I Got Opinions, Dude

I know being up Australia's ass is the big thing right now (and for good reason), but if you're not always about buying American then you should know that Canada's been really killing it lately, also. Cold Warps were easily one of the best bands that I heard from Canada all last year, and someone finally took their two demo tapes (from '09 and '10) and pressed each of them onto their own side of a 12" 45. The worn-ass picture of pre-fringe-jacket Who on the sleeve is no joke; if you're into bands like Bad Sports and White Wires, and think maybe turning one of them out a bit more 'mod' sounds like a neat idea, then hearing Cold Warps for the first time oughta quickly have you doing backflips, or something. The two songs I've posted below are my own vinyl rips, but you can hear the rest of the songs (including their minimal-effort cover of Cheap Trick's "Southern Girls") on their bandcamp ---> coldwarps.bandcamp.com checkk ittt...




Cold Warps -

"Stupid Tattoos"

"Hole In My Head"

The Things That You Say Don't Mean Anything To Me

I haven't liked this single since the day I bought it, though whatever else Dentists-related that I've come across in the meantime is enough to give me an idea that The Dentists are probably better than your average British C86-styled band (they've got some really funny song titles, for instance). I pulled this out to listen to it again because I think this is what The Twerps are starting to sound like now, and I'm looking forward to seeing The Twerps at the end of next month, but I still don't really like this Dentists single, which means I'm kind of an idiot I guess. You'll note by the blurb on the back cover that this single was released simultaneously with two other records -- with the three of them being called "Speak No Evil", "Hear No Evil", and "See No Evil" -- which is such a cool idea that it's probably already time now for somebody else to rip it off.




The Dentists -

"All Coming Down"

"Outside Your Inside"

Nothing Can Save This Sinking Ship

I picked up this tape when Veterans and Vaccine played at Popeye's last year. Captives wasn't on the bill that night, but their singer was hanging out with Veterans on their tour, I guess because both bands are/were from Cincinnati. It took me about a month or two to figure out how good this tape is; I listened to it passively a couple of times when I first bought it, but then I popped it into the tape deck as I was taking a long drive up to a show in Massachussetts a while later, and that's when the mosh parts (excuse me, I guess you guys call them 'breakdowns' now) really started to sink in. These guys have some hellacious slow parts; not as good as Hoax or Natural Law, but still pretty good. If you were into the demo that Iron Hand put out in '08 then you'll probably like this, not that I'm saying that both bands sound alike, just that the Captives demo has the same sort of heaviness to it, especially that great almost-lo-fi, mic'ed-up-and-recorded-in-a-room sound that the Iron Hand demo has. The title track here, "Unspeakable Truths", even reminds me of Iron Hand's "Ode to No One". If you want to hear more than just the three tracks I've posted, you can download the whole thing for nothing at the band's web site, captivespunk.blogspot.com. This tape was already a year old when I first bought it so you're probably not gonna earn any Jerkbooth points for downloading it, but it's still a ripper in any case.


Captives -

"2012"

"Static"

"Sadness in The Streets"

Don't Ask Me What This Means

If there already wasn't enough of a reason to like Nobunny (you people DO like Nobunny, right?), his "Braceface" single from a couple of years back includes a cover of MOTO's "It Tastes Just Like a Milkshake", one of the greatest hits of the 20th century. The Nobunny version even improves on the original a little bit, adding a clever little bridge ("I wanna show you just how sweet it is....") as an extra change-up to the deal. Plus the "Braceface" sleeve is a takeoff on some Elton John record, though I'm at a loss to remember which one right now. Probably the one that has the duet with Fritz Peterson on it.




Nobunny -

"It Tastes Just Like a Milkshake"

We Look Good And We Get Shit Done

Every time I've gone to a show in New Haven lately I've gotten there way too early, so last night I took my time strolling towards the side door of Cafe Nine, figuring I'd take some time off the clock and save myself a few seconds of sitting around inside doing nothing. I was just about ready to hand the guy my six bucks to get in when I heard "This Town" coming through the window: Fuck! Medication's set had started already! I quickly spun around to head back to the car and and get my camera, no doubt looking like a complete spazz to the guy who was collecting the door money. I ended up catching maybe the last 4 or 5 songs of Medication's set, and they were hot as always -- their familiarity with their set list is starting to show through, lending a more laid-back "been there" feel to their delivery, which I kind of enjoyed. Watching Medication mostly involves standing there slack-jawed thinking, "gee, I can't believe I get to stand here and listen to all these great songs"... Woollen Kits went on second, and while this isn't something that I picked up on from listening to their songs at home-- I had to see them live to figure it out-- but, if I had my back to the stage and Stefan was doing the singing, I would've thought Estrogen Highs were playing. Both bands have the same sense of melody and use of repeating rhythms, meaning they both have that Modern Lovers "She Cracked" thing going on. I actually still haven't heard all but a couple songs of Woollen Kits' new LP, and then it turned out that they were all sold out of their copies as of a week ago, so I couldn't buy it last night anyway. They did bring a cassette with them though, a live tape that Fan Death put out, so I bought one of those (which is where the song I've posted below is from) and listened to it twice on the ride home. Woollen Kits are a really great band, with a fittingly odd charm about them-- I would love to see them a bunch more times if I could, except that, you know, they're from Australia... Mountain Movers continue to morph into a swaggering, unhinged, fuzzed-out rock band even further, doing whatever the fuck they want while embracing all of the messes they make. They were even asked to turn it down at one point last night, if you can believe that. They started off with something that I didn't recognize, a swampy blast of a verse and maybe a chorus and that was it-- 40 seconds into their set and the first song was already over. Awesome. They followed with a really out-there version of "I Watch The Sea", which they'd make really quiet before taking off into a brief patch of noise and then settling back down again, back and forth a few times, with Ross' drumming nearly leading the whole thing. Dan sang a ballad, something about the birds and winter, after which he announced another new song, which was both extended and heavy, and now Ross' drumming became even more noticeable... Dan's started doing this Elvis/Neil Diamond thing with his arm now during "World What World", it's actually kinda funny to watch. The Mountain Movers have just started putting out a series of new singles on their own Car Crash Avoiders label, you should check it out.


Woollen Kits -

"Cheryl"

Medication -

"Rise/Sink"

Mountain Movers -

"Stuck In My Mind"

I Don't Want To Be The One For You

Before becoming an emo label, Deep Elm started out in the mid-90's by shot-gunning indie rock 7"-ers like crazy-- eight or nine of them, all released within months of each other. The singles were pressed on heavy colored vinyl with nice full-color sleeves, but even with the label's DIY posturing and their declaration that "We make records, not product", it was hard to shake the notion that Deep Elm's sole intention was to snag the next Smashing Pumpkins or the next Spacehog or whatever. All of the bands on the label seemed to have more of a cultivated look or marketable angle to them, at least when compared to the line-up of your average underground/bedroom label at the time, and label head John Szuch was very careful to list himself as A&R on the back of each record, apparently hoping to cash-in if any major label talent scouts happened to come stumbling around. I actually really liked a couple of the early Deep Elm singles-- namely Muler and Nada Surf-- but most of the bands weren't all that interesting. It was all sorta symptomatic of how dumb most of the post-Nirvana '90s "indie" scene was, because of the money.

As for this Velour single, it's one of the ones that earned maybe one or two listens before being filed away permanently, although now that I listen to it again, I can at least say that it's got some guitars going for it. I mean, the lyrics are shitty and the snare sound kinda sucks, but other than that... it's not much worse than that last Supertouch 7". I wonder how many photo shoots it took for them to pick the right one?




Velour -

"Choice"

This Is Nothing That We Really Haven't Seen

I remember thinking "what the heck are these guys up to now?" when this record first came out, since the front cover photo is both totally brilliant and totally ridiculous-- not to mention the gatefold sleeve, which to that point was something that mostly only '70s rock stars got to have. There was always an implied amount of glam/camp in Death of Samantha's delivery, but even with keeping that in mind it's still hard to look at that cover without grinning (especially once you notice Steve-O's rinky-dink plastic trident from the budget costume shop).

There are days when I think that "Where The Women Wear The Glory and The Men Wear The Pants"-- taken from a line in "Lucky Dog"-- is Death of Samantha's best LP, but even on the days when it isn't ("Strungout on Jargon" is some tough competition), it's easily their hardest-rocking full length. There's any number of songs here that can kick you square in the balls, most notably "Good Friday", which about the closest D.O.S. ever came to outright metal. Still, it's not staunchly rock 'n roll all the way through; for example, the Doug Gillard-penned "That's All That Matters" and a cover of Peter Laughner's "Sylvia Plath" show some pretty good restraint. I won't bother posting any of the acoustic stuff now, though, since I know most of you don't have the attention span for it. I think a link to the entire album is still active on Panzan's Blog, if you want to hear the rest of the songs.

The clarinet/raw skronk found on a couple of D.O.S.'s earlier discs isn't as prevalent here (but not completely missing), although there's still some weirdo moments, like the car-honk "doo doo doo doo doo" backing vocals that all of a sudden pop up towards the end of "Savior City"; try not to laugh when you first hear them. Petkovic manages to toss out his usual fair share of lyrical references and one-liners, with my particular favorite being from "Staring Through It Now": "Hey, Mr. Has-Been/Your hair ain't as long as it used to be/Hey, David Crosby/Your brain is fried as it used to be". Anything that makes fun of hippies is okay in my book.




Death of Samantha -

"Harlequin Tragedy"

"Good Friday"

"Savior City"

"Staring Through It Now"

"Lucky Dog (Lost My Pride)"

I've Had About As Much As I Can Stand

The early Lime Spiders stuff is mostly unbeatable, even if afterwards they would settle into a string of "Slave Girl" rewrites... of which "Weirdo Libido" is definitely one, leaning on Mick Blood's "I know a girl who lives down the lane/She's got a curl that drives me insane" schtick ad infinitum. Otherwise, the one other original track on this EP, "Here With My Love", is an absolute keeper, as is the flipside: four slash-and-burn covers recorded live in 1985, including a 2-minute revved-up version of Love's "My Flash On You", which comes out sounding a bit like "Wango Tango".




Lime Spiders -

"Weirdo Libido"

"Here With My Love"

"I Was Alone"

"My Flash On You"

You Can Bet That It Wasn't Me

I'm not sure how much you can believe the back cover blurb-- "this leaves skid marks on all our other shit"-- still, this is still pretty rulin'... it's the Rip Offs, duh. Four songs from the Rip Offs' first recording, including one song that I don't think they ever re-recorded for anything else ("Hooked on Phonics"), although it's just a dumb pop-punk song that Jon Von (Mr. T Experience) wrote. This is the single that was supposedly boot-legged by one member of the band without the rest of the band knowing about it. I dunno, that's just a story I read.




The Rip Offs -

"Leave You Cold"

"I Can't Stop"

"Hooked on Phonics"

"Zodiac"