Art for Spastics v. 144

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To STREAM this show before August 23, GO HERE

THE FRUSTRATIONS // Streak of Luck // Glowing Red Pill // X! Records *forthcoming
TERRIBLE TWOS // Radical Tadpoles // Radical Tadpoles 7" // X! *forthcoming
ARTIFICIAL LIMBS // Mechanical Bull // self-titled CDR // Eat *new
LEADERS // Bad News Bitch // Synthesizer Sketchez & 4-Track Demos CDR // no label *new
CATATONIC YOUTH // I've Had It // Piss Scene CDR // Fuck Jazz *new
EAT SKULL // Things I Did When I Dyed My Hair // Seeing Things 7" // Meds *new
HORNET LEG // We're So Ugly // August 2007 Tour CDR // self-released *new
UNNATURAL HELPERS // Out of Touch // v/a: The Black Garfield Comp CDR // Haunted Horse 2007
TYVEK // Frustration Rock // Summer Burns 2x7" // What's Your Rupture? *new
COCONUT COOLOUTS // Swim // The Spinaround b/w Swim 7" // Heads Up *new
COCONUT COOLOUTS // Weekend // Advance Tracks CDR // Xeroid/Haunted Horse *forthcoming
WAX MUSEUMS // Rambo Knife // Rambo Knife 7" // Rehab *new

WAX MUSEUMS // Traffic Violation // Traffic Violation 7" // Douchemaster *new
HOME BLITZ // Something 2 Do // self-titled CD // Gulcher *new
CHINESE PUZZLE // Dadat // Inside/Outside // Rebus 1980
CHROME // Chromosome Damage // Alien Soundtracks // Siren 1977 *request
SLICING GRANDPA // Daddy O Strangler // split 7" w/ Sparkle Girl // Soccer Mom Ebonics *new
xNOBBQx // A1 & A2 // Sunshine of Your Love // Siltbreeze *forthcoming
CORE OF THE COALMAN // Occurence of a Reboring Outcrop at the Bed Level // Anxiety // Resipiscent *new
FAMILY BATTLE SNAKE // Lamber // v/a: Dynasty Gang Zine 2xCDR // Kaleidoscope Gang/Dynasty Zine *new
ETERNAL TAPESTRY // Vibrations // Vibrations New Dawn cassette // Not Not Fun *new
ETERNAL TAPESTRY // Mystic Induction // Mystic Induction // Not Not Fun *forthcoming

INCA ORE // side B // split c31 w/ Leslie Keffer // Cherried Out Merch *new
NO AGE // Dead Plane // Weirdo Rippers // Fat Cat *new
YVES/SON/ACE // Liars // No Taboos CDR // self-released *new
PYRAMIDS // Switch // demo CDR // self-released *new
FACTUMS // Bomber // See Inside 7" // Polly Maggoo *new
TV GHOST // Atomic Rain // Atomic Rain b/w Bird Flu 7" // Die Stasi *new
SYZ // Mountain Moon // Complicated 7" // HoZac *new
BE BAD // Vision Correction // Vision Correction // Divorce *new

MUTATORS // Paper Words // Paper Words 7" // The Broadway to Boundary *new
ART THIEVES // Mona Lisa // rough demos CDR // no label *forthcoming final mix on HoZac 7"

The Frustrations and the Terrible Twos swung through Davis on tour, and despite playing a poorly attended show in the livest echo chamber ever, both bands poured their souls into it and brought much Michigan mayhem to the Basement Gallery below the UC Davis Art Building. With ex-members of the Piranhas, the T2's were especially unbridled, careening into pratfalls and pulling rockstar poses which were all the more convincing with their atavistic mustaches that were ripped from trading card photos of late-70's MLB relief pitchers. I could barely tell what was going on because of the shabby room sound, but when others up and down the West Coast declared them "best touring band of 2007 so far," I could certainly believe it. The T2's do bear out their Piranhas roots with the keyboard spazz, but they do sharpen their assault and improve on their previous band's spidery guitar cleverness.

Here's more crazed keyboard-driven punk from Artificial Limbs. Some of these songs were on a demo CDR that has appeared on earlier playlists, but others are new to my ears. Surely, there should be plans to unleash some vinyl soon. 'Til then, this CDR with something of an official-looking cover shall whet your appetite for frenetic lo-fi synthpunk steeped in trash and thrash.



The Leaders from Portland are yet another band including Muzz from the amazing Meercaz (formerly of the Observers and other bands). They just sent a full-length album's worth of well-rendered demos on a custom CDR. Some tracks are hard-charging snot-soaked synthpunk scorchers like this "Bad News Bitch," which I say is comparable to Rock Bottom & the Spys or Red Asphalt giving the old Freestone neg-viber a run for its money. Other songs play it cool and clever--yet still low-brow--mining much the same arty weirdpunk waters patrolled 25 years ago by the brasher bands on Subterranean Records, e.g. Beelzebub Youth. This band and these songs are positively vinyl-LP-ready. This CDR is not available for consumers, but if you run a discriminating record label, why don'tcha beg 'em for a copy?

On the heels of "secret" bands claiming third-world residency on MySpace like Blank Dogs, Lady Doctors, Spider and such, Catatonic Youth are among the latest bands to mysteriously mythologize their seemingly miraculous existence, but it looks pretty certain that these guys are from Seattle. Shall we go on believing that the February tour of Slovakia is gonna happen regardless? The two songs on their CDR-EP have become instant KDVS hits, and "I've Had It" has surely been adopted as a themesong for everyone in Davis who's unfortunate enough to get hungry after 10:00 p.m.: "Nothing in this town/Nothing in this town/Nothing in this town/Now, I've had it!!! I've had it!!!" You can only get excited about Crepeville or Woodstock's so many times before going back becomes drudgery. As negative as the lyrics are, this band sure sounds bright and chirpy, and if that's not enough of a WTFpwner for your mind to wrap itself around, now see your first visual image of these "Youths" breathing insidious mold dust into a Stooges classic...



Despite forming in Portland just four months ago, Eat Skull already have a brand-new 7" EP out, and it's as brilliant a record as many persistent endurers could ever aspire to release after years of jelling together. The songs are absolutely superb for their spirit, hooks, and chemistry, and while the productions sounds quick, nasty, and spontaneous enough for a band that just came together, these three songs (two on side A at 45 rpm, one on the 33 rpm flip) are perfect food for discerning cravers of shrill treblephonic explosions with hearts of pure pop. Fans of The Intelligence and Times New Viking oughta seek this record out. But does the Meds label even have a website? A second 7" is reported fast on its heels!

It wasn't my intention to make the playlist so Portland-centric, but Hornet Leg come from Rip City, too. Stripped down to a guitar/drum duo featuring Chris Sutton from Nudity and Spider & the Webs, this band is quite a bit rawer and more elemental than his other bands. This special tour-edition CDR is entirely live and captures the energy and soulfulness we experienced at the Delta of Venus last week, but it doesn't have the full sound I'd like to hear from an official recording in the future. The drummer's rugged whomping action made her quite entertaining to watch, but her power is largely missing from this CDR. But this is a band to watch out for!

Unnatural Helpers are a cousin branch of the A Frames family tree and are also intertwined with Kinski. They are coming this way in a couple weeks for a short West Coast tour which shall visit Sacramento at the Stoney Inn (1320 Del Paso Blvd.) on Thursday, September 9 with Replicator. The band is more straightforward than other bands in the family, but still plenty great, and if anything, that should only help make them even easier to like. I'm reminded of many a Sacto 90's Loft-scene favorite when I hear them. Get a second opinion and hear songs from a recent live show on the latest http://www.lemon-session.com/ blogpost.



Get ready to hear a lot of hubbub about this year's outstanding Budget Rock VI festival which takes over the Stork Club in Oakland for the last weekend of October. Amazingly, the Trashwomen are reuniting for a performance, and the Real Kids headline back-to-back nights, but the bands I'm most excited for are two of the engaging and enjoyable party-time bands that I've seen within the last year...or ever! Tyvek and the Coconut Coolouts are hands-down THEE funnest bands I've seen play live, and perhaps only Mika Miko can hold a candle to them as merrymakers. I've been at shows where these bands have played, and I've noticed each and every person in the venue simultaneously wearing a smile or laughing. It's so rare that you might ever see that. Both bands hit Budget Rock on Saturday, October 27 after playing Sacramento or Davis (venue pending after Fools Foundation shutdown) on that Friday. Both bands are the perfect one-two punch. Stand-up drummers only!

A rumor has come from within the Tyvek camp that after the band has played down the coast from Seattle to the Bay Area that three of the members will continue to tour in their other band, Mountains and Rainbows back up to the Northwest in an RV. That is not confirmed, but I hope to hear that it will certainly happen soon. Both M&R singles are pretty great, and the image of Tyvek drummer Matt Z singing "Knock Me Out" (from the A-side of their Cass 7") in a frisky falsetto looks priceless in my imagination.

When I saw that the upcoming double 7" of Tyvek was gonna be songs I'd already heard dozens of times on CDRs and on mp3s over and over since March of this year, I was almost bummed, but now that this fantastic EP is in my hands and spinning on my record player, this is pure bliss. The records sound better than previous versions of the same songs, and again it's wrapped in a sleeve that fits their atavistic DIY aesthetic to a tee. This is essential!

The Coolouts have released a 7" single to tout a brand-new dance that you will wanna try. Is this the best new song about a brand-new dance since the Jetpack introduced "The Throwdown"? Other songs exist on a CDR comp which also includes songs by the aforementioned Unnatural Helpers, Partman Parthorse, and other Seattle funmakers, and a CD is still due out soon, I believe. And tell me this movie of the Coolouts doesn't spell a ton of fun...



The Wax Museums continue their bombardment of 7" records, and while the first still remains my favorite, they still haven't made a dud song yet. Come to think of it, though, I think you could still fit all of their songs onto one tightly packed 33 rpm 7". You might clock 'em in at 13 minutes tops. One more minute, and that might as well be called a full-length album in punk rock (see "Group Sex" by the Circle Jerks). But how much fun is one LP when you're a freak for 7" collecting? Perhaps no band has ever aimed to please those crazy undersexed shut-ins more than the Wax Museums.

Home Blitz have been critical darlings of us blognerds and collectors of the Messthetically-inclined DIY scruffpop and scuzzpunk for almost two years now, and their CD from Gulcher compiles both 7" records with material from a 12" and a split cassette plus a few previously unreleased. The music is essential, but the slim envelope sleeve and the accompanying loose 8½x11" one-sheet is certainly a letdown. I'd have liked to see the one-sheet material joined together with some other notes in a proper fold-out insert for an LP, or at least a CD in an Arigato-Pak. But maybe that's just the way I feel based on having kept up on a complete Home Blitz collection. The records and the tape have all had great and clever songs, and they've been packaged keenly enough. But if you've missed out on all the greatness, you need to play catch-up and get this CD. I'm not sure if anyone has pulled off this savant-pop/slop style with more earnestness since the Blub Krad comp from L.A.F.M.S. or early Half Japanese. Truly a joy to listen to!