Noise for Zeros

The Jumbo Sound of Mudhead 7″
Self-Released, 1988

Spinning the recently released Captured Tracks compilation of mid-80s proto-indie rock, Strum & Thrum, The American Jangle Underground 1983-1987, I was pleasantly surprised to see the Kansas City area represented with a track from The Bangtails which made me feel the need to call out the long lost haunted postpunk of The Bangtails-related band Mudhead. Anchored by the driving drumbeat of The Bangtail’s Archer Prewitt (The Sea & Cake, The Cocktails) and the off-the-rails wailing of fellow Kansas City Art Institute student and Nebraska punk luminary Mott-ly in a dense swirl of dual guitars and hypnotic basslines, this droning 33rpm single comes off as the unpredictable midwestern cousin of NYC no-wave pioneers Live Skull amped up with the unnerving intensity of a band like Of Cabbages and Kings, lit with a goth-tinged hue of Burning Image-style death rock. Tinnitus-tainted readers may appreciate this deeper peek into the festering KC underground that also produced the much more accessible Bangtails. If the single catches your ear, be sure to check out a live version of “Eleutheromania” taken from the 1988 Live in Lawrence compilation where Mott-ly “knocked satellites out of orbit… screaming like Elmer Fudd being raped by a werewolf on a bad acid trip” as an astute alt weekly writer once wrote.

DOWNLOAD

Mudhead – Eleuthermomania
Mudhead – Charlie’s Golden Ticket

Mudhead – Eleuthermomania (Live)

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

Creamy Loop 7”
Caulfield Records, 1992

Here’s the perfect way to kickstart Noise for Heros: a posting of one of the fiercest 7″ slabs of noise rock ever to rage out of the midwest. Germbox was a criminally unknown and underrated band from Kansas City from the early ’90s that played with an intensity that most people weren’t ready for at the time, featuring dynamic songwriting, sickly swirling guitar, a galloping rhythm section, and a vocalist with unhinged screams that cleared venues of all but the hardcore. On par with anything that AmRep was dishing up at the time (the debut Today Is The Day album Supernova would be a good reference point) and as brutal as bands like Unsane, Dazzling Killmen, Zeni Geva, or Swans, this single should be part of any noise hound’s collection. Sadly, Germbox didn’t last long enough to record an LP, but this amazing 7″ and their debut Groaning Bridge 7″ is collected on a CD entitled Fraction of Exaggeration along with some unreleased and compilation tracks on the now defunct Caulfield label.

DOWNLOAD:

Germbox – “Godtrot”

Germbox – ‘Spit”

LINKS:

http://www.myspace.com/germbox