Rock Star Journalist

Hailing all the way from sunny Spain, Madrid’s The Parrots rock a fresh take on garage rock, imbuing the genre with a woozy, surfy vibe. They’ve a new single out on Austria’s Bachelor Records on June 24, but they’ve shared the a-side, “Loving You Is Hard,” online for everyone to check out. We enjoyed it so much, we got the band to answer a few questions for us via e-mail.
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The first full-length from Indiana’s Vacation Club, Heaven Is Too High, took a couple listens to really work its way into rotation. Samuel James‘ vocals are an acquired taste — they’re high, they’re snotty, and they’re fairly monotonic.

It took picking the LP up after a little time away from it, putting it on the turntable, and hearing the opening strains of “Gas Station” to get what Vacation Club’s doing — this is a trimmed-down, lo-fi version of something like the Sweet or Slade.
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Can Night Birds succeed without Brian Gorsegner‘s snotty vocals, which are so integral to the band’s sound? Is it possible to achieve that sense of horror and and b-movie grime without lyrics?

Shit yeah, it is. Granted, Gorsegner has a hand in playing synths on the dystopic sci-fi cut, “Agent Zero,” but the rest of the band handily rocks it pure surf style for the other three cuts on this EP.

It’s a nice chance to really focus on the fact that PJ Russo‘s guitar work is just lovely. The interplay between Russo’s guitar and Joe Keller‘s bass is what really makes this EP. Granted, it doesn’t get exceptionally complex at any point, but the songs are catchy. The same goes for drummer Ryan McHale, who — while he isn’t really called to do much more than standard timing — hits the skins with enough heft to give these songs a tiki-torch nighttime dance party feel.
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Kids! Kidskidskidskids! Guess what?

Josh Berwanger put out a new single! And it’s part of the too Much Rock single series! And it has a cover of the Jags’ “Back of My Hand” on the b-side! I literally responded to the initial news of this with a linked article on Facebook and something along the lines of “THE FUCKING JAGS?!?!”

But, really, everybody: I’m a huge fan of Josh berwanger as a musician and just a guy to chat with in general, and this might be my favorite thing he’s thus far done. “Oh Bis!” has been part of Bernwager’s live sets for a while now, and the fact that he uses the word “bozos” has always endeared the song to me.
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The newest Tor Johnson Records release, Bloodpheasant‘s Traum, showed up a while back, and it took me nearly a week to get to listen to it. I’m usually prone to throwing whatever Paul’s sent in the mail straight onto the turntable after I get in the house, but somehow, this languished on my coffee table for the better part of six days.

The reason I say all of this is to emphasize how bummed I felt halfway through opening cut, “A Bird and Its Wings.” I could’ve listened to this all last week, but no — I had to do productive things instead of getting lost in this Rhode Island quartet’s twangy, apocalyptic doom.
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The Essential Ellen Willis, out now from University of Minnesota Press, collects a lifetime of Ellen Willis‘ work, looking to give a more nuanced and thorough view of her career and importance than was presented in her collection of music writing, Out of the Vinyl Deeps.

Now, important and thorough does not necessarily an interesting or involving read make. I found myself struggling and trudging through some pieces. Historical importance and documentary worth do not equal easy or entertaining reading, because anthologies are inherently exhausting.

They jump topics, tone varies, and just keeping one’s self temporally oriented can leave a head spinning. It requires a nimble mind to be able to read straight through without needing the occasional break. Despite loosely grouping essays together by topic — sex, drugs, et al — it’s a massive undertaking for even those short groups.
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It’s always with fear and trepidation that I crack open a musician’s memoir. For every Keith Richards autobiography, there are several dozen tomes that collapse under the weight of their own self-import and overwrought prose.

James Fearnley‘s new book, Here Comes Everybody: The Story of the Pogues is as enrapturing as any I’ve read. It starts off shakily, discussing as it does Fearnley’s youth with a bit of a gloss to his upbringing.

After that, however, it’s a fascinating, rollicking series of stories. Fearnley’s time with Shane McGowan begins with the Nips, prior to the Pogues, and those stories are wonderful, giving a little-seen glimpse at the early days of McGowan’s infamous carousing.
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Watery Love‘s new album on In the Red, Decorative Feeding is blown the fuck out. It appropriately pegs the VU meters in the red for pretty much the entire duration of the LP.

Decorative Feeding isn’t a subtle album. Vocals are hoarsely shouted, and declamed more than sang. The band rocks the same drum beat for most of the album, with Watery Love seeming like it’s about to fall apart at any given moment.

It’s a tenuous connection holding everything together — you wonder if the first few times this happened live, everyone in Watery Love just ended up sitting on the stage as feedback rolled out of amplifiers and somebody screamed into a microphone. It’s a little better on the second side, when the drone gives up to some thrashed-out riffs, but this is an intensely anxious album.
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More dirge-like than the Spits, less poppy than Devo, and more abrasive than Digital Leather is Stalins of Sound. Their Tank Tracks LP — out next week on Slovenly — took a few listens to really grab me. However, despite the slow build up to acceptance, some tracks immediately interested upon first listen.

“Monkeys Attack” is insistently metronomic in its rhythm, and the guitar just buzzsaws along. I featured it on the podcast a few weeks back, and the more I listen to it, the more I get what Stalins of Sound are trying to do. Granted, it’s pretty indicative of what Tank Tracks sounds like. The earlier tracks follow that pattern, and if you’re only half-listening, it’s difficult to tell some songs from others.
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Hobocop‘s Half Man, Half Cop is just the right amount of lo-fi. It’s not quite as rudimentary as Apache Dropout, but it’s fuzzy and dirty. The fuzz and distortion works with the music, though, rather than obscuring good songwriting. “Stench of Death” especially benefits from some extra dirt on its sludged-out garage guitar. The whole lo-fi aesthetic gives everything a sense of mystery — is that keyboard or a weird guitar effect? Is that an acoustic bass or a weird guitar effect?

The element of mystery makes the whole Hobocop thing entertainingly strange. You’ll accept the fact that “Fairweather Scum” is remarkably catchy, despite the fact you’ve little-to-no idea what’s being sung. Just lock onto “yeah yeah”s and “whoo-hoo”s whenever possible, and use those as your guideposts to take you from mumbled guesses to enthusiastic and confident sing-along.
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