity, ‘cause otherwise you’d never believe them. Fuck a duck, the guy debuts on the leadoff track on Like Flies On Sherbet, one of the best records ever recorded, segue into keeping the beat with Panther Burns, then goes on to collaborate with the Gibson Brothers and forms his own deeply disturbed outfits such as Our Favorite Band (featuring Peter Buck), and American Musical Fantasy, when he isn’t putting out solo records, doing guest appearances, or doing some excellent rock writing. Lest you think he is a one trick pony, a footnote-level bizarre obnoxious detritus to other, far more important careers, writer Robert Gordon (who included “Wet Bar” – no wave Kafka for the drinking set - on the companion CD to his book, It Came From Memphis) hit the nail on the head when he compares Johnson to Dewey Phillips. Any numbnut can spew whatever floats to the top of his head, but Johnson and Phillips were cut from the same maniacal cloth. Some of the subjects Johnson touches on, in his own unique demented way, include, but are by no means limited to; his hatred of Chihuahuas (multiple times), his own frustration at his inability to not invite people drinking malt liquor in the middle of the day to go for a ride in his car, his feeling of shame at getting drunk at his daughter’s birthday party, his place of refuge/self medication (the “Get High Shack”), being constantly “weak and afraid”, his dislike of the “living hell” of Christmas, being a “southern sissy” with “man boobs”, and his reaction to seeing a naked girl in his youth (fleeing in terror). All this and an oddly subdued cover of The Gentry’s “Keep On Dancing”. And oh yeah, Ross drums pretty good, too. –MB

Kites Hallucination Guillotine/Final Worship CD (Load)
Any two-bit artschool shitcanoe snake oil peddler can stamp some beeps & blurps on some limited edition vinyl with pasted up halfassed art and the melonheads who haven’t been keeping up on their Barnum will pay top dollar for it. If you want me two cents, the experimental/noise whatnot scene is chockfull of hot air, and there is just as much conformity & lack of creativity going on as the dipsticks I see lacing up their spitshined Beatle boots and slapping on their showroom mod duds to go play costume party - or the interchangeable cloud of mid 40’s males in creepers and leather jackets that ruined the Avengers reunion gig I suffered through a couple years ago - just with an added dose of pretension. Just ‘cause it’s inaccessible, doesn’t make it anymore valid, the herd is the herd, regardless of genre. Enter Chris Forgues, the one man show ('cept for female comrade in arms L. Davis Fisher, who enunciates nicely on a track) called Kites, outta the Providence clique, um, I mean scene. Their/his new record Final Worship/Hallucination Guillotine, eschews “samplers, looping pedals, drum machines or [any] computers whatsoever” for a bunch of homemade doohickeys. Huzzah for Forgues, who at least has the common decency not to rely solely on a fucking delay pedal. The best tracks: “Glitter Raider in the Hall Of Triumph” is The Normal at a gutter crawl, with reverbed cryptic lyrics punctuated by dollops of outta-nowhere super loud/super ugly. “Poison Blur” is Tangerine Dream at their most apocalyptic, and “Final Worship” is evocative atmospheric sci-fi weirdness. Upper tier stuff, lemme tell you. Then, um, is the rest of the record... The leadoff track is a snoozer - a bunch of overamplifed bees in a jar before going off the rails into belching up electronic explosions and dissolving into winding oscillations. There is truly harrowing amplified scream that opens “Pink Shadows” but remainder can’t sustain the menace, and “Trespass” mines new territory in eliciting total indifference. Get it for the good ones and remind oneself the inconsistent greatness is better then consistent shit. –MB

Knights of the New Crusade Fugitive From God EP (Gabriel’s Trumpet)
I liked this band’s previous records A-okay, even though they were playing more to the giddy goodtime fun side of the revival tent crowd, rather than to the clinic-stalking sonic terrorists for the Lord that were perched in the back with their arms crossed over their brand new monk’s robes (the better to hide last night’s purgative lashings). So I was expecting another high caloric dose of Hot Sody from the KOTNC. Wrong, this thing is another Beast entirely. I think someone mainlined a purer extract of Holy Ghost ergot this time around, because the sound on this is positively feral, no Lambs allowed. That a-side Click Kids cover is especially a winner, with an unpardonably dirty guitar drone that recalls the best moments of pre-wank late 60s USA psych-tinged rock. A definite win for the Good Guys! –RW

Knugen Faller Lugna Favoriter LP (Wasted Sounds)
I curled up with the several Knugen Faller 7”s of several years ago the way folks my age are spooning with their home baked organic spawn. I fawned over them, laughed at the easy way they evoked the best melodic punk 7” of the European scene circa 1980 or so, tolerated their adorable babble (they sing in some made-up Scandinavian lingo): it was unconditional love. I also pined for them to grow up to full length, and here we are, finally. Now, the very idea of a melodic political punk LP is enough to send most folks scurrying for their 16 Bitch Pile Up or Reatards or NNCK records, but that’s due to a solid decade or two of overproduced, ham-fisted dreck that has scorched the imaginations of most of the well-educated potential audience to charred cinders. Strictly kids stuff, well, Knugen Faller were my personal Miracle Baby, and this LP shows that some of that potential has carried thru onto a very listenable record. But, gasping deeply, it ain’t as kick out the jams as I dreamed it would be or could’ve been. There are some individual tracks that best play up the band’s strengths: a serious belter on femme vox, a box full of workmanlike punk riffs played in an engagingly clean style, a total lack of progressive mathematics, all good things. But this LP is just not as timeless as the singles overall, EPs which I rate right up there with X Ray Spex. This LP is operating more on an Edith Nylon level, i.e., a solid record that will age well but that choked slightly after the initial promise. Still, if you buy one catchy political punk (pop) record this decade… -RW

Krysmopompas Mehr Kilometer Pro Leben CD (Krysmopompas)
Berlin’s Krysmopompas say that they are very influenced by Krautrock and I don’t doubt it, but the sound that threads thick through their songs is that of Wire’s. From “Ex Lion Tamer” to 154, Wire looms large here. However, as obvious as that influence is, it doesn’t overwhelm the band. There is a similarity in guitar sound and a more with less philosophy and that’s that. After all, Krysmopompas are influenced by Wire, they don’t steal from them, which is what “influenced by…” seems to mean nowadays. Twist in some Krautrock, drop in half spoken German vocals, and slot these guys into the rich tradition of European post-punk and you have a great 8 track disc, one that balances restraint with creativity. While not as immediate as last year’s “Mitmachen beim Abbauen” (a good place to start with these guys), multiple listens has lead to multiple listens and this now sits in constant rotation. Krysmopompas are one of my favorite finds of the year. Looking forward to what comes next. –SS

Live Fast Die / Golden Error split EP (Mindnomind)
If you are possibly going through some kind of phase where you can only listen to “source” materials, just the primo distilled-for-you KBD comps and Soul Jazz post-whatsis comps or some ace boogaloo comp from Crypt, and you are thinking after spinning these things for a few weeks straight that you are just going to give up on modern music, man, these jerks today just can’t compete with the Olde Krews, well, may I make a slight recommendation to you? Buy this split EP and at the very least you will be able to keep your eyebrows pinned in admiration for contemporary punk at the least, as both of these bands deliver the goods as well as any sub-Chain Gang unit from 1978-81 could hope to do; stupid solos that reference metal-cum-biker rock, blabbermouth frantic vocals about fear of aggggro cooz, and even a Spits cover, a classy move (I’m highly in favor of bands covering contemporary songs they think they can twist into a new shapes rather than just taking another stab at a Radio Boredman nug). If I don’t hear the Golden Error track DJ’d at the next show I’m pacing around at, I’m gonna swing the ultimate scene faux pas and pull this single out of my bag and hand it over with a fiver under my thumb. “Play this next.”. -RW

Mantles s/t EP (Dulc-i-tone)
Debut disc from a band that definitely personifies the loosey-goosey aesthetic (great drum flubs!) that can salvage primitive modern psych moves. These guys are working the psych-pop side of the tracks, a harsher realm than that inhabited by their more jammy-afflicted sound mates in that they are forced to adhere to some sort of a rhythmic/song-based structure and can’t pull the increasingly obvious and butt-shifting-in-annoyance psych-drone copout that so many bands introduce when they don’t know how to either finish the song off properly or resolve the riff structure at the heart of the matter. The Mantles have four songs on this and they nail it once on each side within these terms, the second ditty in both cases. I’d suss out the titles for you, but the cover is confounding (pre-absinthe) so, eh. I won’t compare them to anyone, but expect some echo on the vox, quick spiraling guitar work, a rhythm section with its arms buried in amber, a good mix of late 60s and early 80s influences in the songsmithery; in short a good beginning. -RW

Mouthus Saw a Halo CD (Load)
I'm on the train watching a young mother ignore her three brats. Mom’s attention turned toward a handful of mini bar bottles of wine and a large package of M&Ms and damn if Mouthus isn’t a suitable soundtrack for this depression. “Saw a Halo” starts with a strum und gloom worthy of Pink Reason, but shifts sound into steel-grinding squall of industrial Souza. The quiet groan has grown and is trying to break out of its emotional cage – and I am talking about Miss Vino and M&Ms here. The lady’s cold stare has devolved to flapping gums and gesticulation. Pout hits the lips of the children as Mouthus segs from squall to dirge. Everyone is bummed out…except for me. The mom ‘n kids act is one I see on many a train ride and I am very happy that the scenetrack fits Mouthus’s sound. As mom stuffs lunchmeat in her yapper and the kids snack on boogers, Mouthus “calms down” a bit. Sticks and swirling base a vocal repeat and makes the train claustrophobia express. I’ve got fifteen miles to go, fifteen more minutes of the idiot kid in front of me pounding his back on the seat. Sometimes music sooths this shit over. Other times it makes it worse. Mouthus comments on this scene. “Saw a Halo” is great nightmarish psychedelia in the purest sense of the word. After the most recent Sightings album, Load’s best release to date. –SS

Nothing People In The City 7”(S-S Records)
Talk about a high wire act: The Nothing People attempt a Roxy Music cover on this 7”, now that takes balls of californium. What is the defining aspect of the Roxy Music sound? Well, in a word it’s Brian Ferry. The decadence, the silky nuance, the heavy-lidded coke-addled parfume that his vocals throw over Roxy’s prog-synth-glam amalgam like an exotic Turkish rug, it’s Roxy Music man! If you’re gonna cover ‘em you either have to punk it up (pick a fast one like “Do The Strand” and just drop your heads and hammer away) or you’ve got to play in their ballpark with their rules, i.e., you’ve gotta try to evoke their feel without just acting as a copyist. Well, the Nothing People chose the latter route and they cover “Really Good Time” with such icy panache that I didn’t feel the immediate need to toss on the original to clear my brain, I dropped the needle on their version one more time, and again. It’s the best Roxy cover I ever done heard. Their original is “In The City”, a turbocharged creep fest dominated by a heavily-reverbed guitar that ends up sounding like one of those regional artrock outfits that was too isolated to hear punk and thus reinvented it on their own with only a copy of Be Bop Deluxe’s Modern Music as a reference point. It’s loud and dramatic as all fuck, this whole 7” is steeped in some kind of waxen-faced sonic sternness, jeez, no wonder they made a cover a grayed-out wash that makes me think of 1930s sci-fi films. -RW

The Reaction / Neverending Party split EP (Thrillhouse)
A bit wary about this one. The insert had a nostalgic longing for the Mission Records scene and a so-typical-it’s-a-Frisco-stereotype Fuck the Pigs vibe to it and the music that usually results from that ilk is too often well intentioned, drunken boredom with a beat. However, seems like the punkers have strayed from cliché, at least musically, at least a little bit. Both The Reaction and Neverending Party play basic punk rock with a melodic edge (though not “melodic punk”). At their best (“Stitches”), The Reaction sound like a meatier VKTMS, while Neverending Party are a good fusion of power pop and 60s garage, a sound that brings to mind Boston (the city) 1979. Red vinyl, if that matters to you. –SS

The Secret Society of the Sonic Six Isolated Incidents 1.1 12” (Touch of Evil)
Stripped down synth from Los Angeles which takes “Hot on the Heels of Love” flambé and filters it through Minimal Man empty parking lot at 3 AM noir - sounds that boarder on menacing, but are a little too stylized to threaten. SSSS cut their darkness with art, creating the same kind of atmosphere heard in the late 70s San Francisco art/synth scene. One instrumental, one near-instrumental, and an excellent vocal track in “Locust Daze” on a miserly pressing of 150. –SS

Shearing Pinx Ultra Snake LP (Isolated Now Waves)
Though I immediately took to Shearing Pinx’s newest, it took several listens to realize that the Pinx are one of the few bands (along with the Lamps, Der Teenage Panzarkorp...) to really understand, in a radiation in the bone marrow, subatomic level. And like the Lamps and Der TPK, the Pinx use that understanding the simplicity of a riff artfully placed and primitively played and to make music that is only theirs. Sounds easy, but it ain’t. Believe me: Sitting in the rocket seat of a record label that trucks in like sounds means I am privy to lots of clueless sounds-like-but-doesn’t-get-it crap. So when the few that have hotwired themselves to the battery of contemporary post-punk that doesn’t suck come a calling, I pee myself with pleasure. So here we sit with Ultra Snake. While not as brutal as last years Poison Hands, this one is better. The songs are a bit more than pound pound crash arrrrrgghhhh squeal, which makes for a multidimensional experience (ha! multidimensional!) – right now would be the time that I list a bunch of classic bands from underground rock & roll’s past or I’d come up with something like “innerstellar boom bah with a skronk full of goob” and make you try to figure out what the fuck that means. Instead, I’ll leave you with a gentle nudge toward you buying this record (before the 300 pressing is gone) and the advise of giving it multiple listens. It is good and it grows! –SS

Something Fierce / The Hangouts split EP (Manic Attack)
Both bands play spirited, high energy punk rock that sounds indistinguishable from a thousand other spirited, high energy punk rock bands. Sure the vocalists are different and they play different songs but this is cut & paste punk rock, something which could have been generated via computer program. Am I wrong to expect more from America’s youth than the musical equivalent of velvet & miracle whip on wonder bread? I think not! –SS

Sonic Chicken 4 s/t LP (In the Red)
France’s Sonic Chicken 4’s debut starts off with a song called “Sexist” and it is one of the best VU by way of Modern Lovers style jams that I’ve heard, comparable to premium Tyvek. From “Sexist”, there is no letdown. Nor is there any repeat. Like the Black Lips or the late great Cuts, SC4 has a great grasp of rock & roll sounds. From garage pop jangle to Fug punk stompers to Childish Beat bomp, they crawl into the style out comes a Sonic Chicken song, which in this world of sound-a-likes is quite a rarity. I’ve been corresponding with a rabid Italian about rock & roll and how it needs to be propelled forward. At all costs, he says. I say, sure but let us also give praise to those who excel at their craft so well that what they do makes you forget of past or future and make the present a good time. That Sonic Chicken 4 does this on their first full length is pretty remarkable. Very much recommended. –SS

The Spread Eagles Don’t Talk to the Narc 45 (Boom Chick)
Timeless punk rock with a Don’t give a shit/driving toward apocalypse vibe to it – whether that be on the turbocharged-Sick Pleasure sound of the A side or the violent swagger of “Up Too High”. Good stuff. –SS

Time Flys The In Crowd 7” (Douchemaster)
One of my gold standards in contemporary 45s is this band’s Wet Ones 45 on the Birdman label. You can’t really ask for more from a garage-type rock ‘n roll record these days so I won’t, but it does set a hell of a bar for subsequent records by these lads ‘n lass. They have figured out the perfect solution to that quandary, one that most bands don’t care enough to pull off: Don’t try to Xerox your triumph, create another blueprint. This EP doesn’t really abandon the early-to-mid 70s glam/early punk attack that makes this band tick so much as follow the style down the same rough road that the Hollywood Brats did towards their sound as the Boys. They just adjusted the tempos and breaks, broadened the sonic palate without sacrificing forward momentum and kept things tight and together while simultaneously injecting some welcome new looseness into the sound, especially on the flipside track. If you listen to the Kinks records in the rough order they came out, I would say this was the band’s “I’m Not Like Everyone Else” moment, when they started opening up without getting winded by the change. More. -RW

Tyvek Still Sleep 7” (What’s Your Rupture)
Another engaging, unpredictable, catchy, propulsive 45 from one of the best rock bands currently treading boards anyplace near you. And this is their slowest, most introspective slow-churn effort to date, so go figure. Tyvek is one of those bands that can flip thru any number of well-tilled eras and pluck out great riffs from thither and non, and slap them together in different combinations that makes them sound new and fresh and that, friends, has been the formula for successful rock ‘n roll since roughly 1946. And, when you consider just where they are scouring (consciously or non-) for these sounds (the early Rough Trade catalog, late 70s prog-punk, mid 90s Columbus bands, etc.) and they haven’t been hit with an “art punk” tag in the process, well, that just tells me that things are really looking bright for rock bands with a bit of sonic/conceptual challenge in them these days. Perhaps the ghetto doors are gonna stay chained open for awhile this time. -RW

...Z Gun, Issue 2 currently in the works...