Scrivener - A Signal (2017)

Olympia, Washington, where the smell of salt water competes with the aroma of roasting coffee (which smells a lot like burning toast), is also where some of music's most well known artists gestated and spewed forth definitive records of early American indie rock. It was ground zero for the Riot Grrrl movement, and both Beck and Modest Mouse recorded there. Kurt Cobain lived just east of downtown, where he wrote much of Nevermind - a record that sent a whole nation of angsty teenagers hurdling towards thrift stores, searching feverishly for smoke-stained plaid shirts. More recently, Olympia has spurred forth one of the greatest black metal bands in recent times, Wolves In The Throne Room, and has lead the country in amazing queer, d-beat, hardcore punk bands like G.L.O.S.S. and Slouch.

It's just happens to be a great town for bands. I remember walking downtown from my little black house near the San Francisco Street Bakery, and on almost every block you could hear bands practicing in garages, living rooms, and basements. The community is tight knit and insular which, while making the social scene a difficult nut to crack, makes for a strong and supportive environment for artists.

It's from this environment that my new favorite band has emerged. This is Scrivener's first recording I believe, and it's so good that I had to dust off this long-neglected blog to steer any lingering readers toward their bandcamp page. Their style is like glam-hardcore punk... and by "glam" I refer to the almost theatric vocal delivery. Usually with any genre of music, a vocalist will stick to one vocal delivery - singing, speak-singing (think post-motorcycle accident Dylan), screaming... etc. but Scrivener's vocalist moves fluidly through all, using a range of expression missing from the vast majority of punk singers, or rock vocalists in general. Take the screaming of any metal or hardcore band and add bit of animated, matter-of-fact conversation - it's such a fresh delivery that it keeps this record on constant rotation. Scrivener is simultaneously playful and brutal.

8 songs, pay what you want for digital or buy their self-released cassette tape through their bandcamp page.

Scrivener - A Signal

Favorite track:

Small Teeth - Small Teeth Tape (2014)

I was going to include this band in an upcoming Scenes of A City for Montreal, but it's just too damn good that it needs to stand on it's own.

Small Teeth churn out psychedelic noise pop. There's a slight Spencer Krug sound present, who is also from Montreal... perhaps it's the singing style or maybe it's the quirky chord progressions. But let's get something straight, Spencer Krug is only as good as his "Oh Oh OHs", and those get tiresome when you inject them into every single music project you touch, from Wolf Parade to ....everything else.

Small Teeth kick ass. There's a good variety in their songwriting... each of these five songs has a distinct color that, added together, make this one sparkly little gem of an EP. The first track stomps down a path through a sonic headfuck forest, while track two is a panicked grimace of a waltz(love the vocal delivery on this one, especially). Things speed up on track 3 and then slow down by track four, which is a beautifully crafted glam pop ballad.

Come to think of it there's a bit of glam in these songs. Sparks occasionally comes to mind.

Lyrically there seem to be themes of the mind and one's own psychology... common motifs for psychedelic bands in general because when one dabbles in altering one's own brain chemistry, well... brain chemistry becomes pretty fascinating. Don't do drugs, kids. Well... alright, go ahead and do them. But make sure your dealer isn't a shitheal. And don't touch the Robitussin (more than once per weekend).

But seriously, download the shit out of these 5 songs before. They rock. This is what I want more bands to sound like.

Small Teeth - Small Teeth Tape

Bo White - Millennial Tombs (2014)

Bo White is a hell of a songwriter.

He writes piano driven pop rock music, and like "Pop Rock" candy, his music is so sugary sweet that if you drank a soda while listening to it, your head would likely explode right of it's damn stem, covering your walls with syrupy, red goo. Luckily, the end results eschew the candy-corniness that infects most of the mellow cream pop universe... resembling more of a glittering 70's glam pop sound, than the "let me show you how cute and clever I can be" Ben Folds brand of piano pop.

If you're familiar with the Pennsylvania-born glam icon Jobriath, you'll find an immediate reference to Mr. White's sound. The tunes are catchy, the lyrics are a little loud in the mix for me, but it's difficult to not get hooked by all these... hooks. You only need listen to the fantastic first track here, "Golden Ops", to know if Bo White is your bag. His voice may remind you of Tobin Sprout (of Guided By Voices), maybe even Roger Daltry in his more tender moments ...two singers whose work I enjoy quite a bit myself, so again, difficult to not enjoy the fuck out of this release.

5 songs.

Bo White - Millennial Tombs

Brimstone Blondes - AGE OF CONSENT (2014)

I've been listening to one new album at least everyday for weeks now, sometimes up to 4 new releases in a day. You'd think that this would burn me out, but really this is a light load compared to what I used to do when I was trapped in St. Clair County, Michigan with little other to do that breathe the polluted air and argue with my girlfriend like the fool-headed teenager I was. I think that many people in somewhat culturally isolated corners of this planet can relate to the problems of living vicariously through media and the obsessiveness that it can generate be it music, comic books, video games or whatnot. It seems like you should be ashamed of it and move on to start living, but every time I do that I find that life is full of waiting. Always in a hurry to get to somewhere to wait. So with time I have noticed that if I am gonna wait why not do so with a bunch of new albums pumping in the headphones and be taking just enough notes along the way that when I get wherever I am going I have something fucking interesting to share. 

Brimstone Blondes a four-piece self-described surf rock band from Buffalo, NY. There's no actual surfing going on in Buffalo, hence to talk of catching the sunbeams or big waves, but that's no reason not to make surf rock on the cold shores of the Great Lakes region as these guys will demonstrate. The songs are fast and full of bravado, to such a degree that it has a likeness to the flamboyance of glam rock. Partying and making out, lust for your friend's girl as if the Cars and Television were getting trashed together. Though the pace does settle down by the time you get to the appropriately named "Afterparty," which is a sort of hedonistic love song. In fact, several the tracks could be called that. Enjoy yourself and give AGE OF CONSENT a listen, and worry about everything you fucked up another day.

To be had here:

Brimstone Blondes - AGE OF CONSENT

Dangus - Cannon (2014)

Dangus is a 2 person band from Oslo, Norway. Their music brings to mind a different sort of retro than what's normally talked about on this blog: glammy, '70s cock rock(hold the cock). That's perhaps an oversimplification (and something better suited for a different website) but I can't help but hear some early Kiss in these songs, minus the cheese and raunchy lyrics. One thing that stands out is that their lead singer doesn't sound like the type of singer normally associated with this kind of music. It's like a young James Mercer was asked to front the MC5 for a recording session. It takes a little getting used to but, in the end, it's worth it.

Dangus describes themselves as "garage rock born out of exile", and their bandcamp page says the music was recorded during the "economic recession". I don't know what an economic recession generally means for Norwegians, as my cursory understanding of matters is that Norway has things far better figured out than we do. What it means for all of us, is that Dangus had some time to create and share their contribution to the rock world in a modest but loud way, whether you'd call it garage or not.

If this is garage, it's garage that hung out at the bar every night from 1965 to 1975. It's garage with hair on it's chest, unafraid to keep those top few buttons open while brutalizing a cowbell and wailing mean guitar solos.

10 songs:

Dangus - Cannon

Glitter Wizard - Hunting Gatherers (2012)

Rock'n'roll without a little devil worshiping isn't worth having. Nothing says fun like Satan! Trust me, I know the guy. He can throw back beers with the best of them (Hemingway does drink him under the table, mind you). He has Skip James and Billie Holiday as his lounge acts on nights where people want to relax, and he said he would send every member of Creed right up to heaven if they were sent his way. He is that kind of considerate guy.

Glitter Wizard are on a mission: to teach kids the awesome fun that is Satan. This San Francisco glam group has put out a few releases, but their newest is by far my favorite. Lots of flute solos mixed right to the front of the track, and infectious riffs that make worshiping the dark lord all that much better. "Worship the Devil" and "Blood of the Serpent" are two tracks you need to listen to as you order a copy of the vinyl. Paying homage to Satan just got more fun (than it already was).

Get it here:
Glitter Wizard - Hunting Gatherers (2012)

Suzi Trash - So Totally Dissonant (2012)

In 1994, Green Day opened the flood gates of what, for years, would be a rebirth for the punk genre (via MTV) with a resulting commodification of the culture. Soon the hallways of my high school were showing symptoms of this: peers were absorbing the trends of wallet chains, Manic Panic-dyed hair, and mall-bought "punk" clothing. Sitting atop my high horse, I became incensed. Just two years prior, I was seeing my first Ramones show, where my naive attempts at starting a mosh pit ended as the beer muscles of an angry old punk tossed me aside like a crumpled tissue. Now cheerleaders were wearing Offspring patches on their backpacks? Fuck them! They weren't getting thrown around by drunks... well, maybe they were... but probably not.

The only way I could cope was to change the channel... and so I swore off punk rock. Nearly 20 years later, though, I'm absolutely smitten with punk bands that I really should have paid more attention to. The Buzzcocks, The Peechees, The Wipers, and more recently, Jay Reatard, have all proven to me that punk rock wasn't, and still isn't, about all that "Dookie" from the 1990's. (...)

Here's a great release from a Missouri-by-way-of-Arkansas punk band, Suzi Trash. This is fun, beer swilling music that isn't afraid to throw some accordion, organ, and trumpet into the mix. Elements of the South are threaded throughout their sound, more than once displaying blues and rockabilly influences. They're not a Christian punk band, though some songs include religious imagery, if only to display the point of view of a conflicted man growing up in the small Christian cities of Arkansas. The first few minutes of "Fresh Cloud of Black Magic" is played out like a church hymnal before the walls collapse and it turns into a shredding punk tune. The song "Arkansas" asks the question "Glory glory, hallelujah, Tell me tell me what's that to ya?" while the rest of the song is a good-bye and fuck you letter to the state. The record is actually very personal with lyrics describing a hungover and depressed existence while conflicts between love, family, faith and guilt all play their role. But still, the music that results from that negativity is a lot of fun.

I hope Suzi Trash have found a better home in Missouri, because they are making seriously raucous cowpunk ala The Gun Club that stretches to include shades of both The Cramps and The Moistboyz ...even early Sub Pop grunge-punk band, Swallow. But at their core, Suzi Trash is a band doing what they can to have good times in the face of stifling boredom.

I used to be a punk rock heathen, but Suzi Trash have a believer in me.

Could easily be released on Goner, In The Red, or Burger Records. If you like punk, or garage, or whatever... give these guys a listen.

Suzi Trash - So Totally Dissonant

SexyWaterSpiders - Black Gold (2010)

When I moved to Portland, Oregon, one of the first things I noticed were the bumper stickers and signs everywhere that read "Keep Portland Weird". Over the course of that first year, Portland's weirdness revealed itself in many ways, usually in the form of costumed pub crawls and costumed (or naked) bike rides. At first I was intrigued by the weirdness; then proud. I even participated in a pub crawl dressed as a lumberjack in hot pants. But everyone gets to the point where Portland's weirdness becomes embarrassing and/or annoying, as it has for me 6 years later.

Listening to SexyWaterSpiders, though, I've become intrigued again. 

A Portland by way of Salem trio, SexyWaterSpiders play an adolescent, bluesy psych rock. They don't take themselves too seriously, and they don't want you to take them too seriously, either. This point is made evident by their 10 minute forays into new age psych pop and cheesy power metal. Actually, all the songs on Black Gold have a tongue in cheek sneer through which the tongue is more directed at the listener …almost to test your patience and ask "why so serious?"

First listen aside, they aren't just a weird Portland band. They're a breath of fresh air in a city that's nearly choking to death with conventional rock bands uninterested in testing the boundaries of their own "coolness". That said, there is something undeniably cool about them. Their songs are good and at times evoke the likes of Jon Spencer, Royal Trux, Railroad Jerk …even The Fugs. And while they may not be as garage or punk as those groups, the SexyWaterSpiders approach their music with a similar playfulness that escapes a lot of musicians these days.

Loosen your buttons.

SexyWaterSpiders - Black Gold

Lou Reed - Transformer (1972)

You see, when I said Os Mutantes was like my favorite band, this is why... now that I have gone through a phase of listening to them morning, noon, and night I naturally shifted to one of my other "favorite bands" the Velvet Underground. However, I'm really into Lou Reed's solo work on Transformer this time around. I find it funny that he made a self-titled release before this that nobody cared about, and then it was like David Bowie took pity and helped him make this. Don't get me wrong, I love Reed, perhaps as much as any songwriter I've ever heard, but Bowie rescuing someone is something to remember. Of course there is the fact that many of these songs were first heard here as well, before the versions he did with the Velvet Underground were unearthed and released later. As usual the tracks I am unable to get over are different this time too, with me really hankering to hear "Satellite of Love" and "Andy's Chest" with my morning coffee. So basically, if you don't have this for any reason, you should and you shame me by not already loving it.

To be had here:
Lou Reed - Transformer [192 VBR kbps]