YUZE BOYS-DEMO TAPE

YUZE BOYS 

DEMO TAPE

RELEASED ON GNARLY AS I WANNA BE RECORDS

I promise I'm not just going to review my friends on here. But sometimes your friends release really good music.

Yuze Boys are a fairly new band in Columbus, but they've all been around the proverbial block.  Alex Mussawir the singer was/is in an exceptional band called Goners, Jeff Kleinman the guitarist has been in too many bands for me to list, so we'll just list Nervosas for now. Winston Hightower, drummer, plays in a band called Splashin' Safari and bassist Kyle Bergamo was in bands Checkmate and Making Friends.

They recently released a 6-song EP on cassette through Gnarly As I Wanna Be Records. 

Sonically, it sounds like a forgotten 80's punk band's self-recorded release. Like some band that would have been playing with the Adolescents in '81 in California. Like a band that would have one of your favorite songs in a Tony Hawk Pro Skater soundtrack. It's great. The first two songs, "Nothing 2 Give" and "Recurring Dreams" are both weirdo hardcore punk rippers. In "Recurring Dreams" Mussawir poses  his disaffected thought in an even more disaffected tone:

ever feel like there are two tv screens

like where your eyes used to be?

and all you can see are the same things on repeat

like movie screens playing endlessly

like recurring dreams

The third track is a significant change, and my favorite song on the release, I think. "Picking Sides" is the most melodic track here. Kleinman is hammering away through a catchy as hell progression, Hightower is keeping rhythm by mashing away at his piccolo snare, Bergamo is coolly dancing around on a upper fret bass line, and Mussawir is staring into your eyes (figuratively) and gushing out his warped worldview.

Mussawir, (Aaron Watkins photobomb), Kleinman, Hightower, Bergamo

The fourth track "Negative Thought Process" is a really cool song too. Reminds me of some '78 post punk stuff, with the 16th note hi hat beat intro, but gets significantly more aggressive, like Swell Maps meets Naked Raygun with the singer of Iceage fronting the band or something. Like with every other song on the release, Mussawir creates an interesting perspective through his observational lyrics.

this is my brain folding in on itself

Look! I have no use for it now

it's so dull!

 "Mexican Supermarket" is a cool song, an atmospheric David Lynch movie scene-esque vignette track. The last song,"Any Parties/Time Stands Still" is a hazy and nightmarish sequence, led by Bergamo's warped bass lines but bursting into fits of truculence. 

Go check this tape out and check out the band themselves if you're in Columbus or they perform near you. They're also awesome folks.

Just don't ever eat salsa or bananas in front of Jeff Kleinman.

SMUT-PURSE EP

SMUT-PURSE EP

"I want to believe"

This band is cool. They've really nailed down their aesthetic. I love the X-Files obsession, the weird VHS horror movie art, the heavy chorus and the riot grrrl influence-- and not to mention, all these kids just look cool. I'd give Andrew Glover, their guitar player, the "coolest looking dude of the year" award. Ha. 

Anyway, moving on. This EP. It was recorded, mixed, and mastered by John Hoffman, my good friend/roommate/bandmate. It sounds great. The intro track, "Shalom Harlow," opens with some ethereal noise and singer Taylor Roebuck speaking rather ominously--

i saw the light from the neighbors house 
go off just seconds 
before the dawn 
drops of fuel had drenched 
their fresh cut lawn 
i stepped out in it anyway let it 
soak in my socks 
when the moment was over i 
turned their light back on 

--

Then the song erupts into an aggressive as hell swathe of Nirvana-esque thrashing and Roebuck curling her lip and scaring the hell out of you. It's tight-- a perfect opener for the EP.

My favorite track is the third one, "Hysterectomy." It's got a nice Slowdive feel instrumentally, but with Roebuck's bitter rage scathing it's way in and sort of scaring you into this nightmarish state. It's atmospheric but the songwriting is there--something most bands of the genre don't quite nail down.

The last song on the album, "Mulder's Daydream," is solid as hell also. Definitely sounds like something from Rather Ripped or Daydream Nation. Even has some Gordon/Moore style harmonies going on. 

Very excited to see what this band does next, I'm sure they will only continue to improve their songwriting. Roebuck's lyrics are a strong point, bizarro quips of introspective thought which I think come from a genuine place. I also love Glover and bassists Sam Ruschman (who by the way is also a cool looking dude, they both definitely know how to wear hair)  playing style and presence in the band. They're both very distant and mellow but aggressive. Great stuff, definitely recommend checking it out if you like just about anything Sonic Youth has ever done, which you probably do.

No 'Weakness' Here

Dylan McCartney

Weakness Weakness Weakness 

Watching Weakness perform is like watching James Brown perform, if James Brown’s backing band played screechy, feedback-laden punk, and James Brown was a skinny white kid with swoopy hair. Their front man Kevin Doyle pogoes around the stage like he’s on a trampoline, he crawls on the ground, throws his guitar, all while belting out lyrics until his voice goes hoarse.

They’ve been a band for a few years, with a swinging door of musicians joining and leaving the band (Kevin and Michael Squeri are only two founding members remaining), they’ve played some noteworthy shows around the Midwest (including shows with The Pains of Being Pure at Heart) and they’ve been featured on Noisey Vice by The Black Lips.

Their live presence has always been their focal point, it seems. “Weakness melds cluster-bomb aural assault and ragdoll mania, so seamlessly you forget how tough it is to rock too hard while playing as far out as these four dudes,” says Charles D’Ardenne, who fronts the Cincinnati group Comprador and admires Weakness’s energy. “No other band in Cincinnati sounds this weird and dangerous. It’s enough to make you want to crawl in to the kick drum if primary vocalist/gymnast Kevin Doyle weren’t already messing around in there. Weakness hemorrhages punk.”

The three-piece Cincinnati based group—currently made up of members Kevin Doyle, Michael Squeri and Michael Sawan—started a few years ago as the brainchild of Doyle, who had been writing songs during his high school years.

“I met Michael Squeri (the drummer) at a bar where all the high school punk bands played in Cheviot (a small town outside of Cincinnati),” he says. “We were in equally shitty bands then, and he approached me interested in playing drums, and that’s how we started.”

They named the project “Weakness,” which Doyle says was the result of him trying to come up with a name that “didn’t sound tough.” The irony isn’t lost—like Joy Division, or Tiny Tim, the name is an antithesis of their reality. The guys in Weakness aren’t tough guys. In fact, Doyle is humble, cordial and overwhelmingly friendly— the kind of guy who would thank every single member of the crowd for coming to a show if he could. But their music sure isn’t as friendly. It’s a sort of crux between catchy punk, something you’d hear from a band like Tyvek, and an acute sonic barrage of shrill noise. But they're not quite that simple. They also slip some impressive dynamic songwriting in the mix, incorporating some weirdo quiet jams into their set. They’re the kind of band that acquires new true believers with every freakishly impressive performance.

On stage, Doyle is a blur of motion beside Michael Sawan, who alternates between groovy bass lines and piquant keyboard licks. Doyle jumps off of Squeri’s drum set, crawls on the ground (occasionally poking his head into Michael’s kick drum while doing so), climbs on rafters or whatever else he can grab on to that hangs from the ceiling, and hammers away at his beat up Fender Mustang.

He says he doesn’t practice the moves—they come naturally.

“Sometimes I get a little carried away,” Doyle says.  “I’ve messed up quite a bit of Michael’s drum kit. That’s why at this point I just tell him to use my drum gear.”

In addition to the appeal of their live show, there’s another aspect of the band that has sort of added to the mystique. They still haven’t released an album.

Not that they haven’t released several demo style recordings. One worth noting is  “The Tape,” a bombastically lo-fi collection of incredible songs with a picture of Doyle as a young boy with his hands pressed together like an altar boy and a toothy smile. It’s loud enough to cause your tape player to clip. 

The plan, according to Kevin, has been to rerecord several of the songs from that release as well as other songs they’ve had—and it seems like it’s finally going to happen. “We’re just about done recording all of this stuff,” Doyle says. “It’s been a long process, more-so because of things we can’t control, like our old guitarist moving away and stuff.”

“I don’t even want it printed how long this album has taken,” Kevin says, laughing. “This whole process has just been constipated, and I really hope it doesn’t flop.”

His humble nature (when we chatted, he consistently peppered in questions to me about my band, so as to assure that all the attention wasn’t on him) is refreshing, and interesting coupled with his on-stage persona as an unpredictable, Iggy Pop-style front man.

Weakness doesn’t want to be Black Flag. You won’t see them on stage with their eyebrows furled; trying to scare the audience into thinking they’re tough. They’re just some twenty-something’s who really, really like to make noise.

See also: Squeri’s other excellent band Gazer

10 Songs I've Been Listening to a Bunch

Here's 10 songs I've listened to a bunch recently.


1. Void- Who Are You (From 'Void/Faith Split' 1982)

One of those indescribably good hardcore songs. So catchy and weird. Who are you, why am I here?

2. Hickey- Hickey Blvd (From 'Hickey,' 1997)

Trying to explain the allure of Hickey is tricky. It's sloppy as fuck, but god damn is it brilliant songwriting.

3. Rudimentary Peni- 1/4 Dead (From 'Death Church,' 1983)

The first time I had ever heard this band was via this song, and I was fucking hooked by the intro bass line. It's very dark and commanding. It's got a great refrain too (three quarters of the world are starving, the rest are dead)

4. Underground Railroad to Candyland- Jimmy V (From 'Know Your Sins,' 2011)

The end of this song is so tight. You'll be singing along.

5. Soft Kill- From This Point On

These guys really nail the 80's post punk/new wave thing, which is oftentimes done poorly I think (looking at you Cold Cave and Merchandise.) This is my shit though. 

6. Henry's Dress- Treefort (1994)

One of those songs that legit calms you down. Her voice is so good. A perfect twee band to get stoned to. 

Sidenote: The singer of this band kinda sounds like her, I think.

7. Skip James- Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues (1931)

One of my favorite songs of all time, honestly. Hauntingly beautiful.

8. Joy Division- Twenty Four Hours (From 'Closer,' 1980)

Joy Division is my favorite band. I've mentally explored every inch of sound within the frequencies of every single Joy Division song, so to speak, but for whatever reason my interest in this particular song peaked only recently. I don't need to sing the praises of the band, but needless to say this is such a fucking powerful song.

9. The Creation- Painter Man (Single, 1966)

All things considered, kind of a silly little 60's garage song. But I'll tell you, once you hear that chorus for the first time it'll be stuck in your head. 

10. Modern English-Melt With You (From 'After the Snow', 1982)

My favorite love song. Never get tired of this one.

Iron Oath- Demo I

Iron Oath- Demo I

2014

Iron Oath is a straight edge hardcore punk band from Cincinnati. I am not straight edge. Doubt there was much question about that but figured I'd say it anyway. But this shit is so tight. I kind of admire straight edge kids because they're bonded by a philosophy and the whole point is to remain true to it, so "Iron Oath" is a pretty awesome name for a straightedge band, and every member in the band is straight edge and proud of it. Also, even though it's labeled a "demo" by the band, the recording of this 5 song EP is exceptional, and self recorded!

The EP opens with "Oath," a solid track which kicks off the EP nicely with a well executed (and catchy) riff, something familiar to Dustin Bingaman, a veteran in playing guitar in hardcore bands (see White Walls, Abduction). It isn't shy about it's straight edge message...

 This is a fucking oath. 

The final fucking nail. 

I remain this way for my fucking self. 

And for those I've seen struggle. 

And the track closes with Moss spitting the line "I'll take life as it comes" repeatedly. Solid opener. No weak points here in terms of performance- Dustin holds down the chops on guitar, Zach Colina is no stranger to this shit, he performs in his own group called Kinder Words, and Chad Duccilli holds down the low end well.

The lyrics are a strong point in this demo-- Moss tackles some heavy subjects, particularly in the song "Xanax," where he talks from the perspective of someone who has felt betrayed and abandoned by a close one who abuses pills. It's an angry tune (they are a hardcore band after all,) but the message is poignant, and Moss's words comes off as frustrated but sympathetic. Other topics include decrying those who make rape jokes and other insensitive jokes ("Dominated") and being uncomfortable in one's skin ("Underneath"). 

I'm a big fan of these sort of mid-tempo hardcore punk bands (see Stoic Violence/Warthog, two sonically similar groups,) and Iron Oath performs on the same level. Definitely worth checking out, especially if you're a straight edge kid who complains about their not being enough straight edge bands, just shut up and listen to these guys. Even if you're not straightedge, it's good hardcore music made by kids who mean it.

You can download this demo for free here.

Or you can order the tape from the Columbus Noise Collective here. 

Sidenote: I've played a show with these dudes and they kill it live. People go nuts for this shit so if you get a chance to go see em, do it.

Community Pools- Clown Shoes

Community Pools- Clown Shoes EP

Ok, so as to quickly announce this and get it into writing (the whole reason I started this blog was to honestly evaluate the music I listen to) let me say that I am not the biggest fan of this particular brand of pop punk. Sloppy, hyper honest pop punk, 90's throwback meets early Plan-It-X kind of stuff; early Lookout Records stuff, Carrie Nations, etc. There was a point in time where I would have bashed it in fact. But with a little context over the years and after seeing some proper pop punk shows, my opinion on this type of stuff has significantly improved over time.

These guys, who are from Oklahoma City, played sort of an overall bummer of a show in Cincinnati a while back (not their fault, just poorly promoted etc.) and I hung out with them a bit. Really good guys, which doesn't always translate into the music but with them, it totally did. They're a couple of guys who are good friends who play in a pop punk band together and obviously really care about the songs that they write and the whole idea of touring, and that alone is pretty much enough to win me over. That's what it's all about, isn't it? Also, Taylor Vinson, the guitar player, totally impressed me with his guitar playing. Dude is a shredder, and was of course insanely modest about it. Jerry and Ryan, drums and bass respectively, also hold down a solid pop punk rhythm section. Anyways, on to this EP, titled "Clown Shoes."

I wish the production of this EP was better-- the snare drum is kind of weak, the bass guitar is sort of nonexistent, and the recording lacks low end. But those are all just nit picky things. My best friend is a recording engineer, what do you expect? 

Point is it didn't change my mind on this kind of pop punk. Not sure anything will. Something about it is just impossible for me to fall in love with. 

But there's a lot of good stuff going on here. The EP features a pretty awesome cover of "48 Double Stack" by Rivethead. Honestly think I like the Community Pools version more. "Fucking Clown Shoes," features a pretty good call and response chorus and kind of an addictive guitar hook, and "Dude Bro Extermination Squad" has the feeling of an early Thermals track, it's pretty rad. Honestly these dudes are pretty good songwriters, and they play really well together.

So take my overall opinion of this with the proper grain of salt, because it's not really my bag. But I'd venture to guess if you were in Oklahoma City and drank a few beers with these guys and then saw them shred through a set you'd probably have a really awesome time.

You can download the EP for free here.

Pretty Pretty- Leather Weather 7"

PRETTY PRETTY- LEATHER WEATHER

"It's Leather Weather baby"

I was so excited when I heard several months ago that Pretty Pretty was going to be recording this 7". Not just because Evan Wolff and Larry Teevee are friends of mine. Not because I play in a band with Evan either. But because this is a band who writes incredible songs, and I was stoked to hear some clean recordings from them, a change from their first demo EP which came out in 2012.

The 7", recorded by Shane Natalie, drummer for Tight Bros (another band Evan plays in), didn't disappoint. Larry's singing is crystal clear on the record, which is great because it's certainly a strong point of the band. Her voice has always reminded me a bit of the singer of Henry's Dress; that sort of lovely sounding twee voice. It nestles in perfectly with Evan's Springsteen-esque guitar playing and singing and Jon Washington's ridiculously tight punk drumming. The production of the album is solid as well; thick guitar, punchy drums, all the good stuff.

The whole EP is laced with that familiar sonic feeling of being free spirited, driving with the windows down, and not givin' a damn. But if that were the extent of the content, I wouldn't like it nearly as much as I do, because a lot of that shit bores me. 

But for starters it's done so much better than the rest, both in songwriting and in performance, that it's impossible not to recognize that this is a band that knows damn well how to write a punk song. Evan shreds his way through the EP with downright solid guitar leads, an underrated accessory to many bands. Larry chugs through the album on the bass guitar as well, exceptionally locking in rhythmically with Jon Washington (there's a tight instrument break at 0:54 of the song "You Say" that I really enjoy).

 Additionally, the band is charming. The frequent mentions of rain falling in the lyrics, (and a song titled "Feels Like Rain"), put through the lens of straight forward punk rock and roll, give this EP an interesting feeling of acceptance of life's shit, and willingness to just throw on a leather jacket and go outside to have fun anyway. 

You can purchase a digital copy of the EP here, and a physical copy of the 7" will be available shortly from Let's Pretend Records and Mandible Records.

Also, if you're from Columbus or live in the general Ohio/Midwest region, go to the release show of this 7" Thursday October 2nd at Spacebar in Columbus, Ohio. They're even better live.

photo credit Andy Downing; Columbus Alive