Category: garage punk

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Oh Sees Release Nightmarish and Hallucinogenic Visuals for “Enrique El Cobrador” off “Smote Reverser”

Throughout this site’s eight year history, I’ve written quite a bit about the Bay Area-based  Oh Sees (a.k.a. Thee Oh Sees, OCS, The Oh Sees, The Orange County Sound, Orinoka Crash Suite and other variations) — and as you may recall, the band which is led by its ridiculously prolific creative mastermind John Dwyer has long-held reputation for a wide-ranging experimentalism that has seen the band dabble and bounce between lysergic-tinged folk, furious and sweaty garage rippers, sci-fi driven krautrock and more. And with each successive album generally being completely different from its predecessors, it makes the band difficult to pigeonhole.

Last year’s Orc was a muscular and darkly inventive turn for the current lineup which features Tim Hellman (bass), Dan Rincon (drums) and Paul Quattrone (drums), as the material balanced a trippy, cosmic vibe with some of their most hard-hitting and punishing tendencies. Reaffirming their reputation for being unpredictable, the members of the band quickly followed that up with Memory of a Cut Off Head, an album that found the band revisiting the sound and approach of their early years, best known as their “quiet” period; in fact, returning to one of the band’s earlier names — OCS — was meant to herald a return to –the lower end of the decibel meter. 

Last year, Dwyer and company did two shows with their quieter and lush incarnation at The Chapel in San Francisco and those live shows eventually produced a handmade, mail-order only live album OCS Live in San Francisco that was released through Rock Is Hell Records. Interestingly, the album will be re-issued and made available in a condensed 2 LP set and to support that effort, the OCS will play a limited performance run of mellow OCS tunes at The Murmrr Theatre in Brooklyn, as an octet featuring members of the early lineup, including Brigid Dawson (vocals), Tim Hellman (bass), Paul Quattrone (drums), Tom Dolas (keys), Eric Clark (violin), Heather Lockie (viola) and Emily Elkin (cello). (You can check those dates below.)

Also, Castle Face Records will be re-issuing a string of Oh Sees out-of-print Oh Sees albums from the quiet era beginning with The Cool Death of Island Raiders in February 2019. In the meantime, the band has released live footage of them performing the trippy and epic burner “Block of Ice,” that features some wild and unhinged guitar playing centered around a propulsive and steady groove. Quieter? I’m not so sure, as this one as a buzzing, garage psych quality; but either way I’m looking forward to catching Dwyer and company live. 

But before that, the ridiculously prolific Dwyer and his Oh Sees/OCS released Smote Reverser earlier this year, and album single “Enrique El Cobrador” finds the band meshing classic psych rock and prog rock in a way that brings JOVM mainstays King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard but with a muscular and frightening sense of menace at its core, as the song is centered by a motorik-like groove, explosive blasts of guitar, arpeggiated keys and Dwyer delivering his vocals with a guttural snarl. Directed by Alexis Giroux and featuring animation from Giroux and Massimo Colarusso is a hallucinogenic nightmare of murder, bloodshed and bright colors and other wild imagery. 

TOUR DATES
12/15/2018 Murmrr Theatre – Brooklyn, New York
12/16/2018 Murmrr Theatre – Brooklyn, New York

Single Review by William Ruben Helms
Priors is a Montreal, Quebec, Canada-based punk rock outfit that specializes in relentlessly pummeling garage punk with a dystopian attitude. The Canadian garage punk band’s soon-to-released sophomore album New Pleasure is slated for a release next Friday through Slovenly Records, and the album is reportedly a major step forward for the band — and as you’ll hear from album singles “Heart Strings” and “Provoked,” the band’s sound is centered around lacerating, fuzzy power chord-based riffs, rapid fire drums, skittering analog synths and punchily delivered shouts and howls — and interestingly, the album’s first two singles manage to evoke the creeping sense of anxious  fury that we’re all feeling on an increasing basis, as we live in a mad and delusional world in which our “leaders” have relativized commonly accepted fact, and accept all the things that will lead to our annihilation.

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Wildly Psychedelic Visuals for Jon Spencer’s “Do The Trash Can”

Best known as a founding member of New York-based alt rock acts, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Boss Hog, Heavy Trash and Pussy Galore, Jon Spencer’s solo debut album Spencer Sings the Hits is slated for a November 9, 2018 through In The Red Records. And as you may recall, the Bill Skibbe-produced album, fiQnds the renowned guitarist and frontman embracing a DIY approach while collaborating with Quasi‘s and Heatmiser’s Sam Coombes and M. Sord.

“Do The Trash Can,” the album’s propulsive and blistering first single will further cement Spencer’s long-held reputation for a scuzzy and abrasive sound that draws from the blues, industrial rock and metal centered around a snarling, garage punk attitude, caustic power chords and an oddly danceable yet mosh pit friendly groove — while kicking ass and taking names. Interestingly, the recently released video continues Spencer’s ongoing collaboration with director Alex Italics and it’s a wild, psychedelic nightmare that subtly comments on American consumerism and our predilection for fast food-like products. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Plague Vendor’s Frenetic New Single “Locomotive”

Over the years, I’ve written a bit about the Whittier, CA-based punk rock quartet Plague Vendor, and as you may recall the act which is comprised of Brandon Blaine (vocals), Luke Perine (drums), Michael Perez (bass) and Jay Rogers (guitar) formed back in 2009 — and in a short period of time, the members of Plague Vendor developed a reputation for frenetic and raucous live sets. Naturally, as a result of their reputation they played an increasing number of shows, and along with that they had begun to write an increasing batch of material. Those early live shows lead to 2014’s debut album debut Free to Eat, an album that has been described as terse, dark and thrashing post-punk.

2016’s Stuart Sikes-produced sophomore effort Bloodsweat landed at number 2 on this site’s Best of List, and from album singles “ISUA (I Stay Up Anyway)“, “Jezebel” and “No Bounty,” the album was full of frenetic, furious and anthemic punk performed with a blistering and undeniable swagger. Up until recently, two years had passed without any original material from the members of Plague Vendor; but before joining renowned producer John Congleton to begin work on their untitled third album, the members of Plague Vendor, along with Brett Gurewitz and engineer Morgan Stratton entered Sunset Sound Studio 2, where they spent a furious two days writing, completing and recording two songs in two days — the first single was the anxious, raw and stomping “I Only Speak in Fiction.” As the band’s Luke Perine explained in press notes at the time, the writing and recording of “I Only Speak in Fiction” helped revitalize the band and restore their focus. “As a band, we grow anxious—often depressed to some degree—during our downtime,” Perine said in press notes. “Having these two days to get in the studio ahead of working on the next album released a lot of that tension. It became a more productive two days than we expected, as we were only planning on recording one song. I think we are reaching a higher level of focus together as we go into this next album.”

The breakneck “Locomotive,” Plague Vendor’s latest single was recorded during the “I Only Speak in Friction” sessions, and track is centered by rapid fire four-on-the-floor drumming, brooding guitar chords, a chugging bass line, a mosh pit friendly hook and Blaine’s vocals, which shift from crooning to manic howling — and while the song possesses a primal and furious energy at its core, the new single reveals a band that has grown increasingly confident in their songwriting and approach, decidedly expanding upon the sound that has won them attention. 

The accompanying video captures the band at their best — live, frenetic, furious and downright rousing. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Jon Spencer Releases Dread-Filled Visuals for Scuzzy and Groovy “I Got the Hits”

Best known as the founding member of New York-based alt rock acts, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Boss Hog, Heavy Trash and Pussy Galore, Jon Spencer will be releasing his first solo album, Spencer Sings the Hits! on November 9, 2018 through In The Red Records, and the Bill Skibbe-produced album, finds the renowned guitarist and frontman embracing a DIY approach while collaborating with Quasi‘s and Heatmiser’s Sam Coombes and M. Sord. Now, as you may recall, earlier this year, I wrote about “Do The Trash Can.” Spencer Sings the Hits!’ first single, a blistering, scuzzy and abrasive ripper that drew from blues, industrial rock and metal centered snarling, garage punk attitude, caustic power chords and an oddly danceable groove.

Unsurprisingly, the album’s second and latest single is the swaggering and scuzzy industrial, garage blues “I Got the Hits,” and much like it’s predecessor, it’s an explosive ripper centered around explosive and abrasive guitar chords, a shit ton of double entendres and a propulsive junkyard groove that’s manages to be danceable and mosh pit friendly.

Directed by Alex Italics, the recently released video for “I Got the Hits” delves into the darkest and murkiest corners of America, and throughout the video we see a completely immobilized and helpless Jon Spencer, as life and sinister and shadowy figures lurk move around. “Over the past year I kept seeing wonderful and strange music videos that had one thing in common: all were directed by an Alex Italics,” Spencer explains in press notes. “I determined to track down this young auteur with the aim of getting a similar cinematic sensation for my new album Spencer Sings The Hits!. Alex turned out to be a mild-mannered young man from Tucson, Arizona living in Southern California. I gave him a free hand to pick the song and devise a treatment. The result is the scary slice-of-life that you can now see for yourself.”

“I love the creepy contrast with the song’s punk abandon,” Spencer continues. “We filmed at a rented house in Santa Ana. At the end of each day, after the nearby nightly Disneyland fireworks had faded and the cast and crew had left, I would sleep in a bunk bed in the child’s bedroom. Turns out doing an entire video laying on the floor is harder than it looks!” 

Adds the video’s director, “nothin’ says ‘rock and roll’ like suburban angst, existential dread, and shadowy figures!”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Best known as the founding member of New York-based alt rock acts, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Boss Hog, Heavy Trash and Pussy Galore, Jon Spencer will be releasing his first solo album, Spencer Sings the Hits on November 9, 2018 through In The Red Records, and the Bill Skibbe-produced album, finds the renowned guitarist and frontman embracing a DIY approach while collaborating with Quasi‘s and Heatmiser’s Sam Coombes and M. Sord. Now, as you may recall, earlier this year, I wrote about “Do The Trash Can.” Spencer Sings the Hits’ first single, a blistering, scuzzy and abrasive ripper that drew from blues, industrial rock and metal centered snarling, garage punk attitude, caustic power chords and an oddly danceable groove.

Unsurprisingly, the album’s second and latest single is the swaggering and scuzzy industrial, garage blues “I Got the Hits,” and much like it’s predecessor, it’s an explosive ripper centered around explosive and abrasive guitar chords, a shit ton of double entendres and a propulsive junkyard groove that’s manages to be danceable and mosh pit friendly.

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Comprised of founding members Wes Salton (guitar, vocals) and Jason Chiarella (bass, synths) with Adam Reeve (drums, vocals) and Jack Faulkner (guitar, synths), the Nashville, TN-based post-punk quartet Telefones can trace their origins to when its founding members started the band while they were both high schoolers in Atlanta. Later, Salton and Chiarella relocated to Nashville, where they met Faulker and Reeve, who joined the band to flesh out its sound and complete its lineup.  Sonically, the band draws influence from the likes of Fugazi, The Modern Lovers and Buzzcocks — and from “Castle Factory,” the A-side single off their forthcoming “Castle Factory”/”Vitamins”  7 inch, the band specializes in a blistering and raw, garage punk that would make John Dwyer proud while recalling The Stooges and others.

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Earlier this summer,  I wrote about the Stockholm, Sweden-based garage punk outfit Sudakistan, and as you may recall, the band has a unique backstory: Comprised of Michell Serrano (vocals), Maikel Gonzalez (bass), Carlos Amigo (percussion) Juan Jose Espindola (drums) and Arvid Sjöö (guitar), the band features one native Swede — Sjöö — while the the other members emigrated from South America. And with the the release of their furious and incendiary full-length debut Caballo Negro, the Stockholm-based quartet quickly received attention for a sound that meshes Latin music — in particular, Latin rhythm, percussion and groove that’s part of the musical and cultural heritage of Serrano, Gonzalez, Amigo and Espiondola — with the blistering garage rock and punk of Thee Oh Sees, At the Drive-In and Death from Above 1979.

Swedish Cobra, the band’s forthcoming Daniel Bengtson-produced sophomore album is slated for a September 7, 2018 release, and the album reportedly finds the band capturing their raw and raucous live sound on record — with the five bandmembers recording in the same room, live to tape at Bengtson’s Studio Rymden, and with minimal takes and overdubs. As the band’s Michell Serrano says in press notes, “You can hear that on the album. it’s quite raw and very intense.” Interestingly, the material balances blistering fury with an experimental sensibility with the band expanding upon their sound — partially as a result of each individual band member’s role becoming more fluid, and partially through the employment of instrumentation beyond the usual punk rock/garage rock arrangements. “It was much more of a collaboration between the five of us,” Serrano explains. “Things flowed differently. Carlos sings on two or three songs, and Mikael sings on one. We swapped instruments quite a lot, and because we had access to everything in the studio, we were able to use some piano, some acoustic guitar and some mandolin, too.”

Lyrically speaking, the album is purportedly the most personal they’ve written to date — and although it’s not overtly political charged, the material does focus on their day-to-day reality, from partying excessively to moments of deep introspection, with each individual member contributing idea. “Our first album was made over five years, rather than five months, so the themes on it weren’t as heavy as this. Now, we’re talking about a lot of the things that we’ve gone through together since we started the band, as well as personal things – like, why do I keep repeating the same mistakes. We talk about pursuing our own Swedish reality, but that’s just because we’re living in Sweden – it’s relatable in any other country, I think,” Maikel Gonzalez says in press notes.

Swedish Cobra‘s first two singles, the furious and swirling psych punk/surf punk “Whiplash” and the mid-tempo, 90s grunge rock-inspired “Two Steps Back,” were urgent and passionate — but to me there was something sobering about the material, especially in light of a heightened age of nationalism, racism and xenophobia. Cultural exchange has inspired new takes on the familiar, new modes of thinking, new foods, new words — and more importantly, deeper empathy and understanding of our neighbors, of those men women and others from far away.  Interestingly, “Last Love Supreme,” Swedish Cobra‘s latest single is a swooning mid-tempo ballad with soaring hooks and explosive blasts of feedback that sounds — to my ears at least — as though it drew from mariachi, psych rock and garage rock simultaneously, thanks in part to a classic quiet, loud, quiet song structure.

Certainly, from the album’s first three singles, Swedish Cobra may arguably be one of the year’s most unique, passionate and downright interesting albums, and possibly one of the most necessary of any genre, because it affirms what can happen when diverse people and ideas intermingle and influence each other, and perhaps more important that we should protect and honor the immigrant and what they bring.

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past few months, you’ve likely come across a post featuring the Austin, TX-based punk quartet PLAX. And as you may recall, the band, which is currently comprised of Michael Goodwin, a member of the OBN IIIs and eeetsFEATS; Chris “Anton” Stevenson, a member of Spray Paint, Dikes of Holland and When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth; Marley Jones, a member of the OBN IIIs and Sweet Talk; and newest recruit Victor Ziolkowski, a member of Skeleton and Nosferatu can trace their origins to when Goodwin approached his longtime friend Stevenston and current OBN IIIs bandmate Jones about the possibility of forming an unconventional, outsider punk band, inspired by  Wire and Dawn of Humans. The band’s founding trio quickly went to work writing songs for a demo — they eventually wrote 9 — but they felt were still in need of a vocalist to complete the project. At the time Marley was collaborating with David and Victor Ziolkowksi, the founding members and frontman of Skeleton, a constantly evolving project featuring the Ziolkowski Brothers and a rotating cast of collaborators and friends. Stevenson and Marley then recruited Victor Ziolkowski, who then finalized the project’s lineup.

 

Last July, the quartet played their first live show with  New Orleans punk act Patsy and they quickly followed that by playing with a number of national touring Texas-based bands including Crooked Bangs, Institute and Army and others — and building upon the buzz they were receiving, the band went on a January 2017 attention grabbing tour throughout Texas. And although Stevenson has recently relocated to Melbourne, Australia, the band has continued writing, eventually finishing their full-length debut Clean Feeling, which is slated for an August 11, 2017 release through Super Secret Records.

Wit the album’s first single “Boring Story,” the band revealed that they specialize in a scuzzy and sneering, garage punk that would be be perfectly at home on Goner Records or on Castle Face Records, complete with slashing power chords and punchily delivered vocals — and unsurprisingly, the album’s second single “Night Watch” continued along a similar vein, while nodding at the nightmarishly tense, piss vinegar, and PCP-fueled fury sound reminiscent of Ex-Cult’s Cigarette Machine and Negative Growth.  “What A Waste,” Clean Feeling‘s third and latest single “What A Waste” is a bruising punk track that evokes the bitter frustration of those who lives have stalled — often beyond their control; and sonically, the single much like its immediate predecessor will continue to cement the band’s burgeoning reputation for crafting scuzzy and forceful garage punk.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Earlier this month, I wrote about the Austin, TX-based punk quartet PLAX, and as you may recall, the band comprised of founding members Michael Goodwin, a member of the OBN IIIs and eeetsFEATS; Chris “Anton” Stevenson, a member of Spray Paint, Dikes of Holland and When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth; Marley Jones, a member of the OBN IIIs and Sweet Talk; and newest recruit Victor Ziolkowski, a member of Skeleton and Nosferatu can trace their origins to when Goodwin approached his longtime friend Stevenston and current OBN IIIs bandmate Jones about the possibility of forming an unconventional, outsider punk band, inspired by  Wire and Dawn of Humans. The band’s founding trio quickly went to work writing songs for a demo — they eventually wrote 9 — but they felt were still in need of a vocalist to complete the project. At the time Marley was collaborating with David and Victor Ziolkowksi, the founding members and frontman of Skeleton, a constantly evolving project featuring the Ziolkowski Brothers and a rotating cast of collaborators and friends. Stevenson and Marley then recruited Victor Ziolkowski, who then finalized the project’s lineup.

Last July, the quartet played their first live show with  New Orleans punk act Patsy and they quickly followed that by playing with a number of national touring Texas-based bands including Crooked Bangs, Institute and Army and others — and building upon the buzz they were receiving, the band went on a January 2017 tour throughout Texas. And although Stevenson has recently relocated to Melbourne, Australia, the band has continued writing, eventually finishing their full-length debut Clean Feeling, which is slated for an August 11, 2017 release through Super Secret Records. And from the album’s first single “Boring Story,” the band seems to specialize in the sort of scuzzy, sneering, garage punk that would be be perfectly at home on Goner Records or on Castle Face Records, complete with slashing power chords and punchily delivered vocals.

The album’s second and latest single “Night Watch” will further cement the quartet’s burgeoning reputation for crafting scuzzy and sneering, garage punk; however, the song possesses a nightmarish, tense, piss, vinegar, whiskey and PCP-fueled fury reminiscent of Ex-Cult’s Cigarette Machine and Negative Growth.  And much like its predecessor, it’s a cathartic, mosh pit worthy, barn-burner.

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Howl with a Dancing Werewolf in the New Visuals for Dion Lunadon’s “Howl”

Perhaps best known as a member of the internationally renowned, Brooklyn based indie rock trio and JOVM mainstays A Place to Bury Strangers, the New Zealand-born, Brooklyn-based bassist Dion Lunadon has had a lengthy music career that traces its origins back to when he was a member of New Zealand-based band, The D4. During a short break in APTBS’ touring schedule, Lunadon had a sudden rush of inspiration that resulted in what he has described as a neurotic impulse to write and record a bunch of songs right there and then — and the end result was his solo debut EP, Com/Broke, an effort, which reportedly drew from the bands that inspired him in his youth, including Toy Love, The Gun Club, Gestalt and Supercar.

Lunadon’s highly-anticipated, self-titled, full-length debut is slated for a June 9, 2017 through Agitated Records. And if you had been frequenting this site over the past few months, you may recall that I wrote about the album’s first single “Fire,” a primal and furiously roaring single that draws psych rock and garage rock, revealing that while its creator is approaching middle age, he’s refusing to go quietly into that good night. The album’s second and latest single “Howl,” continues in a similar vein, meshing punk rock, psych rock and garage punk with a feral howl reminiscent of The Stooges — i.e. “1969” “No Fun” and “I Wanna Be Your Dog” — complete with a forceful, Neanderthal stomp. Certainly in a day and age in which most contemporary music is somewhat safe and packaged for convenient consumption, Lunadon’s solo work is a powerful reminder that rock should be dangerous, rebellious, loud, primal; it should inspire your most base, animal instincts — to howl, stomp, fight, fuck and repeat.

Directed by Ladytron’s Reuben Wu, the recently released music video for “Howl” features Loren Palmer, as a hipster werewolf, expressively dancing to the song in the woods and while being hilariously goofy, the visuals manage to also be as primal and forceful as the song it accompanies.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site off and on over the past two or three years or so, you may have come across a post or two featuring the Gothenburg, Sweden-based punk quartet LaDIDa, an act that over its time together had received attention both across Scandinavia and the European Union for their Dadist and manic take on punk rock, which frequently would include the use of singing saws, melodica and stylophone paired with the prototypical punk rock arrangement of guitar, bass, drums and vocals. Along with that, several blogs have compared the band’s frontperson Britta Persson to Yeah Yeah Yeahs‘ Karen O., and that shouldn’t be surprising as Perssson’s vocals manage to evoke a similar bratty and snotty in-your-face/don’t give a fuck attitude, an aware and confident sensuality and a feral urgency within a turn of a phrase.

After the release of “You Got It,” the band’s most straightforward, garage rock-leaning song, a song that reminded me quite a bit of the arena friendly sound of The Kills, The Black Keys and others, the quartet has decided to go on a hiatus. And as LaDIDa’s Rat Westlake explained in an email to me “Me and Bea [Britta Persson] often found ourselves sitting in my little studio room with ideas and no other band members around, so we started getting stuff down using our silvery computer pal to sort of the rhythm section (with a little help from me). It turned out pretty good! So we decided to kick off a duo — if we do not count the aforementioned little silvery chum. Et voila . . . The Cherokee Death Cats.” Persson’s and Westlake’s debut single as duo, “Read my lips” is a churning, scuzzy, propulsive, lo-fi leaning bit of garage rock reminiscent of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Raveonettes, The Cummies and others that subtly nods at New Wave and post punk, complete with a rousingly anthemic hook.