Video: POW! - Hangin’ Out (At Home)
By Burgers Rana
My favorite kind of art always seems to have the same kind of description: “we found this (insert item name) and decided to experiment and see what we can do with it.” San Francisco’s Devo/Mummies mashup punks POW! got themselves a $5 camcorder from Goodwill, and filmed and edited a music video for the one-off single “Hangin’ Out (At Home)”. The track was recorded by the enigmatic Ty Segall, and at the perfect single time of two minutes and forty-five seconds, “Hangin’ Out” is a catchy song about chilling at home, cooking, smoking cigs, and playing with your cat.
POW! are currently writing and recording a full-length that should see the light of day sometime this year. Until then, this is a great song to put on while you get your picnic items together.
Review: Blasted Canyons - 2nd Place EP
By Zach Braun
As I’m sure you all know, it is SXSW week, so let’s take a look at one of the bands playing the epic GET BENT! showcase this Friday 3/16 at Trailer Space, San Francisco’s Blasted Canyons. Comprised of Castle Face Records’ Matt Jones, Heather Fedewa of Wax Idols, and Adam Finken, Blasted Canyons specializes in brain-fried acid-synth punk rock, and they released a pretty rockin’ self-titled LP last year, loaded with sloppy, weird, Lost Sounds-inspired jams. The band has released this six track EP, 2nd Place, just in time for the Austin blowout, and it tightens up the sound just a little bit, while still retaining that edge of inspired, wooly menace.
Opening track “Get High” is a bona-fide HIT, building off a bed of steady, New Order/Psychedelic Furs strumming, playing Fedewa’s Siouxsie-style vocals off of Jones or Finken’s ghoulish Ian Curtis croon (I can’t tell who is who). The message is simple: “All I wanna do is get high with you. I won’t try nothing else unless you want me to.” Those used to the spastic noise of Blasted Canyons will definitely get thrown off by how deceptively PRETTY “Get High” sounds. This is addled pop music made by weirdo kids.
Fedewa takes the lead on “Liquid Fiend,” and it comes off like an awesome outtake from Wax Idols’ No Future, but lightly dusted with trebly, ear-bleeding keyboards. Blasted Canyons is still a formidably odd band, but on 2nd Place everything just seems a bit better. The production is cleaned up just enough to where you can hear everything clearly, the bottom end is more precise, and the vocals melt together perfectly, to the point where they recall the telepathic wails of Brigid Dawson and John Dywer of Thee Oh Sees. “Artistic growth” is sometimes a foreign concept in punk rock land, but Blasted Canyons clearly know what they are doing.
2nd Place isn’t available online quite just yet, but the band will have copies available at their SXSW shows. It’s on clear vinyl with a swanky laser etching on the B-side. Midheaven will offer up the rest when the band gets back from tour.
Review: The Mallard - Yes on Blood
Hey, can I just start and end the review of the Mallard’s debut album, Yes on Blood, by saying it’s on Castle Face Records and that means you should buy it now? Maybe? Anything more will just seem like repetitive heaps of praise. Ok, well, I’ll tell you more just in case you need convincing.
John Dwyer of Thee Oh Sees is quite the busy man, releasing at least three records a year with his band, so when he decides to put something out on his label, Castle Face, it means you need to listen up. The label has a small catalog, but it encompasses the better bands in the garage/psych/punk scene happening right now. Besides records by Thee Oh Sees, Castle Face is home to Ty Segall (and his side projects with Mikal Cronin), Blasted Canyons, the Fresh & Onlys, Bare Wires, Total Control and now the Mallard.
The Mallard fit right in with that group of fuzzed-out lo-fi psych-rocking garage bands. You might compare them most closely to Thee Oh Sees and Blasted Canyons, but they have much more going on with their inside-out laser-burnt feedback daydreams. The Mallard recall the rock ‘n roll attitude of the Wax Idols, the acid-fried guitars of the Night Beats, and the wall of fuzz soaked sound of Heavy Times and Cosmonauts. There are plenty of echo and delay effects, and the record seems to speed up and slow down like an analog tape with a mind of its own and fucks with your sense of time. They play trippy bedroom pop, like a hazy, dreamed-up 60s psych band transported through time, picking up some shoegaze, noise punk, krautrock, and minimal post-punk along the way. Maybe psych-punk is a better tag. Some new genre needs to be invented to name bands like the Mallard and their San Francisco contemporaries. They surely have those Count Five, 13th Floor Elevators and Sonics records, but they’re not just regurgitating old garage/psych albums. Yes on Blood is a very rare record that sounds both retro and new as the hottest shit record on the shelves right now.
The album starts out with “Intro”, a demented space rock jam, sounding like James Arthur’s Manhunt or Michael Yonkers. “Fog” swirls us up into a psych frenzy with yelping vocals and bouncing, intertwining guitar parts all set to the kind of off-kilter feel of the Monks. “Shallows” and “Vines” break and twist effects and fuzz all over the vocals and guitars, while impatiently building up to some almost prog meets punk train wreck of rock ‘n roll. The song “I Listen to Lyrics Last” might give you a key into the Mallard’s sound; the texture and drive of their noise are more important than the lyrics, which are just a surreal icing to the cake. The Mallard create a separate world for you to inhabit, like the Liars or Disappears.
My favorite track on Yes on Blood has to be “You’ve Got the Critics.” It has a woozy organ that leads the track along as if it were some demented ode to Question Mark and the Mysterians. It at least owes something to Flower Travellin’ Band and those other crazy Japanese psych bands. The Mallard are most primitive, urgent, and just plain out there on the last track of the album. It’s a smoke weed before bed and have fucked-up dreams kinda song—the sparse, driving melody and distorted vocals whirl around in your head all night long.
The Mallard’s debut LP is quite the adventure and I found new quirks with every listen. But like I said at the beginning, you ought to just buy it and find out for yourself.
Review: Outdoorsmen - Violent Hands 7”
By Becca Capers
So, Outdoorsmen, via Total Punk, have come out with a 7” that clocks in at 2:29 with the most straightforward hardcore punk imaginable. In keeping with their thoroughly manicured brutality, there is no hand-holding here. Not even for the penises so starkly alluded to. Well, they might scoff at our human need for comfort and pornography, but that they share it is the message that makes solid art out of Violent Hands.
Track: Terry Malts - Nauseous
By Ruby Perez
Bay Area trio Terry Malts are releasing their debut LP Killing Time via Slumberland. The LP will be up for grabs February 21 and lucky for us, the noise-garage rock outfit has released their single “Nauseous” for our listening pleasure.
It’s a nice little taste of what is to come next month and features the backing vocals of drummer Nathan Sweatt. Kids of the San Francisco area can catch their record release show February 17 at the Hemlock Tavern with Airfix and Cocktails.
Track: Poor Sons - Sinking Ship
By Sonam Parikh
“Sinking Ship” has enough sun in it to combat the gnarliest of winter blues. It’s heavy on the reverb, reflective of the band’s roots (San Francisco, are you surprised?), and free on bandcamp along with the rest of the EP. Laden with melodies that sound like a eerie Growlersesque jaunt under the sea, Poor Sons are starting out strong with the Dyunes EP. The tape is a split release from Under the Gun and Burger Records. Buy it here.
Column: Sofa King Bent
GET BENT has the pleasure of introducing Tiffany Minton, Nashville-based musician, writer and all around artist, as our very first columnist! In her inaugural missive she takes us inside San Francisco’s Bauer Mansion, where her band Heavy Cream just finished recording their sophomore record with Ty Segall.
Hello, freaks. My name is Tiffany Minton. I’m calling this column “Sofa King Bent.” What can I say? It makes me laugh. It also clears me of the responsibility of thematic focus. I am going to project that most of these columns will be essay-like/op-ed because I nourish a deep well of criticism and opinions. I acknowledge the threat of being perceived as an unapologetic asshole and uninteresting. Don’t worry; I haven’t forgotten the old Salt N Pepa adage (“Opinions are like assholes, and everybody’s got one…”), but reading is sexy. That being said, I invite your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below. Feel free to ream at your leisure. This is my first contribution, so I appreciate that you’ve even read this far.
The abridged version of me is that I am a sociologist playing in a rock band. Historically, I am a drummer in bands you’ve probably never heard of, but currently in the band Heavy Cream, who possibly you’ve heard of. This of course doesn’t make me an expert on anything; but, I am gaining confidence in my ability to survive chronic or partial unemployment during an economic recession. Fiscal poverty seems to be easier to manage when you’re rich in personal time and creative capital. I’m just trying to keep the latter sustainable for as long as possible. Being a “working” musician is pretty easy to do in Nashville, which is one of the many reasons why I am so nationalistic about it as the best city in America, but definitely in the South.
Review: Culture Kids - Culture Kids
By Becca Capers
When I saw Culture Kids in East Nashville, they delivered all of the mosh-inspiring feats one desires from a band of their genre. Having just come out, their self-titled release delivers a succinct one-two punch that is equally expectation-meeting.
Something I love about Culture Kids is that there are no lead feet in the band. Blast beats drive and inhabit almost every track, jumping nimbly over bass and guitar solos and never stopping for pubescent pleas. Psychedelia is not lost on these artists, either. The pace halves for “Slow Jam” and ferments in “Headless Body in a Topless Bar”, which is almost pure noise. The track makes you wade through it, guided only by a quickening guitar to the faintly illuminating light of Justin’s yelps at the end. The bass lines are especially deft on this album, and it is in them that I can find the resonant melodies that some people find hardcore wonting. Culture Kids are serious performers, but if they played the recorded album and lip-synced to it, they’d be just as show-controlling as they were live.
Pick up the tape at Burger.
Review: Wet Illustrated - 1x1x1
By Becca Capers
On 1x1x1, Wet Illustrated propounds an endearingly dizzying brand of garage rock. The band hails from San Francisco, and through their two guitarists (Tim Hellman and Chrys Nodal) they have connections to flourishing garage rock bands like Ty Segall and Lilac. In the texture and aesthetic of their November release, they differ heartily from such projects. Sure, their unpretentious guitar hooks abound! Blaise-but-aggressive vocals in every song! Consistently head-bobbing rhythms propelling the group to the front of the mosh pit! But this mosh pit would not be without the obstacles of those people whose minds were turned on and confused by the busy content of their sound.
In every song, the circulation-inhibiting tightness of the drums acts as a corset around the wordy girth of the melodies. In many cases, their over-achieving drive to fit big ideas into little songs serves them very well. “Saints” is a cheeseless ode to clear guitar lines and muddied vocals, and “Claws” is the friendliest declaration of misanthropy I’ve ever heard. In other songs, like “Herman’s Head” and “Boogie Away”, the layers offset each other in less flattering ways. Generally, though, I totally support the bursting-with-energy vibe of Wet Illustrated. Just… don’t over-think it!
Available on True Panther.
Track: POW! - Night Train To Fog Town
POW! That 3 letter word could easily describe this San Franciscan trio’s new track “Night Train To Fog Town”. Whirring synth lines, galloping drums, guitar bends that could make you puke, and dual male/female vocals shouted through some space echo are the makings of this devilish concoction. Take the grittiest attributes of Thee Oh Sees, Golden Triangle and Bo Diddley, inject ‘em with a dose of 80’s synth-punk and wait for the POW!
You can download POW!’s Pretend There EP for free via there Bandcamp page. If your in San Francisco November, 23rd you can see POW! along with some other great bands at Impose Magazine’s Pre-Feast Freakout.
