7Inches Podcast - Episode 14

Superbowl edition - 45 minutes of:

The Slint box set on Touch and Go, Gary Wrong / Wizzard Sleeve split on Batshit Records, Tele Novella on American Laundromat Records, sector zero, CJ Boyd on Joyful Noise, Peter Beste's Houston Rap Book, I hate the kids, Toy guitars melted into singles, Gramaphone lathe cutter toy?

Jason's single of the week - Cat Power "Nude as the News"

Darren picked Dwight Twilley Band - The Shark single on Hozac

Leave 7inches messages - (347) 770-1469

Radar Eyes self titled full length on Hozac Records

Hozac generously sent this full length in from Radar Eyes the other day along with their latest batch of singles which was a landmark event for 7Inches. If I could have imagined so many years ago I might one day be graced with the latest releases from Horizontal Action, I would have called you a damn liar and then have gone so far as to feel bad because I know it would never come true. The real crime is that 7inches has a limited budget and as much as we want to purchase every release from Hozac's catalog, it's literally impossible...I fall prey to picking up a lot of stuff I already know about, or save it all for singles. The point is I appreciate it when I can truly spend time with stuff like this and become a fan of someone that might have fallen through the cracks for me, simply because I pressed a different 'add to cart' button.

I understand the importance of the 13th Floor Elevators and Red Krayola but give me the solid thudding bass line under the hyper jangle Velvet Underground guitars of "Bear Bee", the first track on the B-side of this self titled album... that's really the defining sound for me. This contemporary iteration in the evolution of pop psych is better than that whole bunch. We all love those early records, they're classic and I've listened to them all half a million times. I'll always need to hear White Light White Heat, or Link Wray but Radar Eyes on this record are putting the two together in a close to perfect way. That isn't to say there's anything particularly groundbreaking... I just think that Anthony et al are able to piece together those references just right for a full album of balanced reverb'd guitars, hitting that sweet spot between the patience testing long jam and rolling groove. Here, the killer bass and fuzz driven rhythm is the force behind their palmed, scratchy rhythm of guitar, and it's referencing all the pop psych past while driving it straight ahead.

Overall there's a bouncing around, guitar reverb aesthetic on this record, with the genre defining tambourine and old organ grinding away. Energetically turning the waves of sound into a big dense pile...like the chorus guitar on "Prarie Puppies". They really pile on the layered Jesus and Mary Chain static from the distant distortion but you're still able to pick out hand packed single wavering, long strums. Radar keeps the melody forefront, it's after all brief pop with just enough fuzz and hiss in the guitar after all kinds of various distortions but punchy and pop is the goal, like on "Accident" which reminds me of the Fresh and Onlys brand of update to this sound. The pounding drone underneath, fleshing out a higher melody. Seeing that this was recorded and mixed by Anthony on lead guitar and vocals could be the most important liner note on the back spiral of lyrics and track titles. The band itself has complete control over this specific era, able to dial in exactly the right layers of dissonance. It's why Tim Cohen is the master of this kind of thing as well, you DIY all the way into that studio...not that they've even been a part of the lo-fi camp, just that you can be sure it isn't ever going to turn into King of the Beach or god forbid The Only Place.
The main thing is their frantic pounding rhythms that nod to the combination of shoegaze and psych repetition. Sudden drum changes and soaring notes working right through, while adding to the fog of sound and Anthony's massive cave echo in his vocal. "Secrets", the final track on the A-side, brings out a big fuzz bass foundation for this jangle electric... roughing out the framework for this thing. Atypically bassline driven with their particular static covering everything here especially the hissy percussion. Their rolling rhythm and slow mechanics in subtle electric picking builds on the primitive pop fuzz of the Vivian Girls....turning it into the long goodbye of the entire genre. Feedback's and solo's over the freight train and when it stops...all the high layers of effects come down to a single ringing bell.
There's a sort of nostalgia here that comes through even more on B-Side's "Disconnection", that golden age of a girl group tambourine band with laid back echo reverb from the Shangri-la's to the Ronettes. It's a sort of dread pop sound with clear dreamy vocals and a caveman tom heavy wail. Keep the tracks brief and melodic, bathed in haze. The more I hear them successfully picking up and carrying the psych torch, the more I realize they're even moving beyond their own early references and into something new.

This sleeve design seems to sum up this new school of garage psych, the paisley color pallet is muted with browns and blacks and hidden the flowery design is bottles of liquor and tiny rats.

Get this one from Hozac, it's one you'll keep coming back to and an impressive freaking first album.

Squish on Hozac Records hookup klub #24

Just finding out about this band, Squish, out of Chicago, they could be a three of four piece and are all punk. Messy, loose, garage feeling a lot like Midnight Snaxxx or Divorce!...just a collection of noise in rhythmic measure, with screamy/talky vocals. At the very least they're capturing a tiny bit of the energy of their live set, which I'm assuming is insane, but somehow they got wrangled into some kind of makeshift studio for these three tracks.

A-Side, "Shame Spiral" is full of that thin sounding rehearsal space sound, and a different side of the teen angst...you can choose to wallow in it, or get like these ladies and look at the brighter, joke side of things. Where other punk sounds push the limits of speed or unlistenable sound, indecipherable lyrics, Squish is playing on The Coathangers side of things, they're intending on having a good time and letting loose with the feedback.
Repeat shame spiral, over and over, sounding happy, bang on the shitty keys. It's a fine line to be loose and raw like this, not too much rehearsaing but still having at the core a good messed up fun song. Do they know how to play? That's like asking if Andy Warhol knew how to paint.

"Bee song" has a great shitty guitar sound buried under a bunch of layers of hiss, the feedback mic'd in the room is perfect. That staccatto punk lyric where nothing has to follow the melody, just a rawkus mess...like Don't touch my shit!. Barely held together with spit and duct tape, the melodies... and instruments. This guitar crunch is a little like the bzzzzzz from a thousand honeybees, the girls seem to be constantly wooo-ing in the background, filling up every possible spare space with that sense of abandon. Let's have a party.

B-Side is a cover, "Rabies is a killer" by Agony Bag. It's got that sound like it was thrown together in an afternoon, but not in the usual way. You have to sound like you can play, and pull it off without it feeling like you're talentless. No... they just aren't going to play every second according to some crazy schedule. They'll get together when they want, just chill out record company dudes. That's the sad part with a band like this because they genuinely feel like they want to just be in it for fun and have a natural togetherness, for them to ever be commercially successful and stick around would just suck all the life right out of this. It's a punk catch 22. Enjoy it while it lasts. I like to hear a band like this in it's infancy throwing out rules, and not giving a shit, doing their own thing.

Get it from Hozac's subscription Klub! Still open. You need another reason already?

This is an older cassette release but Shame Spiral is on the single:

Dan Melchior on Hozac Records Hookup Klub Yr 3

Honestly sometimes Hozac makes me think why would I think it's alright to press singles when there's a label like this putting together sleeves like Rayon Beach with Alex P Keaton in an emotional moment. There's no way they have clearance for that, it's so completely ballsy you know this is going for the tunes inside. I start to get ideas about instead of spending the money to press one seven inch I could just get the entire Hozac catalog and be set for music FOREVER! But it never ends, I'll never be satisfied.

Here we have the Hookup Klub Year 3 single from Mr Dan Melchior. He's another guy I've seen way to many releases about and for some reason just haven't gotten a chance to sit down and really figure out where he's coming from, and that's how the singles club is freaking essential every year. The bands I look back on in that series....I need to go reorganize that section of the shelves again. Everytime I go back to these I've changed, the bands have changed and it's a whole new thing having a history behind them a couple years later. Oh shit..these guys...wow.

A-Side, "Yachts" starts off with the sludgiest, slow trudging, mass of a bassline... quivering, and most definitely slowed down. This pounding beat is even taking forever, a high tinny electric melts the direct line right in, along with this big doubled vocal and echo in that straightforward delivery as far away from melodic singing as possible. By the time this lyric is even halfway finished it's hard to remember where it started. The sort of thing that might have been conceived of and played stone drunk, it has that lazy see saw rhythm losing it's balance for a second and then righting itself. All derived from that experimentation place, like an ancient soul sucking jerk Beck kind of bassline with this slow phaser strums punch in and out. A kind of anti-energy, trying to find out if this hyptnotic ultra slow bpm will eventually take over and drive itself. A weird futuristic soul, something of a looser Mattress, slide distortion that isn't going for any kind of recognizable melody instead reaching right into that pure psych space. There are trails all over this thing, dirty psych trails.

B-Side "Barry Mundane Has Plans" is a distant big chord strummer, an awful like the way Sebadoh would switch gears at the drop of a hat on an old cassette... leading or kind of emulating, starting at that point you sort of recognize, a faint '70s sound with a synth sound coming in loud and clear along with those vocals right into the mic this time, just as lazy and taking it's time, everything rhythming with that last verse word. Even a little Jeff Novak for a second, compared to that other side. A beefy serious landscape solo, so sincere and just over the top... I could see obsessing over this stuff, I definitely want to hear how a full length is going to play out to hear all the promise of the thousand directions Dan is willing to go at the drop of a hat, in the middle of the night, the home recording ROCK. Slowly punching in layers, but not to that textural breaking point. Just making the most out of these weird unused sound settings.

"Stig and the Queefs" is positively bustling, glasses klinking, it's almost a sketch song, some kind of punk band playing in the background, the whole scene of a shitty club present. (see where Dan is willing to go?) and these two guys are having this yelling over the music conversation about how awesome all this obscure shit is and how americans suck. A band within a band... a recording of going to see a band? Perfectly crazy and there's a million possibilities here. The conversation is douchy, this band sold out, and he mentions the Lime Spiders? I think he's making fun of this scene and at the same time, identifing with it. He knows enough to mention those guys....but then I guess I've heard of them too....shit Dan, that's fucked up.

Get in on that Hookup Klub or get it from Dan direct!

Slug Guts Strangling You too EP on Hozac hookup club

I've been meaning to check out that full length Howlin' Gang from Sacred Bones so this single from Hozac's hookup klub is the perfect introduction to the creepy garage rock of Brisbane, Australia's Slug Guts.
A-Sides "Strangling You Too" has a heavy wavering chorus guitar rhythm with some kind of synth keys over it, the vocals are big and echo'd back in the cave, yelling hoarse, coming across in this big creepy, last gasp sound. He's letting loose over a pop downer psych, it's an almost blues goth kind of sound, letting loose with a catchy catharsis that's drum mic'd big, as huge as the bounced back soundwaves will let them. Digging up those conventions while this vocal is taking it into an exhausting punk place. "Suckin Down" seems like just when they start out with a etherial sounding Cure rock this goes off on it's own growly Bauhaus, garage place. Agitated, he's always screaming in this echo mess of reverb.

B-Side's "Coathanger Blue" has a screechy reverb, tin electric tone clawing out a haunting melody and the vocals are delivered in that kind of detached, slow punk drawl. The guitar working behind him is sketching out the disjointed melody of the first verse before the whole thing comes together into this creepy sort of blues, blown out sound. It's a raw, gothy, Cramps aesthetic... laying it all out there. A free form jazz solo, coming off like that Cure Exploding Boy track, and he's really losing his mind over this decidedly dirty pile of weirdo surf.
Is this "Old Sores, New Boys" he's coming off again with his own unique howling blues garage style delivery, a sort of pleading Robert Smith with infintiely more energy, really... a release you can't ignore.

From the Hookup Klub, subscriptions still available.

Bare Mutants on Hozac Rcords

The mighty label HOZAC bestowed a pile of singles on the 7inches, and I am super excited to start working through them, starting with this one from Bare Mutants which features members of The Ponys, and The Mannequin Men among others. One of those groups I get a little jealous of, they've all been out there working for years through a bunch of bands and venues to get to this place. To come together for the precise purpose of making this dense, hazy distorted pop.

A-Side's "Without You" has a cavernous sound, a hint of delayed echo on a single snare hit, a slow deliberate organ grind against this sludgy beat, sounding simultaneously like the Jesus and Mary Chain and Joy Division's special wall of sound endgame. Jered's even got that Ian curtis kind of phrasing, a slow paced vocal with tiny flourishes at key monents, that deep baritone, turning into a psych laced post industrial punk. Slower guitar distortions emerge, taking their time. That repeated "Without You" is where I'm hearing that JD sound, like "Atmosphere" but this song eventually takes a faster '60s turn with a sped up kick/tom beat, all the sounds blasting together, layers and layers for a big finish, to maybe drop kick in the sadness, this is it... it's really over.

"Inside My Head" on the B-Side drops the weirdo feedback fading in, and a jangle electric starts up, a little bit sweeter this time. There's a big hit again, the sleighbell shake against that huge tom hit is just a great example of that classic psych sound, and the deep, distanced vocals, (a Sisters of Mercy thing?), the organ sound is instead a rhythm section, it's hardly moving, just this little electric phrase...they don't ever need to move fast. Just this slow, sludge, see saw of a track, tamboure hits until that Beach Fossils sounding chorus guitar comes in. They seem to have found that easy, laid back pop sound. This distortion synth is changing it though like the A-Side getting just a litte bit out of control. Bare Mutants are always leading right towards running off the cliff, bigger and louder than before. Oh yea we did it... and then stopped.

Look close at those heads behind that girl, real creepy.

ON HOZAC!

The Band in Heaven EP on Hozac Records

This one came in from a five piece out of Florida known as The Band in Heaven. This single was pressed on the tastemakers, Hozac records...who's always hard at getting the music out there, I'm still reeling from that Mickey full length and the Ketamines...a lot to catch up on as always. The Band in Heaven is probably still recovering from SXSW, but you can listen to them in your own livingroom thanks to 7 inch phonograph technology.

A-Side's "Sleazy Dreams" gets to work with a scuzzy, primitive stomp-beat and a distanced slight echo on the vocal, it's really humming along, dense as hell, coming off as a tight mechanical wave headed right for you. It's a kind of industrial, future primitive sound, ful of melted electronics sounds, but keeping up that speed and a manic vocal that steadily creeps along. A Sisters of Mercy dread and greaser sound, they aren't obviously dangerous... just coming for you little by little, revving up the chords... with leather.
"If you only knew", has a crazy loop of a sitar warped sound, lots of chime-y percussion, taking all kind of cues form psych and then adding a lot of contemporary elements and blasting it all through a tiny speaker in a tin shack, turned to 11. Hypnotic and classic rock in a Dead Meadow sort of extreme. Tambourine, bells, organs on the verge of bursting.
A pretty massive twisting loop of repetition, with hazey vocals floating around the low lit room, rugs all over the place. The overdrive warble adding anther layer of psych. Who knew this no-fi could even become a useful element in the stoner vibe, it doesn't always have to soudn like it's punched the speaker straight throught the stereo.

B-Side's, "Summer Bummer", goes back to the dancy grind with the fuzziest bassline and haunted guitars under a Cramps-like sleaze vocal with a heavy delay. A slide guitar from the other side. This cover of trick or treating dogs in space now makes a weird kind of sense. "Sludgy Dreams": I spoke too soon with that Dead Meadow reference before...because THIS one is really capturing that same kind of nodding off blast... you've seen those guys in the parks, bent over, slowly losing their balance. Damn if these guys aren't going for one kind of audio trip it's another. Wavering tremolo guitars, heavy groove extra bass bassline, delayed slow vocal, nodding off himself. A heroin JAMC on 16rpm.

Check out the track below and pick this up from Hozac alone, or as part of a super four pack or along with Year 3 of the Hozac club...your choice.

Top 10 7 inches of 2011 with Darren from VOS

TOP

Darren, from Velocity of Sound and I talked about our top 7" picks for the year.
Spoiler Alert.

Darren:

10) Wilco - Dpm records

9) The Ketamines - Hozac records 

8) Fresh and Onlys - Sexbeat Records

7) Raw Blow - self released

6) The Boomgates - Smart Guy records

5) The Vivian Girls - Polyvinyl Records

4) The Lower Dens - Sub Pop

3) D Watusi - Cass Records

2) Diarrhea Planet - Infinity Cat

1) Tim Cohen - Captured Tracks

Jason:

10) Natural Child/Liquor Store split on Almost Ready Records

9) Snakeflower 2 - Southpaw Records

8) The Whines - Mt. St. Mtn. Records

7) Ty Segall - Drag City

6) Jeff Novak - Trouble in Mind

5) Real Numbers - Floridas Dying

4) Grass Widow - HLR Records

3) Art Museums - Dul-Ci-Tone Records

2) White Stripes - Third Man Records

1) Jay Reatard - Shattered Records

Now go listen to us play excerpts and defend our picks - download the show here (48mb).

Stay tuned for an upcoming TOP 30! with Styrofoam Drone as I reserve the right to completely change the entire list.

Burning Yellows on Hozac

You know I have to say I'm just a fan of Hozac period, I never know what to expect, washed out no-fi layered psyche, or snotty garage punk, but it doesn't matter. That's why I blindly subscribe...where did I find out about Dum Dum Girls? Through Year 1 of the Hozac Hookup Klub.
Here's the Burning yellows who are not a part of the klub, just out there on their own for ordering, there's a heck of a lot of reverb on both sides of this, the echo-y far off treble heavy guitars, and breathy hazy buried vocals...just creating that daydream reverb sound.
The A-Side Urinal Cakes is a little U.S.Girls, all cheap machine beats with echo layered vocals and holy shit! Two members of the Whines! I've been listening to their 'Hell to Play' full length like crazy! Well that's it, this laid back Dum Dum girls sounding side project is going to be great.
What the heck, I still love this sound, and paired with canned metronome beats is great...it sounds like one of those tiny organ's preset rock switches. Super promising sound from these guys already recording great straight up rock as it is....

Get it straight from Hozac or Parasol distro who says:

Burning Yellows
Urinal Cakes b/w Drought
PS, US Debut single from Portland, OR's sublime & apparitional BURNING YELLOWS. Look for them to continue to daze & mesmerize onlookers with their dreamy, fuzz-laden pop vibrations that will leave you glassy-eyed & converted within minutes. An atmospheric VU-rhythmic throb encapsulate your senses & lures you into their reverberated world & echo-saturated vocals wash over you like a chemical bath
HoZacRecords-053
45

Mess Folk on Horizontal Action Records

Philip from Mess Folk contacted me the other day about a single of his that came out on Horizontal Action, we ended up taling on the phone and I'm working on his interview for fridays podcast, but in the meantime I sat down to listen to his single again over the weekend. It's one of those inspiring stories that an established label like Hozac would take a chance on the strength of a cassette demo like this.

It's a full on solo homemade project starting with the sleeve a ballpoint pen xeroxed collage of....well.... pills and a 4-track. It goes without saying that's a match made in low-fi heaven. Phillip told me the entire effort was played entirely by him, layering tracks the old fashioned way, one at a time in the livingroom. Like an indie Naked Lunch it comes off as any number of home recorded singles from the early nineties, Eric's trip, Dump, Deluxxe, the endless Lou Barlow varaitions...with more of a raw rock edge, and less preciousness vocally. These aren't depressing I-give-up songs about love, they are part of that fight against everything normal, the boredom, a fuck you to an environment that's given up. I think the sincerely recorded project like this always comes off as intimate, there's nothing you can fake about the honesty. It's as close a glimpse I'm going to get to hear of an underground scene in Sydney, Nova Scotia.

'Something I Remember' from the A-Side is full of power chords, feeling a bit like Ty Segall's solo stuff at points, raw distorted bursts but then Philip's emotionless vocals, slightly echoed feel like a stand in track that ended up sounding better than anything else. 'Something I remember/ something / something I don't know', Whatever it is he's remembered he can't even bring it back. It just sounded good, and ends up a genius struggling document of apathy.
'Give me a gun' slows things down and Mess Folk's strength is in Philips vocals, this melody and delivery is decidedly his, he's this tortured character who can barely pull it together enough to sing. It's a dying death rattle from a completely powerless situation. It's a last resort song, but struggling to the very end. He wavers off from the song melody but makes it back every time, sort of leaving you hanging a little on that last chord change. The whole package is part of this picture...the notebook doodle sleeve, the imperfections, the pure sound of someone not interested in a single part of the business side of songs...it doesn't get better than this for me.

The B-Side 'If I don't get out' really let's loose with a massive blown out live sound. Philip is really losing his mind and vocal chords on this one, possessed in the middle of the garage haze of distortion and cymbals, but it never gets too freeform mess that looses the melody, it manages to keep it together to not be overindulgent or experimental, there is a song here after all. It's a confirmation of anti-everything and keeping yourself sane in the process.

Go pick this up from Hozac, they keep taking chances like this and I'll keep supporting them.

Mess Folk also has a cassette EP you can get from him directly at philip420 (at) hotmail.com.

Sharp Ends on Mammoth Cave Recording Co.

In the same batch of releases from Mammoth Cave was this Sharp Ends (why do I keep thinking of split endz....jesus) single. The sleeve reminded me of a teepee release a while back...black and white line drawing of something tribal, but then it's a head eating another head. Get that tattoo around your bicep jerk-off!
Then I'd respect you.
Crack Trap the first track on the A-Side...A tom-centric beat and bassline supports this Fugazi sounding plucked harmonic melody with dark deep vocals that's taking me back to listening to Peter Murphy on cassette, but PM never rocked like this. There's no pretentiousness cutting you up. It's dense intelligent post punk, there's no repetition, the vocals found their place back in the mix, but somehow has a dialogue with itself, back and forth, layered and then single line. Damn it's really bringing back Fugazi like crazy, the more I hear this, the chorus call and response, the energy...and I mean that in the way that there isn't a specific sound Fugazi ever really had, you could just hear the distinction between them and everyone else...in the details.

'Loaded Hearts' on the B-Side is more frantic, I'm even recalling the Replacements here, it's brief, full of more power-ish chords, a little more raw. Rocking with the layered vocals just out of reach and attempting to get the party started this time instead of encourage the dread so much. Just completely solid, they've got something. Mammoth Cave dug out a pretty amazing gem. I'm looking for the Hozac single now as well, I get the feeling every single thing is going to be just as interesting.

A: Crack Trap
B: Loaded Hearts

Fresh off their debut on Chicago's Hozac Records, Sharp Ends deliver their 2nd of three 7"s coming out in Fall 2009 (with each single decreasing in availability). For this single, Sharp Ends combine their post-punk/early Joy Division vibe with decidedly more of a pop sensibility, even displaying elements of power-pop on the b-side, Loaded Hearts. The killer here is the a-side Crack Trap, which has one of the catchiest guitar hooks we've heard in some time. Essential.

black orphan on hozac records

Oh Electropunk, I can't get enough of you...I think SIDS started some kind of weird deep down need I had for 4 track electronic messes like this. Well, not exactly like this, just checking out their myspace, it's pretty guitar driven with tons of vocal effects...like phasers, a little distortion. There's a weird almost sebadoh feel to this stuff...maybe it's just the home recording or maybe it's the guitar base of tracks like 'Asteroids'.
'In the Dome' sounds exactly like my friend Tim laying shit down in the middle of the night and then having me over the next day 'You have to listen to this! I don't even remember writing it.' Ahhhh the days of being unaware of the internet of the insanely huge scene that was already taking shape in every corner of the country. Who knows what he might have come up with. A different myspace every day for a different solo project.
I like this, it's weird, guitar based blank dogs...because of the home recorded, a little off, a little electronic feel of this stuff.
What can I say, I'm a sucker for a weirdo trapped in a basement or attic with a 4 track and alcohol...or just bored out of his mind. It can really be gold.

Black Orphan
Video Kids
PS, US From the ominous depths of hell's inner circle, BLACK ORPHAN rises up & their slimey drooling of punk's primordial ooze seeps into every exposed pore on your body, languishing & writhing w/ emotional destitution. 4 ethereal tomes that decapitate, reverberate, & exacerbate the unruly demons that live deep in your mind, these songs allow you to walk through walls, see through clothing, & transcribe weird animalistic codes that only owls & sloths can truly understand.
RED VINYL LIMITED TO 200
HoZac
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Hozac club 2009!

Jesus, I almost missed this.
It's days like this that make me think I am really slacking and I'm doing no one any good. I know it's bound to happen but it will be a sad day when sweet rot or floridas dying does a singles club and it's sold out. That's why I started this god damn thing. And if I can't find out about it looking every day then I give up.
Who knows when this was announced. I feel like I was just at Horizontal Action about to order the 3xsingles pack of nobunny, nice face and france has the bomb...then I look over on the side and a singles club!!!!
'Finally a singles club for people who like to get fucked.'
I love self deprecating humor. Here take my money Hozac, I deserve to get screwed. I am collector scum.
It feels so wrong, but the Teeth single will be worth it alone! (Actually, no way, but I love Blank Dogs).
I want more Box Elders ....so check. Anyone else?
Nope. Looks like I'll find out.
Hozac has enough highly regarded stuff I trust anything they send my way. I just want this gravy train of singles and clubs to never end.

Here's the list
1. DUM DUM GIRLS
2. IDLE TIMES
3. WOVEN BONES
4. ART THIEVES
5. WHITE MYSTERY
6. MOTHER OF TEARS
7. FLIGHT
8. TEEPEE
9. BOX ELDERS
10. TEETH (project of Spider and Blank Dogs)
It's $65...I just happened to have sold some random electronics on ebay recently and had the money....lucky me.
This is a great way to start 09.

Next round of singles on me!

Jacuzzi Boys on Hozac records

The Jacuzzi boys brought their latest release to my attention a few weeks ago and lo and behold by the time I'm able to spin it a few times...it's sold out from the source...and everywhere else...I've really been looking.

Oh well...I hope a repress is imminent because this is right in line with the spaced out Vivian Girls and The Jesus and Mary Chain cavernous echo sounds that I've been hearing pop up all over lately. But it's maybe even closer traditionally to that kind of 60's garage/surf sound especially on 'Dream Lion'. It sounds the name, this band thing is really a side project for them....after putting in a long day lounging in the jacuzzi.

'Dream Lion' has this slow finger snap, combined with tamborine, high hat bass beat and some far away 'ahhhh' backup vocals. By the end they're all mutated and half feedbacked looped way in the distance...very spooky. The vocals have the right amount of reverb like some kind of classic oldies Ronettes, kind of harmonic girl band phil spectre group, ...it has that level of crisp production and pining over the mix.... there's nothing muddy or unclear about what their trying to get at. Where the Vivian Girls rely on the tempestuous mix of out of control chorus effects, harmony and echo, combining eras...this is a specific year being reinterpreted from a garage in the early 60's, and it's more song centric.

But what do I know about that 60' garage period of music really? I couldn't give you specific names of bands and maybe comparing it to that is complately off base for some people obsessed in that underground. It's my romanticised view of what I imagine was happening....bands in love with that sound, and stripped down rock and roll were hoping to press a 45 and hear it on the radio.

That's what I think is alive here...on 'Island Ave', complete with fuzzed solo. The vocals might have even more reverb because of this tempo, and I love that during the really rocking tracks they go with handclaps instead of the fingersnaps....The vocals aren't ever buried or become so much an overpowering stylistic choice, it's not a yelled freakout, it's pretty deadpan cool 'this is the situation, man'.
'You Should Know' keeps up the dream-rock (dare I say psyche?) groove with more bass...it's something like Deadbolt without the heavy handed horror, just a dead on impression of a scene. You could hear the engines reving, the hot rods drag racing.

It won't be hard for them to keep up on tour with King Khan, and I could see them as a great compliment to their more blue garage sound. They are actually in the Williamsburg soon.....Nov 29th st ye olde Music Hall of Williamsburg with King Khan. My friend Mike (beach house review) has been raving about KK since the beginning of the summer and I have yet to hear their uber-garage blues/make out mahem.