Prag-demo CS (2013)

Trashed noise is a staple in these parts, and Prag delivers on their demo. I know nothing about this band but the music speaks for itself (it also helps that their name is an Oz reference). This is nasty, brutish rock played by a buncha cretins who sobered up long enough to do their homework on what good garbage sounds like. Somewhere along the line-I'd place it around the emergence of all the bands that followed in the Reatards' wake-garage and punk diverged from each other. By now conditions have worsened so badly that my punk friends think I'm being too obscure when I rave about Heavy Times, and my garagescuzz friends don't bother listening to anything, like Criminal Damage, that's popular amongst hardcore types. This is, of course, despite the fact that bands like Crim Dam and the Times are sonically indistinguishable to folks who haven't devoted (wasted) their youth to this mess we call punk.

    It's stupid, and someone should get to work healing the bridge between Punk and Garage (since at this point they deserve capitolization, given the sharp divergence). Prag may help us on that bridge over the River Kwai. Their sound is extremely simple, and thus effective: flailing morning star drumming, incoherently distorted gits, a bass that I'm sure is in there somewhere, and a singer who may or may not be singing in English-if it is, it's filtered through the raw Italish of bands like Negazione. "Concentrated Visuals" is the best track on this demo: a killer opening of brooding guitar and galloping bass drums, followed by vocals that sound like Tolkien's orcs. The song goes nowhere in particular; it just sorta swirls in and outta focus, like that hot girl/guy you just saw at the bar through whiskey-streaked eyes.

   Prag's good at building a world of misery out of the crude instruments afforded by the garage punk sound. And fuck do those drums nail you in place, while you watch the Discharge-style guitars soar and swoop like Stukas outta da sky. Hell, the singer's so bored by the band's radness that he's whistling by song's end!

I just spent two 'graphs ranting about one song and I didn't even talk about the coolest part of the demo (it follows "Concentrated Visuals"). If I hadda name-drop, I'd say these doods passed out in the rainwater-choked gutter somewhere between early Crazy Spirit and the brazen, chest-thumping stupidity of Sick Thoughts.

Do your part in re-inventing the wheel and making peace between Punk and Garage by supporting Prag. You can do that HERE! Then do yourself a favor and BUY A COPY OF THIS TAPE!

Stand Alone Complex-Broken Sleep in a Minor Key LP (2012)

It’s only 8 pm, I’m only 4 beers into the night, and already I’ve been offered weed, coke and fucking heroin by three different street dealers in my neighborhood. Either I look a lot more dissolute than I see myself as appearing, or I have the phrase “I am a stupid white boy, please rip me off” written all over my shirt and said street dealers’ English literacy is a lot higher than I assumed. I mean, yeah, I am a stupid white boy, but 1) I know my drugs, and the drugs these assholes are offering have nothing to do with said drugs as I know (know of) them, and 2) I’m no one’s fool but my own, and yours, dear reader.

On that note, let me introduce you to Portsmouth’s StandAloneComplex, which I understand to be the solo project of Damon Marcus. Marcus belts out a slew of tracks in that scuzzy, lofi register you and I both love. “Crywank” is a good’un ‘cause of the retardedly simple-yet-endearing guitar wankery that takes over from the acoustic bedroom punk halfway through. “Canis Major” (“the Greater Dog”) emerges from the trashy lofi gloom enough to have an identifiable set of chords to accompany Marcus’ croon. “Ursa Minor” (“[the] Lesser Bear”-someone took intro Latin!) bears more than a passing resemblance to many a Mountain Goats tune that I’ve drunk myself into oblivion to, which is a compliment coming from me. SAC doesn’t have the lyrical resonance of John Darnielle, but hey, who does? It’s a great tune, prolly the best on this album.

“Thirteen’ is a convincing take on Nick Drake’s finer moments, but executed with an urgency foreign to Messr. Drake. Anyways, this is a good album I can heartily recommend to those of you who aren’t gonna remember yr Saturday night when you wake up on Sunday morning, in the cold grey morning (as Iron Cross put it), tired, broke, and miserable. SAC is just the thing for ya-it won’t make you feel better, but it will at least give you the impression that someone out there recorded an album just for this mood you find yrself in. Cheer up, bucko, and crack that beer! Hair of the dog is just whatcha need. 

Hang out with Stand Alone Complex  here.

Honeycomb Bones-s/t EP (2012)

Hull, England's Honeycomb Bones dishes out four tracks of swaggering, tightly constructed psych rock on their third EP (for reviews of the first two, check out Dirty Sex Karma's review).

Opening with moaning, hissing feedback, "Catherine's Wheels" dives straight into a deep, chugging, freaked out riff with the singer talk-singing incantations in between tambourine claps-I really like the hypnotically repetitive dual guitar lines. "Devil in the Detail" is more of the same, although less suffocating: casually strummed acoustic guitar punctuate the distortion fog.

"Penny Black" reminds me of nothing so much as Joy Division's "As you said:' it's probably the pulsing beat overlaid with barely distorted guitar, although the beat here is more subtle than B. Albrecht's concoction. "Illuminator" is a rousing conclusion to the EP, with a full-on psychedelic freakout that has a snazzy, gunshot-sharp beat laying out a dance groove.

Honeycomb Bones won me over with this, and I recommend checking 'em out-you can download the EP here, and get info on shows/releases/etc. here.

23 Skidoo-Ethics EP (1980)

When I was in high school, some of my friends were in a ska band called 23 Skidoo. I would call them bad, but for me, "ska"is another word for "awful."

Calling themselves "23 Skidoo" got them a heaping mouthful of rebuke from my friend and co-worker at the record store I was employed at. 17-year old ska kids that they were, they had no idea what he was talking about and went on with their Mountain Dew chugging. 

This is that. 23 Skidoo's first release is a classic example of UK post-punk's genre-bending. The first tune goes by in a blur of crisp drumming and scratchy guitar, while "Another Baby's Dream" is a decent take on dub, although it lacks the looming menace of, say, The Congos (23 Skidoo were English, after all). Not too shabby for a band that usually gets shuffled behind A Certain Ratio, Throbbing Gristle, et. al. in the post-punk roster.

We've got no reason to panic.... Apparently, you can buy an original on EBay, if you're so inclined.