Posts Tagged ‘weird’

The Chewers

Monday, September 14th, 2015

TheChewersDead Dads CD
Self Released, 2015

Right as the July heat began to simmer the sickly humid air and warp the atmosphere into a sweaty stew, the latest collection of madness released from this Nashville duo became an unexpected soundtrack to summer, permeating the psyche with tales of madness and absurdity told through the most weirdly seductive freak bungle. Plodding, lopsided, and spacious, The Chewers have honed their oddly odd sonic stew on Dead Dads, their third album, with disciplined songwriting that forces every pit and peak of their idiosyncratic music and madcap storytelling to shimmer in the haze. While they’re completely in a league of their own, those who are susceptible to the spaces between Tom Waits and King Missile, or in league with indie oddities like The Guinea Worms or The Country Teasers, may also be attracted to this lumbering freak feast.

LINKS

The Chewers on Bandcamp

The Chewers on Facebook

The Chewers on Soundcloud

The Chewers website

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Posted in 2010s | No Comments »

Fruitcake

Thursday, July 30th, 2009

Patty Lane / Story of Life 7″ + comic
Skin Graft Records, 1993

Here’s a 45 that’s gotten better with age. When I first picked up this warped psych monster I was more interested in completing my collection of Skin Graft 7″ + comic combos than listening to the music inside, but it’s become one of my favorite records to spin when I’m in a particularly weird mood. At first take, I considered this Drunks With Guns / Strangulated Beatoffs offshoot band a cut-rate Butthole Surfers clone, probably due to the fact that Fruitcake’s heavily processed, echoed vocals sound a lot like the Butthole’s cover of Donovan‘s “Hurdy Gurdy Man” on Pioughd. But years of putting this on mix tapes (it nicely filled the mandatory oddball track quota) and tossing it on the turntable whenever stumbling across its dayglo orange sleeve, I’ve come to realize that Fruitcake’s grotesquely deranged 1960s psych is weird on an entirely different level than the Butthole Surfers. With the volume and effects-pedal blowout of over-the-top psychers like High Rise and Mainliner and the drugged out charm of classic Roky Erickson / 13th Floor Elevators riffs, Fruitcake pulls off two ridiculously awesome and hilarious (the lyrics to “Story of Life” are an ode to jacking off) tunes that will forever damage your brain.

DOWNLOAD:

Fruitcake – “Patty Lane”
Fruitcake – “Story of Life”

LINKS:

Fruitcake bio and discography on I Heart Noise

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Posted in 1990s | 1 Comment »