Moldy Oldies: Ransacking My Archives

Camaro Hair: Rye Coalition's 2003 magnum opus

I just unearthed a pile of record reviews I had written for the metal magazine Revolver back in the early 2000s. You know the magazine, the one whose covers regularly depict a motley crew of metal marauders scowling menacingly at you from the grocery aisle. It's all pretty silly. But who am I to judge? I actually wrote for the magazine for a few minutes, thanks to my old friend and colleague Nina, who was an editor there and who kindly gave me an opportunity to earn a few bucks writing reviews (and by few bucks, I mean a few; the pay was meager). As for my reviews, they're pretty short and they generally survey forgettable records by equally forgettable and now forgotten bands. 

So here are a couple of them, starting with Jersey Girls from Rye Coalition, a band that previous to this record, I had actually liked. They made some wonderful noisy post-hardcore in the 1990s, even teaming up with the almighty Karp for a split EP, before going full butt rock for the 21st century. I guess Dave Grohl produced one of their final recordings. Never heard it; can't say I was interested after subjecting my ears to Jersey Girls. 

The second review covers an album by the New Zealand neo-garage rock band D4. Who, you ask? Yeah, I don't remember either. 

Rye Coalition Jersey Girls (Tiger Style CD-EP) Two Stars
Modern, retro-minded bands typically celebrate and revisit banner rock years like 1977 or 1967, but not, say, 1981. Until now. On its new EP, New York’s Rye Coalition erects a rousing, albeit cheeky, tribute to the year of feathered mullets, combs in back pockets, and white Pony high-tops. From the CD’s cover art—an airbrushed mural of a cherry-red Camaro caressed by a bikini-clad vixen—to the sleazy anthems that bookend it, “Jersey Girls” is Rye Coalition’s campaign to put the cock back into rock. Some songs show Rye Coalition toying with a volatile mixture AC/DC and Jesus Lizard, but mostly this EP serves as a tribute to guilty pleasures and self-parody. –Joe Ehrbar

The D4 6Twenty (Flying Nun/Infectious) Two Stars

Were it not for the Swedish Invasion or America’s so-called rock revival, the D4 wouldn’t arouse much interest outside the dingy bars of its native New Zealand. But garage rock is this week’s flavor, and as such second-rate bands like the D4 are getting first-rate hype. To be fair, the D4 is a solid combo; its live show as intoxicating as a 12-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon. And while the quartet’s 6Twenty wields righteous rumblers in the lusty “Ladies Man” and the barn-storming “Invader Ace,” too often it sounds derivative and cliché. Stacked next to albums by the Hives or White Stripe, 6Twenty lacks the spark, charisma, imagination, or even balls to get the job done. Is it any wonder the album’s fifth track is titled “Running on Empty”? –Joe Ehrbar

Magic Mustache Ride

Their name is Bastard, although Orphan seems more apt a handle—for why would any sensible parent lay claim to this mustachioed sausage party? Thankfully, Bastard’s story is a short one. Conceived backstage at Toto concert in Brussels in the spring of 1975, Bastard was the product of a rather strange tryst involving the roadies of opening bands, Bulge and Fanny, a men’s room handicap stall, Robert Plant’s prosthetic, and a female centaur AWOL from a trashy sci-fi paperback. Nine months after the curtain fell, Bastard, propelled by a drummer named Toto (told you!), slithered and oozed onto the pages of Kerrang! (three full years before the magazine began publishing) and into the back-alley cabarets of Hamburg, where, in a moment of true serendipity, they successfully propositioned the very man who awarded them a record deal. The resultant album is the only one emblazoned with the Bastard name and the band’s four-headed dog logo (so many heads, so few balls). The record is notable but for one thing, and that thing has nothing to do with the music on it (no one will actually admit to dropping the needle on this plastic turd, myself included). See the sleazoid second from the left with the porn ’stache and the patches on his jeans? Yeah, that’s right; he tore those swatches from the AIDS quilt and stitched ’em to his crotch. Fuckin' bastard!

My 2009 Hit List (part 2)

At last: Numbers 6–10 of...
The Top 10 Best Records/CDs/MP3s I Heard This Year (That You May or May Not Have) That Weren’t Necessarily Released This Year (Oh, and I Only Have Five to Share Right Now)

6. Fucked Up The Chemistry of Common Life (Matador LP)
This is one of the most invigorating records I’ve heard. If the band's moniker wasn't so juvenile, I bet more people would bask in the radiant fury of Fucked Up’s hardcore assault. Fucked Up is different from all the hardcore bands out there because they refuse to be handcuffed to its clichés. Sure all the hallmarks are present: adrenalized riffs, muscular sound, gruff vocals, punishing rhythms. But Fucked Up is more imaginative—and progressive. They have chops and can venture beyond the old 4/4 and are unafraid to deviate from formula: witness the moody ambient instrumentals or the use of congas and flute. Fucked Up also believe in song craft—they understand passion and conviction are wasted if the music isn’t memorable. And so what we get are 11 incredible chapters that comprise a sweeping epic. If you’ve yet to be consumed by the tidal onslaught of The Chemistry of Common Life, then do something positive for your personal well-being: Download the album’s explosive title track from iTunes (or someplace like that). Spend a buck. If “Chemistry” ain’t the accelerant you need to get you going, have someone call a paramedic for you.

7. Mastodon Crack the Skye (Warner Bros. LP)
My wife hates this album. She won’t let me play it in the car, in the house, or anywhere in her presence. She just doesn’t like metal, and she’s bemused that I do. So naturally, I kept Crack the Skye mostly confined to my iPod. No matter. Crack the Skye is Mastodon’s most overtly accessible album—it’s also the band’s most rewarding. Much of this can be attributed to Brendan O’Brien’s production as well as the band’s embrace of melody. Sure Mastodon unleash their vengeful wrath, but instead of simply setting you alight with a holy hellfire of molten riffs and roaring vocals, they keep you in their grips with melodic singing and stunning guitar heroics. My favorite track—and quite possibly my top song of the year—is the climactic sixth song, the title track, which features bassist/vocalist Troy Sanders and Neurosis’s Scott Kelly sharing lead vocals, simultaneously guiding the almighty Mastodon through the depths of hell and up toward the heavens, before physics rip their vessel apart, exploding it into nothingness.

8. Jawbox For Your Own Special Sweetheart (Dischord/DeSoto LP)
I don’t get all that nostalgic about the records I listened to at various periods in my life—especially those from the early/mid-1990s. As much as 2009 sucked, the yesteryears were far worse. So you might think I’d be apprehensive, then, to return vicariously to the scene of the crime by reacquiring the sounds that filled my miserable days of yore. Not so with Jawbox’s For Your Own Special Sweetheart. This album represented the D.C. band’s major label debut for Atlantic Records; and although the single “Savory” drew some airplay on MTV, the album didn’t do much commercially and eventually went out of print. Fifteen years later, Sweetheart is now in the hands of Dischord/DeSoto—the labels that launched Jawbox in 1989. It’s been given a new cover and an outstanding remaster from Bob Weston that’s fattened the bottom end, and is now ready for a new generation to gush over. I enjoyed this record in 1994, but I love it even more now. Sweetheart is crafty yet direct, maniacal yet restrained—it’s a noisy, melodic beast, one that bares its teeth of seething discontent but is not so angry and uptight to not offer some compassion and pleasure. Likewise, Jawbox temper their caterwauling guitars, lunging rhythms and sharp percussive jabs and bruising thumps with some delicious hooks (sorry for saying delicious). A solid, solid piece of work.

9. Cedric Im Brooks Cedric Im Brooks and the Light of Saba (Honest Jon’s 2-LP)
I’ve listened to a lot of reggae over the years, but I hadn't heard Cedric Im Brooks before November. And what a discovery. Brooks, who plays saxophone, led one a most unique Jamaican combos, one which drew from a variety of sources to arrive at its ecstatic inspiration: roots, rock steady, dub, nyabinghi, calypso, Afrobeat and free jazz—yes, free jazz. Brooks spent some time in the 1960s in Philadelphia seeking influence from John Coltrane among others. He got it all right and brought it back to Jamaica. No, you’re not likely to discern any Coltrane signatures in Brooks’ work. His approach sounds more like Sun Ra. It’s cosmic reggae and this anthology succeeds in creating a nice, clear portrait of the little-known virtuoso.

10. Donald Byrd Electric Byrd (BlueNote LP)
When Miles Davis got all high on electric jazz with In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew, lots of other jazzbos began toking from the same pipe. This is hard-bopper Donald Byrd’s contribution to the new vibration. I hadn’t heard this gem until this year, when I picked up a vinyl reissue of the 1970 album at a record shop. There is some wonderful stuff to trip out on with the lights out; all psychedelic and weird and not one bit gimmicky. Hard to believe Byrd would eventually put down the trumpet to become a dance choreographer.

Honorable Mention: Dinosaur Jr. Farm (Jagjaguwar LP)
Didn’t think they had a good record left in them. And then they had to go and prove me wrong. I’m OK with that. Favorite track: Lou Barlow’s “Your Weather.”

Melvins Bulldoze the Showbox

Melvins, The Showbox, Seattle, September 19, 2007 The Melvins have gotten a little rounder and a bit grayer (OK, Buzz’s gravity-defying mane is A LOT grayer). Middle age has indeed settled in and made itself at home. Sonically speaking, however, the Melvins haven’t gone soft. How could they? They’ve been bulldozing the rock landscape for more than 20 years—and bulldozers don’t tread lightly. If anything, their inimitable sound is nimbler and more muscular. Credit the recent addition of bassist/vocalist Jared Warren and second drummer Coady Willis (both of Big Business). The Melvins’ appearance at Seattle’s Showbox Sept. 18, the kick-off of their fall 2007 U.S. tour, left no question as to the band’s vitality. On this night, they stormed the stage like a pack of mal-tempered pachyderms, trampling their admirers beneath the overwhelming blunt force of their heavy metal stomp. For 90 minutes, a sold-out crowd absorbed the cataclysmic tremors and serrated shockwaves—and delighted in the menacing punishment. So mighty were their swells of sound, so severe were their wallops that one could have easily overlooked the genius of their song architecture, which is often unpredictable and deceptively complex. And yet it was this underlying brilliance that ultimately heightened the impact of their physicality. As reflected by the new lineup, much of Tuesday’s set focused on material from A Senile Animal—the first album to feature this latest Melvins incarnation. “Civilized Worm,” “A History of Bad Men” and “Rat Faced Granny” highlighted the band’s time-honored signatures (bottom-end bombast, syncopated rhythms, slow-tempo drones, King Buzzo’s snarling vocals, Dale Crover’s percussive wallop) but were augmented by newly acquired strengths—Jared’s shrieking, higher-octave wails and harmonies and the violent, tenacious thrashing of the Crover and Willis tandem. The Melvins are showing their age, all right. But they aren’t old.

Melvins Unleashed and on Tour!

The following is a short piece I penned for the Seattle P-I, in which I interviewed Melvins co-founder and traps pounder Dale Crover. At the time, the Melvins were still a trio--it would be a few years before the enlistment Big Business partners bassist/shouter Jared Warren and drummer Coady Willis. The latest Melvins incarnation is again making a menace of itself in U.S. clubs through the fall. If you haven't had the pleasure of subjecting yourself to the savage splendor of the Melvins' latest LP, A Senile Animal, well, then what are you waiting for? Look for a lengthy Q&A with King Buzzo from 2000 (previously printed in The Rocket) in the coming weeks.

Club Beat: No Energy Crisis for the Melvins
Friday, January 26, 2001

By JOE EHRBAR
SPECIAL TO THE POST-INTELLIGENCER

"We're just lucky, I guess."

That's one way Melvins drummer Dale Crover explains his band's remarkable longevity of 17 years. And he's right, they are lucky. The Melvins, who, in Aberdeen, forged grunge by crossing metal (Sabbath) with punk (Flipper) and slowed the whole thing to a sludgy crawl, and who acted as a catalyst in the formation of Nirvana, remain standing, still aspiring toward new artistic heights, and showing no signs of fatigue. A mighty achievement for a band that only haunts the fringes of the mainstream.

The Melvins—Crover, guitarist/vocalist Buzz Osborne (a.k.a. King Buzzo) and bassist Kevin Rutmanis—perform tonight in the Sky Church at EMP, the museum their formidable sound helped build (8 p.m., $5). (But don’t call them a museum piece.)

"We've had our ups and downs, but we really enjoy playing with each other," says Crover, whose soft-spoken manner belies his bombastic drumming. "I still really like all the songs that Buzz writes. It's exciting, challenging, worth doing."

The Melvins, now based in Los Angeles, have survived in a hostile music industry largely because of the strong bond that exists between Osborne and Crover and their fierce devotion to the band's independence and craft. Even when they were signed to Atlantic for three albums (1993's Houdini, 1994's Stoner Witch and 1996's Stag), they maintained that integrity.
If anything, they grew more adventurous—not to mention dissonant—during their major-label stay and allowed their metallic mountain-moving sound to wander freely into more experimental realms.

By eluding convention the Melvins have kept things interesting for themselves. In doing so, they've befuddled their fan base, something in which the band undoubtedly takes great delight.
For instance, during 1999 and 2000 the trio released a trilogy of albums, The Maggot, The Bootlicker and The Crybaby (Ipecac), each bearing little similarity to the other. Maggot stomped around familiar Melvins noise-metal territory; Bootlicker delved into psychedelic madness and creepy ambiance; while Crybaby kicked and screamed through a disjointed mess of unusual collaborations with likes of Hank Williams III, former teen idol Leif Garrett, among others.

The Melvins' next wave of releases is equally perplexing. First up will be Electroretard (Man’s Ruin), an EP of covers and reworked—or mutated—versions of old songs, in February, followed by a live album of scalding-hot white noise titled Colossus of Destiny, in April. Crover calls Colossus "our Metal Machine Music album," referring to Lou Reed's infamous noise recording from 1975.

"We never know what to expect with our band," Crover admits. "So it's even a surprise to us."

While anything's possible at tonight's show, count on the Melvins not to consign themselves to EMP's permanent collection.

Go see the Melvins (tour dates): http://www.ipecac.com/calendar.php