Back in September, I said I didn’t expect to hear another record I liked better than this one during 2013, and I was right, I didn’t. Ok, so its actual release date was Halloween 2012, thus making it a lumbering work of the ancients by this stage, but screw that, it deserves a #1 slot on some bloody list, and it’s going to be this one:

“Long-time dons of low key / non-showy axe magic, these guys have a better understanding of what makes an electric guitar ring true and hit the right synapses than, well… you or I, for a start. […] Within this racket though, thought and tenderness is ever in evidence. What these guys are working with here is over two decades of musical interplay, twenty-something years of learning to express themselves through the means of heavily processed strings and wood, of learning to carry us with them rather than simply assaulting us, of channeling all excess back into the song.

It may seem odd to wax so lyrical about lumbering temper tantrums like ‘Love Ordeal’ and ‘Psychic Toll’, but just listen to those riffs hammer down and point me toward a new band who can bring guts like this to the party, who can wring the neck of good taste with quite so much impassioned discontent. And moving on from everyday frustrations, there is at points a nigh-on apocalyptic feel going on here too, with Hatch and Tom S. bellowing through ‘Jesus Christ’ and, uh, ‘Apocalypse’ like grizzled sergeants calling their men to safety under heavy fire, polluted rivers parting as the band attain a kind of urban white man’s gospel.

And standing dead centre toward the end of side one, ‘Hold On to Your Soul’, where all this comes together, the kind of track it’s difficult to even consider approaching with words. Let’s just say that when things are looking black in the near future, when I’m walking to some supermarket in the dark wondering if I can be bothered to put one foot in front of the other, I know what I’ll be reaching for on my mp3 player. If I hear any piece of music this year that better reminds me of the reasons why I became so fixated on the strange magic of men manipulating guitars and speaker cabinets in the first place, that better reaffirms for me of the reasons why I should still make the effort, I’ll be very surprised.”

Hear some extracts via Youtube, buy the vinyl (in the States) from Columbus Discount, check with your local dealer of such product elsewhere, or if that fails, head across to friendly ol’ Amazon for the mp3s.

Labels: best of 2013, Cheater Slicks

Bigger and broader in scope than Lewis & Stampfel’s first collaborative record (2010’s ‘Come On Board’), and with a full-time rhythm section in tow, ‘Hey Hey..’ is no less charming or impulsive than its predecessor, and stands as another testament to the sheer, gargantuan amount of FUN these two bozos seem to have bouncing ideas off each other.

Stampfel in particular seems entirely reenergised by his experiences with Lewis & co, boldly stating in his introduction to this set’s voluminous song-by-song sleevenotes that his current goal in life is to have as much fun as Little Richard in 1956 - an ideal whose realisation the septuagenarian further explores on the self-explanatory opener here, ‘More Fun Than Anyone’.

Buoyed up by the demands of such fevered positivity, other highlights abound, serving to sketch out a rough mind-map of the varied cultural reference points currently shared by these irrepressible nerds; ‘Hey Hey’ somehow manages to reinvent Kyari Pamyu Pamyu’s surrealist J-pop smash ‘PonPonPon’ (the video for which Stampfel describes as being “..the artistic equivalent of three Mona Lisas”) as a kind of shuffling folk-punk hoe-down, lyrics and melody hopefully sufficiently altered to save the pair from a future spent languishing in a “..Japanese copyright-enforcement prison cell”, whilst ‘Do You Know Who I Am?! I’m %$&*?in’ Snooki!’ reinvents the outbursts of the titular reality TV star (I’ll have to take their word for it on that one) as something of a celebratory cacophony of unlikely self-importance. At the other end of the emotional spectrum meanwhile, ‘Moscow Nights’ pays spine-tingling tribute to the spirit of the late Tuli Kupferberg of The Fugs, and Stampfel’s personal anthem ‘Duke of the Beatniks’ provides my personal favourite track here, whilst ‘All The Time In The World’ (not the one you’re thinking of) waxes similarly self-reflective with a further spirited rejection of the rigours of age & hassle. ‘Crazy Creek (That’s Where We’re Sending You)’ rings out with all the alarming comic book insanity of ‘Have Moicy’-era Holy Modal Rounders, and several other cuts see Stampfel digging even deeper into his songbook of lost hillbilly wonders, shining a 21st century flashlight on the rather terrific ‘Money, Marbles and Chalk’, and, for the album’s conclusion, drawing out ‘Mule Train’ (a number # 1 hit for Frankie Lane in 1949!) into a full scale psychedelic wig-out.

If one thing is lacking from this album in fact, it’s probably Jeffrey Lewis – and Stampfel’s shtick is so persuasive, I’ve been listening to it for over six months before I really clocked the fact that examples of Jeff’s song-writing are few and far between here, with his efforts more focused on keeping his errant partner on the straight & narrow. (Which is perhaps just us well to be honest – in light of his last solo record, I can only hope he’s saving up a few hits for the next one). Lewis’s two main solo contributions to ‘Hey Hey..’ are a lovely little number called 'Another Inch of Rainfall' (no particular comment, but I like it plenty), and another entitled ‘Indie Bands On Tour’ – not, as I was hoping, a ribald, satirical swipe at Pitchfork-era excess, but instead an earnest tribute to those pale-skinned kings of the road. Initially, I was faintly disgusted, but as usual, Jeff brings an honesty and charm to proceedings that swiftly wins me over, even to such potentially unsavoury subject matter… and god knows, if anyone has the right to po-facedly hymn the rigours of the touring lifestyle, it’s this guy, who seems to have come to town about a million times since I first caught up with him in (oh-my-god-was-it-really) 2001.

The more I think about it, the more remarkable it is that his visits are still unquestioned highlights of my musical calendar after all these years, especially when Stampfel’s in tow, and I can attest that the gang who recorded this record are capable of absolutely bringing the house down, in a fashion that most louder, younger performers can only dream of. God bless ‘em for it, and here’s hoping they’re over again sooner rather than later.

Listen and buy on Bandcamp.

Labels: best of 2013, Jeffrey Lewis, Peter Stampfel

So, what say you to the concept of a UK doom super-group of sorts, comprising Mark Greening (Electric Wizard/Ramesses) on drums, Adam Richardson (Ramesses) on bass/vox and Mike Vest (Bong) on guitar..? Fuck Yeah, clearly.

That this first record what they have made is exactly as monolithic as their collective pedigrees might suggest, mixing up elements of the protagonists’ other bands in precisely the way I might have hoped it would, is good news indeed.

Nuff said really, but I suppose in the name of content creation, I should go on.

More of a long-ish EP than an album as such (four tracks / under thirty minutes on the vinyl, plus alternate ‘rehearsal versions’ and a brief riff on Loop’s ‘Black Sun’ on the CD & digital versions), ‘Super-Unnatural’ still represents the heaviest, beastliest, most indigestible thing that hit my ears in 2013, fusing the dense mysticism of latter-day Ramesses with a white noise static burn of guitar noise that takes the drone-wall of earlier Bong material and considerably ups the violence to Skullflower-like levels of nastiness, whilst Greening – oh joy of joys, thank you sir, and Satan bless you – locks straight back into exactly the kind of evil, slow-motion groove that once powered classic-era ‘Wizard as they laid waste to our cold earth back in the late ‘90s. And fucking hell, how I’ve missed it.

Picking formats on this one is a tough gig, as whilst the vinyl obviously roars with dust-choked ultra-bass of the infernal pits, the CD/DL instead gives you those aforementioned rehearsal cuts, which are perhaps even better, adding a totally evil, ‘90s-BM-demo-tape extreme-treble type blast to proceedings that practically has me stripping off to my grave-clothes and howling into the frozen void on a nightly basis. Well, ya pays ya money and ya takes ya choice I suppose. Personally, I like it so much I bought both. Yes, I PAID TWICE. Maybe that will go someway toward assuaging the debts I built up through those happy years of file-sharing. Either way, the spirit of the Dopethrone lives on in these recordings, and that is all you need to know.

Listen on Soundcloud, buy from Ritual Productions.

Labels: 11 Paranoias, best of 2013

Cor, now this the stuff! This is what you want to hear when you throw on a punk rock ‘demo tape’!

Eight songs / ten minutes of muscular rhythm section battery, primitive total ODed buzzsaw guitar, shards of feedback and a bilious litany of problems, solutions, frustrations, declarations, all laid down documentary style with a one mic, rehearsal room energy that perfectly captures the essence of the frrkin’ brilliant live sets I was lucky enough to see these four women play during 2013.

For the lack of anything else to say, I could raise the issue of whether this can still really be called a ‘demo tape’ when it is released by a record label (albeit a very small one) and sold for money, but, I wouldn’t want such categorical confusion to distract attention from how great Frau are, and what a solid burst of everything I want punk to be this tape is, free from contrivance, free from record collector blarney. No pop, no style – they strictly roots. Fucking brilliant.

Listen and buy from Tuff Enuff.

Labels: best of 2013, Frau

Right then…. if I remember correctly, I wrote a whole swath of rambling notes earlier this year regarding this raging masterpiece of weird, unapproachable avant-choogle, for a post that never quite came together. So let’s dig those out and see what truths we can muster, shall we..?

“Quite a name, isn’t it? A real line in the sand. ENDLESS BOOGIE. Are you in or are you out? Needless to say, those aware of my own music proclivities will find it all too easy to picture the sickening eagerness with which I rush to declare myself IN.”
“LONG ISLAND by ENDLESS BOOGIE – an exquisite bit of band name / album title poetry right there, enough to send me off on a little rock n’ roll reverie just thinking about it. Add a big, mossy-browed, shining eyed cyclopean troll face on the cover (a 1906 painting by Norwegian illustrator Theodor Kittleson), and I am beginning to feel that this is an object I would like in my house.”
“I wasn’t quite sure how to call it. Was this the sound of post-post-rock Chicago/NY Drag City type dudes reiterating classic rock gospel, and failing to get to the bottom of it? (Names such as ‘Stephen Malkmus’ and ‘Matt Sweeney’ hover heavy in their press biogs.) Or were they actually going for something more opaque… a sorta sideways approach to attaining The Real Deal, working hard to scratch a specialist rock-fan itch that lies beyond the ken of the casual, merriness-seeking listener..?”
“Combined heft is somewhat less than the postman-killing package you might have anticipated, and, far from being suitable for chopping logs or crushing rodents as the modern retro hi-fi enthusiast demands, these discs are – dare I say it – almost *floppy*, whilst the card-stock used on the sleeve is of a timbre rather apt to do that thing where it starts to bend in the middle when you take the record out. But hey, I’m no audiophile..”
“Opener ‘The Savageist’ comes on more bar band groove than high-end boogie, but the guitars are definitely where they wanna be, filthy low-end wah quack and sweet lead lines interlocking like a wicker basket full of mean-smelling happiness.”
“..the alarming stylings of vocalist Paul ‘Top Dollar’ Major still take some getting used to however, and I’d imagine his repeated evocation of “ONE BIG HOLE” – to give just one example - may prove an immediate dealbreaker for some listeners.”
“Another storming tune for those with a yen to dig it, a one-stop litmus test for one’s overall suitability to Endless Boogie could probably be established by measuring your reaction to the thirty second stretch that separates Major’s cringe-inducing “HEY SISTER, I’M THE CLOWN OF THE CLASS” from his transcendent declaration that “we all got… TORCHED ON THE PORCH!” (cue solos). If you’re feeling it by the time the ‘high-five-dude’ interlocking lead lines hit shortly thereafter, you’re probably in for the ride.”
“An atavistic monster of man, resembling a mountain troll who just ate Johnny Ramone for breakfast and assumed his physical characteristics, you’d be pretty disappointed if he *didn’t* holler away like David Lee Roth’s frontiersman granddad whilst unleashing an unbroken stream of the kind of beefy, show-boating guitar licks that younger listeners may well have assumed were banned under the Geneva convention – an ugly relic of mankind’s past sins.”
“Worth mentioning that there seems to be some sort of NYC psychogeography angle going on here too…. etc. The singer’s mixture of odd autonomous conjuration with penchant for absurd rockist bleating certainly but for an odd combination, and , troublesome though his excesses may be for some listeners, you’ve gotta admit he’s got SOMETHING going on that’s a bit different – some kinda MES-via-Billy Gibbons ranting guru shtick that invites the brave listener to dig in and at least TRY to piece together what in the name of god he’s goin’ on about.”
“‘General Admission’ on side D is where it all comes together for me, locking straight into what I want from Endless Boogie – greased up Status Quo chug cross-bred with Hawkwind-into-Motorhead muscle, sprawling ‘cross 7 minutes, Mr. Dollar growling incoherently like a guy about to get kicked out of a biker-bar at closing time, as Ecklow’s fuzz-wah belches up smoke and lead lines set out into the unknown like doomed Antarctic exploration parties. Yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ about, and so forth.”

So hopefully that gives you a flavour. If you want a reason why ‘Long Island’ isn’t number # 1 on this list, I’m afraid it largely comes down to the fact that sections of it sound like the guy from Smog attempting improvised beat-poetry over some Slint outtakes. But for the rest of it, the good bits, the bits I’ve largely discussed above, make no mistake: I’M IN.

Listen to ‘General Admission’ on Youtube here, and buy from No Quarter (or Amazon or whatever, I suppose).

Labels: best of 2013, Endless Boogie