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"

My Head Is Just As Empty As Everyone Else's

I hadn't been to a D.I.Y. show in New Haven for some time now, or at least not since Popeye's closed, so it felt good to head down there last weekend and see some faces that I haven't seen in a while. The night got off to an amusing start when the lady who runs the clothing store that was downstairs from where the show was happening (756 Chapel St.) decided to give me a hard time just for sitting in one of her chairs. I guess she decided to stay open later, instead of closing at 7 like she normally does, and then she didn't like it when people started hanging out by the front of the store, waiting for the bands to start. I ended up walking back to my car and sitting there for half an hour listening to my Drunks With Guns tape, but it was still sorta funny.

The show was a blast once things got going, with each band bringing something different, which is generally sorta cool because it helps keep me awake. As I had mentioned, the space was a loft above a storefront, and the room itself had surprisingly decent sound, even if I found myself thinking that the vocals could've been turned up a lot more throughout the whole night... though I'm starting to figure out that most of the bands from around here don't like their vocals, anyway. Groomers is Tim from Dead Uncles' new side project, which someone had described to me earlier as being "like Estrogen Highs when they were still punk" (i.e. sloppy garage rock), and I can't really improve on that description. Right now their riffs are well ahead of their ability to play them, but they've definitely got some good songs. I'm hoping they stick it out and actually make a record someday, because I think it'll be worth it. Clockpunch is some Estrogen Highs guys playing oi!, or at least that's what I was expecting, although it turned out that their riffs are coming more from the Negative Approach/Blitz/oi-metal side of things than classic thuggish, chugging UK oi!. As a for instance, they did a cover of "Bloodstains" by Agent Orange, which fit in pretty well with the rest of what they were doing. Parasol, from Boston, are sorta Slumberland pop; their tape-- which I bought and listened to on the drive home-- is pretty good, but their drummer brings their live set up to the next level of rock, so I ended up liking their set a lot. They played one new song which was their best song by far, though I didn't catch the name of it.

Dead Uncles set was a total barn-burner, easily killing the last two times I saw them (at Whitney House with Boilerman and Popeye's Garage with The Shakes, which I'm noticing now I was too lazy to write about). They've expanded their set list to 9 or 10 songs now, and played at least 3 newer songs that I wasn't as familiar with. Sometimes when you see a band enough times it becomes easy to lose track of the specific things that drew you to them in the first place, but Dead Uncles definitely put a stake in the ground and re-established themselves with their set. Afterwards, everyone contined to hang around upstairs instead of taking off as soon as the last band ended, soaking up the buzz and stretching the night out a little more. I thought it was neat, so I stuck around and talked a bit too, because I'm a social butterfly, just ask anyone.


Parasol, "4th of July"


Zone, "Deicide"


Dead Uncles, "Constant Disappointment"

I'm Running Out Of Comfort

Here's one from the glut that was serial label compilations back in the '90s (AmRep with "Dope Guns...", Trance Syndicate with "Love & Napalm", Toxic Shock with "Noise from Nowhere", "Teriyaki Asthma" from C/Z, etc etc), with almost all of them having pretty much the same 50% suck ratio that this one does. The Jonestown song is actually a pretty darn good Didjits-style ripper, and is easily the best song on here, although the Gas Huffer song is some pretty decent snacks also. Things go downhill quickly after that, starting with Porn Orchard (who were from Atlanta) who really want to be Phantom Tollbooth so bad: "We'll try some tempo changes, work in some metal riffs, come on it'll be cool!" I actually saw Porn Orchard once, at The Anthrax in the '80s; I believe it was on a bill with Falling Stairs, who were buddies of mine. I ripped their song here just so I could laugh at it later, but I'm not going to post it. Same with Daddy Hate Box, which equals funky grunge-metal that completely sucks.

I even managed to own two copies of this record; the one I have on black vinyl was trimmed out-of-round, so there's a lump of extra vinyl sticking out on one side and the grooves go right to the outer edge on the other side. Luckily the copy I have on gold vinyl is okay, so that's the one I used for these rips.




Jonestown -

"Fuck Your High and Get You Up"

Gas Huffer -

"Hijacked"

I Can't Stay This Fucked Forever

I ended up getting to the Redscroll show late on Sunday and totally missed Curmudgeon, walking in at around 7:30 (!) just as they were finishing up their last song.... which means I ended up paying $5 just to see Al Borland play, which didn't bother me too much because I really like some of their songs, even though they have zero negative almost no stage presentation. It still ended up being worth the drive to Wallingford, since I found out about a couple of cool upcoming shows, bought the new Nazi Dust LP, and also bought a bunch merch from Curmudgeon and We Rise, including this Shaved Christ demo which came out last May or something. I ended up listening to the Shaved Christ tape almost the whole ride home, because it's pretty friggin' choice -- sorta like a cross between Double Negative and Confines, with some extra Void-ness in the tempo changes and so forth. You can find about half the songs from the demo on their bandcamp (shavedchrist.bandcamp.com), but they didn't put any of the ones that I liked the most, so "In Time" is my own cassette rip and thus doesn't sound as sharp as the other two songs that I've posted with it. It's supposed to be punk rock, jeezus. I'm still trying to figure out who the band is on the cover-- it almost looks like it could be Kiss, but I can't really tell. Watch, someone's probably gonna leave a comment saying who it is and make me look stupid.


Shaved Christ -

"In Time"

"Ages of Man"

"Bury It"

There's No Freedom When They Break Down Your Door

MRR ran an interview with Bloodkrow Butcher last month and happened to use one of my photos for it (the tiny one up in the top corner there, big deal). There's a new Bloodkrow Butcher 7" out now on Total Fucker, here's a track from it:


Bloodkrow Butcher -

"Tribes of Survivors"