If The World Didn't Suck We'd All Fall Off

Issue #5 of Incremental Decrepitude out now

Mountain Movers interview (from 2016), the usual photos and reviews,
and a "Favorite Bands" feature on Breaking Circus


18 pages, 8-1/2" x 11", corner-stapled

PayPal your address and $1.68 (as "family") to rock_in_my_shoe @ yahoo.com
or, if you're not a peckerwood, you can ask for a free copy
in person if you see me at a show or something sold out

I've also posted some for sale on the Cheat Prick Tapes store (cheatprick.storenvy.com),
along with some back-issue copies of Inc Dec #3 from 2014, although Storenvy will
add another fee to your order which is kinda sucky.

It's Not A Crutch, It's Like A Step I Didn't See

Seeing the Mountain Movers last night was almost like watching two different bands, since their first two songs started out kinda jangly and mellow (my spell check doesn't like 'jangly', fuck off) and then they revved things up by the middle of their set, finishing off with a totally chaotic version of "I Watch The Sea" with noise bleeding in and out of yr ears and stuff. I was actually blocking Joe's video camera for the first two songs (stupid me), though luckily I got out of the way of the camera soon enough for a new song, "Dead Tomorrow", which was total power pop, hardly anything like any Mountain Movers song I've ever heard before (although some of the stuff on the "Come In"/"Get Out" cassettes sounds like GBV, I'll give them that). I know that none of you ever listen to me, but this was probably the best new song I've heard a CT band play all year, so hopefully that one shows up on YouTube. Then you'll also get Dan explaining what some of the artwork on the walls is about (rats being hypnotized or something), and it'll be a pretty neat thing. I also stumbled into picking up that A Burning Bus 7" that I've been trying to track down for a while, plus a bunch of '80s/'90s zeens like an old Flesh & Bones for a fucking buck plus a copy of BB Gun, which was Bob Bert's old zine and honestly kinda sucked but Bob's a good guy anyway and once described Liz Phair as "an over-hyped shit sandwich with stage fright", which, true or not, made me laugh hysterically the first time I read it.


The Mountain Movers, "We're Transcendent"



The Mountain Movers, "It's Just Summertime"



The Mountain Movers, "Willimantic Record Store"

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"

Too Many Free Beers

Sounds like Scat-era Guided By Voices cut with bleach/Puff Tube/Sockeye.
Friggin' awesome.

Buy this shitz ----> carcrashavoiders


The Mountain Movers -

"Too Many Free Beers"

I Want To Fall Apart

I never would've guessed that Saturday night's Estrogen Highs show was gonna leave me with a newly-minted impression of The Mountain Movers as a harshed-out rock outfit, yet that's pretty much what happened. It wasn't that The Mountain Movers' set itself was all that hellacious, although it was definitely more aggressive than I was used to hearing from them. Stripped down as a four piece, with Kryssi Colorguard adding weird skronking noises and stuff on second guitar and with the distortion level on Dan's guitar switched up to halfway at least, the songs had some added kick to them. Still, the pace was still languid enough to where the drummer, John, could play through most of one song with only one hand (I guess he'd dropped his stick) and still not really miss anything.

The surprise came at the end of the night, when I bought two new cassette EPs, "Come In" and "Get Out", to listen to in the car on the drive home. Dan's deceptively simple-but-elaborate way of putting songs together, with some added piano or horns placed here and there, gives a decidedly psychedelic rock/folk feel to The Mountain Movers' stuff-- or at least everything I've heard up until now. These tapes, on the other hand, are nothing like that. Recorded as raw demos to 8-track cassette, the songs are dirt-level garage thump at its most primitive, like Fireworks or Gories with even less of a budget. Guitars drone and shriek, drums fade in and out, Dan's voice sounds menacingly resigned, until eventually the wheels fall off with a couple of songs stopping dead altogether. The songs are still catchy, though, which is amazing. Really great stuff which I hope some people will make an effort to track down, although right now the tapes aren't up for sale on the Mountain Movers merch site (carcrashavoiders.tumblr.com), with "Come In" also being listed as a Jan. 2011 release so I guess it isn't even officially out yet.

Saturday's show was the release party for the new Estrogen Highs LP, "Friends and Relatives", which is out on Stefan's and Kryssi's new label, Gramery (grameryrecords.blogspot.com). I've only been able to give the a-side of the new LP a glancing run-through so far, so I won't even try to sum the whole album up yet, although it's apparent right away that "Friends and Relatives" covers a much wider territory than any Estrogen Highs release so far: pop stuff, rock stuff, even some outright noise. Their set on Saturday was another free-for-all, though it probably wasn't as erratic as I would've liked, or as terrible as they apparently thought it was (Stefan: "No matter what we do, you people keep standing there watching us. What's wrong with you?"). They played more than a few covers, most of which I forgot to remember, save for the Marshall Tucker one (again) and then "Echos Myron", which Stefan introduced by saying "all these other songs we've been butchering we've actually practiced before, but this next song we've never even played together once."

One of the covers they played the other night will be on their upcoming "Cycles" EP on Safety Meeting, which will fill in the answer of why I can't remember it; hopefully the EP will also have "Kings Run Errands For Me", a pretty awesome song which is on the Estrogen Highs' MySpace but isn't on the new LP. The Mountain Movers also have a new record out, a double LP (three-sided, actually) called "Apple Mountain". Of the tracks I've posted below, "Goodbye Human" is from "The Day Calls Out For You", another Mountain Movers LP which came out earlier in 2010, while the other two tracks are from the "Get Out" cassette. "Weed Queen", of course, is a vinyl rip from "Friends and Relatives".


Estrogen Highs -

"Weed Queen"

The Mountain Movers -

"Goodbye Human"

"I Had To Stay"

"I Watch The Sea"

Let's Try And Cheat Our Death

Bands play at the Daffodil Festival in Meriden every year, though they're usually just your standard local cover bands, plus every so often someone like The Reducers would sneak in. This year, though, a handful of credible indie bands played, including a few Safety Meeting bands who were given their own stage on Sunday (yup, that's today).

I know it's hard to tell by some of these photos-- which seem to depict the usual bleak New England winter scenery instead of anything resembling spring-- but it was actually 90 friggin' degrees today. The heat took enough out of me where I decided to skip the Box Elders show in Wallingford tonight, which I know I'll end up regretting later. Cherry St. kinda sucks, though, and anyway, I'll get another chance to catch up on my Medication fix (who're opening for Box Elders, along with Estrogen Highs) at the Crappy Dracula show next weekend.

I know I've said it before, but it would be hard for me to imagine a band like The Mountain Movers existing if Wilco hadn't been around first, though that's not necessarily a bad thing. They've added Crooked Hook's Joe Maddalena on guitar, which is great for the little psych freak-outs that populate most Mountain Movers songs. Their set seemed to be all at the same tempo from beginning to end, but "When The Sun Is White" sounded loud and glorious, and Dan Greene's unique singing style (which usually hits me like he's in the wrong key) was actually sort of cool this time. Plus his bone-dry stage patter was completely funny, even if it went over the heads of most of the people there.




Titles' "Up With The Sun" CD made it onto my Fake Best-Of list for 2008, and months later it still hasn't slid back at all with me yet. Sometimes there's nothing better than the warm sound of someone hitting guitar strings, and that's what Titles are all about to me-- plus, they write great songs. Seeing them today really underscored my impression that they're pretty much the best straight-up indie rock band (not lo-fi, not garage-- taking all of that out) that Connecticut has right now.

Titles -

"Coal Mine"

The Mountain Movers -

"Let's Open Up The Chest"

(these files are now listen-only)

Let's Be Defeatist Forever

I'm almost a year into this blog and I still haven't written about anything from Safety Meeting yet, which isn't from a total lack of effort on my part-- I've seen a few Safety Meeting bands (though none in '08, now that I think about it) and I've bought a bunch of Safety Meeting releases over the past few years. I haven't completely fallen asleep here, even if it looks like it.

In order to catch up, I'm going to (rather quickly) go through a few releases from what is probably the most high-profile indie rock label in Ct. right now. Don't let it seem from what I've selected here that the Safety Meeting roster is only made up of hipster-type indie rock stuff; with bands like Crooked Hook, The Vultures, and Humanoid, they know how to bring the heavy rock, also.




It's hard for me to imagine bands like The Mountain Movers existing if it wasn't for Wilco. That's not to say that The Mountain Movers sound exactly like Wilco or anything, just that they operate within a similar landscape, which is sorta laconic, stretched-out indie rock. "Let's Open Up The Chest" marks one of Safety Meeting's first releases since becoming a vinyl-only label, and no doubt this LP is a great package, with a full-color sleeve (painted by The Mountain Movers' Dan Greene), a nice heavy vinyl record alongside a CD-R, and a limited pressing of 300 that's supposed to be hand-numbered; my copy doesn't have a number on it, so I guess I'll never know. This is one of those albums that works awfully well once you've listened to the whole thing; I definitely didn't "get it" when all I had was a few songs on my mp3 player, so if the song below interests you at all, you should probably fire off an order for this thing.




The Mountain Movers -

"When The Sun Is White"

(this file is now listen-only)





This made my half-assed "best of 2008" list-- it's that friggin' good. If I had to draw a quick comparison I'd probably say that Titles sound like a more guitar-driven Nada Surf, but that just makes them sound like shit so forget I even mentioned it. I'd never seen Titles before I bought this (and still haven't), so I was amazed at how great this CD becomes the deeper you get into it; every song has something going for it. Titles are now three songs into their "Covers Project" (one new cover song per month, posted on their web site www.listentotitles.com), which so far they've covered Mazzy Star, Queen, and Danzig. Pretty rad, if you ask me.




Titles -

"Who's Disguise"

(this file is now listen-only)





When I bought this 7" picture disc at a show in '07, no way did I expect that you'd still be able to buy copies a year and a half later-- only a few hundred of these beauties were made and they should've sold out really quick. Yet you can still order this for $7, and it's definitely a nice thing to have. "Wait, I Don't Know" is one of my favorite Titles songs, though this one isn't a vinyl rip; it's a 224 kbps file that I got a while ago from the Safety Meeting web site. I still haven't actually played this pic disc yet, only taking it out of the sleeve once to take this picture of it.

Titles -

"Wait, I Don't Know"

(this file is now listen-only)





Weigh Down grew out Leaves of Lothlorien as well as Seagrave, an emo band from Wolcott whose 1998 four-song demo tape I still have (numbered 9/25!). I also still have a couple of earlier CDs back when they were somewhat more rock-oriented and called "The Weigh Down", having since dropped the "The" from their name. I was leaning towards posting "Bend Any Way You Can", one of the harder tracks from "Welcome To The Family Zoo", but I kept going back to "Michu Bean" because it's so irresistibly catchy and peppy. And I don't normally like peppy (hyper, maybe, but not peppy), but here's your freaking peppy anyway.




Weigh Down -

"Michu Bean (howdoyoudoit)"

(this file is now listen-only)