THE AVATARS “NEVER A GOOD TIME” CD
February 20th, 2008
This is a handy album to have nearby when you’re in the mood for something that leaves you feeling worn out and filthy. For some reason I can smell the fog of cigarettes and the syrupy stench stale beer as I hear these ladies and gents go for it. It’s the sound of good nights at the local rock dive. You’ve got crunchy 60’s influenced garage, sweet, soaring shots at Spector-influenced pop. Overall it’s a great little disc of blustery rock action. If you’re into Detroit Cobras or Reigning Sound, you’ll probably think of the Avatars as a decent approximation of the real deal. And isn’t that what being an Avatar is all about?
Listen while you play: Rabbit Punch
Never a Good Time
A swirling, complicated, Isreali gust of cinematic, instrumental start-stop madness and endlessly increasing crescendo. This feels like the kids would’ve ate it up back when Math rock was the happening thing. I don’t think I’d rush right out and buy this, but it’s a nice diversion from the noisier, rockier shit I listen to. I think I’ll keep it around and see if it grows on me.
File this one in your obscure Argentinian garage rock file. Los Gatos Salvajes (or the Wild Cats, as they were called until they said screw it and fully embraced their Spanish language–one of the first in their region to do so) play fun, laid back beat garage with sugar-coated crooning. Some of the tracks are a little gratuitous–I can only take so many covers of standards like “I’m Crying” and “Under the Boardwalk.” But what the hell. This is the “Complete Recordings.” I should stop my bitching and just enjoy that these guys get a chance to have their tunes out in the wild again. I’ve been listening to it off and on for a while and it’s cool stuff for sure.
When a band is best known for being bootlegged on a couple of Killed By Death compilations, one would think that this album’s audience is just too limited to make it worthwhile. That would be true only if The Eat weren’t one of the smartest, catchiest, drop-everything-and-listeningest punk bands of the late ’70s-90s. The only problem: this band had the grave misfortune of being from sunny Florida–not exactly ground zero for punk rock during the ’70s. So, everyone cool in Florida reveled in the awesomeness of The Eat while they turned Miami upside down, but it doesn’t seem like they went much beyond that. Future fans were left with Killed By Death comps, MP3 blogs, or hideously expensive 7″ records. I remember stumbling across a ripped MP3 of the “God Punishes the Eat” single, and listening to “Jimmie B. Goode” over and over again. This is the type of band where you hear them for the first time, and then you’re hooked. You’ve got to have more. I was googling, eBaying, and searching for any shred of information on the Eat with not much luck. Things have officially changed. Now you can have it all at once. There’s 30 studio tracks and 29 live tracks–so you can fall in love with the Eat and never experience the pain of limited gratification. What’s it sound like? Take the attitude of the Dictators, add a little Pagans guitars, and brighten it up with some vocal harmonizing sorta reminiscent of Hüsker Dü, and you’d be confused, but in a vaguely familiar neighborhood. Anyway, I’ve gone on long enough. This is great. This is incredible. This is absolutely my favorite thing to listen to this past year, and you should check it out.
This is another one I’ve kind of lost in the shuffle–although I’ve played this damn thing endlessly. I sort of just threw it in my iTunes and fell in love with it. The good thing is that the Swell Maps are the kind of band that people will discover for years… so whenever you decide to check this out, it still has some relevancy. If you’re a big experimental punk geek, the Swell Maps need no introduction. If you haven’t heard of them, they were trailblazing ’70s proto-proto-post punkers who can be maddeningly grating and stupifying awesome–usually at the same time. The first time you hear the Swell Maps, the reaction may not be favorable. Still, you might hear some stuff you’ll like. Before you know it, and you’re totally wrapped up in their electric brilliance. This compilation of bedroom and garage recordings from 74-77 is extremely low-fi, but it’s rocking, noisy as hell and occasionally beautiful. Take a chance on it.
Glacial, slow, deliberate, quiet, loud as hell. Those are probably the best descriptions I can think of for The Narrows–who play, massive, strong, epic riffs that get quiet, loud, and quiet again. The vocals are a bit thin, and there aren’t a hell of a lot of them. To be honest, they don’t really add much interest to the songs anyway. This stuff is all about the guitars. I can actually see these guys doing a totally instrumental album and making a fine job of it. If you’ve got some Unwound, Melvins, Great Unraveling, and an odd metal album here & there, these guys are on your wavelength.
The sweaty makeout jams of No-Fi Soul Rebellion are one of this music fan’s most pleasurable guilty pleasures. Take a dollop of Parliament, a dash of prince, a smattering of Doctor Dre, and maybe just a tiny splatter of punk rock, and turn the over-the-top factor as high as you can tolerate, and you’ll have something that just might resemble this husband and wife duo. While the recordings might not be every person’s cup of tea, I can’t imagine not having a blast at the live show. The last release I got by them, Lambs to the Slaughter, had a little more power behind the grooves, where this one is more of a straight-ahead dance party. Differences, shmifferences. I still dig it. These two are going to have some cool stuff to show their grandkids one day.
You know what? Who wrote the rule about old punks and Irish music. Don’t get me wrong, I quite like the Irish, but I’ve about had it with the punk-rock-meets-traditional-Irish-music thing. Yeah, yeah. We all loved the Pogues (I never cared about ‘em, actually) and we’ll never forget the day we had our first Guinness. Let’s get over it and move on shall we? So anyway, these guys further scrape the bottom of the that emerald-green cesspool that guys like Dropkick Murphys have already mined to death. Then they play some overproduced country-tinged ditties and Irish-tinged roots rock. It’s easy listening for punk rockers who moved on to expensive beer and who love talking about how old they are.
I’ve had this one sitting at the bottom of the review pile for about a year. Even though it’s not so bad, I have trouble bringing myself to review it. I’m kind of weird that way. It’s unremarkable, but enjoyable, 80s synth pop from Spain… not entirely unlike Devo, but with a little more of a pop angle. They do wear goofy Devoesque costumes though. Apparently this is sort of a “best of” collection that compiles a bunch of stuff going back to 1978. 
After my sort of lukewarm response to their debut, Australian Cattle God saw fit to try the Fockers on me again. While I’m still not super crazy about the Trombone, I’ve gotten over it. And I do really like the places these seem to be coming from… the Boner Records catalog, the Trance Records Catalog, the Cows, NoMeansNo, Butthole Surfers, hallucinogenics, lots of good stuff like that. Gorch Fock seem to favor dense layers of sludgy noise, trombone, spacey samples and thick, meaty howling. The more you listen to it, the more you get sucked in. And these guys have some of the most arresting cover art I’ve ever seen from a band. That’s worth 2,000 bonus points, I’d say.