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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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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