Results tagged “garage punk”

Sweet Rot: Drug Fiend

By Sobriquet Magazine on December 1, 2009 4:19 PM

Sweet Rot

Drug Fiend
Square Wave, 2007

Although Sweet Rot may not bowl anyone over with their relatively generic brand of lo-fi garage punk, their Drug Fiend EP is nevertheless worth a few spins on the old turntable. Indeed, while this Orange County outfit's sound is a largely predictable admixture of raw vocals and fuzzy guitars with rockabilly and surf rock accents, the band's brilliant incorporation of well-placed, bizarrely ghoulish backing vocals (a feature especially effective on the EP's closing track) really makes this disk stand out from the rapidly-expanding pile of indistinguishable lo-fi recordings littering your neighborhood record shop.

Highlight:

Track 3. "Wouldn't You Like To Know (What I Did With Your Mom)?" This is what it would sound like if a bunch of punk kids got stoned and decided to hire a two-bit (and perhaps lobotomized) Elvis impersonator to try and imitate Lux Interior and Dave Vanian. Somehow, it works magnificently.

Sobriquet Grade: 79 (C+).

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Marked Men: Ghosts

By Sobriquet Magazine on July 25, 2009 2:52 AM

Marked Men

Ghosts
Dirtnap, 2009

Over the past half dozen or so years, the Marked Men have earned themselves a reputation for crafting some of the most strikingly original pop-punk records of the decade. With a heavy dose of lo-fi garage fuzz, enough bubblegum to get Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon up off their beach blankets, and the perfect balance of three-chord simplicity and subtly experimental lead guitar riffs, the Marked Men may very well be the best pop-punk band in the country.

Highlights:

Track 1. "All in Your Head." Deceptively simple, the frantic rhythm of "All in Your Head" cultivates a pervasive sense of jittery excitement, as if you've drunk too much coffee after having spent all night falling in love. And it does not let up for duration of the record.

Track 2. "Ditch." Although listeners will strain to make sense of the muffled lead vocals ("ditch, stuck in a ditch, son of a bitch"), they will try to sing along. I promise. Oh, and keep your ears open for some of the best guitar work on the album.

Track 3. "Fortune." Noticing a pattern yet? Seriously, almost every track on this record would dwarf the best efforts of almost any other band. Although the whole song is pretty damn fine, wait until you hear the break about a minute into the track. Then just ride the waves of ah-ahhs into pop heaven.

Track 8. "Not That Kid." The rapid strumming of the guitars on "Not that Kid" are almost as mesmeric as the vocals are lulling.

Track 10. "Get to You." The notes of plaintive longing on "Get to You" are just sublime.

Track 14. "One More Time." The vocals on "One More Time" are arguably the album's best. And that is saying a lot.

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Broken Toys: Prozac Baby/Pocketbook

By Sobriquet Magazine on July 25, 2009 2:48 AM

Broken Toys

Prozac Baby /
Pocketbook
Pogo Stick, 1994

Methuen, Massachusetts's Broken Toys have been releasing records for twenty years now and still, for no discernible (or, at the very least, justifiable) reason, hardly anyone other than the most voracious of record collectors seem aware of their existence. It's unforgivable, really.

The A-side of this disk sounds like it could have been on the Dead Boys' Young Loud and Snotty. Scratch that. The A-side of this disk sounds like it should have been on the Dead Boys' Young Loud and Snotty. I don't even care if this sounds bombastic or that it's a blatant anachronism (after all, Fluoxetine wasn't approved by the FDA until a decade after the Dead Boys imploded); "Prozac Baby" should be right up there with "Sonic Reducer" and "Ain't it Fun?" on Dead Boys greatest hits compilations. That's all I'm going to say.

The B-side, "Pocketbook" retains a few vestigial traces of the Stiv Bators-Cheetah Chrome desperation, but is much closer in spirit and sound to the playful brand of pop-punk soaking up the American midwest during the mid-nineties (it was, however, recorded in 1992). Whereas "Prozac Baby" is a bit on the slower, brooding side, "Pocketbook" speeds things up, swaps the Richard Hellish vocals for something closer to what one might expect out of, say, Walker, and churn out a bouncy, danceable tune.

Lyrically, the Broken Toys fit squarely in with the irreverently apolitical sort of stuff I associate with other pop-leaning punk bands from the nineties. I mean, "Prozac Baby" is about an emotionally and/or psychologically troubled girl "who ain't crazy" and takes "a little pill" to elevate her mood and the boy who loves her while "Pocketbook" deals with the aftermath of petty theft. You know, nothing too deep or overtly proselytory. Just fun.

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Terrible Twos: A + A

By Sobriquet Magazine on July 20, 2009 2:17 AM

Terrible Twos

A + A
Big Neck, 2007

Channeling the raw decadence of such heroin-soaked seventies proto-punk heavyweights as the Dead Boys, New York Dolls, and Voidoids, Detroit's Terrible Twos are an above-average lo-fi garage outfit that should get you feeling nostalgic for Dictators-era punk. Of the three tracks on the disk, the lead-off "Alcohol and Adderall" is probably the most radio-friendly, blending melody with speed and adding a dash of late sixties' surf to the mix. The melody, however, begins to give way to a more experimental brand of noise punk on the second track. With a delightfully demented keyboard and vocals hinting at a barely contained madness lurking under the surface, "Surprised" takes a few listens to appreciate but is anything but filler. On the third and final track, "Outdoors," the insanity threatening to take over the previous track emerges in the form of red-throated guttural shouts that slash through the chugging guitars and evaporate into an eerie cloud of sonic distortion.

Sobriquet Grade: 79 (C+).

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Flirt: Don't Push Me! / Degenerator

By Sobriquet Magazine on July 19, 2009 2:14 AM

Flirt

Don't Push Me! /
Degenerator
Real Records, 1978

Forming in 1976, Detroit's Flirt was one of the first punk bands to emerge out of the Motor City and, like the Stooges and MC5 before them, the band developed an intense and often raw garage rock sound. Led by the husband-and-wife duo of Skid and Rockee Marx, Flirt sounds like what would happen if Janis Joplin lived past age 27, grew bored with psychedelia, and joined the Stooges after Iggy Pop went solo. Indeed, Rockee DeMarx's inimitable vocals elevate what would otherwise be a merely good, baldly derivative slab of hard-edged garage punk into a whole different beast.

Track Listing:

Track 1. "Don't Push Me!" With its relentless swirl of proto-metal guitar solos, thoroughly un-saccharine backing vocals, and handclaps divested of any last vestiges of bubblegum, "Don't Push Me!" injects a healthy dose of punk vitriol into music that could appeal equally to acid rockers and hair metal headbangers without an ounce of the self-indulgence or wimpiness one associates with either late sixties hard rock or mid-eighties balladry.

Track 2. "Degenerator." Like the howl of a wolf lost in the streets of the Motor City, DeMarx's prolonged vocals on the B-side cut through the of the wail of guitars with a ferocity as primal as they are furious.

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The Low Budgets: Go Bargain Hunting With the Low Budgets

By Sobriquet Magazine on January 2, 2009 11:47 AM

Now, this is a fun record. Led by Joe Genaro (perhaps better known as the Dead Milkmen's Joe Jack Talcum), the Low Budgets are an aptly named (seriously, the sleeve for this 7" looks like it was made on a computer from 1984, complete with pathetic clip art) group of garage-tinged pop-punkers. If you were not aware of Genaro's presence in the band, you'd probably assume, as I initially did, that the Low Budgets were a bunch of high school or college kids who scraped just enough cash together to put out a bit of vinyl. Then again, you really can't judge a record by its cover...


Although the record is largely a hard-driving punk disk, the Low Budgets add a vintage organ to the mix, giving "Bargain Hunting" just enough late sixties flavor to what would otherwise be a fairly pedestrian (albeit, very tightly performed) bit of straightforward punk. The little dashes of ska, surf, garage, and psychedelia, though, make "Go Bargain Hunting" well worth a listen.

Track Listing:

Track 1. "SNAFU." A bit on the generic side, "SNAFU" is the least memorable song on the record. Not that it's bad . . . it just sounds like a lot of other stuff out there.

Track 2. "Hey Creator." Opening with a riff reminiscent of the one upon which the Animals' "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" is built, "Hey Creater" quickly shifts gear into a totally skankable bit of pseudo ska just in time for Joe's repeated cry of "you're a skank!" Then it becomes another pop-punk tune. In other words, "Hey Creator" is a pretty solid introduction to the sort of pastiche-ridden music for which the Low Budgets should be praised.

Track 3. "Settle Down." This sounds like someone fed Iron Butterfly's opening band to Walk Together, Rock Together-era 7 Seconds.

Track 4. "Born Before the Internet." Saving the best for last, the Low Budgets deliver a delightful mix of punk, reggae, garage, and hardcore to close out the disk.

Sobriquet Grade: 82 (B-)

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My Foolish Halo: Piaphabakrist

By Sobriquet Magazine on December 1, 2008 1:09 AM

Piaphabakrist is another one of those decent mid-nineties Harmless Records releases that add a sense of depth to one's record collection. For some punks, of course, the more obscure a record the greater the amount of credibility he or she could boast in the scene and owning a copy of My Foolish Halo's lone release, I suspect, could help someone hoping to achieve Punker-Than-Thou status impress a friend or two.


This is not, of course, to say that Piaphabakrist is an especially bad record. If anything, I'd say it's pretty agreeable to the ears. It just lacks the sort of standout tracks one would expect from a distortion-heavy outfit such as, say, Teengenerate or Scared of Chaka. In the end, the disk is merely good but not memorable.

The first track, "Coming Down," in my opinion is really the strongest song on the record. With uncommonly soulful vocals, "Coming Down" balances just the right amount of melody and fuzz to fashion a song I wouldn't mind hearing featured as a "deep cut" on some pre-satellite radio punk show. . .

The remainder of the disk, however, doesn't quite distinguish itself as particularly original in any way and, while each of the tracks are solid enough, the end result is barely more than a collection of halfway decent punk songs. There is a sense of barely restrained frenzy that occasionally punctuates the songs, lending the record an admirably energetic sound but, unfortunately, the listener is left with the distinct impression that My Foolish Halo could have been a really good band had they only had the chance to develop. As it stands, however, Piaphakrist is a good illustration of the distorted garage punk sound so prevalent some ten to fifteen years ago but, then again, so are dozens of other disks from the era. Still, this is a listenable disk, if not one one would put on repeat (forgetting for the moment that it is a 7" vinyl record and not a CD).

Sobriquet Grade: 75 (C).

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