Custody Battle

10” 2010

I think of Custody Battle as the refined version of Anomic Suicide. It contains Travis and Pickle from said band and adds Zombie Religion singer, Loren, on bass. The sound is similar to Anomic Suicide’s in that it sounds like all the good players from the early SST bands formed a band that somehow didn’t suck. The playing is tighter and the songwriting has gotten slimmer and more minimalist and more focused. This is also the best recording of any of Travis’ many bands that I’ve heard. Because I know these guys it’s hard to separate how mean this sounds from what nice mellow guys they are. The music makes them sound deranged and heat fried. Ain’t one trace of that hippie love folk shit that is popular in all the bars up in Flagstaff. This is the type of music you can only see in basements and house shows where underage kids are getting loaded and making out and rocking out. Easily one of the best bands in Az. right now.

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H.O.A.

Fighting the Lost War of the Anonymous demo cass. 2010

Here’s a current band out of Tempe whose demo I picked up a Toxic Ranch last week. Bill told me it was some pretty good noise out of Phoenix. I said “noise like Amphetamine Reptile stuff?” and he said “no like Throbbing Gristle.” Naturally I was intrigued and if Bill says its worth checking out it usually is. But I think we both missed the mark on what kind of noise this is. It reminds me of the early 90s riot grrl stuff, but only aesthetically, because it seems like its three young girls who have no idea of how they're "supposed" to play their instruments yet are still able to create great interesting music. This is way more creative than most of the stuff like this that was done in the 90s. I would fit this somewhere between contemporaries like Trash Kit and Finally Punk while giving a nod to Crass and Huggy Bear. It’s very menacing, a little creepy and so good that HOA (along with Gay Kiss and Sorrower and a few other newer bands) gives me hope for Phoenix.

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Gary Bear

Gary Bear as Kelvin 296 & the Beat Hip demo cass. 1997

The first time I remember seeing Gary Bear was at the DPC when it had just opened (’90 or ’91?) and a great band from England, Thatcher On Acid, played. They were like a better, poppy version of the earlier English anarco-punk bands (Crass, Conflict et al.) and I listen to their records regularly to this day. In the middle of one of their songs they did this break down thing where the music got quiet and they invited anybody from the audience to come up and take the mic for a while. The stage was on the east side of the venue and for a short time had steps directly in front of it so there was easy access. The crowd was thin, but five or six people got up there and did their thing. Some sang along (with real passion, and the band reacted accordingly) others just said stupid shit. Then Gary Bear gets up and recites a poem that I don’t remember verbatim, but the basic idea behind it was that if you drink and you become an asshole when you drink, then you have no right to use alcohol in public. That simple wisdom, put so elegantly in poem form, with the great Thatcher On Acid backing him up, stuck with me over the years and occasionally pops into my head when I see drunk assholes in public. This made his face stick with me and I would recognize him performing as a solo act from then until now. Every time I’ve seen him perform live I’ve found it very annoying. It seemed like he got lost on the way to the Renaissance fair and somehow landed a spot in between two good bands I really wanted to see. This three song demo reflects that kind of freak-folk-pop stuff he does live, but here it’s not annoying. The songs are actually good. They’re still weird as fuck and very Renaissance-y as if he was scoring a very weird Willy Wonka directed by Jodorowosky set in Italy in 1525, but with love song lyrics. Listening to this makes me think about Gary Bear as that type of artist that works best in the recorded medium.

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Lenguas Largas

Live on 602 Radio 2009

Here’s a live radio set by an early incarnation of the live version of Lenguas Largas. They play songs that have all ended up on their records, but here they’re slow as hell and super dreamy and hazy. The drugged out desert rock tag always gets stuck on these guys, but none of them really even do drugs. Here you wouldn’t know it because it feels like their high as hell, like they each took a hand full of Quaaludes and tried to walk through knee-deep mud, only with noisy psych punk music. Add some booze, Mark Beef and Ricky Shimo and you got a pretty winning formula. Drummer on this recording, Chris Kohler (Sexy) was replaced by Levi Reyes (Swing Ding Amigos) who was recently replaced by Brian Bollt (Sabertooth Snatch, Line of Fire). Brian’s drum style is more crystal meth than Quaaludes so the latest incarnation should be interesting. Another great live set from 602 Radio in Phoenix.

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John Polle

4 songs solo live at the Red Room 2011

The work of Idaho to Tucson transplant John Polle, reminds me of his fellow Idahoan, Doug Martsch. He’s the guy that actually replaced Martsch when he left the Treepeople before their last and worst, but not as bad as some people make it out to be album, Actual Reenactment. Since then, like Martsch with Built to Spill and Halo Benders, Polle has been refining his own unique brand of American indie-pop/rock with his bands the Solace Bros., Lenguas Largas and Discos. I think he might have played in the post-Treepeople band Stuntman too. Also like Martsch he does the occasional acoustic solo set. His guitar picking skills are really evident here and the songwriting is great. On these songs he sounds less like Martsch and more like The Tallest Man On Earth playing stoned. These four songs are taken from the “Live at the Red Room” CD series vol.2 (available at the bar). I think he has a two song 7” of him playing solo like this too. New records by Lenguas Largas and Discos have also just come out. John’s a busy man. Sorry no song titles, but the first song is a version of Discos’ “Up in the Air.”

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the Resonars

Lunar Kit LP 2002

On Matt Rendon’s releases as The Resonars he goes to the trouble to present the Resonars as a band with four real members who share the instrumentation and four part vocal harmonies, but everything is performed by Matt. It wasn’t always that way. They functioned as a real band that played live shows in the early years, but Matt, like all great musicians, probably came to the conclusion that he could get more done quicker by doing it himself. Plus it’s probably impossible to find good players that have as deep an understanding and love of 60s psych rock and pop music as he does. Sure you can find guys that wanna cover Hendrix and the Beatles at any shitty bar in any town, but Matt’s dipping into a much deeper well of 60s rock for inspiration. He can reproduce it so original and authentic sounding that when Dirty Steve, who also has a great knowledge of 60s music, first heard this album he thought it was some obscure gem from the 60s that flew under his radar. He has recorded a lot of my bands and the man can work studio magic with 60s technology. Title track refers to Keith Moon’s drum kit, the same model and set up that was used to record this record. He’s recorded at least two other full lengths since this record, all worth hunting down.

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Run-On Sunshine

Memory Game cass. 2011

If you’ve been to a show in downtown Tucson in the last 10 years and there wasn’t a short skinny guy with a funny hair cut named Mullarkey dancing right in front of the band it’s because there was a better show going on that night and Mullarkey was at that show. For many years at shows he was mostly a spectator, but he has recently had an explosion of creativity that first manifested in his karaoke displays, then the band Monster Pussy, then Run-On Sunshine and now every time I run into him he tells me about some new really unconventional project he has in the works. Run-On Sunshine is extremely unconventional consisting mostly of Mullarkey singing. There is sparse instrumentation consisting solely of acoustic children’s instruments provided by Autumn Bree (Kamikaze Autopilot), a fine singer in her own right, who actually has a much larger range than Mullarkey’s mostly monotone approach, but she doesn’t sing here. This is pretty strange music that is not for the causal listener, but there are some catchy melodies and Mullarkey’s love of Calvin Johnson is evident. The lyrics are as intimate as the delivery and are mostly autobiographical and very heart-on-sleeve, with moments of brilliant insight, like when he is reminiscing about his recollection of the old days and thinks “…these memories could be altered to fool myself” which is a thought that has entered my head many times since I started this blog. 

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Young Hunter

two song demo cass. 2011

Here is a newer Tucson band I recently saw that is made up of members of other Tucson bands that I haven’t heard and only scarcely heard of. Some of their sound is heavy and really full (two drummers!) and other times it’s real quiet and sparse, but it flows smoothly between the contrasting sounds. It’s a fairly dark take on indie rock and sounds like a bunch of Brooklyn or Portland hipsters were pumped on the Canadian indie bands (Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown, Frog Eyes etc.) and tried to interrupt the sound in the desert setting with a desert vibe, like they smoke a lot of shitty pot and don’t leave home when the sun is out. Lo fi approach works pretty well for demo cass., but I hope they can keep it together long enough for a proper studio release which would allow the many layers to shine through.

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La Merma

Ciudad Fronteriza cass. 1997

At this point (15-16 years) La Merma has got to be S. Arizona’s longest continuous running punk band. Maybe even the longest continuous running punk band in the whole state (or would that be Blackfire or some PHX band I don't know about?) . The funny thing about that is that they’re not completely from Arizona or the U.S. They have the rare distinction of existing between the third world poverty of Nogales, Mexico and the scary militarized zone Nogales, Az. has become. Their sound reflects a similar dualism combining American Southern California melodic punk, like early Bad Religion with a heavy Spanish punk influence, especially from Eskorbuto, who they sound a lot alike and they praise here in their song “Eskorbuto.” The riff in La Merma’s “Mi Ciudad” is a pretty blatant rip off of Eskorbuto’s “Cuidado!” but they add their own twist to the song so it comes off as less a rip off and more of a folk-tradition tribute to one of their beloved influences. "A Bailar" is my favorite song here and worthy of many a mix-tape. This is their first release and despite many line up changes over the years they are more active than ever recently touring on the East Coast and in Europe and are currently recording their newest record in Tucson.

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Earthmen and Strangers

LP 2009

I thought that Ryan Rousseau could do no wrong, but sometime in this last year I saw the current incarnation of Destruction Unit and I did not like them. They dove into a moody, dark, gothic post-punk sound that reminded me of the fist time I saw Digital Leather with just Sean and Arrow playing keyboards and singing, which I thought sucked. Nevertheless Rousseau’s songwriting skills are better than ever, but it’s more evident in Earthmen and Strangers, my favorite project of his so far. Everything is more thought out and controlled compared to his noisier punk bands, but it still has enough punch to keep the head bobbing. There is some mood and reverb, but it’s not dark and overdone. “Bartender” is just about a perfect song. “Photo Lie,” which also shows up on a Digital Leather release is done here. I don’t know if Sean or Ryan wrote it, but both versions are great. There is also a quitter, tamer version “Desert Snow” than the one that appears on Tokyo Electron’s AZ 238 LP. He’s taken his familiar song structures and let them open up and expand into poppy new wave indie rock songs rather than just shoving the music down your throat like some of his past and current work. It’s mature, but in all the right ways.

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the Pork Torta

 

Sparky Welding cass. circa 1994

I was offended when the Okmoniks were playing around Tucson and calling themselves “Tucson’s best party band” or something like that. Everybody knows that the best party band in Tucson was, is and always shall be the Pork Torta. Sure the Okmoniks might make you wanna shake your head and throw some beer at the band, but the Pork Torta make you feel like you walked onto the set of a David Lynch film set in a dark bar in the middle of the desert with some wild, emotionally dissident yet highly rhythmic band pounding away as people grind on each other while strobe lights almost make you blackout and the rhythm makes you go crazy. There is nothing normal about this release. It’s their first and it finds the madness unrefined with more of an anything goes attitude than they've had on more recent releases. Different versions of some of these songs appear on later CDs, but here they’re laced with bad acid and lo-fi charm. Guest appearances by Bob Log and Johnny Balls, who is now their bass player. Everything they produce should promptly be purchased by you, now, here

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Let The World Die

the end of living and the beginning of survival CD 2010

After being in Flagstaff for about three years I began to be discouraged because I thought that Blackfire was the only representation of Navajo punk rock. Blackfire has a unique sound that blends melodic Bad Religion influenced punk with traditional Navajo chants and sometimes even dance, but I never really got into what they do. Then people started saying good things about Let the World Die. Problem was they would be praised, and then described as a crusty-ska band. Crust and ska are two horrible genres and the idea of blending them sounds as appealing as eating piss covered shit, so I didn’t exactly go out of my way to see them live. Then I did see them and was floored. They don’t really incorporate the ska up-stroke that much and I would describe the “crust” elements as just raging hardcore. They also didn’t strike me as the apathetic wastoid types that I associate with the whole crusty thing and members are involved with the Taala Hooghan infoshop/show space/DIY community space that puts on shows in East Flagstaff. Too bad I let my own prejudices get in the way of discovering this band earlier cause when I left town these guys (and Custody Battle) were the best shit going on up there.

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Limbless Torso

Shut Your Stupid Fucking Mouth-3" CD 2009

Anything anybody might have told you about 13 year old Gabriel Perez being a fucking incredible drummer was probably an understatement. I have heard one or two people add that “yeah good for a 13 year old” but rest assured Gabriel has more talent and a better understanding of the music he plays than most drummers I have played with, and I’ve played with a lot of drummers. I attribute this understanding directly to his father, Alex, whose talent often gets overshadowed by the novelty of such a young drummer playing so good. Before I ever picked up a guitar I had seen Alex play with the American Deathtrip and his extremely fast and precise guitar playing made a huge impression on me. Alex seems to have dumped all his years of knowledge into Gabriel and with Limbless Torso they play a brutal mix of grind-thrash-power–violence-metal-hardcore and punk in a very tight and calculated manner. Nick Genitals on vocals takes the Monster X style low end growl approach, similar to their first singer Rich, but the vocals don’t quite match the dynamics going on between Gabriel and Alex. Nick is genuinely hate-filled so it still works. They recently put out a 12” record which you can buy here.

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Ultra Maroon

Live on 602 Radio, Phoenix 2009

Everybody always gives Ultra Maroon shit because they’ve been together for seven or eight years and haven’t put out a record. They actually put out a small run CD on Star Time records, but because I consider them friends I won’t post it. It was a horrible representation of how they sound. This live in the studio recording for 602radio.com does a way better job at capturing their weird swampy-jungle-rhythm-blues-punk. This band is only Dick and Mike, but their sound is full because Mike does the bass lines with his thumb while doing the leads with his other fingers like a true bluesman, but it’s rare to see the method applied to music this aggressive and actually work. Plus he has a wall of amps and a mad drummer like Dick backing him up. Sorry no song titles. Their set list in the practice space we share with them has little pictures of eyeballs and suns and things that I think are supposed to phonetically represent words but they’re too complicated for me to figure out. 602 Radio has been doing a good job of recording live performances by a lot of Phoenix and other regional bands.

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