This summer I visited Munich and the gallery where the NSDAP once held their exhibition of Degenerate Art. ‘What a terrific concept’, I thought in my skull, and immediately DM’d the president via his Truth Social platform. I had Kunst on my mind, after all.
“How about an exhibition dedicated to the long history of degenerate American sound?” I suggested.
Turns out I can’t take credit for this because apparently the big man had already come up with the same “tremendously tremendous” idea himself.
Picture the scene. Heavy metal songs will be broadcast backwards in the lobby, on a continuous loop, to expose their nefarious messages about poultry sacrifice and polygamy. Through individual headsets, you’ll be able to intimately experience Prince’s sauciest and most gender-bending pop-funk anthems. Buckets will be provided into which the most nauseated tourists can vomit liberally.
Just like at the Hard Rock Café, visitors will be able dine next to Woody Guthrie’s guitar and the leftover wigs of Little Richard. It might put them off their freedom burgers, though. Yuck! At regular intervals, a Two Minutemen Hate will occur during which punters will shake their fists at oral recitals of lyrics written by D. Boon and Mike Watt. On the walls will hang album sleeves by Christian Death, Slayer, Nicki Minaj, Jimi Hendrix, Dwarves and Millions Of Dead Cops.
There’ll be a whole goddam wing of the building devoted to hip hop!
In the grounds at the back will be a permanent bonfire. Onto this will be hurled a constant supply of appropriate effigies: Bruce Springsteen; Neil Young; Jack White; Taylor Swift; Michael Stipe; Steve Albini; Jello Biafra; the guy from Rage Against The Machine who makes his guitar sound like a scratching DJ; Cleto And The Cletones…
As an obedient cultural colony of the country that once wrested itself from the shackles of our own empire, we can then establish an equivalent museum here in the UK. Using techniques honed on Hans Solo from Star Wars, Billy Bragg can be captured and encased in carbonite. Rotten vegetables will be hurled at portraits of Johnny Marr (but not the other one). Members of Napalm Death, Asian Dub Foundation and Lambrini Girls will be paraded, then electrocuted, like Topsy The Elephant.
Hark! How the crowds will clap and cheer and chant and wave their little flags in the air.
Now is the time of monsters.
Orcutt Shelley Miller – Orcutt Shelley Miller
(Silver Current)
Speaking to The Wire a couple of issues ago, Bill Orcutt seemed to be almost as surprised as anyone that he’s recorded something quite so “conventional”. The ex-member of Harry Pussy is known for his improv-prone guitar work and regular cacophonous duo sets with drummer Chris Corsano. Recently, Orcutt found himself hankering for another way of making a rumpus. “I wanted a band where they’re the backing track and you’re on top of it,” he explained, meaning “I’m”. Talk about a rhythm section with pedigree, though. Ethan Miller of Howlin Rain, Comets On Fire, etc. is on bass. At the drum stool is Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley. Those two cats provide the bouncy basis over which Orcutt shreds like a man possessed. Captured at a concert in Los Angeles, the set opens with the fast and fiery ‘A Star Is Born’. Next up is ‘An LA Funeral’. It’s mellower and soulful, in the tradition of Eddie Hazel when he was laying back and staring at the ceiling. ‘Unsafe At Any Speed’ has a twang to it, as if the trio are aspiring for Delta Blues at a punkier pace. Listening to ‘Four-Door Charger’ and ‘A Long Island Wedding’ any sensibly minded person will be hoping Neil Young hires these three righteous goons as his next festival backing band. Hey hey, my my. Avant rock will never die.
Dusted Angel – This Side Of The Dirt
(Heavy Psych Sounds)
This offshoot from the Californian hardcore band BL’AST has been resurrected, with a couple of line-up differences, for their first album since 2010’s Earth-Sick Mind. Their style is essentially a mash-up of Sabbathian doom, the sprightlier stonerisms of Fu Manchu and the lower paced moments of Black Flag. Needless to say, This Side Of The Dirt pummels hard. Indeed, each of the eight tracks is as densely rendered as Rollins’s pebbledash. There is the occasional sparser passage of trippy noodling before the distorted riffs quickly re-dominate the proceedings. A couple of the tunes suggest they could’ve been written (or inspired) by Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs. As for the bawled vocals, Clifford Dinsmore often sounds like he’s pointing and yelling at you from the middle of a field wearing nothing but fishing waders. The targets of his ire include apathy, oppression, collective stupidity and associate disorders. The overall experience is more fun than such subject matters might suggest.
Flesh Narc – Yokers
(Decoherence)
There are billions of words that are overused by music critics. “Genius,” for example. “Ethereal” is another classic. A case could be made for “unhinged”. But what other way is there to describe Yokers by Flesh Narc? Some artists want to instil beauty in the ear of the listener. There are those who aspire to provide comfort to their audiences. Some want to induce headbanging and mosh pits. Others picture their fans seated silently in an armchair, stroking their goatees in deep contemplation. It appears Flesh Narc’s ambitions are to disorientate to the point of calvaria-fracturing migraine. To ensure such results, Yokers was recorded with a double-drummer lineup, like all the best bands have. The quintet’s other noises were made using guitars, bass, synthesizers, percussion and tape manipulation. Oh, and vocals in the key of nasally chanting and shouting through gargle effects. It makes for quite the cacophony and resembles, at different points, the following phenomena: Sonic Youth, in their bratty years, having a horrific accident on a stairwell; Liars, in between their first album and iconoclastic second one, trapped inside a haunted tumble dryer; Butthole Surfers scrapping with Ween; Destruction Unit throwing spanners at CCR Headcleaner with slurred retorts; Magik Markers pushed backwards into a factory-sized soup blender; a band you’d see lower down the bill in the glory days of All Tomorrow’s Parties whose entire discography existed only in the format of CD-R or, at best, cassette. Flesh Narc are from Texas, of course.
Dodge Meteor – Super True
(Cruel Nature)
“What’s Mike Vest been up to?” Glad you asked. The short answer is, as usual, absolutely loads. So much activity, in fact, you’ve got a better chance of comprehensively keeping up with the recorded output of Kawabata Makoto from Acid Mothers Temple. Coinciding with the release date of another Vest project, The Wandering Mountain by Kaliyuga Express (also worth your time as it recalls Monster Magnet when they were still mega weird), we have the return of Dodge Meteor. Once a duo with Matteo Daniese, the lineup has expanded (again) and now includes Niccolo De Rosa (bass) and Maddalena Franz (co-vocals). The ensemble specializes in space rock so heavy it’s surprising it ever launched into orbit. Vest’s instrument is less a guitar and more of a bazooka, firing red-hot riffs and molten lead parts out of the speakers at a heroic rate. The joint singing is relatively low in the mix and also distorted so it’s a portion of the whole rather than hogging the light. Imagine this scenario. Perry Farrell and Teri from Le Butcherettes have been imprisoned together in Krypton’s Phantom Zone. They’re yelling at Mad Max’s Doof Warrior to set them free. A better metaphor for Dodge Meteor you will not read.
Firefriend – Fuzz / Blue Radiation
(Cardinal Fuzz)
“Doing a Guns ‘N Roses” can refer to many things. Failing to live up to a decent debut LP, for instance. Giggling to an unreasonable degree about spaghetti. Petulantly turning up an hour after you’re due on stage. Replacing a guitarist who wears a massive hat with a guitarist who wears a massive bucket. Padding out the tracklist on your Greatest Hits collection with five – count them – cover versions. In this case, São Paulo’s Firefriend have taken a leaf out of Axl’s book by releasing two albums at the same time. Fuzz isn’t the most surprising title for a psych-rock record but it is a case of supplying what’s on the tin. This one’s the poppier of the pair as it operates in a shoegazing post-Velvet Underground and post-Stooges mode. Chunky bass lines are coated with six-string effects from a presumably vast pedal board. Yury Hermuche drawls his vocals nonchalantly as if auditioning to front Spacemen 3. At his more animated or threatening, it brings to mind Joe Cardamone from The (much-missed) Icarus Line. Bassist Julia Grassetti sometimes sings too, although she isn’t heard as frequently which is a slight shame. The accompanying album, Blue Radiation, is almost entirely instrumental. It’s looser, too, and more abstract. These pieces are closer to works-in-progress, free-noise experiments or spontaneous jams. Choose which one to plump for according to personal preference. Or just buy both if you’re wealthy enough, as all those Bright Eyes fans did in 2005.
Prayer Group – Strawberry
(Reptilian)
It is an amusingly ironic name for band, assuming Prayer Group aren’t forging their own path as a Christian noise rock group. Having avoided Bible meetings since forever, I’m assuming most of them tend to be sedater affairs than this. The band are based in Richmond, USA, which does have a number of famous churches. Perhaps these musicians are sick of looking at all the spired bastards. Prayer Group take their cues from the sludgy and heavier end of (post-)hardcore punk as well as the blueprints provided by the likes of The Jesus Lizard. If you told a connoisseur this record had been released on Amphetamine Reptile in the early 90s, they might be genuinely hoodwinked. That is meant as a compliment. The bass is humungous. The drums are pleasingly damp. The rhythm guitar and lead parts seem intent on summoning evil. The singer slurs, screams and sermonises with rage, cynicism and manic gusto. There’s a song in the middle concerning “lipstick on a pig” which, if anything, feels somehow inevitable. This also applies to the title ‘Meatgrinder’. Strawberry won’t save your soul, exactly. But it could help to exorcise a few pent-up frustrations.
JR Moores is the author of Electric Wizards: A Tapestry of Heavy Music, 1968 to the Present and Off The Ground: Paul McCartney in the 1990s
