Noise for Zeros

Flowers LP
Sacred Bones Records, 2009

Sprouting from the same Seattle weirdpunk nexus that bloomed The Intelligence, A-Frames, and AFCGT comes one of the most mysterious and puzzling bands currently rearranging the sonic DNA of noisenerd earholes worldwide. Pulling together sounds pioneered by early synthpunk groups like Chrome and The Units, and tweaking them with a dose of tranced-out Can and Faust-style krautrock, every element of Factums music is a couple steps removed from normal. I recently picked up the special edition version of their latest LP on the stellar Sacred Bones label, Flowers, and have been trying to decode it for the last week or so. Far more focused than the sputtering soundtrack of A Primitive Future and their early Spells & Charms LP, Flowers kicks out 22 tracks worth of weird jamz with hardly a lull. They didn’t eliminate the blippy experimentation and random cut and paste aesthetic found in their earlier releases, but with Flowers—constructed from recording sessions dating back to 2006 and 2007—they’ve trimmed these excursions just enough to keep the album flowing and interesting. Last year’s LP, The Sistrum, made the NFZ Best of 2008 list and this release at first take seems to be even more finely constructed and dazzling. It’s one of the better releases you’ll hear this year…

LINKS:

Factums on MySpace
Buy Flowers at Sacred Bones

Loser / Cooking With Gas 7″
Sub-Pop, 1989

Talking with a friend this weekend, we recalled a time when the term “grunge” didn’t conjure up images of ridiculous designer flannel and lame ’90s-style hard rock, before the gnarlier aspects of the term were sanitized and rationalized for mass consumption. For us, Seattle’s Tad embodied what grunge was really about: loud, burly, heavy dirtpunk for weirdos — in short, ugly music for ugly people. Long before every mall in America was teeming with teenagers sporting Doc Martens and flannel shirts, flipping their locks and blathering about Pearl Jam, Tad was punishing eardrums with gut-rumbling dirges that mainlined the colossal buzz of the Melvins and late-period Black Flag (they released a single featuring covers of Flag’s “Damaged I” and “Damaged II”) into a backwoods freakshow that made grunge scary. Their God’s Balls and Salt Lick 12-inchers are essential noise rock classics and this, one of many classic Tad singles on Sub-Pop, showcases the true grit of grunge.

DOWNLOAD:

Tad - “Loser”
Tad - “Cooking With Gas”

Shuffle Along 7″
Empty Records, 1996

One of the low points of 2008 — just about a year ago — was the announcement of longtime Seattle punk ‘n roll label, Empty Records, calling it a day. While I didn’t love everything the label cranked out in its heyday, the Empty roster always had a handful of bands that absolutely tore it up, from Dead Moon to The Motards, to The Reatards, X-Rays, Lost Sounds, Tokyo Electron, Destruction Unit, and many others. Buried within that impressive punkrock pedigree was this perfectly boozy bluespunk rager, the only release from Holden Payne & The Agonies. The band was made up from members of The Latch Key Kids (who I know nothing about, so if anyone can enlighten me, please do) and the Kent 3, and featured a brash, blaring, reverbed guitar sound that paired perfectly with swaggering, drunken vocal warbling and a few blasts of harmonica. During my Zeen zine days, I tried to get an interview and more info on this NW punk powerhouse, but to no avail. Whether they were too punk or too drunk to cater to nerdy fanboys, they remain a mystery, so I’m still wondering why they only left us with these 3 brilliant songs on a 7″ that no one has heard…

DOWNLOAD:

Holden Payne & The Agonies - “Shuffle Along”
Holden Payne & The Agonies - “Drunk Tank”
Holden Payne & The Agonies - “California… Why?”

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”