Feelings on Urinal Cake Records

The best thing to listen to, the kind of songs that pick me up after a hell of a week with a rainy Friday are this sloppy, jangly, loud whatever-fi tracks from Detroit’s Feelings. A trio of brother Matt and Mark Mueller (from Gardens) and Mr. Italy Records himself Dave Buick came together a few years back now and only put out one other single on Beehive/Italy besides their latest on Urinal Cake.

A-Side’s "Fun With Mantras" has that jangle guitar and snarl from ‘Mat’ who can't be the only vocal on this Jacuzzi boys jumble with a rhythmic stutter and beefy laid back throwaway schwang from the guitar and a slappy tight snare. Sort of like an old Dead Milkmen track with Milk Music’s tough focus for a heavier sound. Sleeves ripped right off with a solo towards the end that changes the direction with an all chorus sound of Matt going berserk with echo and multiple clones. That snarl is wrestled down with the rest of the tone for the count. This stays right in that sweet reverb center of sunshiny fun loving summertime all the way until its last breath.

"Thumbs off” a Clean cover, has jittery more nervous chord bursts, Mat has the whole story reminding me of a Johnny Ill band style track until the gritty, thick distortion comes plowing in. A rowdy, slight country narrative track like "Bitchin Camaro". It blows up with his “sometimes I feel too much..." with a similar disarming honesty as Johnny in this hands off track. You’re on his side, following right along because they pan those veins of pure emotion with no censor. “Appliance" picks up the pace and drops the sunny outlook with ‘Mrk’ on drums following their stuttering perfect, three chord burst and whiny growl-yell of Bleach. These last two tracks practically run right into each other and by now they've passed on into full gravely guitars with a bending, warped distortion, hashing those chords out, the hum of cables intact.

Pick this up from the cake at the bottom of the urinal. Now the restroom smells like flowery bleachy piss! Thanks guys!

Gardens on Urinal Cake Records

Oh yea, Urinal Cake is back on the scene with this glow in the dark (!) single from Gardens which features and was recorded by Greg Ashley, who I was just looking into this morning and is a perfect match for the Gardens kind of loose psych sound they've been working with since 2007 so the experimental layered weirdness side of Greg is a no brainer.

"Days to Name" gets going with a hard rock driving beat like Nude Beach, with that same kind of blue collar, Springstein drawl over the jangly rapid fire strums. Just like the Beets or a heavy Replacement's vibe, going way back...all that straight up songwriting... all their hearts into it. The rest of the band comes in to join Jeffrey on vocals and they've got a crazy jumbly solo at the end... They aren't letting the guitar get away from them, vocally Jeffrey follows this line but basically they set up this jangle, ramshackle sound that has a lot to do with that Woods or The Mantles...not just any kind of echo psych, but the tacked together pop that has soul to it... maybe because it's laid bare, just naked. No pretense here and a little bit of a Dylan twang of a folk song here... but this is pure rock and roll from the alternative '80s or '90s too. A couple of guitars and a rolling beat, windows down. Stops on a dime. No fades.

"The Onion Peels of Honest John" is even looser still, the guitar has more distortion and flails around on this side, while Jeffrey uses a stacatto spoken word style of vocal with this puzzling garage sound that can't possibly be this catchy? A hint of The Johnny Ill band in its sparser parts. The raw distortion played with a baseball bat, strange keys that are toy piano style mashed, slightly off, sounding even like Jo Jack Talcum's monotone delivery... matter of fact, there's the rock, I can't explain this situation except to throw a little blues in here. Talking about this 'honest john', ring the tones out, jangle twang electric, glowy organ style behind this, vocal layered under a spring reverb, gorgeous surf sounds from inside this modern garage.

The vinyl glows, I even held it in a cupped in my hands like a weido, and it works. Greek cover of aliens picking up the world in a net, why not? Crazy sketch of Keith Richards on the back...I know it's him guys, it's definitely him! I know it!

Stop pissing on that Urinal Cake and order it.

Bad Indians - Sun People EP on Urinal Cake Records

Urinal Cake is back with a single this time from a five piece out of the Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti area, Bad Indians. Trading off vocals and instruments across the four tracks, they work in a loose, throwback '60s garage revival style that's closely related to another band on the label, The Johnny Ill Band and their straight, sincere sounding approach to rock.

A-Side's "Sun People" starts out with a duo of minimal electric melodies and Ian takes on the vocal under a garage reverb delay. It's all raw sounding, the instrumentation deliberately laid back, strumming away just out of sync, the drum rhythm wanders between snare and tom and a jazzy high hat beat. Ian sings about a mythical group and their surroundings, in a kind of naturalistic surf without a wave for miles. A cavernous pop feel, like Radar Eyes with that West Coast lazy Nodzzz vibe, appearing out of the haze with a psych edge, smoothing it out with their own unpolished accessibility.
"If I Had the Chance" brings in Autumn on etherial, breathy vocals over a light organ melody and rhythm that quickly speeds things up for the chorus and continues teetering between these two poppy sides of this sort of yearning. A more measured introspective approach until you just can't take it anymore and get to how you really feel when that doesn't work. It's got all of the charm and craft of that garage pop homage sound the likes of Frankie Rose and the Crystal Stilts. They finally take this all the way down to the slowest possible tempo, to bring it back faster and faster with Autumn finally giving in completely, singing "I need my baby!".
B-Side's "Hate" features Morgan on vocals and this one has a bigger epic psych feel, with a heavy organ line and that caveman tom beat. Morgan's vocals are deeper back in this mix, it's a plodding, surefooted sound with electric distorted wanderings screeching in the distance. A little darker sounding with big harmonies from everyone involved in this blinders-on track, just as loose as the A-Side but steadfast and devoted to the main line. The way that Tim Cohen summons a pop sound right out of the cloudy haze, breaking that horse. "The Other Side" cranks things up with Jules now on vocals, all toms this time with a tight phase all over the guitars, he's more energetic, delivering higher register bursts on The Make-Up updated psych sound. There's still plenty of room in the huge space they create for distorted solos and crashing cymbals to take this out.

It's impressive to hear an entire band not tied to any predetermined place in it, all these influences are closely related and yet you come off with an entirely different slant on any given track. The overall path to the sound is clear, but who exactly is going to execute it is a surprise and you half expect in a couple years they will have disbanded to all form their own side projects because it's almost mean to keep all this talent together for yourself.

Get one of the first hundred of these on clear blue vinyl from Urinal Cake Records.

K9 Sniffies on Urinal Cake Records

Got a new one in today from Urinal Cake Records who put out that great Johnny Ill Band full length a while back, and with this one, UC seems to be extending it's scuzz rock reach out from Detroit to Ann Arbor, Michigan to snare the dirty, massive psych sound of K9 Sniffies.

"Rawsonville" the A-Side track comes on pounding heavy with a massive crashing rhythm that never lets up on the rolling tom fill to bashing cymbals beat...a thick blanket of distorted guitar lays in that solid foundation of fuzz and low levels of howling low end drone. Another track of lead blown out squealing scuzz handles the solo melodies between verses of gravelly bellows in a haze of a freak out cavern. This is out to overwhelm like the Mayyors at any volume, a dense wall of classic '70s metal sounds and the tight fist of Earth's scary drones. Unholy neverending blast of a hard living fueled furnace of hell. Way to open a single with a throbbing mass like this.
B-Side's "The Mask" blasts right into another rager, this time leaning towards that Cramps or Deadbolt evil, echo-y, biker chick charm, the vocals have a big echo on the howl. Something other than guitar providing the underlying rhythm like that dark carnival ride. But that could be the layers of guitars building up swaths of fuzz, completely in effects spazz mode, coming off with that high tremolo of a theremin for god's sake. They all bleed together, the metal, the muff, the overdrive...heavy repeated lines with a hell of a impenetrable sound.

Eleanor at Afraid of Daily Living blog and WCBN Ann Arbor has a great live set of these guys in the WCBN studio, and a great show in general I might add.....

On white vinyl with xerox insert and sweet, anti-design sleeve that says, we must ROCK and spend time on the music inside, not on our computers. From Urinal Cake Records.

Protomartyr on Urinal Cake Records

Styrofoam Drone and I are doubleteaming this release from Protomartyr today...it had to happen sooner or later. Urinal Cake sent me this crazy story about Bubba Helms, who's the kid holding the Detroit Tigers banner, he was just a guy looking for his sad 15 minutes, and got them when the Tigers won and his photo between burning cars in the middle of a riot happened to symbolize everything that was wrong with the Motor City. Bubba's no longer with us and perhaps is the protomartyr of Detroit, and here's his single.

The A-Side first track is titled "King Boots", the name of the dog that's Bubba's sidekick up there on the sleeve. The vocal is seriously sounding like the Replacements guy, that working class raspy grease rock, which makes sense being about this maniac who ended up in People Magazine for all the wrong reasons. All backed by just as beefy, grimy chords. Kevin from Tyvek is on one of the guitars, a bass heavy, dirty guitar and a higher straight electric comes in, with this swath of layered distortion cutting bigger and bigger, the crashing finale leading right into "Bubba Helms" which uses a classic rock Zepplin scale guitar riff. This has a cramps feel, that reckless '50s abandon and a lyric that's half singing. There's probably some sunglasses involved, Bubba wants to party like it's 1984 and this track builds to crazy speed, of course it's going to get out of control. You see that guy who says "I want to party"? He's not going to be the responsible one.

B-Side's track, "Cartier E.G.S." then gets into a stuttered, weirdo no wave sound, the drums and bass really taking over with bursts of high treble distortion, and a snare march. Completely original, sort of a funk roll rhythm, absolutely genius.
It's such a great track, you even want some synth? Of course...this is fancy shit. Cartier! Damn. Joe on vocal is getting all sultry, talking about these glasses
"from france land / made in italy / from a chinese family"...it's worldwide class. I will find them.
It's the slickest, most perfectly produced track about exactly the opposite of what it's talking about. These guys are blowing my mind.
They then blow this out after all the minimalism into a hazy slick mess, a completely catchy bassline with a great one note heavy solo, because less is more.
It's like the musical excess era of Duran Duran sailing those yachts, hungry like the wolf, doing coke below deck, and in today's cultural climate, completely irresponsible. In other words punk as hell.
Combine this with The Psychedelic Furs, The National, Editors, Interpol, I know that isn't going to make sense except they're emulating that kind of sunglasses at night sound, just so fucking cool, so that lyrically they turn the whole thing upside down.

I will find them / I will find them

Turn the city upside down for the sunglasses, literally....that's what he wants in this song. Psychadelic furs for the 1%. Everyone else will love just what a hit this is.
He sounds drunk. I love this song.

Can't make out what these words are in the gutter here...maybe it's italian?
First one hundred copies on hot pants pink the rest on black.
I like the arial font stickers used as a design, that always looks great. Put together on a desk, actual size.

Urinal Cake Records says:

AVAILABLE NOW!!!


PROTOMARTYR 7" "King Boots, Bubba Helms b/w Cartier E.G.S" 300 pressed, 100 on pink vinyl. First 20 mail orders on pink vinyl.


Paypal $6 USD to urinalcakerecords@gmail.com

The Johnny Ill Band on Italy records

When I caught these guys a few weeks back at Moon II, Johnny happened to have both of their previous singles with them, including this one on Italy Records, my crack research team was unable to find a discography but I'm guessing this was an early one from the rough garage fuzz covering this one, three tracks at 33 1/3 becuase you shouldn't rush Johnny, it's not a god damn race.

What we have on the A-Side, "Cars" is a more distorted, raw sounding JIB, almost psych haze layered feel with this big swirly guitar, Johnny is probably straight strumming away under this improv feedback. This chorus really gets sci-fi thanks to Pete and that Moog pitch wheel, with Johnny is deadpanning this vocal about cars.
Which reminds me of that Sidewalks single by Tyvek, in a couple of ways, this is dabbling in that same sound, Tyvek is probably a little more extreme in their scuzz, and the lyrics are way more buried, but not by much. And if you get down to the vocal, it's basically the same kind of delivery and even lyric. Tyvek is wondering about engineering a sidewalk and people walking around and here JIB is taking that same no bullshit approach to cars.
There is a huge conspiracy guys, these cars that everyone have... they're straight up killing people...now it's either that Johnny's talking about literally getting hit by them or just all the auxillary things that cars bring to society...you know the wars, the pollution. I wouldn't think that this has anything to do with their Detroit roots per se but then Italy Records put out those early White Stripes singles, which leads to "The Big Three Killed my Baby", so from the outside, those sorts of ideas might just be added to the water supply.
This chorus vocal is chopped into syllables connecting on the fast snare beat...there's that cool detached style of The Soft Pack, but still feeling like kind of a nerdy younger brother...they aren't going to ditch you somewhere after the show, they manage to keep things informal and just plain fun in spite of the inherent seriousness surrounding music, the kind of thing that comes with the business side of things, worried about the proper B-Side remixes and pitchfork coverage.

The B-Side, "Amphetamines" track is surprisingly slow, even for these guys, and especially for a song about speed...this must be on the downer side of the high. This one kind of erring on the punkier side of things, a little bit sloppy in that way that doesn't sound restrictively rehearsed with a warble of big synth bass tones. But hey...just because a song title is abut speed doesn't mean you have to go and obviously represent it in a song. It's going to be about someone who is on amphetamines. So they get this slower nervous kind of energy going, that paranoia, with deliberate, plucked chords, marionetted together and stiff. A rolling see saw rhythm, a single clink from a triangle ... in the end he always sounds hopeful, in spite of this unemotional delivery...there's no fucked up judgements or politics here, just calling it like he sees it.
"Tv Psychic" then, keeps Johnny's distant distorted vocal going, that shitty speaker coming off as more garage-y than usual.
When will the TV let you be psychic too? This time getting a little more abstract with what exactly he's talking about, almost back on Side A in a more pop psych land, with a nu wave stuttering....damn this could be a demo Devo track even, the back and forth clink of guitar sounds, a deliberate lockstep single note melody.

I really can't recommend that full length on Urinal Cake Records enough, still great weeks later, and you only have to flip it over like once every ten minutes.
Secret message in the gutter on this black vinyl, hand colored cars on the front of the sleeve! From Italy Records....$5 Bucks!

Sros Lords on Urinal Cake Records

Here's a single from a relatively new label out of Detroit (?) that not only went right after the Johnny Ill Band for their full length, but then I'm seeing they have a new Druid Perfume album coming? And this? Sros Lords? And is this glow in the dark vinyl? Holy Christ...does they have money to burn or what? The Johnny Ill full length is really great, been listening to that nonstop since catching them at Moon II.

The A-Side starts out with "Evil Spawn" and right off the bat you have a chorus of ugly messed up organ chords with a fuzzy, thin electric worked in there, plunging into a decidedly Sabbath riff. The thing I like about really fringe Death Metal is the inherent ridiculousness of it, I mean the more serious those guys get, the more awesome it is because I mean come on! No one actually is doing anything so god damn important here. It's nice to see guys like Sros Lords having fun so seriously...or not fun exactly, but love what they do. That's why I can really appreciate a band like this that's not even hiding it. Personal and the Pizzas or Hunx has the garage side of this kind of thing sewn up, but here's Sros Lords to step in and say, we're going to barely play a few of these chords. It sounds like they met in the cafeteria, this guy wrote some awesome lyrics about getting his dick bit off by some kind of insect terror and then they came up with an awesome name, plus a great sleeve of course.
By the way up and coming bands, the part about having a bunch of singles is, more opportunity for art...I mean remember those Jay Reatard singles? Not to mention the Final Solution stuff...forget the full length and in this case, these guys must have notebooks full of satanic sketches for a box full of singles.
I really want to believe these guys got together for a weekend and wrote these two songs, like this was some kind of challenge. I'm all for this kind of tomfoolery, it's got a sense of humor, not trying too hard, the organ and guitar and drums almost rehearsed too much in this case...it's a little too stiff...but this must have been the sober day after when they realized the stuff they recorded the night before was a complete mess.
Far off vocals, surprisingly no effects at all, a tiny distorted amp drives this distorted on the edge of stoner jam.
I used to love these guys that came up with the most ridiculous ideas for songs in the middle of the day, without even trying they wrote the best things about lunch ladies and peoples cars. If it wasn't creepy someone needs to find these stoner bands who aren't so god damn self aware...Sros Lords have all the time in the world to go carve pentagrams into school property.

B-Side, "The End", you can guess this is about the apocalypse, with a great use of a theremin? Or moog? and did I say great? I mean completely weird. You know that Tim and Eric electronic band on their DUUNGEON show? These guys could open for them. I believe it, this isn't a put on, it's primitive junk rock, a pile of ideas put together and they get infinitely more done than any other jerk going to work at their terrible cubicle everyday. This is the music for the 99%. Art brut metal.
There will be no test, everyone wil pass this one.

Be sure to check out the xerox liner note card with...guess what Tabs! Does this label demand how to for all their artists? I love it.
Lyrics that didn't make it to the final cut, a black inner sleeve and glow in the dark vinyl, listen to it, you don't even need to light candles. Is it radioactive? probably.

Get it from Urinal Cake Records.

Johnny Ill Band at Moon II • 1-27-12

Got a chance to catch Detroits, The Johnny Ill band at Moon II over on the Hasidic side of south Brooklyn Friday night, and ended up meeting one of the guys outside who helped to build out the raw space not more than 6 months ago. They've got a Silent Barn type space over there with a balcony and your choice of PBR or glasses of champagne....really keeping it classy.

When Johnny goes on tour, they have a lot of people and equipment to think about - the multiple levels of keyboard, two guitars and bass, and thank god for Paul's somewhat minimal drum kit because all of this already can't fit into one van. This has to be laid back bunch just getting off on playing these straightforward psych-pop observations, or they would have imploded miles and miles ago. It's also surprising that the deceptively minimal sound of "In the Wintertime", came out of this big band combination. They're really paying attention to the details, which don't ever overwhelm the songs, especially the two tiers of organ which Pete uses sparingly and keeps this well out of the usual raw garage sound which they otherwise are successfully going for.

I think Johnny's not trying to sell the performance, or this post-garage minimal feel....this isn't a crafted persona...and I mean that in great way. Like Wounded Lion, Johnny Ill Band is that combination of the mundane bits of life while turning it into a good time sounding party. They aren't afraid to possibly sound ridiculous and at the same time make this track about the future something you want to hear more than once. It's not as easy as it sounds to carry a song about living in the garage or hating the wintertime as obvious as these songs are. This is a sort of a reinterpretation of the slacker aesthetic in the '90s and, although this might sound like that on first listen, Johnny really cares about these mundane observations. It's not with a punk attitude when he's talking about posture, you should really try to do something about it.
This storytelling style delivery of Johnny is at it's best on "Used to be Confused" combining a solid bassline, thumping along kick beat, and stabs on the organ. Johnny is straightforward laying the lyric down, not too emotional, when he raises his voice on the end of a verse it's just to fake the enthusiasm. Let's not get carried away.



Their recordings are almost documenting the compulsion to create, and thank god Johnny is talented, and trying to temper some of this smarty pants instrumentation with an barely emotional vocal about his washing machine. When he sings about it being stolen because of where he lives, it's not with any kind of hatred, he isn't railing against injustice when he says he has to hide his things, it's just the way it is.
In winter, you can't play baseball, it's a fact.
It's done with this kind of naive openness, not the way some friends on facebook overshare their daily details, but in the way that he's really got a compelling personality that isn't trying to glamorize anything...it's almost a challenge for The Johnny Ill Band to see if they can pull this off musically. Matt and Cree have to come up with a little extra, the single note solo and the bassline hook is going to be brutal, just as raw as humanly possible. Pete on organ isn't going to ever overplay his hand, almost winding up into a windmill with the time he's got in between chords, a perfect compliment to these concrete personal details.

Johnny was nice enough to have copies of their amazing full length, Ask All the Doctors on Urinal Cake Records which I have been listening to nonstop, plus a couple of singles on Kaboodle Records and Italy Records. They've been flying under the radar for far too long for me and I got a chance to see Matt Larson from the B-Side in person and that was exciting.

They're currently on their way back to Detroit after wrapping up this mini-tour and I hope that the washing machine is fixed or at least not stolen because they've got some major laundry to do.