White Murder - Safety in Numbers - self released

I first came across White Murder on a split single from Doormat/Drawing Room Records, based out of LA, they've been playing in too many bands to mention in the area preparing to all come together with Hannah and Mary on dual vocals in this self described "Go-Go's remixed by Slash Records" style, which is perfect actually. A little like Midnight Snaxxx, the thick melodic garage rock is a punky hyper foundation for those two to sing in a manic crackling unison. This A-Side track "Safety in Numbers" seems to be about this idea of not following the status quo which in this case seem to be a lady who is being a real creep and White Murderesses seem to be saying, guess what? It's not cool to be an asshole. It's not exactly the self empowering message you'd expect along with this speed punk. Real power pop at the same time, a heavy tom beat pounding away under precision distortion swapping rhythms with this bassline completely out on it's own. Both vocals together are a serious force that somehow keep getting bigger on this one, the rest of this instrumentation just keeping up in sheer volume. It's a force that you wouldn't even necessarily know is two people and not just a doubled vocal track, so you can guess that live they're going to take over that stage and force you to be a part of this.
B-Side's "Real Tough Chicks" starts out with a slow surf reverb style and rolls into a double time 4/4 freight train beat, this one about a lady friend to the narrator who seems to get rough until she wants to kiss her boyfriend. You could take that a few ways I'm guessing, but the toughness is always present here. Not the gath kind of blood drinking danger, but the bar fight, drunken, knock down, chains and switchblades kind of danger. The guitar is understated, almost muted in the background of this until that chorus about not stopping...just as brief as the A-Side, and this limitation is working for them getting right to the point, the whole thing sounding like early Be Your Own Pet or Sleater Kinney.

On black vinyl in a screened red sleeve and xerox insert, you might have to email these guys to get your hands on the vinyl. Doing it by themselves, this is the exact right package for where this is coming from. It sounds so clean, you might be a little suspect with a glossy 8x10 and slick sleeve...even on a seven inch, but instead that perfection comes off as a hard fought choice and the rest is secondary.

White Murder "Arteries are Flexible" - self released

I think that I've been forgetting the obvious in covering White Murder previously. We know they play an aggressive, fast punk but what's really unique about the whole things is the duo of front women, Hannah and Mary that not only fly in the face of this male dominated genre but then defy the idea that two women can't working together this intimately leading the vocal direction of a band. It's tricky getting into sorting out gender inequality when it comes to rock but at the very least I bet we could use more of this in sound and spirit. Reminds me to check out The Punk Singer doc about Kathleen Hanna for more perspective on that era of Riot Grrrl, although the best thing sometimes is to not even box this in by starting that beaten conversation and just let the music speak for itself.

Ominous, humming steel cables open "Arteries Are Flexible" tethered to a guitar pickup creating a low end bass rumbling while a melody creeps deliberately slow, carved out of hard stuff for Mary and Hanna to nail this lyric that starts out with a bunch of diseases strung together. Terrible combinations you've never heard of. This jagged post punk with disjointed peaks and valleys begging you to find a hole in it without sounding too together unless it turns suspect. The toms beat out that tribal pattern behind the two of them chanting in their higher register no bullshit style. You couldn't get this kind of dead eye confrontation if two guys were doing this, I'll tell you that. Could have just been doubled vocals in the studio but when you realize this is their live arrangement it deserves a double take.
"Shutter Speed" counts off into a faster jangly punk banging more of the beat out bursting lyrically into Sleater Kinney or Mika Miko's frantic, jittery punk. This one's an abstract track about some kind of film shoot or theatrics running full speed with a hyper stomp beat and wacka wacka guitar that might have some distant relation to nihilistic reggae. The harmonics of these two yelling together is really something special and even more so when you look at the usual makeup of this sort of sound. By their very existence they challenge a lot of stereotypes before even blowing out a single PA.

Xerox lyric sheet inside with a typewriter font inner label, hand screened sleeves, home made punk, the real good kind. Pick it up from Spacecase distro at the punk price of $5.

Family Curse / White Murder on Doormat/Drawingroom Records

Got another single from Drawing Room Records sister label, Doormat Records from Jeff, who turns out goes to the Word book store bookclub group we've both been attending for a while. The seven inches world got a little bit smaller, and if I wasn't talking about these already I'd definitely be tracking them down, the guy knows music, all kinds of music and just wants to get quality stuff out there he stands behind...exactly what singles have always been about...a financially ruinous way to show you REALLY care about the music. Isn't it enough to see a show, or buy a CD? JEff says no.

This one is a split from Family Curse (NO 'THE") out of Brooklyn and LA's White Murder, I was a little familiar with Family Curse from their first single on Drawing Room a little while back and A-Side's "Middle Age America" has it's speed pop punk sights sent on the rapidly shrinking middle class. They're losing their McMansions and jobs at AIG, and Family Curse wants you to know it's their own damn fault. These guys seem to be working right on the serrated edge of a post hardcore and catchy punk, they list Drive Like Jehu as an influence and that's a good place to start. Erick Bradshaw has a similar powerful delivery while this rhythm section of punchy distortion and speed time signatures keeps things in perfect tight unison. Mindblowingly quick, it's all a burst of that old school punk attitude of anything on Alternative Tentacles, the evils of Corporations and Nostalgia with a polish and craft of the Hot Snakes, going straight for the suburban jugular with the chops to back it up.
B-Side's "Breakdown" from White Murder sounds like a dirtier garage located take on that post punk sound, the guitar holds the sustained bends a little longer, it's got just a hint of a blues distortion in a sort of Rocket from the Crypt way, but the vocals in unison from Hannah and Mary give this a unique slant on that cocky, leather jacket punk. Reminding me of the tougher sounds of The Coathangers, or going back even to Bratmobile, but with a polished sheen on the old dirty punk. Chugging along, they leave room for that overdrive solo, and a whispery breakdown before ending with an all out repeated chorus, "Shut the fuck up! / Motherfucker!" You'd be surprised how those two lines go together. Two coasts, in a nice pissing contest over the never ending bullshit that can be life sometimes. But at least this single should do the trick for a little while after you get that foreclosure notice. I'm talking to you america. Jeff and I are too busy spending the tiny amounts of saved money we have pressing singles. The bank can't take my records away...right?

Most Vertical Primate Erickelric from Family Curse was interviewed about the connection between these two for the Village Voice, check it out.

On black vinyl, download card with scrawled messages (duh) in the gutter on Drawing room / Doormat Records.

White Murder on Tru Vow Records

This LA based band, White Murder with former members of Jail Weddings, The Commotions, Death Hymn Number 9, Red Onions, Neon King Kong, This Moment In Black History has been covered here before but the dual vocal antics from Hannah and Mary is what continues to be surprising. It doesn't necessarily mean that if one bad ass on vocals is good then two should be even better, what they have depends on a subtle cooperation in support of each others style and attack in order that this doesn't turn into some kind of walking over each other spotlight fight.

A-Side's "Harold's Place" takes a nice bass line and adds the punch of toms while the duo of Hannah and Mary sound a lot like a nu-wave post punk Sleater Kinney belting out the vocal. It's all about their release and partnership against this collective instrumentation. They have a Be Your Own Pet manic, ready to breakdown sound and the rest of the band keeps slowly punching this up in an effort to match their energy. it's a real perfect match of that punk yip and howl sound but still able to come together in one unified force like Grass Widow. There's a concerted effort to democratically approach the vocal, both attacking the lyric and making each other better, I don't even know that I'd be able to exactly tell you who's singing what at the end of the day. Are they ever going to be able to sing alone again?

B-Side's "The Tell All" has more concerted, concise guitars, with vocal now reminding me of Mary Timony before they squeal into The Coathangers and this chorus of "oh-fucking-hio" which I took a different angrier way, staring at the lyric sheet until they belt this out. It's definitely tongue in cheek but with a sense of freedom and the sillyness of something like Nestle in my Boobies. Punk because its willing to go to a very specific place, blasting it out the only way they know how; in a two minute burst of dumb ideas, parties and failed relationships and now you understand why the cursing is a part of the states name.

Black vinyl with a great cardboard screened sleeve of a gorilla on safari. Get it here.

The Ills on Shake / No Front Teeth Records

When The Ills describe themselves as having 'no friends, no talent, (and) no songs over a minute and a half!' we're already on the same page. Whether its the garage punk variety or some kind of hardcore metal, it implies you respect the audience enough on the recorded format and playing live to not waste anyone's god damn time. That's something I can appreciate. No friends and no talent show's they have a sense of humor and get to putting themselves down before anyone gets a chance to. More style points for being self depreciating and I'm on their side before even putting the needle down. Here's a tight group of friends who just want to hang out and play loud and fast for their friends who aren't in the band. They take their speed and delivery very seriously however putting together a full set on two sides of a seven inch, the very thing that punk co-opted as its own from the very beginning.

Bashing drums and gritty scratched up guitars, get to work on the first track, "Get it". Erika Ebola (probably not on her birth certificate) is on distorted vocals begging and groaning in a blasted pop punk style. Pulling out all the stops, frantic and explosive she's a snarling high pitch attack machine, abandoning traditional ways of delivering a vocal to get fully in the spirit of this hardcore. This is a painful cathartic release after all. The guitar is back in the mix with a an almost jangle but as beefy as these riffs get Danny (Dysentery) manages to bend a twisty blues into the chords between the speed verse. Tommy Tinnitus (I think I have that too) bashes every track in a 4/4 kick snare loop endlessly including the crash cymbals. The four piece is intent on coming on fast and strong, probably running right into the next track "Like U done 2 Me". A revenge track in cell text title form, she lays it out getting right to the point: You made me feel like crap and I'm going to give it back. They really hit on that Ramones style guitar sound on their 53rd and 3rd single, a real classic level of distortion warmly layered behind this vocal. On "The Creeps" Erika's vocal ends every verse rising in a punk question getting into a Cramps style even. They get their most melodic here and when she gets singing the chorus it reminds me mostly of White Lung, White Murder Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

Can't forget to mention the 'oh my god' lyric which repeats in a closed loop at the end of this. Somehow they nailed it, its fits perfect and is a great example of the three steps of a locked loop. First it's awesome and you notice those great little details then it turns completely maddening and if you can make it past that second phase it starts to turn into something else completely with the repeating scratch, the creaking of the words, it doesn't make sense anymore. Is she scared or being funny? Talk about the creeps...

B-Side's "Total Dick" is about a lot of assholes, I get it. The guitars crunch away, the chorus gets into a tom thud roll and Erika rhythmes prick with dick & sick, it's like this asshole made it pretty easy. There's a great back and forth with guitarist Danny on "Yr Ugly Face" Your ugly face / reminds me how much I hate the human race. Erika's driving this jet fueled block of concrete on "Sick Fits" (and the whole record) monopolizing the energy, snarling like X-Ray Specs "Oh Bondage Up Yours!", in complete unselfconscious abandon.

Get this on purple swirl vinyl from Shake Records from our neighbors in Canada or overseas punk maniacs can get this from No Front Teeth Records.

Exorcisms - self released #2

I just connected the dots today that Hannah from the Exorcisms was a vocalist in all the White Murder singles I covered a while back. The only things they have in common might just be the tempo and punk spirit of both projects. Listening back to Exorcisms first single, this one further fuses their glitter garage sound with hardcore pop letting loose with an ugly mess of guitars and noise.

A-Side's "Scripted Lines" opens with an overdriven crunchy guitar over caveman toms and sliding headfirst into a bobbing burst of muted chords for the verse. David Lopez is delivering these lyrics without calculation sticking to instinct of where they'll land, separating thoughts in aid of this tempo and sound. It explodes into a brief moment of fills and hyper melody for the refrain that comes back with it's own distorted cut up memories blasting chords like the Hot Snakes. Breaking into an obscene crunch and the suffocated squeal of a solo before repeating that whole thing all over again, sticking to the explosive parts even more. The arrangement is dizzying, the back and forth between tempos forcing room for the guitar to stick it's head out just before they go into a tunnel again somehow getting faster and pounding harder all the way to the end.
On B-Side's "This Might Hurt a Bit" harmonic reverb chunky notes are all that accompanies David and Hannah while they lay out this lyric nearly a cappella before going revival prom night with jangly guitars and that shit eating beat. The slow dance is broken up by a Jesus Lizard/Bleach style convention of gravelly fuzz that deliberately brought serious pyro to the gymnasium. David keeps that crooner vocal style going on the top of this heavily compressed crunch that eventually takes over becoming the center of the universe. They really let the decibels go and sucker punch you at the end, making off with your date. All I can hear is incredibly thought out arrangements and a microscopic level of detail in the guitar performance and sound. Who the hell is going to step up and put out their third single? DIY 'aint cheap.

Go get this from these guys direct on their band camp page.

Eleven Twenty-Nine on Drawing Room Records

Jeff from Drawing Room Records and I have been going to the Word Music Book Club meetings since they started and only just recently (six months later) figured out who each other were... but really I wasn't surprised. Of course he'd be the sort interested in the entire world of music, from criticism to pressing...and to be pressing tiny records after all takes a certain kind of maniac...and I was happy to have met another vinyl superfan.
It's been a while since I talked about his last release from Family Curse and White Murder and after we got together at the "I want my MTV" meeting a couple weeks ago I remembered I still had this single from Eleven Twenty-Nine to check out. Eleven Twenty-Nine is long time collaborators Tom Carter & Marc Orleans, the minds behind the Charalambides and Sunburned hand of the Man among others and on this single the guitar work takes front and center on these somewhere between country and psych tracks.

A-Side's "In the sunlight," mostly has a sort of country feel with lots of intricate acoustic happening alongside this soaring electric. But it starts with a big smack of the strings, an echo of metal acoustic quivering. Still ringing out, a groove sort of solo picks up in front of a laid back sunset-plateau scene. Odd castanets or wood block type of rhythm opens up after the long intro with the title lyric coming from Betsy Nichols and Tom Carter singing together. Melancholic...it's the only thing they have to say in between long stretches of complex guitar work between acoustics and a heavily sustained distortion. The two of them sing in half step down harmony....adding "before the rain" after the title and you can see where all of a sudden this changes the tone and that emotional creaking electric starts to wail, complete with wah bends. It's a '70s feel.... high, stretched out craziness starts doubling up the layers... colliding and getting in and out of sync with each other. The rest of the track doesn't seem to notice this instrument voice that's completely gone off the rails. Somber otherwise, but these guitars have been chained up in the hills far too long apparently.

B-Side's "Anchors Away" takes a very western direction on the nautical titled track. Betsy's vocal is tortured with that cracking apart twang while the instrumentation has the ramshackle feel of a band half stumbling home while she pulls out her beautiful Patsy Cline style, being down on her luck and heartbroken being the key to getting real work done. The point is, everything falls apart... in the form of a huge reverb solo that stumbles, just barely - and then hits every stair on the way down. Slide guitar is another essential ingredient here, that metal hollow body kind of slide using a broken bottle of hard liquor with another set of plucked strings, which must be the dobro listed on the sleeve. Basically I think they're trying to say "oh boy, just when I was getting used to this place I have to leave again".

On black vinyl with download code from Drawing Room Records and check out some tracks from a full length on Northern Spy below.

Exorcisms - self released

Exorcisms, based in LA, play a ragged, busted up blues. I was watching Repoman the other day remembering how broken and crazy Los Angeles looked in that movie to a small town kid who didn't even know what seven inches were yet. It makes perfect sense to me that the West, the very end of the country, the final stop for all lost souls would lend itself to that genre of expression. Don't let the climate fool you, nothing is sunny and perfect.

A-Side's "Love Gone Bad" is dragged throught the back door like the echo beaten blues track it is... beaten with a garage feel to this they let the grit and fuel fly through these distortions. David Lopez even seems to have a slight bit of overdrive on his vocals and he isn't afraid to push things into the red on the mic or his vocal range in exorcising some kind of relationship. This could be a distant relative to the glittering prom rock 50's of Shannon and the Clams or Hunx. David's blue collar vocal isn't as theatrical, but the harmonizing ahh's from Hannah of White Murder or William Fowler are those tandem backup sunny harmonies in this sad bastard fest. Like Mark Lannegan with a full band, it's a bluesy back of the bar closer. The final track for the night, clearing out the drunks. A siren call to their alley's. Exorcising the drunks from their stools and the last few bucks from everyone's pockets. I don't want you no more. The rest of the band comes in, they saw it coming, it's no surprise. Then this protagonist goes beating himself up even more.

B-Side's "Two with Half" jumps back and forth between kick and snare with feedback and a stumbling stutter guitar with thick distortion fills in the spaces between those empty hits. It predictably rocks out, the blues can't ever stay quiet, and this turns into a Black Keys classic huge rock from down in the basement. You can hear the space that surrounds these guys, it's all been done in the same room together, that spirit of bendy blues and using that energy from each other to make things a little bit harder, it defintiely isn't the looking back and reminiscing of the A-Side. They're forward looking, barreling don the freeway this time, bass line driven. The lyric would have you think otherwise but it's the soundtrack to a tough party in a dark alley.

Get this from their band camp page.

7Inches - Singles awards of 2010 extravaganza - PT 1

Worst B-Side remix 2010.

This one pretty much kicked this whole list off the beginning of last year sometime.
Remixes have always pissed me off, especially when they waste the B-Side of a 7 inch, they are predictable and always boring, and nothing made less sense for a remix then the stripped down messy garage of the Coathangers. A real bummer of a single from Suicide Squeeze.


This one I knew early would make the list too....from the Mammoth Cave Recording Co.
Winner of best insert 2010 is from their Bloodstains across Alberta single. At the same time hilarious and personal, it tied the whole Alberta theme together explaining the references and the ache's and pains of recording all these maniacs...hands down wins the best Canadian single category as well..nice work, there's something for everyone on this diverse 10 way split, that reminds me, this one won for most tracks on a single as well. That's three gold singles coming your way...a new record.


Winner of best xmas themed single is the angelicly vocaled, Shannon and the Clams on 1,2,3,4 Go. They aren't ruining Christmas at all....You know, I haven't actually heard this, but I'm into the couple of singles they've put out so far, capturing that garage nostalgia, wrapping it in pop punk and giving it to you in new ways...and Shannons voice is ridiculous. This better have been under the tree or Santa hates you.
I honestly think I haven't ordered this yet is because they tell you how many copies are left....so I keep putting it off.

Jack White won in two categories this year:

Most expensive single.... by a longshot was this Dead Weather test pressing that went for $3200 from a live show at the 3rd man store...photo booth pics, handpainted sleeve, signed by all members. This is all Jack White, creating an entire blackmarket for records, controvertially putting 3rd man stuff directly on ebay and all with a not great band...impressive.

He also winds hands down the coveted 7inch prize for format innovation, with the Triple Decker Record®, and the hair record:

Finally for PT1.....Best single not actually reviewed on 7Inches:
Home Blitz - 'Perpetual Night'.
Any label want to step up and give this guy another single? I tracked down the full length, and he just gets better and better. The Northeast answer to Seth's Useless Eaters. Fucking great raw garage no-fi whatever....none of those labels matter, it's great, frantic, the 4-track's on fire songs...this B-Side Searchers cover 'Murder in my Heart' is game changing. The art doesn't need to shock you because the music on that single is better than anything all year.

More tomorrow from snowed in 7Inches.

That's the best xmas gift of all.

Art Brut Alcoholics Unanimous on cooking vinyl records

Tracklisting:

Side A
1. Alcoholics Unanimous

Side B
1. Positively 5th St

Eddie Argos from Art Brut is one of those guys that just shouldn't have success with this formula, talking through every song as this kind of a larger than life persona...a manifestation of the ID, all those bad things you want to do... the things we're thinking but don't want to admit. Somehow he never comes across like a complete asshole, he smirks at his own songs and self deprecating humor always let him slide by and just escape the problems of other song story artists like Flight of the Conchords or Tenacious D. That's a terrible comparison, but it's the closest thing lyrically I can think of...but then to do it with real style and drive it musically into a place that can carry it's own, that's worthy of repetition.

Eddie carries everything about this band, you literally can't imagine any of these song without him, he's such a Rosetta stone for the direction of the band, this music.
But I can easily see how this is either your thing or it's not, this is going to breed really fanatic super fans and equally have people that will have to turn this off immediately. It's black or white, there's no middle ground with Art Brut. It's not going to just exist between two other songs.
I can appreciate a decisive choice to make music like this, to have this definitive view of songwriting....to have an original take on this style and really go with it.

I've been watching the video for this track 'Alcoholics Unanimous' on their myspace, the A-side track, it's right in line with the self titled album, built on great hooks, which they seem to have an unlimited supply, with Eddie's definitive lyrics. ( I think that's the thing that I again can appreciate him getting away with...the bare minimum lyrics it takes to get this idea across...everything is spelled out, there's no abstraction, it's completely clear... every thought). And what he's talking about is classic: getting drunk, blacking out, fighting and the rest of the band sounds against him in the call and response:
'I've been up all night / He's been up all night.
I've been making mistakes / Lots of mistakes
I'm hiding it well / not very well.'
I'm starting to think of this track as Art Brut's kind of modern take on 'TV Party tonight'. Let's all admit it we do stupid things, we drink, and it's hard to get dressed the next day. Art Brut captures that guilty pleasure of a perfectly crafted pop song with a truly original front man, who is literally getting away with murder....murder of everything you take seriously.

Why the track ends with crickets I'm not quite sure...it works in the video...everyone has been fighting and Eddie leaves quietly out the back door, maybe it's not part of the track on the LP?
What I'm most curious about is Positively 5th Street. I can only imagine where he might be going with this (alternate) take on the Dylan track. It's one street down after all.
That's it, I'm going to have to track this down.

This is an interesting label 'Cooking Vinyl', and that's where, directly from the source, you can get this single...import only at this point...but I'm still looking.

darren hanlon christmas seven inch

This is a little hefty for a seven inch on candle records, which I heard is finished. I don't know what $10 australian will translate to, but it's heart is in the right place. It's the end of this record company so this is the last chance to ever get this.
I have to get all of my christmas seven inches together for a gigantic mix. I'm a sucker for another addition. This guy reminds me of the decembrists. Nice vocals, kind of traditional, a little too produced to be indie, but kind of nice nonetheless. I'm trying to get all my christmas finds in before the season is completely over.
Yeeeeaaaa 2007!

Brand new 7" vinyl featuring 2 new Christmas songs 'Spend Christmas Day With Me' and 'The Loaf.' Please note these songs are only available on vinyl. The single is available only from Candle for $10 plus postage. This release is limited to only 500 copies.

A Message From Darren About His Christmas 7" Vinyl
"There comes a point in an Australian child's mind when the whole idea of Christmas is confused. All the storybooks we’re read and carols we’re sung on the yuletide subject, and the movies that fill our screens in December are so vastly different than our own sweltering reality.

We still try as hard as we can to fit the stereotype; stuffing our faces with the table full of hot food our shrunken summer stomachs struggle to digest, sweating Santa’s, laden with cumbersome red costumes and itchy white beards tolerate squirming children demanding their gift wishes while parents listen closely and take notes. Reindeer shapes in electric light constellations decorate houses and have no snow to reflect off.

Just the same, it’s Christmas as I’ve always known it.

‘The Loaf’, is a Christmas murder ballad steeped in Gabriel Garcia Marquez-esque magic realism, exposes the celebration as a superficial display of greed seen through the eyes of a jilted lover.

Come and ‘Spend Christmas Day with Me’ and I’ll show you…"

Albanian Mob Murder on Eastern Watts Records

Why do singles keep trying to scare the hell out of me with these minimal, what am looking at black and white sleeves?
It's not their fault, I think there's been far too many times you'd sit down with a sleeve like that and expect the worst, not in execution but content. I've been trained by the underground that when I see a homemade minimal sleeve like that it's going to be trouble. And then Albanian Mob Murders? Try to google that and not have nightmares. Well, you can see how'd I'd be already keeping the stereo low, waiting for the growl and metal guitar to pickup.

Instead this is a gritty, all distorted, no-fi single from Eastern Watts Records, and the 4 piece band is based out of the new lo-fi capital of the Northern Hemisphere, Columbus, OH. 2 guys, 2 girls, who provide most of the harmony vocals that are a contrast to this sludgy, underwater tempo and sound texture.

Side A, "Memphis" gets things going with a buried, muddy distorted guitar working a few slow chords, the drum track os beating a snare, kick, snare, kick, abbreviated tempo. It just doesn't ever pick up, adding to that hazy, can't wake up feel. There's a sort of Velvets in the garage raw sound to this, a real '60s girl group demo....and maybe it's even getting psychadelic because of the layers of grit and grime....it sort of works in the same altering of perception ways that the repetition does...you aren't sure exactly what's being played here. It's all fed through another blown out mic after the session. Then layer on the ladies Vivian or Grass Widow style vocals, played at the wrong slower speed and you have a somewhat AMM sound.

"Drugs" has a feedback, close to the mic intro, and must be as half as slow as the A-side. It's the kind of sorrid, backwoods pro alcoholism couple theme song:
I love you a little / you like me a lot / let's both get back on drugs
Delivered in a barely awake country chorus slur. The guitarist is making a momentous effort to strum out the backup chords. It's another velvet underground molasses melody buried under the blankets of no-fi, from the side of the equation that has no self control, the clarity is gone from the content and the instrumentation. It's a stark Will Oldham sentiment and as close as you can get to falling asleep drunk from listening to a single. I'm afraid these guys might be hurting themselves too much to have a follow up, either that or the Albanian Mob in Columbus isn't going to take to kindly to seeing this on a marquee.

Get this lo-fi slow burner on Eastern Watts Records, not much out there about his band that I could find, they are just sober enough to record a couple of songs...not write a bio ...apparently this unearthed mystery is all you've got.

Slicing Grandpa on Randstock records

Thomas at Randstock Records contacted me over Christmas about this single he put out from Slicing Grandpa, who I swear I must have talked about in the six years of singles every day, but somehow I haven't. I know the duo started way back in '93 in Elmira NY, the year that I left my own little upstate town and headed to the big city, which is twenty years ago...yikes. They've released countless cassette's, singles, 10"'s...you name it...looks like Thomas grabbed a couple of tracks for the A-Side off their "Family Restroom" cassette on Strain Theory from 2005, and paired it with what I'm pretty sure is an unreleased track. There's a great interview with these guys over at Terminal Boredum, I hope their still out there, rehearsing once a year and playing meth festivals in europe with song titles like "Urination Crane".

"Grandpa's revenge IV" on the A-Side is full of what I love about how damaged experimental noise can get, the warbly vocal, the cheap drum machine left on the side of the road and cranky acoustic chords in a little bit of funk style... just holding things togther. A bunch of ghosts got together on the last day of halloween and just willed this into magnetic tape with their ghost minds. It slowly starts creeping down, slower and slower, which is a weird effect considering this is a vinyl record spinning at 33....but theres no denying this auto programmed demo jam beat is straining, except for the vocal and droopy acoustic chords that just ignore it completely, but still managing to get into it with a "yea!". Sung from the depth of the basement, echoing off the walls, screeching in that empty room, mixed for maximum volume irregardless of your stereo's wishes and with a beat to dance to. Funk breakdown of ghostly howls from the layers of sound piling up, the batteries giving up on this portable player and guess what? You forgot to bring new batteries so your going to have to listen to this griding to a halt the entire way to school and live with yourself. "Fuck you" takes a couple of messed up chords and repeates them, a loud distortion rings around in the back, a machine bleeping away in some kind of rhythm. This is the sound of freedom... the founding fathers would have wanted it this way. A complete free form freekout of sound. If anyone can accept this then that's the kind of open mind I'm into. The very exstence of this makes me happy, the other 149 copies... those addresses should be well hidden, they are all going to get out and make their own weird noises soon. As much as it is that kind of free form noise project, there's a different kind of care that went into this noise, the repetition of the rhythm and the far out there feedback, the way the vocals work buried and muffled as another instrument, vocalization as the absense of a recognizable subject.

B-Side "Falling on Grace" has a live microphone check and a slow snare with high hat picks up slow rhrythm, a lot like Home Blitz' rawest of garage recordings, this is from a much deeper basement, feeling kind of dark. They're punching the limits of that machine, I mean they could have had another cheapo drum pattern, but they can play live too, or at least enough to know better...pure catharsiss and release. There's some melody here, but its about this time and the place these guys can easily get to. Pre friends of Feeding Tube records. I know how much those guys love this kind of outsider noise. You wonder if this thing can thrive in a a diverse packed environment like the boroughs of NY or if it needs to be way out in the middle of the woods? Either place and its out of it's natural element, so far down its own path it's almost alienating. The cassette format is captured here with one channel dropping out of the vinyl entirely. They mess with the format as much as the original sound from that day. It's like you're right there live in the rook with them. I don't know how many home recordings you've slogged through you of your friends but this has that same familiar, comforting sound to me. Curl up by the fire with a hot toddy and a slanket.

Looks like you should pick this up over at SS Records. A tiny opening to this insane noise world. That's my one of a kind handpainted cover. Collect every one.

P.S.
Thomas elaborated on his handmade tribute in putting these together in an email:

"I painted and collaged all of those and drew the Skull Dude on every label (you should have seen my record room last year, haha)...it took like 6 months and is intended as a kinda serial art piece w/o being pretentious about it. Punk: simple as that. I tried to capture the themes Slicing Grandpa used on their earlier 7”inches. The idea of the photo booth picture gallery is taken from their Family Restroom tape and from there I expanded (John and Lance are two of the 25 faces, most of the others appeared in an early german punk fanzine from 1981 or are friends of mine, theres like 15 different variations of the outer sleeve too – this was intended as a kinda comment towards sleeve variation experts...), the blood ink was used on their tapecover too, the white cross was used on their Le Hardcore 7” (there it read S/L/H/G), inner sleeve pictures of NYC, Frisco, rural Ohio, Disneyland, David Bowie, 80s b/w images of Berlin, landscape murder scenes in the midwest, 80s Gore flicks and everything Dennis Hopper, Jodie Foster, Kinski, Werner Herzog, Jackie Onassis, Johnny Rotten related are on display in their work so I ripped fifty books and used that too (no photocopy was allowed)"