Little Queenie on Sweet Rot Records

Sweet Rot records has been up there in Vancouver putting out singles probably even before 7inches was just a twinkle in blogspot's eye...those early Blank-its singles....so great (I wonder what happened to those guys), they put out Dead Luke really early on, tons of Jeff Novak sort of more recently...basically it's a label consistently releasing stuff across the board from great bands...they've been around forever so they're doing something right in the pressing and relationship dept...so when I saw they put this single out from Little Queenie, it ended up first on the turntable.

This foursome, from Oakland, is the kind of party that isn't planned so much as ends up happening, there's no decorations...the beer is stolen or cheap and the lights are off. So off in fact that you may be closer to the A-Side then you think.
"Blackout" has split up the double bass section to either side of the stereo, big time split left and right both driving, that raw, metal string sound clanging off the pickups. This is in that tradition of TV party, they're making no secret about what's going on, it's Friday, drink some beer...try to overdo it. They've put together these inspirational lyrics and melodies since their show last weekend when they had a few too many and this is the result. But it's all soberingly clear, they've taken the time to make sure you really take in all the ways they are drinking. They found a few moments in the sweet spot of drunkenness to hammer out this tune. Icki has a talky, low register delivery, if you listen close you can almost hear the ghost of Kim Gordon singing along somewhere in there. Some new types of hiss and fuzz work their way in this sort of breakdown pause, a solo of punched in inspired static, but don't be fooled, the only experimentation happening here is with different types of booze.

The B-Side's "SS Shipwreck" is using that trademarked slightly distorted dual power bassline again, and Icki equals out the straight ahead driving force with a breathy talking vocals about his predicament at sea. Singing louder this time, trying to be heard above this rolling tom beat. It's a desparate kind of manic track with the narrator, the only member of the crew of SS Shipwreck, who's doing... not so great...he's making the best of it, but in the way that only lunatics try to talk them selves into things...in the corner of the padded room.

Two party punk tracks, they're having fun with this, friends who care more about hanging out than fighting about how loud to make the solo on the 4th layer of bass.

Nice heavy, thick textured sleeve with a one color screen on it, Roarshack cats and spades. As simple as that. Listen to the A-Side here. Pick it up from Sweet Rot...they still rely on the myspace and the hotmail address...PUNK!