DEAD GHOSTS/SMITH WESTERNS split 7inch

About a year ago this time (give or take a month or so) both these band's sounds started making the rounds outside of the select few in their town's and who decided to put their first singles out. The underground was all hot-headed about the Black Lips overexposure which actually accounted to little in the straight world. Both these bands hit that crest and they held the hipsters on the fence if such a thing could be liked anymore. Suspicions understandable by maybe just a bit too much cynical. Shit, I don't think even a couple of the Smith Westerns kids weren't even born until after Nirvana's Nevermind came out so it's hard to believe it was the new bandwagon sound for them to jump on.
Both bands have a certain BFTG slightly outta tune/off tempo jangle/slur. Not too sure when exactly the songs were recorded but on the Smith Westerns side it's a safe bet a little bit (but just a little bit) before they hit the Ice Cream Sundae Punk stride that they're showing off their recently released debut album (Which rules by the way. Review coming soon....but with the massive behind Smashin Transistors is that could be months. Instead of waiting go out and buy it now!!!). The song, "Tonight" is a glob of 60's jangle psych drowning in a pool of reverb that would make the Jesus & Mary Chain jealous and singing that would make even the most glam of 70's rock singers blush.
Dead Ghosts side is cut from the same cloth as far as the jangle & reverb is concerned but overall leaning more towards to the kinda thing the Oh Sees have hit paydirt with. Both tunes are quite solid and stretching their wings a bit and starting to get away from the Black Lips Jr. thing that has been pinned on them in the past.
http://www.bachelorrecords.com/

King's Cherry Ale

Wasn't too sure if I was really in the mood for a fruit beer at the moment but the Great Lake State is considered the cherry growing capital of the world so a Michigan made beer (by a brewery I'm not familiar with) using cherries is worth giving a shot.
Cloudy copper color & a inch or so fluffy head that dissipated in a patchy manner. The aroma reminded me of something between a pale wheat, Laffy Taffy and a Labatt's Blue. The cherry scent is not very strong at first whiff but seems to appear more as it sits though it never comes to the forefront
The initial sip gave off grainy and malty flavor with the cherry taste hanging around the edges. Like the scent the fruit flavor is noticed more as it is sipped but never overstated. Hell, compared to a lot of fruit beers I've tried it's actually almost understated. "Almost" meaning they could perhaps amp it up a little bit more you can taste it none the less. There's a good amount of carbonation to this brew giving it a sparkling and somewhat clean finish with a mix of malt and (slight) cherry in the aftertaste. Nothing too complex but not bad at all.
http://www.kingbrewing.info

GHOST HOSPITAL "D+" 7inch

If you lived in a place the is the butt of cultural wasteland you might be a little irritated by what people expect from first impressions. Ya don't want to come off like some strip mall raised and McDonald Happy Meal toy entertained mook. Ya wanna show you have, y'know, actual taste or something.
Tampa, Fla based Ghost Hospital probably wrestle this dilemma every day. While some bands today are happy with using, say, the same template the Black Lips based their sound off of (and nothing else) this band sound like they can't resist crossing wire of something like that hoping they'll either start a fire or blow a fuse.
The standard Nu-Garage thing gets spliced together with somewhat out whack folk rock and cracks a couple of really clever one liners over a din of squelch and feedback. "D+" plays into all three quite a bit with a little bit reverb which then leads into something that fans the hippie music Stephen Malkmus has been making for quite a bit might bop their head to. Y'know, it's happy trip. It then gives way to a torrential downpour of feedback throwing the mellow buzz into burning pit of static before sauntering back to bip-de-bop where the journey started. The flip's "Religious Bias In Nursery Rhymes" gives off a sound such as a crackly distant college radio of the 80's where the dj are stoned and like to experiment with playing Replacements and Jesus & Mary Chain demos loud and at the same time .
http://www.myspace.com/ghosthospital

OUTRAGEOUS CHERRY "Universal Malcontents" LP

Yeah, yeah. We all know Brian Wilson didn't have it all that easy. We're not talking the aspects of his over the top father, his decay of hearing and Dr. Landry prescribing his descent into metal illness either. There's 1000's of printed pages and gigabytes of webspace dedicated to people talking about how Pet Sounds touched their lives and how they hope to attain such plateaus. Then they go a pro-tool the fuck out of it on their computer generated recording program to achieve it.
"Hey dude. Check it out! Doesn't it feel just like 'God Only Knows'?"
"Umm, No, not really?"
"What? Do you know how many hours it took for me to find the right digital effects to make my voice and that string section setting on my Casio to make it sound that orchestrated?"
Whatever man. You sat in your room on a Saturday afternoon and moved a mouse around. You didn't deal with tape, a hired string section wondering where the hell you were coming from or Van Dyke Parks sporting a some goofy mustache and fedora nodding at you like he knows what you're getting at but secretly thinking "What the hell did I get myself into and how can I explain it to my bosses at the record label". Then not to mention dealing with a couple of moody brothers (thanks to a complete nutjob dad) and whatever clown antics Mike Love had up his sleeve (Yes, I read the damage control Mike Love has been doing in the press the last year or so. I have a hard time buying it too but will cut him so slack because ya kinda have to. After all he co-wrote songs like "Do It Again"). Those guys baked really great cakes. A lot of these "tributes" to 'em today or more like microwaved brownies when they think adding some sparkles & sprinkles on top makes it the same kinda thing.
Outrageous Cherry understand what went through to make records like Pet Sounds. They also understand where Marc Bolan, the Velvet Underground, the Bay City Rollers and Cheap Trick were coming from too.
With songs such as rubbery new wave surrounded by T. Rex built walls of sound "Recognize Her", "It's Not Rock & Roll (But I like It)" & "This Song's For Everyone" Velvet Underground churn with a hard candy coating sing-a-longs, The Banana Splits getting dropped off in a burnt & decaying Detroit neighborhood blaster "Get Out While You Can" and the Eric Carmen discovers buzz & drone "Outsider" Outrageous Cherry, unlike some other bands that are trying to trick people in thinking they're the as closest a person will ever get to the epic & sometimes strange pop music of yore, pay homage but manage to not suffer from a identity crisis. They've been around long enough (15 years or so now) not to worry about such things and this is one the best records they've made.
http://www.myspace.com/outrageouscherry

DIRTY CHINESE THIEVES "Uber Alles" 12inch EP

Meeting the twain's of knuckle dragging punk anger and bong packed Camaro Rock one starts to wonder if Toronto's Dirty Chinese Thieves want to look for fights & slash tires or burn rubber & get laid.
Raw throated yelling that's half hardcore rage & half garage punk howling over riff pummels that are equally the Cosmic Psychos and the Jesus Lizard as they are the Misfits and Turbonegro. BIG (and I mean BIG) rock guitar solo flashes in every song.
Fight or fuck? Maybe these guys do them both at the same time.
http://www.myspace.com/dctordie

Mishawaka Hop Head Ale

The labels of some craft brewed bottles are not the most artistic. Why spend what cash you don't have hiring an artist when you can tinker around a little bit in photoshop or get a nephew to whip up a quick something. The label that Hop Head sports would almost make it into that category. The colors are sorta dark making the presentation look a little murky. Murk makes me think of the river that runs right through the downtown where I live. I don't want to think of that water when drinking a beer. What saves it is the little hop guy on the label. He looks blazed. He's ready to party whether you're gonna hang or not.
Sunshine orange in color that is made almost opaque from the non-filtered processes floating all through the glass. Quarter inch cream colored head that faded fairly quick with Honeycomb looking lace. The scent has a pilsner like base. Sweet corn syrup and lighter malts. A large waft of lemon and pine oil circle around it. Balanced but a little understated.
A medium and slightly creamy body with buttery malt notes at first sip but watch out! A big bitter hop bite snaps hard on the inside of the mouth a couple seconds later. Something odd about them. They seem well....almost swampy or well, murky. Overgrown grass clippings is what's coming to mind if ya really want to know. The finish is large with hop resins sticking all over the roof of the mouth and lemony coating in the throat.
Though usually all RAH! RAH! RAH! about hopped out rustbelt made IPA's I don't see myself coming back to this one again. Sorry totally righteous bro hacky sack playing looking hop dude. This party just ain't my bag.
http://www.mishawakabrewingcompany.com

BEAST WITH A GUN/SLIM LIMBS split 7inch EP

Hayseeds. It's not just an American phenomenon. Anyone who lives in areas away from the bigger cities have them. Ain't nothing wrong with being a hayseed. They wanna hoot & holler on a Saturday night just like anyone else. In the coastal towns of Norwich, England the hayseeds gotta lose their minds to Beast With A Gun. Dust gets kicked up, rotgut gets slammed back, bottles thrown, ladies get kissed and punches fly. Two songs of bendy twang and punk rock bang.
The Slim Limbs are perfect partners in crime when it comes to the type of mischief Beast With A Gun are looking for. Where Beast With A Gun are somewhat hyper and happy go lucky-Slim Limbs are broody and blunt. Their song "Queen Of The Mist is something like the Necessary Evils slowed down by a mudslide and accented with mariachi horns. They don't sound like the types you would want to put behind a late night drive through the woods though because they probably know some places where some very, very unfriendly farmers who use chainsaws for most of their work live.
http://www.myspace.com/murderslimrecords

TIMMY'S ORGANISM "Squeeze The Giant" 7inch EP

There's been talk of a remake of the 1966 film "Fantastic Voyage" for years. I've lost count how many times I've seen the original so I'm on the fence about it being redone. One thing that would get me behind the idea though is if they hired Tim Lampinen produce, direct and star in the film. His musical history, from the Epileptix to the Clone Defects to Human Eye to this project, has always had some type of preoccupation with biology in name if nothing else. His attention to details such as pulsing blood veins and festering microcosms would be enough to make it interesting to look at but he wouldn't be satisfied with just that. It would have to be more bizarre & dingy as well as clever, oddly hilarious and completely over the top.
Leading off the 5 songs that span over the 4 sides of this collection is "Squeeze The Giant". You see, Tim (along with some assistance from two of the Terrible Twos) wouldn't just want to explore the inside of just a regular human body in a shrunk down spaceship. That's been done. He'd know that going through a giant's innards would make things much more interesting. The rhythm lumbers like a giant kicking over the world's tallest buildings (ya gotta remember that with this giant the deepest sea only come up to his knees) & wah-wah guitar oozes like metallic lava under a tale that's part scary fairy tale & part Mad Magazine sci-fi. "Tree Thirsty Earthquake" finds Tim in a crooning mood. Jobriath wearing Leonard Cohen's overcoat with production courtesy of Helios Creed.
Record two starts with "Body Of Love", a garage stomp with dance club dreams on it's mind but that dance club is either 200 feet underground or 20,000 leagues under the sea. It's fits perfect with such locations reverberations. It's followed by the echo'd out organ subterreanean bachelor pad music "Toes In The Grass". Curl up in front of the glow of TV screen static.
"No Hassles" finishes the record by busting out the wah-wah even bigger than on aformentioned "Squeeze The Giant" with squishy solos and High Rise like sonic squalls.
Tim's work keeps getting stranger but in doing so matches (if not tops) previous brilliant moments of his decade plus career.
http://www.myspace.com/timmyvlamp

CRAPPY DRACULA/FARMS IN TROUBLE "White Women" split 7inch EP

If band's like Tyvek are the bright & clever head of the class students in the modern of school of Wire Pink Flag teachings Milwaukee Wisconsin's Crappy Dracula are the freshmen who are always getting swirlies and being thrown head first into lockers. A barrage of bright & brittle Telecaster bursts, burping bass lines and marching band drums going way off the route of the parade snaps & bangs crash together in overmodulated 4 track glory. Many moments of angular goofing that culminates in what has to be accidental brilliance on their side's 2nd song "Application" (sandwiched between the nerd punk conniption fit of "Hospital Waste Management Facility Party Tonight" and a faithfully battered take on Guided By Voices "A Good Flying Bird") where it's a Pabst drunk Red Crayola before they changed the spelling of their name. Interestingly the band spells their name The Krappy Drakula on this record. I've been assured that it's just in coincidental and I shouldn't put so much thinking into trying to figure out if their are any cryptic messages/secret motives that the band may have because it's giving them too much credit.
Even if their sound is a tad more orchestrated and "together" than that of Crappy Dracula-Farms In Trouble share similar aesthetics and possibly the same tape machine too. "Employment History" starts off their side in a carnivalesque manner. Something like the Hollies or the Zombies-if those bands were the children of traveling carnival workers that is. It's then followed by some proto-robot-funk and finishes with a bit of Skip Spence/Syd Barrett whimsy/psychosis.
http://www.crappydracula.com/

Abita Jockamo IPA

Is this an IPA? Well, It looks like one. Rusty orange and see through in color, decent head and an okay amount of lacing but then IPA characteristics seem to quickly diminish after that. Not much of scent really and what ya can smell is mostly malt. Not detecting much of a hop aroma at all which, for an IPA as far as this reporter is concerned, is something that is mandatory. Without it anywhere on the nose is there really much of a chance much of any on the tongue either? Most likely not and this is no exception to the rule.
Mostly metallic tinged malt taste with a bit of caramel coating in the mouth and just a slight (and I do mean slight) fruity hop bitterness. To say it's a little underwhelming in the flavor department is not an understatement. It's not gross tasting or anything but it sure is boring and lacks the things that make an IPA taste like an IPA let alone one to get excited about.
http://www.abita.com/

the HUSSY "Winter Daze" 7inch EP

"How can a band so small make a sound so big?" We've probably all seen it used how many a number of times by now when discussing a two piece band? Is it really all that puzzling? Ya turn it up and rock it out. The trick is though doing something more with it after that step to keep it from being tedious. Madison, Wisconsin's the Hussy have figured that part out.
Songs big on beats that make you want to clap along in a drunken head shake/hips sway rhythm. Bobby's bangs out '55 meets '77 rockin' guitar blang and calling out lines in a slight Sprechgesang way trading off with Heather's cheap wine soaked bad girl she-howls while she knocks hard out a beat. The energy is high through every song. Yes, they are loud...and yes, they are working from the garage punk playbook that many a band before them has done but there's a character here that makes the band burn bright with a particular charm and flair.
http://www.myspace.com/thehussyknowsall

NICE FACE "Mnenomic Device" 7inch

First impressions. Is it sometimes smart just to go with them? First time through "Mnemonic Device" seemed something like the Human League with a whole lot of distortion piled on top of it and a bunch of dust on the needle. Hmmm. Is it. Second time around it doesn't sound as much like that but even something more bothersome....like, I dunno, Michael Sembello so some other 80's top 40 rock song that forsake anything rock-n-roll for synthetics that aerobics instructors would pump (if they hung out at goth clubs after work that is) but with whole lot of distortion piled on top of it and a bunch of dust on the needle. Started to worry what impressions a third time through would give off so time to flip it over and give "Situation is Facing Utter Annihilation" a listen. Things don't sound much like either Human League or Michael Sembello with whole lot of distortion piled on top of it and a bunch of dust on the needle. If the fat & fuzzy bass line didn't barrel a Dead Boys vibes headfirst into a Lost Sounds like dark place here the strangling the strings guitar solos surely do.
http://www.myspace.com/nicefacetheband

GUINEA WORMS "Lost and Found" and "I.K.W.W.F.L." 7inch

Sounding somewhere between a medicated street preacher and a philosophy professor giving a lecture that classmates are either inspired, confused or frustrated-Guinea Worms chief Will Foster has a lot on his mind. Things seem linear for minutes at a time but then the tangent shifts into a completely different direction. You never know where it's going next.
On the a-side of the Savage single "Lost and Found" asks the musical question of where to lost things go over a wrung out and spidery bit of Devo in a mudslide weirdness. The flipside's "Jeans and Heels" is akin to listening to a rave-up trying to get out of the gate but is staggering on it's feet due to a just received slow motion pummeling.
The "is it autobiographical or is parenthetical" musings of "I.K.W.W.F.L." (abbreviated form of I Know Where Will Foster Lives") is antsy and anchored by the JB's horn section if they were a 6th grade band class is side one of the latest installment of the Columbus Discount singles club. "C.H.U.D." is swamp boogie moved to a backyard of mud and a rusted out car or two.
Each record the Guinea Worms has put out has had something different to offer. It doesn't sound as if their genre hopping cuz everything they do has a particular peculiar squiggly touch that they're claiming their own. Wondering in what odd place they end up next.
http://www.myspace.com/guineaworms

Stone IPA

Though my beer loyalties, especially when it comes to IPA's, are with the one's made here in Michigan when it comes to ranking the top breweries in the country I never hesitate ranking San Diego Ca.'s brewery Stone way up high on the list. Hell, for making Arrogant Bastard (which, if ever in a bar with Agent L. Caution of the Black Time and they have it on tap ask him to order you one. If anyone can make the name of the beer any more full on than it already is it's his London accent) alone they deserve such honors. After that anything they brewed could be "Ehh, It's okay" and it still wouldn't discount them one bit. The thing is though that everything we've tasted in the Smashin' Transistors labs by them has been tops and being hop heads their IPA would eventually have to be discussed.
Pours a clean, clear gold in color with not a huge head but still a sticky lacing on the sides of the glass through the entire beer. Though usually a hop fiend where I have to notice a pungent floral scent jumping out at me right off the bat or I'll already start having my contentions about how good an IPA gonna be even before it's first there's something nice and different about the subdued character in the aroma of this. It smells of citrus and pine along with some malt and I'm thinking something along the lines of peach but laid back, sweet and nice instead of brassy, bold and upfront. It's deceiving though because on first sip there is definitely a sharp hop tang up front. Not all pucker power though but like the scent-crisp and citrusy with that peach thing I mentioned in the backbone. Malt shows up in the middle adding a nice balance to the the sweety tarty flavor that surrounds it. The finish is slightly dry and kinda spicy with a bit of alcohol burn but nothing that would make ya think that this is close to a 7% ABV. Lot of people who are way more schooled in the fine art of beer tasting and critiquing than myself say that this is one of the best all around IPA that American microbreweries have to offer. I'm not going to argue with them. It's considered a standard and there's a reason for that.
http://www.stonebrew.com/

v/a "Shiftless Decay" LP

Not a week goes by where I don't have I'll be having a conversation about music and someone will wanna discuss the "Detroit scene". They'll start talking about whoever and eventually I have to interject with something like "You're hitting on things that happened almost 10 years ago now. There's different kinds of sounds happening now."
Trying to explain what those different sounds in way some such folks can comprehend isn't always the easiest thing to do. Pumping up old blues and soul riffs and revving up car motor's that was "built just up the road" are not much of a modus operandi here. As a matter of fact it's most likely the farthest thing that could be cited when the record plays.
Subtitled "New Sounds of Detroit" it's more about the sounds of pistons seizing, the crumbling of rust and playing in a wasteland of contaminated soil and strewn with broken glass and rusty nails. From the cement truck converted into a spaceship Hawkwind hiss of Human Eye, the antsy prog-thrash trash of the Terrible Twos and Heroes & Villains loaded with wobbly and unsafe undercurrents 60's pop psych to Tyvek's Pink Flag era Wire bathing in hydrocloric acid, Sesame Street on ritalin hardcore of the Mahonies and the Through the Looking Glass nightmares of belt sanders feeling from Little Claw-not only does the comp sum up the sounds within but also encapsulates an overall aura of today's Detroit. Disheveled, negleted and overgrown with ratted weeds and smelly fungus but still breathing, not afraid to fight and leaving impressions be them disturbing or oddly interesting that will stick long after the moment.
http://www.x-recs.com/