The Johnny Ill Band on Dusty Medical Records

It happens to the best of kids. They start off innocent and sincere. Ignorant of hardships they write and play hilarious, laid back jangly tunes in a hexagonal lodge with some cocktails. Soon that cruel unforgiving world they have to fight every day turns them into hard ass men who purchase distortion pedals and play faster and harder with a mean edge. The lodge becoming a distant memory and the pleasant cocktails replaced with shots of whiskey. This is the story of the latest single on Dusty Medical Records from The Johnny Ill Band.

Johnny is back on the scene with A-Side’s "Post Office" coming on psychedelic with this swirly synth opening, the modulation wheel used and broken. Damn this is going heavy and Johnny pulled out distortion on vocals. Anrgy Johnny, I know missing a lot of the lyric about going to the post office but it’s about getting emotional here. There's a theatrical, massive sound to this, the keys are hard and heavy, things are gated, jagged post rock riffs are tossed in, untill they hit that verse to ROCK. Bare bones guitars have been replaced with lots of rock, faster and heavier. You get what he's saying now? This isn't a joke man.
B-Side isn’t getting softer either with "Mark is in the car with my Dad". Rolling those toms hitting them into that surf sound with reverb an almost jamaican dub sound bouncing into the this one. Johnny got that distortion still, that punk and delay on “Did he have a moustache or did he have a beard beard beard?” That fantastic lyric writing is back, this is a reggae dub dream about (I'm guessing), about being high and your friends dad having to drive you home. The way this is so freaking heavy and serious and Johnny says “Can you give this book back to him?” It’s like some kind of trick. Is he still nice? Seriuosly committing to this 1000 mile stare of a track that has a Cramps reverb garage from psychedelic hell. Shakers, all kinds of layeres of keys, building to this massive peak that's going to fall, I don't know how we even ended up here. I just needed a ride home and it went all Fear and Loathing on me. The lizards on the rug are eating my shoes. I'm going to reach over and make us crash. They’re all grown up.

Get this one from Dusty Medical Records.

Bazooka on Dusty Medical Records

I've been staring at that cover from Bazooka for at least a week on my desk now trying to imagine what kind of sounds were going to come out of this one. Crazy electronics? A bashy experimental duo? Neither actually, more of a polished pop punk sound from Josh Macero (Thomas Function) and Raidy Hodges (Amber Alerts, Church of My Love, Really Loud Hamburgers)...that figures, I'm hearing a lot of that spiced up punchy punk from that old single on Tic Tac Totally. I guess that means Thomas and Amber Alerts are retired? Well it was time to move on to Bazooka I guess, those riffs need a new home.

A-Side "Jupiter" sounds like these two chose the drum and bass as their weapons of choice and deliver a Devo sounding kind of nerd rock. The same kind of surprised talking delivery, with a lot of straight ahead rock in here. Big stomp, cave man style 4/4 beat at first, kick and tambourine, getting ballsy right away but keeping it simple.
A song about the actual planet, perfect for this vocal delivery. Going for big and catchy with lots of chorus arrangement. If you aren't looking for it, it sounds to start like that Cheap Time, Jeff Novak kind of melodic punk, maybe because it's made up of such few elements. You have to go for that big interesting melody because there's not much to work with. Make a big impression, direct the rhythm, not much to fall back on so it better deliver.

B-Side's "Back to you" then goes for a weird country-folk sound, a jangly acoustic rolling along that gradually gets more and more organized. A big sing-a-long chorus of na na na's. It's even a little bit Dylan in this unexpected vocal, maybe making this deliberately more rooted in everyday, he's a real guy, and I'll take this over any kind of overproduced showing off any day of the week. A pleasant indie jam...now leave that poor chicken alone.

Get this one from Dusty Medical Records, this track isn't from the single, but it will give you an idea:

Red Mass on Dusty Medical Records

Got this one in from Dusty Medical Records from a band I've been slowly running into more and more lately, Red Mass. First they were a part of last years Hozac Hookup Klub series and then I spotted one on Mammoth Cave not long ago and then this one showed up in the mailbox from Dusty Medical...I almost entertained the idea there could be another Red Mass out there, and especially since this one sounded so different from the Klub release I heard, but then everything I'm reading about them talks about a huge rotating ensemble of members they have in this loose collective.
So I wasn't expecting this blasting out dirty garage power punk track....with all these possible members getting their tambourine solos, or backup vocals in there, I was imagining this ending up in a more experimental psych place. Not in the least, it's tight and peaking out all over the red, head banging and raw. Like this "To All the Good People" which has a layer of harsh crunch over broken speakers, and their pop hook compressed into a real smoker, bursting chords, the bass and drum section just trying to keep up with a guitar centric garage rager. All full of that delayed distorted vocal, the band even drops out for a measure while Choyce sings "..to all my good people, No! You'll never gonna catch me alive!" He's sort of relating to 'the people' and then sounding like everyone's against him...that weirdo paranoia is coming across at an all out frantic pace, total rebel's in the school parking lot, you better get the fuck out of here, shit going down with the brickbats and chain spike things.

B-Sides's "The truth about Baby Jane" then applies this distorted collage of '50s garage loose jam to an acoustic handclap melody. This is where a larger group of the members got together to worship and ended up with some form of weird psych-sounding guitar which bursts into the scene during the chorus, a whole different animal. It's great for something more mellow like this to have that power punk to fall back on at a moments notice. There's a high pitch synth screeeeee over the oooo and ahh's, don't try to pin them down man, you're gonna get burned.
Now it's ramshackle vocals, smacking handclaps, warbling out and down vocals, a high reverb twang electric that rises out of this ultra slow phaser sound that eventually is joined by some static fuzz laser busting in on the left side, obliterating this folk campfire feel. This whole thing is slowly going to completely break. The truth about baby jane seems to be that she's about to lose it. Or she went nuts in some kind of drug freak out, or was abducted by aliens. Yep, That's the one.

Wacky old magazine collage art all over this sleeve, on black vinyl from Dusty Medical Records

Check out this sample from their Mammoth Cave single while yer at it: