Disco:Very Openly Invites Reader Hostility, Defends Most Hated Album on the Planet

The dirty diapers at Pitchfork went and gave Lulu, the debut collaboration between Elder Statesman Lou Reed and mosh mascots Metallica, their lowest available rating, and from the uproar one finds all over the music webisphere, Pitchfork is not alone in their disgust. Indie purists, please. Calm the fuck down. If there's one thing we've learned about Saint Lou over the years, it's that he's never going to stop merging his interest in highbrow literature with his passion for rock and roll. Stop insisting that he write another Sweet Jane and let the man fucking do his thing. If you can't slam your fists around the brutality which envelops the galloping Dragon or sink into the beauty of the lovely, lyrical 20-minute closer Junior Dad, then move along. Better yet, give it another spin, ignore Hetfield & Company and just pretend it's Robert Quine, Fernando Saunders and Doane Perry backing him instead.

You Cef! I Cef! We All Cef for Unicef!

I have decided to hold a concert for Bangladesh in my living room. The goal is to raise at least $3 million dollars for the cause but because there’s probably only enough space for about 11 people (provided everyone helps me move the credenza outside to the front porch), tickets will be going for $28,000.00 each. To make my job a little easier, I’m only asking one band to play for the full 6-hour event: Varghkoghargasmal. Rather than have them repeat the same set for the duration of the concert, I’m requesting that they play Autumn Rain for the entire half-day show, making it progressively slower and sloppier as the song progresses. Varghkoghargasmal’s gloomy blood-splattered death metal dirge, paired with the type of ear-pleasing Casio keyboard arrangements you’d hear on a late night infomercial for Teflon pans, is sure to be a hit with the crowd. Refreshments can be purchased in my kitchen. I hope everyone likes buttermilk!

His Divine Hammer

Plugged-in Gaul rocker Electronicat scores your most masochistic toothache to a throbbing pulse as layers of guitar noise undulate on your brain waves in a shimmering display of aural menace. On his 2007 missive Chez Toi, tracks such as Pancake Lady and Seveneves become red-beamed sniper lasers zeroing in on your temple, while the thank-god-it's-finally-available-on-CD shoulda-been-a-hit She's a Queen plods its way to the dance floor through a back beat fuzzier than that Quaalude slipped into your mojito. The album's unending machine-driven drummer is only slightly more metered than Electronicat's unwavering duty to the eternal buzz he's been advancing for the last 10 years. It's a language he invented himself, and you'll only learn to understand it the more you're immersed in it.

Ice Ice Maybe

Perhaps it loses something in the translation from Russian, but if Old Wainds are hoping to scare up more interest in their dark foreboding music, they should try naming their songs something more frightening than At The Gates Of Frosty Mountains, the title of which sounds like a children's ride at the Winter Wonderland theme park. Likewise Guardians Of The Icy Kingdom, which could be one of its gelato shops. I've had morning bowel movements more fraught with terror than these song titles--perhaps these Russkie Rockers would like me to send them the monikers I give my stools each dawning day? Request granted.

Butt Trumpet

Sweet holy Jesus on a rotoblade! Pink Tentacle is offering up the entire You Tube music video collection of the completely kick-ass Japanese psych-punk band Yura Yura Teikoku. It's during such times as watching the video for Rame No Pantalon that I'm happy to still have a 9-year-old's sense of humor.

Wrap Yourself In Furze

Someday, perhaps in the very near future, Scar Stuff is going to find himself bereft of cheez-ee Halloween albums to post. When that happens, I warmly offer my growing collection of bizarro heavy metal CD's, most of which wallow in the same anti-art which puts the "horror" back in "horrible". Case in point: Seance by Furze, which despite the singer's earnest attempts, is about as frightening as Charlie Brown draped in a hole-y bedsheet.

If I'd Have Known The World Was Ending I'd Have Baked A Cake

This is what the A Frames excel at: they write rock's biggest dumbest guitar riff--bigger and dumber than your head--then proceed to rub your face into it for the duration of an entire song. Cool enough, but when they top it off with deadpan apocalyptic/paranoid rants, it's the icing on the de-evolution cake. NASA should be sending out galactic radio waves of Ionic, Modula and Search And Rescue so other inhabitants of the universe can hear what Earth's final days sound like when set to music.

May You Always Be Troo

I've posted about Detsorgsekalf once before, but because they are, hands down, my current all-time favorite band, I couldn't resist writing about them again. In a 20-minute EP jam-packed with great lines--every single one of them shouted at a delirious pitch--here are my Top 10 favorites from Troo Grim Warriors Of The Necrokkult:

1. I wish I had marshmallows!/Goes well with man-flesh! (The Embers Of Your Church)
2. We are troo/We are grim/We will come to pillage your village, oh yeah! (Troo Grim Warriors Of The Necrokkult)
3. Slaying the poodle! (Troo Grim Warriors Of The Necrokkult)
4. Wait! We've already made that Star Wars reference! (Frostburn Upon The Winter Of Mankind's Discontent)
5. Cold!/Frostbite!/Elephant bread!/Cookies!/Milk!/Hot black tar! (Frostburn Upon The Winter Of Mankind's Discontent)
6. You remind me of my ex-girlfriend/She was a leper! (Necrolust Of The Whore Of Whormalton)
7. What are we doing on the highway? (Necrolust Of The Whore Of Whormalton)
8. I fucking hate Jumanji /Damn you, Robin Williams! (Necrolust Of The Whore Of Whormalton)
9. I shall now waste another, maybe, 40 seconds of your miserable, wretched life/With a keyboard solo! (Keyboard Solo)
10. And for no reason, here's a guitar solo! (Black Xmas)

Frosted Flakey Goodness

I'm getting very nervous. Normally by this time every year, I've already discovered dozens of new (and not so new) acts whose music makes my receding hairline stand on end. But so far, 2006 has left me wanting--there isn't a single band at the moment about whom I'm urinating in glee. Where are all the good new bands for us to obsess over? After such a non-stop ride in 2005, is there something in the water supply keeping worthwhile bands from forming? Please don't tell me to name check The Arctic Monkeys and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! because I have, and...well...yawn. So far, my favorite discovery of 2006 is a result of my newly-formed illicit love affair with speed/death/thrash metal: pop lovers, I give you Detsorgsekalf (which may or may not be "Frosted Flakes" backwards, but with a "G" instead of an "F"), and their new album Tr00 Grim Warriors Ov The Necrokkvlt. If there is a more ridiculous, over-the-top and hilarious metal band to watch in 2006, buy it.

A Different Kind Of Tension

Yes, yes, it's all very special that Killing Joke influenced everyone from Nine Inch Nails to Nirvana by grafting incisive agresso-punk sloganeering onto high-energy tribal rhythms and liberating the indie rock legion towards a new world of movement and sound, bla bla bla. Who cares? I JUST WANT TO HEAR THOSE FUCKING DRUMS! Tension-- taken from the newly-reissued (with bonus tracks) What's This For?--rocks my world but they get extra points for continuing to use that creepy clown figure on most of their album covers. Buy it at Amazon.

Serving Up Some Khold Cock

Damn you, Aquarius Records--you've gone and got me hooked on Black Metal. It's bad enough I find myself listening to the total-joke-band-even-if-they-claim-they-aren't-a-total-joke-band joke band Goblin Cock (Stumped sounds more Queens Of The Stone Age than it does King Diamond), but to make matters worse, Innestengt I Eikekiste by Norwegian death rockers Khold has been rocking my iPod for two days non-stop. AQ calls them the Nirvana of Black Metal, whereas I see them more as The Beatles (if they sang catchy pop tunes after smoking a dozen boxes of unfiltered cigarettes), My Bloody Valentine (for the multi-channeled, layered guitars) and early REM for the nonsense lyrics I come up with when I try to sing along:

"In the state behind your sister
You wrote a letter, signed it 'Mister'
Sounds alike, you're a water
Mr. Merchant, forced your daughter
(Chorus) I'm mixing teabags
I pissed on Doo Rag
Short decline
Some strap a He-Rag..."


Please be aware that I know you have some inclination as to the definition of a "He-Rag".

The Thoughtful And The Thumping

If it sounds like sour grapes, it's not: I really was planning on posting some Volcano Suns this month but 'Buked and Scorned beat me to it, damnit all to hell. No matter--the web is big enough for two blogs to drool some praise over this sadly forgotten Boston outfit. Most lovers of this post-Mission Of Burma band savor the first album (The Bright Orange Years), but I seem to be the only fan who leans more towards the follow-up, All-Night Lotus Party, perhaps because it mixed the thoughtful (Room With A View and Sounds Like Bucks) with the thumping (Dot On The Map and Bonus Hidden Mystery Track). This is yet another in a long line of albums that, sadly, will probably never see a reissue on cd. If only I owned the Sony Corporation! Gemm has quite a few vinyl copies, if you're interested.  Boy Is My Face Red Update: The good decent people at Merge Records have seen fit to reissue this album with extra tracks.

The Current Punk/Scuzz Pop Roll Call

A friend recently turned me on to a host of punk/scuzz pop bands, perhaps payback time for turning him on to Sudden Ensemble last year. Hailing from Anaheim, CA (home of the evil ABC/Disney/Mickey Mouse World Dominition HQ), The Willowz (above, left) have released Talk In Circles (on Sympathy For The Record Industry, top left) mixing primitive garage fuzz with scruffy screaming scrawl (need proof? try Unveil), which the musically-clueless Rolling Stone magazine compared to the ilk of Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys--huh??? Meanwhile, Demon's Claws, Memphis-by-way-of-Montreal blues rawk takes the legacy of bands such as The Oblivions, The Gun Club and other booze-addled fuck-ups and pushes the envelope to its logical conclusion--in short, they're anything but Laid Back. (Buy it at Dead Canary Records.) Finally, we end with The Casual Dots, alum of such indie punk royalty as Slant 6, The Frumpies and the mighty mighty Bikini Kill. The 'Dots self-titled debut is all upbeat energy and high-spirited sloppiness, which is all well and good, but how can you not like a song called Mama's Gonna Make Us A Cake? (Purchase it at Kill Rock Stars.)

Exquisite Corpse

Incessant as a buzzing headache but a lot more fun, Rancid Hell Spawn (named after a Pussy Galore track) have been darting under the pop/punk radar since 1988, making records (as their website puts it) "packed with catchy, heavily distorted one-minute punk burnouts for the truly twisted, with record sleeves to match". As far as I can tell, the entire "band" is one Charlie Chainsaw (I've never seen them live--the one time they ventured to play in my vicinity, I was unable to attend the show), former editor of the underground fanzine Chainsaw. I've discovered that Mr. Chainsaw is also singer/bassist in another in-your-face band the Sexual Abominations, whose debut single "Rock'n'roll Meat Hook", is also on Wrench Records. My hope is that the Sexual Abominations aren't keeping Charlie from his Hell Spawn day job and he's able to juggle the two superstar stadium outfits simultaneously. I'd hate to live in a world without Rancid Hell Spawn. My Pet Corpse is taken from the Masochist Chainsaw LP (above left), but the entire album was recently compiled on the Scalpel Party CD (above right) along with a myriad of other "best of" tracks. Of course, when your music is about eating human testicles, getting drunk on Listerine and extolls the virtues of cholesterol, "best of" becomes a relative term. Update: It looks like Rancid Hell Spawn's entire output is now available via iTunes. Praise be!

This Band Goes To Eleven

The best feature of technology is when it somehow organically heals itself. For whatever reason, the strange noises emitted by my hard drive over the last week have suddenly stopped. That's good news for you, too: the download postings will be delayed no longer (or at least not until I pony up for a bigger GB drive). There are, however, strange noises in my ears at the moment--a long, high-pitched roar searing through my head ever since seeing Caribou last night. Louder than all get-out, there were particular parts of their set where I felt the ceiling was going to cave in as the massive din they stirred up rattled the rafters of the nightclub. If they come to your town, drop everything you're doing--school, work, sleep--and see them. Be sure to bring a tenner for the above untitled cd--sold only at the live shows--which I'm told is comprised of outtakes from The Milk Of Human Kindness. Better to own your own copy of The Snow Capes now rather than pay five times that amount later on eBay. It's worth it alone for the crazy 36-minute mix that starts the cd off with a bang--layers of old soul records, Bollywood funk-ups and bizarre foreign language pop songs. Very cool.

They're Loud, They're Sloppy, They're Canadian

From the environs of Toronto (the city featured in almost every recent US movie set in NYC, Detroit or Chicago) comes the slap-happy sounds of this multi-gender pop/rock/noise foursome. For my money, Danes In Peril is their best song (taken from the oddly-titled Ackrill/Venning '91, and if you want to disagree with me on that, we can step outside and hash it out. Be warned: it is the loudest song you will ever hear in your life, especially if you play it extra loud like I do. I recommend everything in their discography, which you can find on iTunes here and here.

Music Video Du Jour

My ultimate wish would be to see Vitalic perform live. Until then, I have to make do with this. You'll come for the cheesecake but you'll stay for the air drums.