In 2013 garage punk is defined by tracks no more than 3 minutes, some kind of distortion on all the instruments and / or vocals thanks to cranked inputs or shoddy production with a heavy focus on catchy melodies that can punch through the static and fuzz. Just want to make sure we’re all on the same page here with this split single from two Italian garage punk bands on the Bedo Record label. Italy is also home to Goodbye Boozy Records who were putting out Mikal Cronin /Ty Segall splits before either was a household name, or maybe a little band called Useless Eaters?! I know it’s a big place, but the garage punk has been known to take hold now and then, especially with these two, The Morbeats and Snooky’s.
The Morbeats track, "My girl dresses D&G" has the cavemen on this screened sleeve wearing fur coats, which takes a special kind of guy to even pull that off, (Joe Namath for example). That attitude led to these gritty confident layers of junk and scratchy sandpaper vocals, but it’s not the sound quality that you’ll get off on. It’s the energy they plow ahead with that drives this right into oblivion. Mitan’s got great vocals that force the rest of the band to yell long with him, come along for the party, they scream every verse. The rest of the band will follow. I love the way they blow right into these fizzing guitars and the title chorus “My girl is D&G!” I think they’re talking about Dolce and Gabbana, the designer or something, only dudes who pull off fur would even know about. They force speed into their pop structure with a ripping solo for a fun party rock that makes a concerted effort at this. They’ve obviously taken the time to perfect the craft side of a good time. Dropping out for a tom fill, everyone rocks that chorus again with spits and starts of distortion. They have a hell of a time drowning each other out and probably, if given another track, launching right into that too. When you build up this kind of energy, the single fails you in diminutive size because you need another track right away to keep this high instead of walking over and picking up the needle for another go around.
The Snookys side, "Don't Wanna Work" has a thicker sound with a snottier punk style (or lack of) but with higher production and sounding more pissed off than their buddies on the A-Side. They are too busy plying their pop instead of being out of control drunks who are going to trash the place. Everyone is singing along in the band, no call and response, just a solid choir wall of punk. The guitars take a measured line in various complex patterns of jittery rhythms. The ‘ba ba's’ of the chorus are some kind of Adam Widener manic, thick sound, coming from the four piece. It’s an abrupt ending about not wanting to work and they’ve already you've lost some credibility there, as this is a well crafted, worked to death track that doesn’t sound like a bunch of lazy bastards.
Hand stamped inner labels with crazy detailed multiple color screened cards glued to a paper bag sleeve, real nicely done, a piece that says as much as they can sound like out of control hyper pop messes, they keep it together where it counts.
Pick this up on Bedo Records bigcartel or Stencil Trash . It's going to be an import baby, ask your local distro to get it.
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