...lacerate faces with guitar sounds...

SCAT RAG BOOSTERS s/t (Yakisakana LP) It's been over 7 years since I first crossed paths with the Scat Rag Boosters. Since then I've amassed a ton of demo and unreleased studio recordings of them and but one of their singles (the Solid Sex Lovie Doll one if you really need to know) and now, finally, their first full-length album. Slithering guitars shed liquor stained tears of desolation and not finding it's way back home like lonesome whistle's that sound for the gravedigger's job a making a hole for souls. Martin and Serge's six strings intertwist and tangle, blast and bite like Link Wray in search of the perfect jar of expresso while getting jolts from a cattleprod in the hand's of Elmore James. They alternate lead vox from track to track. Martin's growl is haunted & gruff and medicated by Kentucky Bourbon. Serge's howl is soothed by the band's homeland's rye whiskey and is kept in shape by howling at the moon. Eduoard keeps them from wandering too deep into a sludgy bog by punishing the drumkit with a beat that Voodoo doctors would trade a years worth of shrunken heads to have playing once before they go to war. This is way more than simply having respect for raw and stripped down blues. The Boosters conviction comes from being struck lightning. (Yakisakana) dm

GREEN HORNET "Backlash" (Kuriosa Records 7in EP) 60's mod/acid indulged freak out music here. A sound like a sonic rock frenzy meeting some bugout surfers. I hear a Hentchmen or Mummies type of groove. Green Hornet have a party like sound that might rock it live & get the floor moving. (Green Hornet) slv

M.O.T.O. "Single File" (Criminal ID CD) I've been digging the genius of M.O.T.O.'s perversion for the past year or so (yeah, I'll admit to being a late comer to their thing) but this has turned me into a total convert. Compiling their 7inches from '88 to '94, hence the title, M(asters) O(f) T(he) O(bvious) throw three chord rock-n-roll imbecility, the weirdo waywardness of GOOD indie pop, fruity minor chord balladry and letters written but never sent to Penthouse Forum into a stewing pot and let it simmer til it's a thick paste that sticks in the gut and gums up the head as well. This is not only a really sweet package for the fan looking to have all the band's early stuff on one convenient package but for the neophyte looking to check them out as well. (Criminal IQ) dm

the KODIAKS "Watch My Soul" (Yakisakana 7in EP) Though all the song titles are in English it sounds highly doubtful the singer is using any of the planet's top 10 most used languages. He sounds like a cross of Animal from the Muppet Show after downing a half gallon of Ouzo and Guitar Wolf. The music does too now that I think about it. (the Kodiaks) dm

the FOUR SLICKS "Betty Lou" (Four Slicks 7in EP) A full color cardboard stock cover. The front being a photo of a '50 Ford and '56 Dodge racing in a gravel pit..."Oh great." I think "Another one of those Gearhead magazine surf and drag RAWK bands,,," So here I am thinking I got it all figured out, right? Wrong. It blares like the Rip Offs with a (slightly) better production on beating up some frat rock numbers. Well, well, well...what d'ya know...Jon Von is in the band...that explains it! (The Four Slicks) dm

v/a "Not Psycho Enough" (Dull City 7in EP) Part one of this Cosmic Psychos tribute 7inch series. The Mormones (Norway) pigfuck "Allright Tonight" and The Bad Preachers (Belgium) dirge and purge all over "Custom Woman" on side one. Sloggy (Luxembourg) start off side two with a Young Marble Giants on the road to hell take of "Lost Cause" and Superhelicopter LTD (Germany) throw punches and knock out a herd of cattle for "Down On The Farm" to finish it off. Volume two coming early 2005. (Dull City) dm

the REBEL "Exciting New Venue For Soccer And Execution Of Women" (SDZ 7in EP) If anyone has been concered about Country Teasers number one Ben Wallers emotional state over their past couple of albums this isn't going to calm the concerns. Shrill Casio synths blurt foul squeaks, drum machine beats sound like they're being stumbled over by analog feet with a doctrine of bile and disqust rolling off Ben's tongue putting the icing on this broken glass stuffed mudpie. "New Wave of New Wave" circles are probably irritated by it because nothing on it sounds like New Order and I'm sure more than a few a garage rockers will be pissed because nothing here similar to "Bitches Fuck Off." (SDZ) dm

the GOLDEN BOYS "Got No Home" (Perpetrator 7 in) Having seen the Golden Boys when they played Port Huron a few weeks ago they rock it live and know how to party as well (enough to make the PH cops hassle them after walking out of corner store with a fresh bottle of Jim Beam in their hands) "Got No Home" has that down home southern/ Texan thang and "Slowdown" is a low down blues about relationships but the bargain quality recording on this doesn't capture their true sound though. (Contact the Golden Boys via James) slv

the REVERSE / the BLACK HATS split single (co-self release 7in EP) Remember when you were a kid and you first learned that you could cut an earthworm in half both parts would live because they have 4 hearts? The first time I heard that I wondered that if after pulling them apart they became to separate beings. Y'know, like one half would get one part of the personality and the other gets the other half. Let's say this was the case of the Mistreaters too. These two fellow Milwaukee bands, who share the stages, barley sodas and cigarettes with Dusty and co. all over the village of beer, would be the result. The Reverse are like the 'Treaters at their falling off the stage drunkest. Bang! Pound! Guttural "yeee-ooowww!" A callow and cantankerous raking of Midwest revulsion over rock-n-roll coals. The Black Hats are the other part sounding like Sunday morning hungover, listening to Lightnin' Hopkins and a little hair of the dog (The Reverse) dm

thee EXCITERS "Johnny's Too Messed Up" (Delincuentes 7in EP) If Slade had a child and gave up for adoption to the New Bomb Turks it would sound a whole lot like thee EXCITERS. (Delincuentes) wkm

RADIO REELERS "Rockin' Sound" (Zaxxon Virile Action CD) Punk infused Rock-n-Roll or Rock-n-Roll inspired Punk? Unless you are really gung ho on which means what does it really matter? The Radio Reelers are all fired up on crackly Chuck Berry 45's and the two bit blasts of Greg Lowery. The coolest punk rock has always had a whole lot to do with nasty rock-n-roll. The kind of stuff that is all about drunken basement parties and killing a 5th or two of rotgut before the daylight comes. The Radio Reelers have paid close attention to such things. (Zaxxon Virile Action) dm

the CLOCKS "Time Is On My Side" (Shake Your Ass 7in EP) After the Pagans split (for the first time) in 1979 guitar player Mike Metoff joined up with some fellow "ex member's of..." Cleveland musicians and released a couple of records. Taking cues from Buddy Holly and the a copy of the original Nuggets collection that they probably found in a dollar bin it gives off a Real Kids type power-pop vibe with a bit of new wave quirk. (Shake Your Ass) dm

the REIGNING SOUND "Too Much Guitar" (In The Red CD) Too much guitar?! Never! The reason behind the album title is because Alex, the band's keyboard player, departed the fray before this was recorded. It does alter the band's sound a bit but one the great things about the Reigning Sound is that each of their releases, though sharing the thread of pure and natural soulfulness, is that they sound different from each other instead of repeating the same thing over and over again. This is the "loudest" of their albums so far (probably a lot to do with that half the sessions took place in a record store and the others at Jay and Alicja Lost Sounds home recording facilities and done pretty much completely live) but doesn't distract anything from the great batch of songs here. When someone asks me to play them one current record that isn't any of a hundred other given subgenre's but a straight up REAL rock-n-roll album which, in it's truest form according to a billion books I've read over the years, is the collision of wild eyed white boys drunk on rhythm-n-blues and calloused country-n-western all turned up and going for broke, I instantly grab for this. (In The Red) dm

Les HELL ON HEELS s/t (Bomp CD) With the right press agent high school boys tearing down pictures of the Donnas off their locker doors and replacing them with shots of these Arizona chicks. Joan Jett should hire them as her back up band because there's some serious Runaways worship going on. (Bomp) wkm

ALUMINUM KNOT EYE "Trunk Lunker" (Tricknee CD/Deadbeat LP) THERE IS LIFE ON MARS! It seems that no matter what frequency one switches the T.V. to on the angry red planet Aluminum Knot Eye is staring back out at them. "They've sold more than the Beatles, Eminem and Slim Whitman combined!" an announcer repeats reminds the higher beings even though it's something they already know. No one can pinpoint when the sensation started exactly but theorists believe it's rooted in the secret cultural exchange program that the United Nations had with the planet in the 70's and 80's. We sent them touring packages like Black Sabbath and Crime, Big Black and Alice Cooper and so on in exchange for cell phone technology, Thinsulate and microwave popcorn. Martians teens were allowed to take joyrides across our planet which usually involved cattle mutilations and crop circles as we turned a blind eye and we let them abduct people for probing and experimentation as long as they were hicks, kooks or malcontents cuz no one would believe them thus keeping proof of interplanetary lifeforms a conspiracy. AKE were observation subjects pulled out of a lit by a staggered strobe deserted Wisconsin shoreline that escaped from the spacecraft and found themselves lost in what was thought to be a strange land. The outerspace youth took to them instantly as the real deal. I've heard it explained as something akin to how the Japanese react to western culture, taking sometimes strange, sometimes specific parts and building their own version of it. BUT THIS GAVE THEM WHAT THEY WERE LACKING! Y'see bands that came through before were separated by force fields or bullet glass (another innovation we finagled out of 'em) and Aluminum Knot Eye are living breathing earthlings. One's they could touch even if it might get their claws bit off. Stuttery, raw nerved and living in the middle of some lunar valley subject to fiery meteor showers they'd rather swill some 8 dollars out the door case of beer and lacerate faces with a guitar sounds than sip latte's and discuss in hushed tones what "art-punk" means to them. (Aluminum Knot Eye) dm

SAVAGE LUCY "Forget This Generation" (Squirrel Records LP) At first listen it reminds me of a mix Motorhead & B-52's. A group of punk rock girls that got bored of shit and burned their allowances on making a record. Raging mad & pissed off at daddy, sick of being treated like a piece of meat and wanting to kill. "My Mommy Fucked A Nazi." Some catchy punk rot. (Savage Lucy) slv

KNAUGHTY KNIGHTS "I Love It Too Death" (Perpetrator 7in) The a-side is a neon hazed, late night trolling for strange in dingy bars type of track that Jack whips out luxuriantly. Rich takes a Cheap Trick type hook, runs it through a ringer and paints it in spite on side 2. Not as headknocking as the Solid Sexy Lovie Doll ep but still some of that grease and grime Memphis sound needed for any balanced diet. (Perpetrator) dm

TAXI "Who's To Blame" (Dead Beat 7in) Average rawk riffs pretending to be something more than they really are. I've heard a few people rave about this band but nothing grabs me. The thing that I find myself doing the most when listening to this is wondering if the singer quit and they replaced him with some dude into spandex and hairspray would it sound any different than Ratt. (Taxi) dm

DRUGSTOP "Machine Gun" (P. Trash 7in EP)/ TRAILER PARK TORNADOS "Don't Mind The Maggots" (Big Neck 7in EP) I don't throw the word "HARDCORE" around much to describe a sound anymore. Somewhere (I think the 90's) fucknuts starting tacking the term to bullshit like Korn and Hatebreed. Hardcore isn't shiny jogging outfits! Hardcore doesn't go into 128 track digital recording studios! Hardcore doesn't play the second stage at Ozzfest! That shit is Nu-Metal or rape rock or whatever! Hardcore is fast, ugly and pissed off. It' about shitty vans that break down all the time. It's about blowing up the school. It's playing basements and VFW halls on equipment that could fall apart at any minute. Hardcore doesn't have guitar tech's & tour buses and it doesn't give a shit whether you buy their official licensed jackets, tennis shoes, jockstraps and energy drinks. When I say that these two records remind me of HARDCORE that's what I mean (P.Trash and Big Neck) wkm

MIDNIGHT TRAMP "I'm Back" (Zaxxon Virile Action 7in EP) T-shirt and jean jacket weather. It's one of my favorites. Not too hot...not too cold. Weather that's nice to walk around in and there's a littlle spring in your step. Just takin' your time looking at the architecture, listening to the noises, wandering around the thrift shops. Kinks-ish, especially in the singer, Midnight Tramp is the right kind of music for that kind of scruffy cotton and shoe leather day. Little adventures are remembered/filtered through a (Paul Collins) Beat/Nick Lowe set of shades pushed up a notch, cowbells, handclaps and back up vocals used properly and excuted as a celebration. (Zaxxon Virile Action) dm

the LUCIFER STAR MACHINE "Death Baby" (Black Tongue 7in EP) Is the quality of cocaine in London, England better than the stuff in L.A.? Our do they get crappy blow that they THINK is good shit because they are told it is and they know no better like the chick's down at this cowtown's strip club do? Does London have an equivalent of the Sunset Strip? If so Lucifer Star Machine are walking up and down it donning leather pants, heavy eye make up and gray skin stapling flyers for their shows on every single telephone pole. (Lucifer Star Machine) dm

RED SATYRS "A LIttle Too Quiet" (Red Satyrs CD) Psychobilly based beaters heavy influenced by booze and recorded with some of the most serious echo I've ever heard. They have a song called "White Lightning" on this but it ain't the George Jones song even though a cover of it wouldn't sound out of place here. (Red Satyrs) wkm

SKIP JENSEN and his SHAKIN' FEET "On The Right Side" (7in EP) and "Evil Weirdos" (7in EP both on Yakisakana) Sleeping at a Greyhound Bus station is not the most restful slumber a person can have. The benches aren't very comfortable, the noises of people mumbling & shuffling in and out and buses releasing their air brakes would crack any spell of silence more often than not. Plenty of the types who ride the bus aren't the kind one would want to close their eyes around. Hustlers, losers, dishonorable dischargers, those who are close to hitting the bottom (if they haven't yet already) and on the lam. Those who might think they've gained your trust will yak your ear off about their misfortunes. It's not a luxury ride and no matter where a person is heading it's gonna feel like a longer trip than it is. Skip Jensen's (aka Serge of the Scat Rag Boosters) music is a soundtrack for such experiences. Stripped away of everything but valid I.D., a trusty old guitar and a roll of duct tape used to secure a splintered-n-rusted tambourine around his foot to accentuate a floorboard boot taping it's like he rode the giant sardine cans from a tundra of sweet green weed, beautiful women and poutine that is known as French Canada through every dustbowl stop of the US gathering stories of lives full of bad luck, heartbreak and deception and, like any good storyteller, has twisted them back into his own muddy and nicotine stained tales of woe. (Skip Jensen) dm

FORGOTTEN FOUR "Danger City Dead Man" (self released CD) I always figured that not everyone in the Chicago punk rock scene was a elistist into difficult time changes or hipster aesthetics and the Fourgotten Four prove my point. They sound like they wear shit kicking boots, buy smokes in a hard pack and shotgun a sixer of Old Style before they hit the stage. (The Forgotten Four) wkm

the SORES "Play 6 Songs of Despair and Frustration" (Borax 12in EP) and "Wormwood" (Kryptonite 7in) Everyone gets the blues. The young, the old, the fat, the skinny, moms, dads, sisters, brothers and even drunk and obnoxious kids. The Sores really prove the latter! Granted, what the blues sound like is different from person to person. The Sores version sounds a lot like what you would think it would with the words despair and frustration in the title. Broken down barre chords and bumbled turnarounds, breaking out with a rash being all moody, surly and for some sick reason entertaining. There's a natural echo that hangs like a ghost and a stink of the county landfill on a sweltering and humid August afternoon. The 12 inch finds them careening the white line of the Country Teasers and Pussy Galore til they pass out in the middle of the road and get splattered by a semi. The Kryptonite single spits a retard fidelity loogie out of the stereo sounding at times something like the Butthole Surfers circa "Psychic Powerless..." trying to learn something from ZZ Top's first album and a Angry Samoans song at the same time (the Sores) dm

the FATALS "Slave Your Soul" (Yakisakana 7in EP) and "Livin' My Bed" (P.Trash 7in EP) Some records come out and grab ya by the throat and don't let go. These don't....THEY COMES CHARGING OUT with 2x4's that have 8 inch spikes driven through the end of them and Molotov cocktails made of nitroglycerine & Ebola. It overturns your car so you can't get escape and burns down the garage just for the kick of doing it. They aren't here to make friends or show off their brand new shirts. They are here to scorch your ears with recordings done in a such a knocked down drag out shoved into overdrive fidelity that it deserves it's own category-I'm dubbing it HELL-FI-and fill your room with thick black soot. The Yakisakana one gives off sounds like The Scat Rag Boosters at their most choleric charging down 20 miles of cow path's to join a very beastly mooded Oblivians on stage to entertain a crowd of snake handlers who keep yelling out for Pretty Things songs. The P.Trash slab is 4 more rounds of the same type of buckshot but with even MORE bloodshedding results. Keep giving them of belts of whiskey and weed and they'll rage all night but in the morning you'll wake up with your eardrums bleeding, both the liquor and medicine cabinets have been cleaned out and they swiped your soul for something sinister. (Smashin' Transistors FATALS interview) dm

the DIRTBOMBS/ADULT split single (ErsatzAudio/Cass Records label split 7in) What can I say? It's a great split record. With both bands taking on each others song's and, of course, styles and attitudes. The Dirtbombs covering "Lost Love"and Adult doing "Pray for Pills". Weird thing though-Adult are themselves while covering a Dirtbombs song yet the Dirtbombs side is like they are totally going for Adult's robot music sound. Covering each others song just because they can. Looks like "the Detroit scene" still has (some type of ) unity going on. (Ersatz Audio and Cass Records) slv

the GRIS GRIS s/t (Birdman CD) For the past few months there's been more than a few people I associate with raving about this band but I hadn't had a chance to hear them til I saw them live and what I heard drew me in too. Ever since then I've been trying to put it into words. There was droney Velvet Underground moments, space rock grooves, complete feedback freakouts, Hypnotic. Heavy then light...Jackson Pollock hired to colorize Lon Chaney movies...Brian Wilson and Roky Erickson in a basement drinking Electric Kool-Aid and listening to the first couple Flaming Lips albums. I dunno man. Spacemen 3, "Pipers" Pink Floyd, Flying Saucer Attack and the Stooges broke up into the same tray, rolled up then toked down? No kick drum, a microphone & a mash of old practice amps using feedback as it's own instrument, acoustic guitars ran through a couple of effect boxes then into a Fender Twin, some other cheap-o guitars one might've found under the Christmas tree 30 or so years ago and a beat up keyboard filling the atmosphere with sound and cheering on the storm. (Birdman) dm

the HIDDEN CHARMS "Right Now!" (My Ruin 7in EP) Willie Dixon was a bad ass dude. One of the many songs he wrote was "Hidden Charms." It's one of those tunes where if it's done right (like versions by Link Wray and the Gories) it will totally knock you into the ground. Put it in the wrong hands though and it's disaster (i.e. "professional" garage rock bands that'll remain nameless). The Hidden Charms don't do the song here but if they did I'd like to think they'd fall on the right side of the fence. The singer bawls in an exasperated and urgent tone like a young Pete Shelley getting a heavy dose of mind snap cracks from a jar of Adderall as the rest of the band, who sounds like the where expelled from the Sonics/Wailers school for being too rowdy and unruly, beat the shit out of their instruments accentuated by some the most mutilated organ blurps I've heard in ages. 6 songs that burn faster than a dry rotted woodshed used to store gasoline after being hit by several bolts of lightning. (My Ruin) dm

MC MONKEY and APE WITH ATTITUDE "Human Zoo" (Kryptonite 7in) The Kryptonite label has always prided itself with having some of the most hissy, highend recordings ever etched into poly vinyl chloride and this sick slice of mental patient boogie is no different. Seriously, I hooked up a subwoofer and turned it up as far as it would go and nary got a "bumpa-ba-bump" out of it. Wisconsin addle-brain's Roy Oden (Evolutions) and Brad X (Last Sons Of Krypton) are the two responsible for concocting this beating on guitars, whacking on cowbells, stabbing at the keyboard with a carpet knife, hijacking some kids toy laser gun, draining bottles of Milwaukee's Best and throwing the empties at each other's heads blast fest. Side one, which is "Part One" of the song, Roy hollers out some stuff which, having a drink or two with him several times over the past couple years, wouldn't surprise me in the least if the are autobiographical. The other side "Part Two" has me thinking "Dancefloor hit" but most people wouldn't get it and would most likely just end up clearing out the room. (Check with Brad X for copies) dm

the LUCKY PUNCH "Kick Up A Hullabaloo" (Dead Beat CD) When I first glanced at this in my review pile I was thinking it looked a bit too 60's garage or lounge for my tastes.Then I flipped the cover over and saw that the band looked like a bunch of weed smoking meatheads who drive Camaros and slap their ol' ladies on the ass in public every chance they get. I played it and like me they haven't forgotten that Bon Scott died for our sins. (Dead Beat) wkm

TJ and the LIPSTIX "Masquerade" (P. Trash 7in) I wonder if Martin Savage goes through withdrawls if he doesn't release a record every few months. Here, he writes the songs, plays guitar and accompanies a couple fine ladies on two tunes that sound something like the 5,6,7,8's rolling a bus down a hillside of obscure power pop. (P. Trash) dm

the FEELERS/the BLANK ITS split single (Contaminated 7in EP) 2004 has been a great year for those of who love the 7inch format. Two of the best of the best were these bands. The Feelers double the intake of whatever toxins they digest to keep their level of tweeked outness up and get all squiggly like watching the Catholic Boys through a tallow smudge kalidescope. The Blank Its wrench their robotic arms all over a Chrome guitar sound and early Factory record sounding bass thumps and employ their Jaws of Life attachment to snip it into scraps. (Contaminated) dm