Bad History Month / My Dad split on Exploding in Sound, Ranch, Broken World Media Records

It's no secret that I love Fat History Month. They hit that sweet spot of experimental noise delivered with huge swings in volume and complexity. They work in a post punk and a Pixies type of alien pop style equally. I'm completely on board with any direction they want to take this sound and Sean himself has turned me on to a bunch of great bands they've played shows with and I knew this split with My Dad would be another band I'd want to check out.

The FHM track, "Sad History Month, January 2012" opens with exacting acoustic guitar, a secret calm riff setting up the tension filled expansive feeding back loops of single strums turned up to the limits. Sean's vocals as usual hit right to those personal places about mom's and breakfast, with the avant garde style of Lauren Mazzacane Coners. The distortion gradually fades out for a few quieter moments of clear acoustic.

Doctor can you help me because my feelings are cheesy as fuck /

there's no cure for being a big fat baby

That's the real strength of Fat History Month for me. Sure they can work through complex arrangements and flirt with Sonic Youth feedback and messy statics, but Sean's delivery and sincerity of a sentiment like that hits home in a way that I don't think you get from a lot of bands. Self depreciating and raw but hilarious and sad. The rhythm of his acoustic slowly develops along with a gated snare that angrily clips in. An old piano plinks away in the other room, slowly picking up becoming more clear. I can't explain how great this last passage is when feedback drops out into the perfect silence of the acoustic. Sean whispers vocals in character, pushed to the limit, the kick drum destroying the wave, pushing this way past the red. It's evolving in front of you but compressed enough to jam in another set of intimate vocals. He could go on forever like this, running through a massive set of emotions, wandering this jagged soundscape.

The My Dad track, "Tom Waits for No Man" opens with a warm distanced Hammond warbling around while Dave Collis on vocal is in as extreme contrast to that cool sound. His gravelly and broken down yell. Blinking high tempered fingers on strings beyond the fret board form that quiet place to full on rim shot rhythms and Don Cab complexity. It figures they're paired together, looks like I'll add another strand to the web of Spider History Month. Quiet angst like Cap'n Jazz - even Dave's vocal is going to same place with a little bit of hardcore danger like Fucked Up. This guy's laying into his vocal chords and definitely destroying them in the process. A perfect fit for fans of FHM with three drummers and packed with more elements. They're juggling a lot, ending up at the same place as the guys from Boston.

Maybe the amount of support behind this release says something about both of these bands. This is out on, Exploding In Sound, Ranch Records, Broken World Media LVNDAD, and My Dad. Get it from the band direct on their bandcamp page or My Dad.

Fat History Month / Spook Houses split single on Double Whammy Records

If you haven't heard of either Fat History Month or Spook Houses on this split I just want you to know readers, that I completely throw all the powerful weight and influence of 7INCHES thoroughly behind this single...sight unheard. It's more than just loving Fat History Month so much already that I had to help put one of their singles out there myself. It's also because Spook Houses is members of LVL UP which was a real sleeper full length for me. I don't know if this project signals that they've completely moved on, but I definitely have to hear both sides of this.

The Spook Houses track, "Living the Dream" has the best sounding mix of production. I think that’s the thing that continues to stick out on LVL UP and how much they remind me of the groundbreaking, completely insane Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? from The Unicorns. These guys have the same no boundaries in the best way, dark static beats and a warbly junk guitar solo that blasts in. They layer the vocals in sounding like They Might Be Giants matter of fact styling or The Magnetic Fields if they weren’t so uptight. Sparkling synth pours over this at the last minute and it’s glaring guitar progressions. A theremin of melody over the deep vocal that ends too soon.
"Black Dog" sounds like a dark séance as their vocals reach in to close the circle on this doubled home recorded experiment. I completely love what these guys are doing, it's all the best things about early Smog or the Microphones, the same kind of intimacy while totally messing with your expectation of these sounds. The whirring, chopped up beats and mechanics, the distorted lyrics, close mic'd acoustic - completely inspiring by it’s lack of rules. Sounding like Hayden on this one with the spirit of Westing (By Musket and Sextant) riding heavily across the track channeling their experimental spirit. Stick up the parts, cut the path, sing through a tin can, melt the feedback, all in an organic way, there's nothing abrasive about this. It's a real thought out straight chaos that allows for happy accidents and literally explosion samples and overdriven toms. This track has got it all. I really don't want to stop listening to this. A real departure and evolution from an earlier single I just realized I covered back in 2011? Now I’m extra confused.

Fat History Month opens their side with the most epic instrumental track, "Skin Divers in Action". I really love the guitar tones Jeff gets on their recordings, they just nail this sad, isolated sound with a real lonesome picking that immediately carries their fingerprints all over it, and Bob on drums smattering in precise handfuls of fills. The metal string guitar plinks gets insanely loud and the rest of the track collapses in on itself. Every time I've seen them live it's a great balancing act, a real tightrope of tempo's just teetering on bringing everything to a halt and drop back in on that steep halfpipe of distortions. On the verge of breaking strings Jeff is snapping them over the fret board, sounding like multiple layers of delicate strings. I’m stuck on their Don Cab track titles and abstract vocals, but then they can also get away with these intricate complex longer pieces and I don't even notice I haven't heard Jeff singing yet? Amazing. Crazy dynamics, the guitar threatening to spin free of it's reverb orbit and pulling dirge Melvins style chasms of their instruments.
"Angel from Montgomery" is a real surprise cover of a John Prine track that lends itself to a great interpretation here. They expand on the original tempo with exceptionally pounded out chords here, making this sound somehow full of optimism. Jeff’s vocals are layered in the mic with that Built to Spill sound but loose and setting full sail on this mathy cowboy trail. Gravel and jitters tear the wagon down the trail gathering tumbleweeds with it. A tight concise cover and the first one I've ever heard from these guys. Real essential piece of vinyl here. Going to call it an early favorite for 2013. Nice work.

Get this from Double Double Whammy Records, Fat History Month or

Check out the tracks below or stream the whole thing at Brooklyn Vegan.

Fat History Month Record Release Party!

Great show last night from these great guys, so awesome to meet them in person and pick up a copy of their full length on Sophomore Lounge Records and hear tracks from the Gorilla EP live. It's impressive to be a few feet away from the massive sweeping highs of that complex ever changing time signature rhythms and reverb guitar. My friend Evan was looking around to see what pedals they were using and was shocked not to find a single one...something I never even thought about. This wide shattering dynamic range is all due to Sean's attack on strings, winding down to an intricate melody and back slamming away in jagged riffs.
They are headed for Philly tonight and possibly back through NY tomorrow before they finally get a break, at least until November...

Their single is still available from my own Sweaters & Pearls label.

Fat History Month - A Gorilla EP on Sweaters and Pearls Records

I've been waiting to announce the latest single from my own Sweaters and Pearls label from Fat History Month. It's been hard... but until I finished printing those handcut linoleum sleeves I just had to suck it up. So there is it, ready to order, a 4 song, 33 1/3 EP clocking in at 14 minutes of mellow math equations and epic ringing distortion, from lead vocals and guitarist, Jeff Meff backed by Bobby Hobby's intricate pounding. I've always loved the dynamic of a duo, the back and forth between the guitar and drums, the stripped down nature of the instrumentation. Not that you would know it from B-Side's "Heart would take a Beating" where they build an intense wall of sonics from this minimal setup. Fat History Month takes pride in this kind of painstaking restraint, the intricate picked melody that explodes the next measure in growly distortion. Every track has these truly impressive ranges, the peaks of crazy time signature cymbals crashing, to muted heavy reverb picking, actually allowing notes to completely drift off out into nothing.
There's that underlying connection between a duo that comes across in the complexity of these changes, the kind of thing that comes from more than just the muscle memory of repetition. It's like all my favorite bands came together at once, A minor forest, Atvin, Unwound, June of 44... something like that....look, I'm already building it up way too much and I'm going to ruin it.

I urge you to go listen to their bandcamp page, check out the streaming tracks on the record player at Sweaters and Pearls and pick this up along with their recently released full length, "Fucking Despair" on Sophomore Lounge Records AND that "Safe and Sound" single still available from the Australian label, Bedroom Suck Records. I'm not the only one.

Almost forgot to mention when Fat History Month rounds up their tour to the west coast and back again, they'll be stopping in NY, September 27th at the Legion bar on metropolitan for a record release party show for this single. It will be the first time hearing these tracks in person and I'm counting the days.

Did I mention this is pressed on banana yellow vinyl with all kinds of smudges and swirls, some of them are even almost clear....very cool job from Archer Pressing.



I just couldn't let Darren at Velocity of Sound Records get away with putting out that Flesh Vehicle single and not responding with one of my own.
We're gonna have a 7 inch party tonight!
Alright!

Interview with Fat History Month

I really can't explain why I like Fat History Month so much, I mean it's easy to understand why Cheap Time is so great for instance, the catchy, garage crafted punk...it's a hardwired party... but this is so minimal and runs the range of imperceptibly quiet to raging distortion. It also might have to do with these guys being a duo, that dynamic of two artists together, inherintly knowing when the change is coming, the ability to easily improvise epic changes and instrumentation with just a faint reverb. They are pretty naked out there, without a lot of facade to distract, and they're writing the most delicate and moving post punk melodies...sometimes purely instrumental and sometimes with just a verse of abstract lyric. A perfect combination as far as I'm concerned. I'm irrationally obsessed.

That's why I'm supporting their kickstarter effort for a new van to tour with Ugh God to the west coast. For a mere $25 you get both bands entire discographies and most secretive demos....and a single. Plus I want them to make it to NY in August.

Not to mention they talk about mixing and recording a full length coming out on Sophmore Lounge soon.

Listen to Sean from Fat History Month, download the MP3 here.

Fat History Month on Bedroom Suck Records

Jeff from Fat History Month sent me their single a couple weeks back now, and it's been blowing my mind all last night. I can't stop thinking about it...and it's not even specific melodies. I have to listen to it constantly because I can't recall them. The minimal safe pictured on the cover should have been a hint, it's understated, and maybe not the kind of safe you immediately think of. This is so concise, restrained and emotional, they get into the dynamics of Explosions in the Sky, those really beautiful little melodies and at the same time experimental and as complex as Jim O'Rourke and Gastr Del Sol. An amazing set of compositions from a duo out of Boston.

"Safe & Sound", on the A-Side just has an insane amount of dynamics, I love this quiet guitar that creeps out of nowhere, and picks up in bursts to this expansive melody. To get this range of sound on vinyl this perfectly silent at points is a feat in itself. The repetitive structures come across like June of '44 or Tortoise tracks, classically influenced, complex. The percussion right along with it equally as intricate, with valleys of slow... down to next to nothing, it's completely quiet.

They have this huge warm reverb on the guitar, bouncing all over everything...really a duo like this are the only combination this loose structure can work with, to be so inherently in tune with each other and getting these subtle changes, or giant transitions with a look. You just have to know what each other are about to do in a pretty telepathic way. I think that live it must allows for a more free-form performance, it doesn't always have to be about this military memorization in hours of rehearsal, with the two of them, I'd bet they could improvise (and have) an entire show.

The tiny piece of a verse, close mic'd and barely sung that leads into another plateau of guitar is like Slint. It's massive epic explosiveness and unnatural guitar, they aren't power chords, they aren't singing.

You get an idea of this from their bandcamp page, which has a track called just 'Safe', now I'm thinking this A-Side is actually two tracks? (I would say 99% it is- ed) Damn, that's good.

The B-Side, "Here Comes the Sun", starts with a single lonesome chord, repeated, waiting for the sound to completely disappear before hitting it again. I'm also getting a Harvey Milk tension...and the sound of this room, the scrape of the chords, the experimentation and minimalism, a hint at distortion, plucked harmonics. Are they still playing? It's always about to start, and end.
This can be played so loud, trying to catch everything and when it picks up, it's natural. The vocals here eventually too are up close with another layer of yelling far off in the background, but it's this constantly shifting guitar work I'm completely into. The changing rhythms and melodies with perfectly balanced drums, from the subtle passages to crash fills. I think it comes from appreciating a straight guitar sound, letting everything breathe, actually paying attention to the instrument with a huge space. More than a really nice melody (they won't let it hang around long anyway) it's playing with the idea of the guitar being able to work as everything, an entire orchestra, and they pull it off.

It's coming as close to that complex, math, instrumental, indie rock as I've ever heard. A pitch perfect single with a xerox insert of the recording info and lots of shoutouts to all the friends that made it happen.

Initially I was worried that this was only available from the Australian label, BedroomSuck Records, but thank god you can get it from Fat History Month direct on their blog. Not that I don't think airmail from Australia isn't worth it. If you don't want this single after checking out the video...I don't know if we can still be friends.