| 7-INCH
ROUNDUP!!!!
PART TWO!!!!
by L.D.
KREAMY
'LECTRIC SANTA: Great Plans Laid To Rest 7-inch (SHUT
UP RECORDS)
 I
really don't wanna go gonzo on ya right now, but several years
ago I personally bumped into this band, Kreamy 'Lectric Santa,
and I've barely heard from 'em since, so I can't imagine writing
this review without getting at least a little autobiographical.
Y'see (prepare to be riveted), I was in a band once (I know,
hold your applause, I will sign autographs later) that was
on a long US tour once (whoah, I'm such a trooper) and after
night after night after night of playing with truly EXECRABLE
emo-core bands (it was something about the mid-90's and using
MRR's Book Your Own Fuckin' Life to try and get shows), we
dragged our extremely weary asses to a run-down house in the
middle of a Milwaukee, Wisconsin ghetto. Our expectations
weren't exactly high.
After we arrived, however,
things were looking up almost immediately. The late fall weather
was cool, crisp, and nice, the young woman who put on the
show was cute, and the locals were chillin'. They served hot
chocolate and beer, and everyone was drinking out in the yard
while black kids across the alley were playing basketball,
using a milk crate nailed to a garage for a hoop. This being
Milwaukee, our hosts were an off-the-hook bunch of friendly
sarcastic hard-partiers with goofy regional accents, so at
the very least it was a tension-free low-stakes kind of atmosphere.
Everyone knows, house shows (can) rule (most often). The first
band was okay and, best of all, they were not emo-core (they
were burly hessians playing space rock!), the second band
was my band (thank you, thanks again, please hold your applause
until the end), and then the third band was a wacky outfit
from Miami called . . . . . . . Kreamy 'Lectric Santa. And
let me tell you, they were a blast to my jaded drunk and tour-weary
mind. Intricate and joyful spazz-pop-noise with a wild and
sweet lady named Priya on violin and screams, a bespectacled
friendly nerd named Robert on guitar and vocals, and a couple
smart-aleck clean-cut guys on bass and drums who could really
play their asses off. They brought down the house with their
joie de vivre -- I mean, in Milwaukee the house is usually
brought down before the first band even plays, but these guys
REALLY brought down the house. You know those 1970s future-chic
egg-chairs? Well, there was a couple of those furnishing this
basement, and after the Kreamy set people were so riled up
they were giving each other egg-chair rides, where a brave
soul would sit inside one, and then three or four other rowdies
would spin it around and around as fast as they could on the
bare concrete floor. At some point they would let go and the
egg-chair would continue at high velocity before finally slowing
down enough for the brave soul to peel themselves out laughing
and clinging to the floor, waiting for the dizziness to subside.
There was actually no vomiting -- it's a good thing people
in Milwaukee are used to drinking 10-15 beers a day!
Anyway, because Kreamy
'Lectric Santa were from Miami, and so friendly, I just had
to ask 'em -- "You guys know Harry Pussy?" Boy,
did they -- in fact, it turned out Robert and Priya both played
in a scorching band with HP's Adris Hoyos known as Monostat
3. (There was a cassette by them, released on Union Pole way
back when, that DESTROYS. Holy shit, remember Union Pole?)
Indeed, K.L.S. were very much part of the whole infamous Miami-based
Churchill's Hideaway petri dish, although they kind of stand
alone sonically to my ears, sounding more like the Thinking
Fellers than any of their avant/noise/gutter peers -- that
weird uncontrived mix of high-speed changes, helium nerd vocals,
a surf rock undercurrent, tape fuckery, keening violin, you
know . . . . all captured very well, if briefly, on this 7-inch.
"1990-2004 5 song retrospective of unreleased material"
is the subtitle, but if there are five songs here they go
by fast. The first one is definitely a song, "Hanson,"
with a really sweet hooky melody sung by Priya and some nutty
spazz breakdowns -- a real nice song that sounds just like
I remember them from the show. After that is a change of pace,
an old-timey T. Waitsy guitar-and-violin instrumental. Side
two lays on some pretty thick tape loopery about DRUGS and
goes into another hooky spazzy song sung by Robert with pretty
off-the-hook lyrics such as, "Screwin' and doin'
drugs like it's 1979 . . . . And now time seems to spread
beneath my wings -- Like 1000 Billion milligrams of hard solar
law take on fast 'A Million and two degrees' milk a motion
-- I feel it is goin' down -- The world is just so lost 'And
I'm Walking Tall.'" Mind you, all that is sung quite
melodically . . . . then the record ends with more brief collage/tape
cut-up weirdness called "Our Diluted & Grandiloquent
Memorys of Miami." Wow. Nice to bump into these guys
again!
MAJOR
STARS: "Black Road" b/w "Pocket" (TWISTED
VILLAGE)
 Some,
ahem, "major" changes are going on with the Major
Stars . . . already an extremely heavy two-guitar band, they
are now a ludicrously heavy THREE-guitar band, and also now
have a bad-ass WOMAN vocalist! I realize that makes 'em sound
pretty metal, but, um, they ARE pretty metal now, or maybe
simply "hard rock" is more accurate, in that 1970s
Sir Lord Baltimore high school arena parking lot stoner glam
devil horn kind of way. Thing is, I don't think Major Stars
really planned any of this at all, which is what makes it
so enjoyable -- they just got a new line-up and they wanted
to blast and this is what came out. My only complaint is that
the guitar solos are too short, but hey, it's a 45 RPM 7-inch....
WARMER
MILKS: "Rwanda" b/w "Walken Agoraphobic Penn
(Version)" (PAPER
RECORDS)
 Real
pretty cover and real pretty music from this emerging Lexington,
KY psych-dream-folk unit. "Rwanda" is a dreamy folk
mutter built around very pretty and wasted guitar arpeggios.
Side B turns the tables, eschewing vocals for a brief instrumental
creep through space, played with both restraint and force.
Very nice but after basking in the 30-minute-long glow of
their masterpiece track "Penetration Initials" (now
a highly recommended one-track CDR released by the Mountaain
label), the 7-inch format just seems so brief. These two tracks
are like spacey afterthoughts, sweet riddles, little breadcrumbs
dropped that will entice and maybe lead the curious closer
and closer to the Warmer Milks mothership (i.e. "Penetration
Initials," or whatever new epics are on the double LP
that is currently in the works for Paper Records).
NEUNG
PHAK: Fucking USA 7-inch (ABDUCTION
RECORDS)
 Goddamn,
this is some thick vinyl. I didn't know they could make vinyl
this thick, but that's kind of beside the real point, which
is that the grooves contain an American cover version of a
very anti-American rock song that was purported to be from
everyone's favorite national security threat North Korea --
but whaddayaknow, it turns out that it's from South Korea!
(For more on the story, check out this
excellent interview with members of the band.) Some of
you Americans might be offended by the whole "Fucking
USA" sentiment, but jeez, more and more Americans are
agreeing with it every day, and it's a real catchy song that
applies this Fair and Balanced worldview to the wild global
rock-collision approach that Neung Phak feeds off of. Side
two has a couple tracks from when they were in Chicago back
in May 2004, recorded live-in-studio up at WNUR Radio in Evanston.
One is a nice springy, sexy version of their classic "Tui
Tui Tui" (you may know the original from the Neung Phak
CD and/or WFMU airplay), and "Far King USA," which
I thought was going to be the "clean" version of
Side A, and it kind of is, but it's also the weird version,
with a lot of tape-loop sinistry and a spooky ballad approach.
Great cover art, depicting every red-stater's worst nightmare
-- a whole bunch of pissed-off Arabs and Asians, looking at
YOU!!
AIR
CONDITIONING: "Bachelor Party" b/w "Barrels
of Seized Ephedrine" 7-inch (WHITE
TAPES/WHITE DENIM)
 Side
A: People talking and shouting in a rowdy atmosphere. I feel
like I'm listening to one of the many verité
argument tracks on Cock ESP's We Mean It This Time
(1999). Then the band starts fooling around with their instruments
a little bit, tuning-up noise, and it's starting to sound
like a different specific verité record, that
Sun City Girls bootleg 7-inch Live For Chilly (1993).
(Yeah, there's a couple references everybody in the world's
gonna get.) Eventually the band starts playing and from the
get-go it's huge and holy-shit heavy; toxic sludge that would
possibly bury the entire worldwide noise-rock scene if it
was just let loose. Unfortunately, because of all the opening
fiddling around, the side abruptly ends well before the song
does. Side B: the same thing again? I really think it is.
And, as I have since learned, it IS the exact same thing again;
when Air Conditioning played in the ridiculously packed downstairs
room at No Fun Fest 2004, their DAT player only picked up
about 5 minutes of their set before it was knocked to the
ground and broken. And here's that 5 minutes, twice. It's
cool and people into fucked-up records will like it -- I mean
shit, they only made 200 copies, and they were sold out a
few months ago -- but don't let it be your intro to the band.
Listen to any of the full-lengths, or go see 'em live!
POPULAR
SHAPES: B-Ball Music Songs 2 & 4 (WHITE
DENIM/HATE THE
80s)
 Apparently
this 7-inch features two songs, and they're called "Song
2" and "Song 4." Slightly confusing, right?
It gets wackier: the sleeve says "Song 2 is on the side
with The Warrior & Fruit Salad," and I'll be damned,
there's a warrior and a fruit salad right there on this label.
Must be side one, so let's listen! Okay, this is some pretty
alien rock music stuff coming out of my speakers . . . . arty
prog quirk with one guitar playing amelodic scalar runs and
another guitar doing stabby trebly art-funk chords . . . .
a singer yelping with a slight emo-core vibe . . . . rather
hyper approach with weird sudden changes moving through quite
a few different parts . . . . very prog! I really know nothing
about this band at all, like where they're from or who they've
played with or anything. "Song 4 is on the side with
The Leopard Leg & Green Salad," so let's check that
out. A rather more introspective/melancholy feel on this one
but the busy/chancey arrangements and riff-piling techniques
are the same. The cumulative effect of all the changes and
rhythms and collisions is really just as colorful as the wild
art on the sleeve, not to mention the splatter-colored vinyl
itself. Very interesting post-punk band -- they sound contemporary
and American, sure, but I'm also getting a heavy 80s UK DIY
vibe -- these tunes would not sound out of place on a Hyped
2 Death comp or some other art-punk obscurity reissue. On
the other hand, they remind me of a slightly nicer and more
melodic My Name Is Rar Rar!
MENSTRUATION
SISTERS: Holy Africa 7-inch (WHITE DENIM)
 A
couple years back this madcap Australian duo released an LP
that was one of the more sustained pieces of vicious psycho
alien gibberish dressed in the flayed skin suit of 'duo noise
improv' that I've ever heard. If anything, the approach has
now gotten even more primordial, and reduced down to the length
of a 7-inch it's practically over and out before the first
rumble has even sounded -- a total head-scratcher, a really
large question mark practically visible in the air near your
stereo speakers. This is the sound of a pool of bubbling ooze
before the first bubble has even surfaced. It's like cave-painting
in pitch black dark with someone else's toenail while the
shadows are moving all around you. Or, as drummer Oren Ambarchi
said in this
fine interview: "The Sisters come from a place where
there is no language and no technique. One-string, Minnie
Ripperton, a footprint, intuitive chants, and two tree trunks."
Other than that, I have no idea what's going on here.
STRANGULATED
BEATOFFS: "Jacking off with Jacko" b/w "Beat
It" 7-inch (APOP
RECORDS)
 God
bless the Strangulated Beatoffs -- I could really go for listening
to some of their beyond-retarded endless loopery right now
-- it's much better than quaaludes! -- but I don't own anything
except for this new 7-inch, which is . . . . . . . . no, don't
tell me . . . . a Michael Jackson cover. Yep. "Beat It,"
played in a straight hate-grunge weird-vocals drum-machine
style (who is this, Mr. California and the State Police?),
but I'm telling you, when it gets to the part right before
the guitar solo (you know, duh-duhn-duhn, duh-duhn-duhn "beat
it beat it beat it" duhn-duhn, duh-duhn-duhn etc.), it
turns the duh-duhn-duhn into a godheavy loop that really smacks
me out --- waaaay better than quaaludes. First time it hit,
I wanted the loop to go on for at least four or five hours,
and was really hoping it was a lock groove. Unfortunately
it wasn't, so maybe I'll have to put out a four-or-five-disc
'remix' version. The flip side, "Jacking off with Jacko"
is about as pointless as pointless goofery gets, so much so
that I don't even remember it, other than some sort of retardo-techno
groove and the title being said in a goofy voice a few times.
But don't get excited, I'm keeping the 7-inch, just for the
10-15 seconds of that duh-duhn-duhn loop, as well as the beautiful
watercolor painting by band member Stan Seitrich (he was in
Drunks With Guns you know), not to mention that it comes with
an actual page torn out of an actual unauthorized paperback
bio of Michael Jackson, with key phrases underlined. ("It's
just neat to become another thing, another person.")
STRANGULATED BEATOFFS: St. Louis's most luded.
HALL
OF FAME: "The Cannibal" b/w "Superstring Theory"
7-inch (LAL LAL LAL)
 A
head-scratcher of a band, New York City's Hall of Fame put
out that LP on Siltbreeze a few years ago that jumped from
utterly gorgeous femme balladry to totally wacked krautrockisms
to spaced-out free jazz folkiness to drooling drone miniatures.
It was great, and come to think of it, aren't they a natural
for Finland's gorgeous wacked spaced-out drooling drone folk
record label Lal Lal Lal? Here's the 7-inch produced from
just that union. As I listen to the disjointed electronics
of Side A, "The Cannibal," the main thing that pops
into my head is just how brief the 7-inch format is. A band
that plays like this really needs some time to stretch out
and sink in. The track has some cool cosmic tones but it barely
happens. "Superstring Theory," on the other hand,
is a mean propulsive drone augmented with a tinkling dream-melody
and the whole thing has just enough time to really dig in.
Sure, it could be about 20 minutes longer, but I'll take what
I get. Very Finland -- this sounds a lot like the Fricara
Pacchu cassette (also on Lal Lal Lal) that just blew my mind
last week. And "Superstring Theory" was recorded
in 1997 which is like EIGHT YEARS AGO so, yeah, Hall of Fame
was THERE, early.
KOMPLEKSI:
"(I Ain't No) Lovechild" b/w "Moscow 1980"
7-inch (LAL LAL LAL)
 Right
now all of the American trustafarians who read Arthur 'religiously'
with a little Wire on the side and who mail-ordered this 7-inch
are scratching their new beard going, "Hey, this ain't
psychedelic free folk!" That's because it's creepy euro
synth disco! The grooves are corny and the singing is awkward,
but it is charming -- especially those wildcat yelps on the
"Lovechild" turnarounds -- and Irwin Chusid will
probably play it on his show. "Moscow 1980" is a
more wistful synth pop number -- I detect a Limahl influence
-- that starts with a sample of Jimmy Carter laying down the
law about a certain Olympic boycott. And it proceeds to go
on for over 6 minutes of heartfelt monotonous Limahlian glory!
At the very least, it's quite a change of pace for Lal Lal
Lal.....no mention of it over at Volcanic
Tongue yet....
LIL
POCKETKNIFE/BARR split 7-inch (DEATHBOMB
ARC)
 (The
following contains some hyperbole and inaccuracy, but it is
at least 15-20% true, and that's the part I want you to focus
on.) L.A. keeps on blowin' up -- the DIY music scene down
in that massive multicultural place has been crazy for decades
now, carrying on from the general Sunset Strip acid madness
of the 1960s through the Los Angeles Free Music Society of
the 1970s and SST Records et al of the 1980s right into the
crazy-quilt multicolored mutant-virus youth-spawned non-stop
candy-coated noise-junked punk-rock beach-blasting they've
got going on there right now today. The 1990s were kept alive,
for me, by The Uphill Gardeners, the Polar Goldie Cats, W.I.N.
Records, Blackbean & Placenta Tape Club, and various weird
post-SST-related rumblings. And so far, the 2000's are just
BLOWING UP, with post-B&PTC conspiracies like Deathbomb
Arc and Not Not Fun looking like the real labels to watch.
I'm not saying that it's all my cup of tea, because not all
the bands in action are escaping a certain fairly fashionable
dance-punk zeitgeist, but let me tell you, the LAFMS free/noise
aesthetic has PERMEATED the stuff these kids are doing, and
to see and hear the true WEIRD NOISE mixing with the ubiquitous
multi-generational taste-making influence that the underground
pop glam legacy of Rodney Bingenheimer still has on that entire
city is a bizarre and oft-beautiful thing. Maybe they don't
even really know about the LAFMS -- maybe they think they
got the noise/home-taper/folk-form influence from K Records
up there in Olympia and from Shrimper over there in the Inland
Empire, and they did, but what they don't know is that the
LAFMS aesthetic has actually been stored in the very smog
of Los Angeles, where it grows and spreads like a Hollywood
Hills wildfire, but invisibly. The people of L.A. just breathe
it right in, and it continues to infect thousands of children
born in the region today. All that said, this split between
Lil' Pocketknife and Barr doesn't exactly reflect my favorite
part of the L.A. scene. It's pretty corny, in fact, but in
true L.A. fashion it is not afraid of being corny, and these
three songs are still very appropriate and illustrative of
the sun-splashed anything-goes angst-joy of the region. Lil'
Pocketknife is a young female rapper who drops cute lyrics
over cute rinky-dink happy-Casio tracks. You can imagine,
a real new wave party posse for the '05. Now this Barr character,
I've heard him about three times now, and I'll admit that
I'm still a little annoyed by it, the whole nerdy thoughtful-guy-who-will-be-your-friend
poetry slam vibe, but I am starting to appreciate the go-go
rhythms of his song on here, and this time I actually am paying
attention to the lyrical content, and, you know, he's saying
some notable shit . . . . talking about what the crazy art-kids
in the midwest and the south are doing, he says, "That
stuff is just like so far advanced to me from anything coming
out in the entirety of the entire islands of Manhattan and
Brooklyn, not to be so judging, but to be truthful, so much
stuff just is not interesting. Look, you take the thousands
of kids all over America who are trying to figure out their
alienation, and then you pit them versus the super-inner cool
kids of the cool cool kids nation. How about I will take like
every single kid at home on the internet listening to the
most fucked-up computer music being part of culture, and using
it to make their friends psyched and they're loving it. There's
a bigger tiny picture, and I personally -- well, I'm feeling
it." And, more on that topic, "I truthfully believe
that all the Blink 182 kids and Mexican families at IKEAs
in L.A. County are just so much mellower than anyone at any
activity in the entirety of the entire East Coast at all."
Wow dude, California Love! Go IKEA! See, it's mad corny but
it's still a pretty interesting stream of thoughts. People
just don't say risky shit like this, unafraid of falling on
their face, in the East Coast/Midwest. Only in California.
"B is for political, A is for drums, R is for music,
R is for RIGHT NOW" to a nerdy go-go beat. It's cool,
it's like a zine. Speaking of which, I love the way the 7-inch
info is screenprinted right onto the plain sleeve and label.
VARIOUS
ARTISTS: L.A. Bands in 2004! 7-inch (DEATHBOMB
ARC)
 Here's
a four-song EP split between and "funded by" four
more bands from Los Angeles, with another awesome screen-printing
art-job. I'm surprised how much the first track, by Rainbow
Blanket, sounds like mid-period Dead C! A duet between total
machine destruction sounds and languorous guitar noise. Recorded
live at the "Lakewood Youth Center." Track two is
by Child Pornography -- first time I've actually heard this
band with the notorious name, even though I do have a copy
of their CD with the White Album-pisstake cover art, called
The Beatles. I still haven't listened to that, sheez.
Judging from their song on this 7-inch, they play hyper helium
dance-punk, as I suspected (or gleaned from a one-sheet).
And as far as the genre goes (not my favorite), it's pretty
damn good -- this track would cut through a lot of crap if
played on college radio. Side two: Rose For Bodhan are one
of the first bands I ever heard from this L.A. renaissance,
back in 1997 or so. They're a real ramshackle exuberant noise-pop
man/woman duo. Their double-CD from a couple years ago was
just too big for me, I couldn't find a way in, but they're
killer in small doses like this, especially with the intensely
sung subject matter of this wild-ass sex-love song called
"Fucko": "And porn love / is good love / for
those who wanna watch / you acting / so famous for me / and
this love, and this love, and this love... / POW! POW! we
rump so loud / the neighbors can't stand the sound! / and
if you please don't masturbate / and save it all for me /
(the mystery! the mystery!)....." Then the last song
is by The Sharp Ease, and it's a relatively straightforward
minimal spy/garage rocker that boasts a wonderful rock'n'roll
vocal performance by lead singer Paloma Parfrey. She's good!
And this 7-inch EP is a good survey of the Los Angeles avant-punk
scene!
MIGUEL
MENDEZ: Happy Birthday Asshole 7-inch (DEATHBOMB
ARC)
 Arrghh,
these L.A. jokers. Here's a 7-inch wrapped like a birthday
present, and you can't get it out to play it without tearing
up the wrapping paper! Or, if you want to maintain the package,
you have to very carefully untape the scotch tape that holds
it together and then carefully reseal it when you're done
listening. The only problem with this option, other than it
being mad anal, is that cat hair -- and worse depending on
how you're living -- might get under the scotch tape, and
after a few listens you'd have a pretty grody 7-inch. Gosh,
what am I gonna do? [Moments pass. And pass. A year goes
by.] Hey, I just used an exacto knife to slice open the
top so the record slides right out. I'm a genius! It takes
me over a year to finish a 7-inch roundup column, but I am
definitely a genius . . . . and right now I'm listening to
Miguel Mendez playing the Happy Birthday Asshole
title track, and this is a tricky record because the song
is presented like a song played at the wrong speed. It sounds
way too slow until about a minute in, when the real vocals
start and you realize you've been at the right speed all along.
It's a trick! These L.A. jokers . . . . . . Side two is a
song called "The World Wins (The Whirlwinds)," a
sun-dappled busy-strummed folk-pop song. Still very earnest
with pleasant melodies, and in fact maybe just a little too
Dan Fogelberg-friendly for today's legions of cracked-music
enthusiasts. But it is definitely sun-dappled, which is almost
always a good thing. A good 7-inch of very earnest pop that
is given at least some of that weird post-noise post-DIY treatment.
JACOB
SMIGEL: Lovers & Drunkards 7-inch (NOT
NOT FUN)
 Ah,
and speaking of that weird mix of Sebadoh, Dan Fogelberg,
and the LAFMS (last seen in the mid-90s from the classic Shrimper
label, also from Southern California), here's a singer-songwriter
7-inch from the Not Not Fun label. Now, this is a truly amazing
label representing today's L.A. renaissance, not just for
the music but also for the mind-boggling packaging. Every
single release is some wild never-before-thought-of combination
of non-traditional, hand-made, hand-painted, hand-drawn, hand-sewn,
spray-painted, silk-screened, and well cared for, and they
never do the same thing twice. There'll be more Not Not Fun
reviews sprinkled throughout this issue of Blastitude, but
go to their website
right now and see for yourself. And take this Jacob Smigel
7-inch as a current example: the cover is hand-colored with
what looks like a combo of crayons and markers, and even has
a credit in the lower left corner where it says "COLORED
BY: JACOB" and the "JACOB" is hand-written,
by Jacob Smigel himself, I'm assuming. I could also swear
that my copy has some small goddamn feathers stuck
in it, for real. (You can kind of see 'em in the picture,
just to the right of "COLORED BY: JACOB.") As for
the songs, I like side one, the title track, quite a bit for
its melancholy DIY feel, as well as its fairly ambitious DIY
drum-machine orchestration (the high sad piano tinkling is
especially nice, and I like the distorted drums that kick
in towards the end). Side two has a no-overdubs solo acoustic
riddle-song where a bunch of people's names are mentioned
and you have to find each one, and it also has a little answering
machine bit that is also going to be part of some "found
sound" comp that is also going on from this wildly prolific
and creative nexus. See what I mean, you need about 7 different
scorecards with these folks.....
THE
REBEL: Bums on a Rock 7-inch (FLITWICK
RECORDS); THE REBEL: Exciting New Venue For Soccer And
Execution Of Women EP 7-inch (SDZ
RECORDS)
 I
remember getting these in the mail, but I can't find the letter
that came with it. I know that The Rebel is a Country Teasers-related
project, and I'm pretty sure it's frontman B.R. Wallers' solo
guise. Sure sounds like it. The only reason I doubt myself
at all is that there's absolutely no credits on the sleeve.
(Lots of cool art though.) These tracks are like weirdo Teaser
demos, stitched together via the evil clink of rinky-dink
music-boxes, new wave keyboards, and dolorous misanthropic
songwriting spun from a roots guitar music basis. As with
any hybrid musical form, the quality of what comes out depends
less on the ingredients as it does on the person behind the
mix, and as always, The Rebel sounds almost totally fresh.
For another example, here's another 7-inch by him, recorded
in 2003, released by French label SDZ Records in 2004. More
exciting artwork, with a provocative title, eh? Any of you
misogynist armchair eugenicists out there perking up a bit?
The first song "Turtle v. Octopus" is a messy bad-ass
home-recorded groove-rocker that comes off really well --
all you The Band revivalists take note! (Not to mention Califone
buffs!) Side two starts with "Keith," a loud stomper
rocker with carnivalesque keyboard mayhem -- hell, sounds
like the full-band Teasers to me -- but track two "Spiderman
in the Flesh" is much sparser and weirder and home-tapey.
Fuck, everything from the big, messy, surrealistic, and mean
Teasers camp is good. (Also check that Live Album
they just put out on In
The Red, a totally dizzying art-raunch mix from about
29 different performances in 17 different cities....)
HEDGECREEP
7-inch (WRECKED 'EM);
THE CLUTTERS: Oh! 7-inch (WRECKED
'EM)
 Here's
a couple 7's from a Memphis, TN label called Wrecked 'Em Records.
Let's see, 'lo-fi' B&W artwork, trashy foot fetish cover
image, titles like "Punk Girl" and "Cop Song"
-- I think this is gonna be trash/garage/shit music of some
kind. Possibly in the tradition of Memphis's own The Oblivians
and The Reatards? We can hope . . . . (needle goes on record)
. . . . weeellll, it ain't bad, but it's not quite there.
There's a garage raunchiness to it, for sure, but the overall
root seems more metal/grunge/doom/stoner than blues/punk.
Reminds me of some of the more hairy touring acts back around
say 1993 that had a few early Sub Pop cassettes in the van
and flailed away at dropped-D tunings in college-town dive
bars, never to be heard from again. (Oh yeah, you bet they
wore flannel.)  The
other 7-inch from Wrecked 'Em is by The Clutters, a trio from
Nashville that are a little more blues/punk than Hedgecreep.
There's also a picture on the inside of The Clutters playing
live at Nashville's legendary music dive Springwater -- nice
to see all the fringe/tassel again. They do 5 quick songs
which are neither that bad nor that great. They do play well
and don't get me wrong, some ass is kicked. If you were listening
to nothing but the piped-in music in a Wal-Mart all day, this
would sound pretty great, but if you were listening to the
(aforementioned) Reatards all day, this would barely register.
"Crack Your Heart" ain't too bad with its scratchy
"Hand Jive" rhythm, and the last song is interesting
because it's a cover of Neil Young's "Are You Ready For
The Country" that speeds up the tempo as if trying to
exorcise the marijuana influence. They make a good effort,
as does Wrecked 'Em -- these 7-inches certainly aren't bad,
and I'd really like to hear the Angel Sluts "Hot Teen
Action" 7-inch!
DONNA
SUMMER: "Last Dance" b/w "With Your Love"
7-inch (CASABLANCA)
 Waitaminnit,
how did this get in here?! Donna Summer?! Let the rumor mills
start cranking: "Larry Dolman -- is he black or white?
Is he straight or gay? Con-tro-ver-sy!" Okay,
I'll tell the whole story, I was watching some Warhol doc
a while back and the backing music under all the talking heads
was a very nice melange of 1970s urban pop music. At one point
this semi-forgotten Donna Summer hit (from the Thank God
It's Friday soundtrack, it went #3 on the Billboard charts
in 1978) wove in and out of the mix. I remembered it from
my disco childhood, just barely, and hearing it again hit
me just right. I don't know, maybe it was the quaaludes. Or
the full polyester body suit I was wearing. From that night
on, if I was out on the town I would glance around for a copy
of it in the dollar bins. Saw a Donna Summer Greatest
Hits LP with the song on it, but it was marked at $7.99
-- no way. Finally, at Chicago's great gay-run secondhand
store Brown Elephant, I found this 45 RPM single for 25 cents.
Now there we go, that's within my budget! And yeah, it still
sounds as good as it did in the doc, a nice languorous dance
tune, with a fantasy-ballad cool-off intro. A lot of people
deride disco for it's mindlessness, and I can agree with that
in lots of cases -- but please remember to always listen close,
because sometimes what sounds like mindlessness is actually
heartfelt melancholy languor . . . . the B-side "With
Your Love" bites Bernie Worrell's funk-squiggles, but
the groove is fairly pedestrian. Moroder might not have been
producing at this point, but nonetheless her vocal is still
pretty decadently perfect. It's worth 25 cents, that's for
sure.....
JON
MUELLER: What's Lost Is Something Important. What's Found
Is Something Not Revealed CD (CROUTON
MUSIC)
 Waitaminnit,
how did this get in here?? This isn't even a 7-inch, it's
a damn CD packaged in a 7-inch sleeve! All this time I thought
it was a 7-inch . . . well, guess I'll go ahead and review
it, and put it in this column just for fun . . . . I hope
I can take this much time out of my busy schedule, sheez .
. . . . alright, it's a slow starter, not much happening yet
. . . . probably one of them 'ambient' CDs. Liners say "Play
at maximum volume in a large empty room." Wish I could,
wish I could, but there ain't no empty rooms in my three-room
apartment, believe me . . . . . . actually, even at medium
volume, this is starting to cook up a fine head of drone and
glow. Not bad at all -- yet another new one-person deep drone
LP, a phenomena that I go on about elsewhere in this issue
of Blastitude. Deep drone is everywhere these days, and welcome
too, and this is as good of an example as I've heard all issue.
Pretty artsy, this one, with that wordy title and austere
packaging, but still very killer when it gets down to the
sounds. And, get this, it's apparently a solo drum record
-- this guy is playing heavy composed/improvised sound-based
musique concrete deep drone on an acoustic drum kit?? About
6 minutes in, it actually starts to sound like a drum kit,
a heavily processed brush-stroke paradiddle from hell, but
I'm still confused -- is it acoustic, in which case it's amazing,
or is it processed, in which case it's killer? I can't decide,
but either way, kudos
to Mueller for making a good album.
SEXY
PRISON: "Bury My Heart At Vladivostock" b/w "Escape
From Dude Mountain" 7-inch (OMNIBUS
RECORDS)
 A
one-sided 7-inch with two songs. It's on clear vinyl, and
the flip side is a colorful silk-screened drawing. It's not
easy to tell who the band is (Sexy Prison) or what the songs
are ("Bury My Heart At Vladivostock" and "Escape
From Dude Mountain"), but the insert card does have a
drawing of an erect penis on it. As for the music, it's pretty
damn good -- sounds a little like Nate Young of Wolf Eyes
singing and jamming with one of those campy angry German new
wave synth industrial bands from the early 1980s. (See the
great CD, just released on C.I.P.,
of music from 1981 by German group Alu. Sexy Prison reminds
me of them!) Which is to say, pretty raucous. I mean, these
guys really do know how to blast out and lay waste to their
own dorky new wave grooves. Real good singing and screaming
with attention paid to careful tension and release, especially
on the second track "Escape From Dude Mountain."
They're from Sacramento.
THE
AMOEBA MEN: Enter: The Amoeba Men 7-inch (C.N.P.
RECORDS)
 Oh
boy, just got this in the mail, the same day I'm going to
press, so I'll squeeze it in. Never heard of 'em, needle on
the record......and GO. This is a band from Richmond, Virginia
that plays in a neo no wave style, by which I mean, you know,
energetic disco rhythms, angular staccato trebly guitar, sped-up
monster movie basslines played on keyboard, yelpy vocals,
the possibility of being described as "dance punk,"
etc. The first song is called "Shit Tubes," which
I like as a title, and it's a pretty good song too. Side two
is a style-shift, a slow twangy weird-noir number with vocals
almost as absurdly tremeloed as Gibby's were on the "Hurdy
Gurdy Man" cover. They're pretty good at both styles
but it also leaves the impression that they're kind of new
and still not sure what they're going to develop into as a
band. The slow thing on Side B is more interesting, but that's
also my own personal preference speaking because one, I love
tremeloed vocals, and two, I've really gotten tired of yelpy
agitated dancey punk wave bands (unless they're from L.A.
or Portland, I don't know what it is). But this is not a bad
band and any of the three songs would sound fine on college
rock radio.
|
These
youngsters already get bad reviews for their touring protocol
-- in the words of Roger Rimada (Bananafish #18), "I'm
just gonna say that brass knuckles are for pussies.
If you're gonna talk shit and you wanna fight 'cause you write
songs about your mommy, then be a man about it. Don't bust
out with whack shit like brass knuckles." And, I always
resisted them anyway, because I thought they were a little
late on the whole "intense power duo" thing, but
Side A of this thinger is a pleasant little melancholy melodic
new-wave ditty, largely keyboard-driven, but underpinned with
a heavy distorto guitar (or bass) base. It really might indeed
be about his mommy, but I like it. Side B has two songs, and
whaddayaknow, they're also melancholy melodic new-wave numbers
-- weird, this seems to be a new style for them and, mommy
or not, it suits them better than the "intense dark screamo"
did or whatever that was. (Actually, the second track on side
two doesn't really count as a song -- it could be a fine song,
but as it stands it's just a short instrumental sketch that
peters out after a minute or two.) Who knew, this is a fine
record, and I'll play it on my radio show. 
I
certainly know of this band but this is one of the few times
I've ever actually heard 'em. This 7-inch has about 7 tracks,
which officially makes it an EP. They're really short tracks,
but it's still an EP. The title track is a weird little stomper
. . . on one hand sounds like someone making fun of the imitation-Partch
pirate-dwarf percussion arrangements by mid-period Tom Waits,
but it's a little heavier and more electronically fupped than
that. And the vocals are wicked. In fact, all of these tracks
are weird, short, very strange vocally, and filled with interesting
sonics, but also (intentionally?) underwhelming in a rough-sketch
kind of way . . . I feel like I'm listening to Caroliner rehearsal
tapes. Side 2 does up the anti-ante, with a funky spoken intro:
"If ah had Charley's pride and Johnny's caaash...."
These guys are from Georgia, after all . . . and side 2 goes
on to get into a slammin' dance riff that ain't Caroliner
at all, and winds down with some sublime ghostly Southern-fried
acapella singing! I've been boondoggled! 
That
would be Kevin Corcoran from Antennas Erupt and Chad Stockdale
from sax & drums duo Klondike & York. This unit called
Kevin & Chad is also a sax & drums duo, but one whose
mission is to "make a hardcore record but through free
jazz idioms." That's funny, I think both of the bands
they're in already kinda do that, but granted, not with the
blistering turn-it-up-to-111 ferocity evinced by this 7-inch.
The sax runs through a rat pedal and is just full-on scream-bellow-spazz-guts,
while the drums are a particularly monstrous roiling torrent.
Plus: happening yellow vinyl and transparent cover art. 
Gloopy
solo video-game squelcho sounds babble over under sideways
down. Weird! Gassy! Short! Obnoxious! Conlon Nancarrow gives
his four-year-old nephew a rewired plastic casio toy-guitar
for his birthday and son gets FREE. Maybe that's him on the
cover. Vinyl color? Totally white. 
Scrappy
little pub-beat PA offering from a Philly band and Scranton
label. "Seeing Suzy": mod pill R&B with clean
guitars whacking out 7th chords and great spastic drum turnarounds.
"Going Gone": Starts with acapella "hey hey"
chant, and comes in with a riff that is almost from "Last
Train to Clarksville" and/or Ted Nugent's "Just
What The Doctor Ordered." This is even more adept 60s
worship than the first song but the songwriting isn't quite
as tight, whatever that means. They seem like a good band,
frenetic, loose & gawky, which is just how I like my white-kid
mocker R&B, except that I really do try hard not to listen
to bands who wear matching business suits and formed in any
(of the 38) year(s) after 1966. The tension is marginally
exquisite . . . . 
For some reason I was kind of scared of this one. Something
about the spartan cover, I don't why, I thought it was gonna
be some insanely evil Whitehouse type shit. It is indeed kinda
mean, but I was totally wrong, it's positively poppy compared
to the evil I feared. "Killers": Synth-rock with
grinding rhythm section and hooky/aggro guitar stabs, topped
by the essential 'echo-y' female vocals. She seems to be repeating
"I can't let you kill myself" (or maybe it's "my
soul" or even "my son") which I find intriguing.
B-side "Vice" is a nice little two-minute moody
darkpop instrumental, and there is indeed something in its
simple repeated figures that seems to be about certain of
the title subject's side effects, such as diminished returns,
and a resigned and defeated nostalgia for an allure that turned
out to be very short-lived. 
I
don't even know what this is yet, and I don't remember where
it came from. It's got that same font that was used on the
recent Crystal Fantasy split 10-inch (with Hair Police), so
maybe this is another release from that label, Liquid Death/Hello
Pussy Records . . . . alright, open it up and it's a riot
of new psychedelic quease-art, just the kind of thing the
LD/HP empire always goes all-out on, sick-screened cloth-like
die-cut cover folding out into B&W churning water set
off by clear vinyl that reveals the back half of a radiant
scorpion silk-screened and splashing in a way that is suitably
Panteresque. Um, okay, I still don't know who this is, except
one of the record labels (no A side or B side marking either
-- even the runoff grooves are completely blank) says "SMF"
many times, and it appears to come with a . . . CD? Yep, what
the scorpion is silkscreened onto is one of those pull-tab
envelope things which usually house CDs. This art is great!
I've been hornswoggled! Now I have to review a CD on top of
a 7-inch! This is gonna take forever . . . . 
Okay,
now I'll get the CD out -- I guess I just have to tear this
thing open -- won't that hurt the resale value?? Actually,
it will tear a nice chunk right out of the back-side of this
silkscreen scorpion, which is a shame, because it's a pretty
swank painting. Oh man, the CD doesn't have any info either
-- just more silk-screen psychedelic ritalin art. I guess
I'll never learn how these people spell their name -- on the
cover, as best as I can decipher the font, it actually looks
like Stareo Mhuthaphukkas! [sic] I search for that on google
and get nothing (no surprise), then I search "Stereo
Motherfuckers" and only get three results, #2 and #3
just accidental phrases from message boards like "get
your hands off my stereo motherfuckers," but result #1
is from the shows page on the Mae Shi website, and it reveals
that on August 16, 2003, the Mae Shi played a show "w/
Experimental Dental School, Vholtz, Stereo Motherfuckers
and Child Pornography at Grandma's House in Oakland (all ages,
super cheap)." [Emphasis added.] Again, I don't remember
when or from where I got this record in the mail -- that show
is all I know about 'em, if that's even them. (Oops, I forgot
to listen to the CD!) 