I Like Nodzzz.

Nodzzz is a really terrible band name, you’ve got to admit. The kind of vague, stupid sounding, deeply irritating band name that the more grumpy half of my brain is on the verge of starting to ignore on principle when they turn up on the pages of Plan B or on the listings of some hip promoter. Because, dudes – I know we’ve been raised in the ‘80s (or even – arrg – ‘90s; it kills me to refer to a decade I remember in it’s entirety in distant, historically-finished past tense), on a diet of garish, eye-grabbing and meaningless product names, ads and cartoons jammed with gratuitous Zs, Ks, !!s etc., but do we REALLY have to reflect that in our bands, which we’ve named ourselves, as grown-ups? Back when people primarily talked about music with each other outside the realm of the internet, Nodzzz would have been Nods (perhaps The Nods), no questions asked. Do fans of !!! or Rac-oo-oo-n or Sunn 0))) or XBXRX get fed up with not being able to talk about their fave bands without a five minute grammatical clarification?

Tormenting sub-editors for the heck of it is all well and good, but do these guys realise that whenever I get around to mentioning Nodzzz In Real Life, I’m gonna be all like “hey, have you heard of that band Nods, yeah, you know, the one with the three zeds?” EVERY SINGLE TIME?

But no matter, within three seconds of the start of any of their songs, Nodzzz will be forgiven, the name issue forgotten, because – and it feels good to say it - I like Nodzzz! I like them quite a lot in fact! I think they’re one of the best new bands I’ve heard in ages.

The a-side of Nodzzz debut single, “I Don’t Wanna (Smoke Marijuana)” is an instant classic, a timeless ninety-five second nugget of perfectly realised, self-contained awesomeness in the manner of “Read About Seymour” or “Judy is a Punk”. Over a rollicking lead bass line and clanging first-strat-into-first-practice-amp guitar chords, it’s a tale of teenage frustration in which Nodzzz shriek of their dissatisfaction with the awkwardness and hassles of casual drug use, wishing they could simply “..get high… in another place!” I bet I could listen to the song’s middle section breakdown (“grandma’s always saying he’s so rude / used to be number one but now you’re TWO!”) every day for the rest of my life, and it would still make me smile.

If there’s one word that instantly springs to mind when hearing Nodzzz for the first time, it is, for better or worse, NERDS. Now, I don’t have any very good reference points for what Nodzzz look like, or what kind of people they are, but… the impression comes across pretty clear, and I feel confident in thinking they’re unlikely to be a bunch of beefy jocks who are gonna want to come and ‘whale on me’ for writing this review. I’d like to imagine a Nodzzz live show would be a veritable riot of chunky NHS glasses, inappropriate headwear, baggy t-shirts and arms so skinny they look like they’re gonna snap like twigs if they ricochet off the bass strings too hard. I’d also like to imagine that they really like to *bounce around* the place to their heart’s content. You know that peculiar, jaunty, topsy-turvy kind of poppy *bounce*, like you get on early Violent Femmes or Camper Van Beethoven records? NERD BOUNCE – that’s what it is! Now that I come to define it as such, Nerd-Bounce is probably one of my all-time favourite musical things, and Nodzzz are masters of it.

Every song on Nodzzz self-titled 12” (as an aside, has anyone else noticed this deal with underground American bands deciding they’re doing “12”s” recently, as opposed to the more portentous “albums”? – kinda like “ok, no big deal, this is just like one of our singles, only this time we made a really big one with 11 songs” or something?) is a veritable education in the possibilities of Nerd-Bounce, each track throwing down in a uniquely enjoyable, off-kilter manner that fully delivers on the promise of “..Marijuana”.

Oft times, Nodzzz fleetingly remind me of my other “Revenge of the Nerds” heroes, The Embarrassment – one of the greatest, most frequently overlooked bands of all time, whom I’ve been meaning to write a proper post about for ages. Despite a raft of superficial similarities though, Nodzzz and The Embarrassment never manage to see eye to eye for more than a few moments. Whereas The Embarrassment always sounded as if they were being driven forward by a writhing mass of vengeful sexual frustration, even when singing about space travel or hunting dinosaurs, Nodzzz are, if not exactly *contented*, certainly a lot more…. easy-going… in their concerns. These are good natured fellas for sure, coming on witty like vintage Woody Allen, but with none of the neuroses in evidence.

In fact, Nodzzz very rarely sing about girls. You’d assume “Is She There?” might be about a girl, but the lyrics seem to be more about getting interrogated by the army. “Losing My Accent” wistfully relates how said loss took place whilst in bed with a girl “in the North-West”, but mainly it’s just sad about the accent. Nobly pencilling in the vast gulf left in pop songwriting once such concerns are removed, Nodzzz instead sing variously about their fears about moving to the city, their transport problems, getting old, being too young, and having to attend awkward social events on the great “Controlled Karaoke” (“it’s a party if you know what that means / no one wants to go and no one wants to leave”). I guess all of those themes sound like things one might moan about, and indeed Nodzzz probably ARE moaning, but you’d never know it unless you stopped to pay close attention, so darn irrepressibly upbeat and FUN do their songs seem on first exposure.

Musically, they’re absolutely spot-on too, hitting just the right balance between competence and spontaneity, just as lesser bands proceed to pointlessly tear chunks out of each other in the reviews sections in an unspoken war between over-cooked and under-cooked indie-rock records that are pretty dull in either direction.

Listen to the two vocalists trying not to burst into giggles as the guitarist fluffs up just before they hit the second chorus of “I Can't Wait”, and the wonky, wood-block assisted riff-fest that follows and you’ll hear the ‘first take / best take’ philosophy of Swell Maps and the makeshift sonic anarchy of early Sun sessions at their finest. Listen elsewhere though – to the slashing, fast-strumming guitarwork on “Highway Memorial Shrine”, the intricate surfy-jangle lead lines and handbrake turn drumming – and you can (kinda, sorta) hear the spirit of The Minutemen rising in the distance, a spirit of carefully pre-studio prep work, obsessive practice and the desire to give the audience it’s musical money’s-worth that seems almost alien after extensive exposure to the trashed aesthetics that predominate amongst the rest of the currently resurgent lo-fi scene.

Short, sharp, instantly likeable and packed with awesome, I hereby declare Nodzzz debut my the first out and out winner of 2009, or the last one of 2008, or whatever.

The Beatles – now there’s a REALLY crappy band name. And I guess people didn't go around calling them "you know, The Beatles, with an 'a', it's like a really bad pun" all the time either.

Nodzzz Mp3s:

I Don't Wanna (Smoke Marijuana)
I Can't Wait

If you wanna hear nine other songs just as good as those, why not buy the Nodzzz record?

Nodzzz have a weblog and a myspace too.

Labels: I like, nerds, Nodzzz