Noise for Zeros

Tinnitus Tonight LP
Mt.St.Mtn, 2020

Being a jaded old fuck who’s been subjected to more mediocre indie rock than one should reasonably bear, often not by choice, I tend to get rankled by music that doesn’t even try to conceal its influences or attempt to bring a single original thought to the table. When I hear an album like Tinnitus Tonight it’s hard to fathom why most bands and artists can’t bother to push themselves creatively just a little bit or at least find a well of inspiration that hasn’t been sucked dry for decades. It’s exhausting to find exceptional music, but perhaps the glut of mediocrity is the very thing that elevates the best records to the top of the stack.

The gift Lars Finberg has to disfigure rock riffs into minor chord marvels should serve as a glowing example for those who feel the need to pick up a guitar and make some noise to share with the world. Using the conventional tools of rock and roll flavored with a mix of garage punk, post punk, synth punk and mutant surf, Mr. Finberg, with seemingly effortless cool, has crafted or contributed to countless albums with bands like The Intelligence, Puberty, Rubber Blanket, A Frames and more, all with a magnetic pull and genius lyrics that stand out from the indie rock heap and reveal an exceptionally creative mind that’s actually done its homework.

Although this is his second solo release, this recording actually predates his debut album, Moonlight Over Bakersfield, and the songs collected here do cover some uncharted territory that exists somewhere between the refined sound of Moonlight and his more widely known work with The Intelligence. Ranging from the clean acoustic strum that grows with swells of surf guitar and vintage synth blurts on “Lord of the Files V2” to the pummeling bass line and gnarly freeform guitar squeal of “Public Admirer” or the surprise synth blasts toward the end of “Kitchen Floor”, Tinnitus Tonight isn’t a mere collection of shelved material, it’s another proof point that creativity isn’t finite and that Lars Finberg’s particular strain of creativity expands even further than his prolific discography.

So kids, before you start a band and expect anyone to fawn all over your musical genius, study up on how you can defy mediocrity like Lars Finberg and then get to work. Thank you.

Buy Tinnitus Tonight at Mt St Mtn

The Spits VI
Thriftstore Records, 2020

Just in time for Halloween in the epically shitty year 2020 comes a gift from one of garage punk’s greatest gifts: Spewing up from the post-apocalyptic Michigan wastelands that birthed this malformed mutant punk troupe infamously known as The Spits, comes LP number six , a full nine years after their last LP. It’s hard to believe it’s been 9 years since In The Red Records unleashed their classic record number 5, especially because, like their other releases, it hasn’t lost its fire and flavor at all over those 9 years. Stylistically The Spits don’t break any new ground on VI, but that’s not what you go to The Spits for time and time again. You go to The Spits to get your clock cleaned by catchy-as-fuck punk blurts that barely reach the 2 minute mark, slathered in fuzz, weird vocal FX, and so-simple-they’re-brilliant lyrics stitched together with an uncanny ear worms and a tinny trash rock beat. Recorded in various basements in the midwest by midwest bedroom punk luminary Erik Nervous, this record is a slight departure from The Spits’ Seattle output, but worry not, as the sound you know and love is all there, mixed for maximum brain-frying impact on cassette 4-track.

Although it appears to have sold out on its October 30 release date from the Spits’ Thriftstore Records Big Cartel site, you might be able to snag a copy on black or red vinyl elsewhere on the interwebs. Like all The Spits’ previous records, you’ll need this one and give it many spins.

LINKS

Listen to “Breakdown” on YouTube
Listen to “Up All Night” on YouTube

Hoopschroot 7″ EP
Belly Button Records, 2019

Belgium’s Mitraille crank out six amped-up bangers on this EP that take the bursting-at-the-seams energy of modern day basement hardcore and inject it into a strain of diseased garage punk that detonates with the ferocity of Henry Fiat’s Open Sore and Dean Dirg, except you can’t count on these nutters to stick to the script. Squealing feedback, psychotic in-the-red vocals, false starts and stops, noisy SFX and a track with nothing but bleating horn blurps keep you guessing what’s next and anticipating the next jolt of ripping raw rawk riffage. It’s definitely some of the most fun you’ll find scratched into a 7-inch vinyl disc in the year two-thousand nineteen.

Wet Ones LP
Black Gladiator, 2016

For too many years the musical exports of the Kansas City area rarely captured the quality and quantity of what this midwestern mecca in the middle of the swollen gut of the United States has had to offer. For all the good shit tearing up sketchy, short-lived clubs and out-of-control house parties, the only groups ever to get much attention outside the sprawling expanse of the I-435 loop tended to be on the tame and conventional side of the rock ‘n roll spectrum. And while that’s probably how things should be, it’s always disheartening to witness how little of the crazed energy buzzing around the KC/Lawrence area ever gets adequately captured on wax. Thankfully that all changed early this year when the ace Slovenly offshoot label Black Gladiator unleashed this 13-track wrecker delivering frenzied garage punk every bit as vile as its predecessor Fag Cop. With the in-the-red burn of The Fatals and the panicked contagious energy of The Reatards earliest excretions, this record has slowly festered into the feel-bad hit of the summer. That’s fitting too, since the Wet One are a lot like summer in KC: hot, nasty and ready to beat your ass.

Wet Ones on Slovenly.com

Rocket Surgery CD
Like A Shooting Star, 2011

I had the good fortune of stumbling upon this raucous Seattle quartet after they were bumped into an opening slot of a Human Eye show in Lawrence last March. Their live show kicked ass, culminating with singer Justin scooting across the floor on his back, recklessly strumming his guitar, right into the handful of lucky bystanders subjected to their snappy mod-style garage punk. If you don’t find your head bobbing or your body outright flailing to their Billy Childish/Modern Lovers-inspired trash rock, than you’re about as useless as a limp dick on prom night. Lucky for you, their sound has been pressed onto a killer 7″ and this 10-song CD, so you can experience the Sparkle any damn time you please. I find the need to Sparkle every couple of days.

LINKS

Watch It Sparkle on MySpace
Watch It Sparkle on Bandcamp
Video for “Your Heart Will Throb Hard”

Terd LP
Hozac, 2010

Apparently the Turnhips have been around for a while — their first ragtag LP came out in 2002 — why the fuck hadn’t I heard of them? They’ve got a solid Hozac 7″ from 2008 and now this raging LP which begs to be blasted continuously at all hours of the day. Totally worth your time if you’re a devotee of the type of cranked tunes found on early Swell Maps records, with crazed singshouts over loose, blaring riffs and sloppy-but-solid beats. Although the Turnhips are a bit meaner, kinda like what you’d hear if you starved the Swell Maps for a week and then invited them to play a set of Brainbombs covers at your Sunday afternoon picnic. Brash and obnoxious, but completely endearing to coarsened ear holes. The songs on this album have a little meat to them than their early records, as shown with the start/stop song structure of “Sonic Tooth” and “Comment” where all elements blast off and then quickly fall apart, creating elastic time signatures that are far more interesting than your typical 4/4 garage banger. And the song “Two Two” is essentially a remake of “Files” from their first LP that transforms it from a decent but forgettable tune into a punchy jam from the gut with layered, mantra-like vocal effects and weirdness. Despite the ugly-ass cover art, you’re gonna want this Terd.

LINKS

Subtle Turnhips on MySpace
Hozac Records

DOWNLOAD

Subtle Turnhips Internet Album

Speed Kills CD
Empty, 1996

A number of my favorite records made me laugh the first time I heard them. Melt-Banana‘s Scratch or Stitch LP was so ridiculously jolting and squeaky that I grinned ear to ear in bemused amazement. Emperor‘s Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk is so preposterously melodramatic and fast that I still can’t take it seriously. And who can listen to Xerobot‘s dazzlingly robotic Control Panel CD with Greg Peter’s spastic vocals without busting a chuckle? All classic, all amazing, and all noteworthy for an x-factor quality that really made them stand out from the pack. In this great pantheon of underground benchmark albums lies The X-Rays’ Speed Kills CD. While they were part of the mostly unremarkable Gearhead zine garage punk scene of the mid-1990s, they upped the ante with an outrageously loud, fast, and over-the-top take on the whole leather jacket punk rawk thing. I can still distinctly recall hearing the first few seconds of “Racin’ Outta Napolis” for the first time, shaking my head and laughing at the audacity and overdrive of this Nottingham psycho squad. It begins like a number of lesser gearhead punk albums, complete with revving engines throttling to take off, but after a quick count it lurches into crazy territory and races into one of the more noteworthy garage punk records of the genre. Their Empty follow up Double Godzilla with Cheese continued the wacky hi-jinx with the entire album playing backwards after the last track.

DOWNLOAD

The X-Rays – Speed Kills (28.1MB)

Teenage Maniac / Night of the Queerwolf 7″
Self-Released, 2010

Like the previous post, here’s another underrated midwestern freakshow featured in the Horror Punk 101 countdown last Halloween. Lawrence, Kansas’ kings of reverb-drenched Cramps worship finally got pressed to wax—red wax no less—the perfect format for their brand of throwback garage stomp. And don’t assume that this is some showy retread tribute group dimly aping their heroes. The Spook Lights craft an aesthetic that draws from and extends their influences, keeping them as relevant and vital as anything you’ll find seeping from the underground in 2010. This debut 7″ captures their outstanding track “Teenage Maniac” from the KJHK Farm Fresh compilation and backs it up with a slithering B-side, “Night of the Queerwolf”, packaged up in fine, screen-printed PBR case paperboard. Fans of Haunted George, Kid Congo, and of course The Cramps, take note.

LINKS

The Spook Lights on MySpace

1980–2010

It’s been a month since the Memphis garage maestro died and I’m still recalling all the raging records he left behind. I remember the first time I heard The Reatards, blown away by the intensity and freshness he brought to the safe, conventional confines of the garage punk scene. Jay really took it to the next level and influenced a whole generation of in-the-red ragers as a mere teenager. He continued to evolve and was never afraid to push into new territory, as demonstrated with the darkwave synthpunk of the Lost Sounds, or the jerky, angular postpunk of Nervous Patterns and Angry Angles. Even his last solo release, Watch Me Fail, the most polished and commercial album of his career, his masterful combination of KBD-style primitive punk and classic pop tweaked convention enough to make his music his own distinct beast. It’s ridiculous how many quality releases the guy had under his belt. It may have seemed like overkill at the time, but ya gotta be thankful for the massive back catalog he left behind without even reaching 30. Here are a few of my favorites…

DOWNLOAD:

The Reatards – “Blew My Mind”
The Reatards – “Sick When I See”
The Reatards – “Teenage Hate”

Final Solutions – “Eye Don’t Like You”

Nervous Patterns – “Beautiful Brutal”

Angry Angles – “Apparent-Transparent”

Lost Sounds – “Dark Shadows”
Lost Sounds – “You Don’t Know Remote Control”
Lost Sounds – “Black Flowers”

Brainwashed 7″ EP
Dope Records / Bad Vibe Zine, 1993

A recent repost on the excellent Detailed Twang reminded me of Rob Vasquez’s pre-Night Kings band, The Nights & Days, who I’d somehow missed after many years of being a Night Kings fan. I’d heard some of his other bands, like The Chintz Devils, The Gorls, and Right On, but the Nights & Days escaped my pursuit of all things Vasquez. Gotta do your homework, I guess. My introduction to this garage punk maestro came from a copy of the Chicago-based Bad Vibe zine in the form of this smokin’ 4-song Night Kings EP giveaway. The tracks pump Vasquez’ classic garage stomp riffs, delivered with a relaxed, defiant swagger, along with his soulful punk wail — a pairing that distinguishes his bands from the rest of the garage punk crop. Two of the tracks (“Death” and “Increasing Our High”) wound up on their sole Super-Electro LP, Increasing Our High, which can still be found HERE and in used bins across the country. I see it around more than I should, since it’s a bona fide classic in my book and should be snagged by any self-respecting garage punk connoisseur.

DOWNLOAD:

Night Kings – “Brainwashed”
Night Kings – “Death”
Night Kings – “Earthquake”
Night Kings – “Increasing Our High”