Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Useless Eaters on Jeth Row Records


I search for everything Useless Eaters on google because whenever I think about the Agoraphobic single I have to make sure I've heard everything he's possibly put out. Malfunction is one of the best songs....the Goner single is maybe better then the Agoraphobic one? It's a hard choice.
That somehow led me to
this Useless Eaters auction via ebutt on a label I've never heard of: Jeth Row. I'm sure I would have remembered that awesome name if I came across before.
When I saw J Reatard play bass for Seth on the Shattered tour and it was completely unexpected and amazing...when you get blown away live like that it's going to get you tracking down every last release...even if that means tracking down loose leads like this one:
OUT NOW!!!!! Useless Eaters "panic attack b/w death view" 7" jeth-row records 013 paypal $6.50 to jethrowrecords(at)yahoo.com distros/stores get in touch for wholesale rates
Not a day goes by the paypal button goes unmolested.

'Panic Attack' is seriously buried in a sea of blown out punk instrumentation. He must record the vocals after the fact on these because they're so clear considering the condition of the rest of the sound. But then again if that's the case, it doesn't sound like it's separated out either. There's a great live sound to his work, you know it's not far from the live show, I think you really can hear the manic energy...it comes out in nearly every song as a stuttered chord change and brief complicated melody...with all kinds of effects scuzz layering everything. He liberally uses the phaser pedal which is an awesome direction for the punk...plate echo and phaser. It's so cold sounding it could be sort of a new wave punk, except the track steamrolls you the entire time.
Seth is really in love with a lot of weird afflictions...a lot of psychological issues, agoraphobia, panic attacks...reminds me of the Sebadoh dramamine track.

'Death View' is the B-Side...like Ty Segall, the texture and sound quality is a big part of the song but for me it's more making something out of nothing. There's hardly a chord change here...it's like the early days of punk, make the song about the rhythm, the structure of the song is paramount. The change of tempo, time signature, get these to be the focus, not the technical skill of playing notes...you can't compete...don't even try.

Go paypal Jeth...apparently there are some of these with R.I.P. Jay Reatard sleeves like the one pictured above? But you'll have to bid heavy on those.

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