November 2010

Cheap Time: Take 'em Home With You

When this trio started out, it contained something like two-thirds of Be Your Own Pet, one of the more over-hyped of the over-hyped in the last few years. It’s actually surprising that Cheap Time had Jemina Pearl in its hands, if even only for a minute, and wasn’t able to capitalize on that in some obtuse marketing snafu.

As it is now, the band continues issuing work as concerned with punk’s significance in the underground culture as it is with a garage lineage pulled from a backlog of records. Either way, judging from the cover of the group’s first long player, they rank as the reining heartthrobs over at In the Red Record.

Punishment of Luxury: The Jove of Punk Aesthetics

I wonder how many – and I know it’s not actually an attainable piece of knowledge – bands existed prior to that banner year of 1977 an are still referred to as post punk. Of course all the CLE bands rank in there. But the impetus for my interest an those troublesome genre names are all dictated by a constant search for solidity in some form. Music isn’t this or that, it’s music. It might still be a contradiction, but it’s just another music (maybe in a different kitchen).

The Left: '80s Rock that Doesn't Stink

There’s a pretty pervasive way of look at the trajectory of rock music. Pretty frequently the eighties are dismissed and assumed to have possessed scant acts capable of working up proper music that had any sort of understandable usefulness. Grunge then becomes the next thing after the seventies which people attribute any worth to. The weird thing is, though, most of the bands affiliated with that “movement” stink. Seriously, go back and listen to it. Apart from Nirvana – and by extension Mudhoney, the Melvins and a few other Seattle bands – all of it’s derivative tripe.

A Minute with Chris Gunn from the Hunches (Part Six)

K: I kinda think that “The Ballad” from Yes. No. Shut It! presaged Exit Dreams!. Do you disagree? And how did the slight shift in sound work from disc to disc?

“Not Invented” seems like a direction that you guys could take and use for an entire disc – and while that isn’t gonna happen, was this the musical direction that the band sought to embrace on Exit Dreams?

CG: First of all that song is called Not Invited. I have seen it called Not Invented a lot on the Internet and I honestly might like that title better but that is not what it is called. Maybe that’s an MP3 thing? I don’t know.

Poison Idea: Pure Hate

“Thanks to their notoriously insatiable diet of drugs, alcohol, and junk food, the members of Poison Idea all ballooned past the 300-pound mark by the time of the 1986 full-length Kings of Punk…” Jason Anken, Allmusic.

The above quote isn’t sourced and I couldn’t even make up a way to confirm or deny the statement, but it’s a pretty funny idea. The fact that Poison Idea’s guitarist went by the name Pig Champion might lend some credence to it all, but still, specious at best.

A Minute with Chris Gunn from the Hunches (Part Five)

K: What’s the scene in Portland like? What do you think about Eat Skull - have you played with them and are there other groups up there that sound similar? Is there a NW/Portland sound?

CG: The big bands in Portland are worshipped by the papers and the unconscious masses and they are atrociously bad. Modest Mouse, Decemberists, 31 Knots, Death Cab for Cutie or whatever. It’s like pirate theater rock or something; a bunch of spoiled thespians whining about coffee and the problems they are having with stretching their ears. There are a lot of bands with a violin and a “crazy” drummer or some shit like that. There are still bands that only listen to the Misfits and Psychobilly and there are still bands that think that garage is and always will be the only genre of music that matters. Tribal tattoos are everywhere.  

'68 Comeback: Country, Garage, Blues and Velvet

Releasing over ten singles in something like a five year period is generally the hallmark of a creative mind overwhelmed by life and all its trappings. And while that might generally point to any number of troublesome situations, hearing (Monsieur) Jeffrey Evans on a number of the tracks he’s recorded under the auspices of ‘68 Comeback, it’s just as likely the singer and guitarist is channeling his heroes more than anything else.

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