Hopefully you get some sense of a band from their title or the packaging of a release, long before it ever hits the turntable. It can be deliberately mysterious, satanic, or just utterly hilarious and confusing. That's the case with this self released single from Vulture Shit. A mousepad is the perfect size to fit into a seven inch sleeve and these guys went as far as to have this worthless detritus manufactured (the fact there are still places making these is mind blowing) with an awesomely obscene collage of keyboards, cops and medical diagrams of private parts. Turns out it's actually useful for throwing on top of the scattered crappile on my desk and actually use that wireless mouse for once. It's like they were reading my mind. On the reverse of that elevator distress call iconography is a nightmare dot matriz printout that successfully shows you've setup your windows NT x86 HP laserjet printer, another sign of the apocalypse...and this title about touching computers?...in what I'm assuming is a sensual way. So I'm thinking there's enough anti-everything punk to this thing, but is it going to be gadget filled electronics? Like SIDS spazzy glitch punk? Well sort of.
A-Side's "Tube Tester" starts out with that tried and true feedback whine, count off to an off kilter superfuzz bass line and Mike(?) is delivering his vocal at breakneck speed matching this weird tempo snare hits. A brief stop and another count off. "Hey baby can I come inside?" gives entirely new meaning to the title. The track is jittery and almost a sort of caveman new wave sound. Bare bones, made entirely by keeping the weirdest rhythm machine steady and jamming as many vocals as humanly possible into that cramped space with a quivering manic style reminding me more and more of that Biafra mental breakdown feel. Utterly hilarious and impeccably crafted, appropriately dirty and you won't miss a word. "I Love the Way He Touches His Computer" comes in with those drum blips from an old casio, a high speed tom and an aside of "Power on" before the scuzz bass starts, seductive vocals feeling especially creepy...I feel dirty typing. Somehow managing to work this hyper riff into a melodic power chorus, it all happens so fast, punchy and rattling like a consumer culture obsessed Death from Above 1979. Increasingly manic, they hit on that primitive repeated crunch and pound it out. He's in the bushes, a demented technological peeping tom. "Every Table Needs a Knife" is an infomercial turned psycho-punk. A rapid fire talky delivery about deals and knives, you're going to want them, this is japanese steel! Lot's of chopping, tomatoes, onions, melons, then tension and boredom. A funk groove is going on off on it's own behind this ad man, as gross as it gets, the desperation and hardcore arrangement is frightening.
B-Side's "Whole Lotta Nothin'" really kicks out that heavy bass line groove, the drums are all speed again and that DFA sound is heavy here, the most melodic line, each note barely having time to ring out and dropping off the end of that fade, rapid fire returns between that deep low end and high bursts. The vocals are slightly more buried here in favor of this killer riff. Sadly I'm missing what I know are fantastic vocals as energetic as ever, but they've got this punk dance sound firmly in tow. "Area Dad's" say "go to the ice-cream truck and get me a choco-taco", and "go to your room! Get a job! Did you clean that fucking mess in the basement? Shave your face!" Sputtering out these mundane suburban verses in the vein of "I'm in jail dad!" between fuzz line bursts, and when dad really gets pissed, this thing takes off into into a solid volume groove. It's a scarily accurate piling on of complaints and at the end of this thing, when the track stops the tape is still rolling and he's spent. Put together with this nervous Devo style and hardcore energy, Vulture Shit is completely coming up with something truly particular that leave you wondering why that punk outrage at the real dumb bullshit ever went away. It isn't directly calling for any kind of revolutionary action but things are a mess and probably always will be, and Vulture Shit does't just have to sit back and take it.
Get this one direct from the band (possibly with a mousepad?) and a sheet of 1986 computer font lyrics, which is an entire sheet of letter size paper, single spaced. Black vinyl, handstamped center label of computer directory speak.
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