Video: Magnetix - Spider in the Corner
The latest video from freaky French duo Magnetix is a mindfuck—one that should probably be avoided if you have a serious case of arachnophobia. Fine, I’m a big baby and yes, spiders freak me out… but the video is still pretty cool. Has this type of garage fuzz ever been for the faint of heart anyway? The Magnetix will probably reply, “NON!”
“Spider in the Corner” can be found on the band’s recent Drogue Electrique 7” via Shit in Can Records or their Drogue Electrique LP (Born Bad/Slovenly) from last year.
Track: The Unwed Teenage Mothers - Rain
By Lisa Parisi
We spy with our gnarly-tuned ears a new the Unwed Teenage Mothers (members of Bass Drum of Death and Lover!) album to follow up their 2011 mini, single-sided-release Blond Girls (Play Pinball Records). Details are scant—as in there are none—but a preview track “Rain” appeared on their Bandcamp. Like finding the remnants (ripped wrappers, empty booze containers) from a naughty night out (had to get pregnant somehow), “Rain” serves as a clue to just what these darn bad kids are up to.
Featuring fuzzy classic rock influenced guitar wailing, reverb-y vocals, and a slower-paced, but still gruff, rhythm, these same ears want more. Picking up musically just where the brief Blond Girls dumped us, our magic crystals and 8-balls are predicting good things are in store.
Video: A Giant Dog - Pins and Needles
By Lisa Parisi
Paying homage to the dingy saturation of poorly acted ‘80s made-for-TV-dramas, Austin’s A Giant Dog’s video for “Pins and Needles” off their Fight LP (Tic Tac Totally) was filmed under the sham pretense of a casting call.
As overly dramatic acting sequences flash like epileptic fits in a shabbily adorned office space, the actors contort in agony in a manner that mirror the pummeling ferocity that is A Giant Dog. Sabrina Ellis’ bellowing syncs with the dramatic climax of both the song and the “film” as the actors unknowingly thrash about to the cutthroat drum beats and wailing vocals. Look closely and you can see Giant Dog members in the faux audience directing the actors; look even closer and you can catch the drummer smirk. And, as if on a subconscious cue, three band members simultaneously cover their mouths in that Freudian way, hence disclosing the deceit to those with a keen eye.
A ruse; yes.
Malice; certainly not.
Brilliant; you betcha.
Check out the spurious drama for yourself and, while you’re at it, pick up the wax here.
Personal and the Pizzas’ Last Show Ever
New Jersey’s Personal and the Pizzas have announced their last official show before they retire to the great pizza in the sky. Perhaps they got in a fight with the delivery guy? They will be missed. Their last show is at Vitus in Oakland, CA, with Mean Jeans and King Louie’s Missing Monuments on May 26th. (Unfortunately, due to work visa issues, Royal Headache won’t be there.)
Video: Wax Idols - Human Condition
By Lisa Parisi
The infiniteness and bounds of mankind and nature.
Life and death.
Internality and externality.
The intangible and the palpable.
The ostentatious and the banal.
These are all irreconcilable paradoxical enigmas that comprise the essence of life. As encapsulated lyrically in the Wax Idols single ‘Human Condition’ off their No Future (HoZac), there is a thematic fusion between the artistic conception of the music and the visual aesthetic conveyed in the Idols latest video release.
Juxtaposing the vast expanse of nature with the literal and metaphorical confines of mankind, Warhol-esque cinematic mug shots are sandwiched between religious, psychedelic, patriotic iconography and monotonous detritus. Seeking to, as director Sam Macon explains to GET BENT, “break down the whole rock and roll thing,” Macon captures visually—and successfully so—the core essence behind the song—the quintessence of humanity. As Hether Fortune avers, “I gave him full creative license to do whatever the fuck he wanted to do, because I trust him. Good move, eh?”
The deliberate disjunctures in the imagery serve the ideological function of capturing what, as Macon continues, is “essentially, the human condition. To be a more or less meaningless speck in a much larger and more impressive natural world. We’re only important, clever and interesting to ourselves because we have to be - because if we didn’t tell ourselves that, if we didn’t make art and invent sandwiches and shit, if we didn’t construct meaning for ourselves we’d all probably kill ourselves. We’ve created an existence that ignores the natural world we live in, and that I think that’s pretty fucking weird.”
Now that’s profound. Ponder your own existence and see for yourself.
Track: Dead Ghosts - I Sleep Alone
By Zach Braun
Track: Teen Vomit - Out Of Out
By Lisa Parisi
Look out for projectile force that is Teen Vomit. Hailing from the smoke stacks and the chunky crud of the Cuyahoga River of Cleveland, Teen Vomit possesses that mixture of fuzzy slapback, shoulder bopping rhythms, and dreamy—yet still unvarnished—vocals. Packing the same cloudy fizzle as a dissolving indigestion tablet, fans of Acid Baby Jesus, Cosmonauts, FIDLAR, Pangea, Rayon Beach, and that all-around dreamy-but-still-rough, echoic garage-y, open wide and gulp down this frothy mixture of lo-fi garage punk.
Track: Gary Wrong Group - Post Natal Pre Death
By Zach Braun
Track: Surgeons - Whip Them Lord
By Zach Braun
Track: E.T. Habit - Venomous (Tongues Descent)
By Zach Braun
