SISTERS OF SLAB - Two splits of dichotymous proportions

Tyvek & Cheveu - Split 7" (S-S Records, 2007)
Y'all read my Cheveu-sponsored jissom last time around, so all I can do is echo. Their track, "El Tortuga" is about 5 brands of swank in under 2min. They inhabit that space where teenage debauchery turns into a spin off the road while the speakers blow and the tires haven't hit the mud yet and all there is to feel is the beauty of the change in wind direction and that sinking uneven feeling in your gut. Can't say I'm as in love with the Tyvek side. Don't get me wrong, it does 1980 real well, but so did 1980. Nice dipped-out ending though. Fresh enough you could probably still buy it. Check the dudes themselves.

Michael Yonkers & Little Claw - Split 7" (X!, 2007)
Now I know Messer Yonkers is an outsider of Jandek/Skidd Freeman proportions, but I think he might be looking over his own shoulder too much. At least at the outset. "I Think" is like a Kim Fowley pisstake on Big Black, which doesn't really need to happen. "The Drain" on the other hand is like a Richard Kern nightmare party. It could be 20 years old, or it could be brand new, but it's bound to irritate you right out of your chair any which way.
I'll take Little Claw any day they're free. Kilynn makes none of the lady sounds usually found in these bang-and-clang bands--not sweet, not aimlessly snarling, not screechy, not childlike. She comes across like a person, not a person personifying an idea. Meantime, the band stirs and steams like a Warren Oates flick waiting for the moment to smoke. Their "Ice Age" reaffirms my position that Kim and Thursty should've squalled their last like mad years ago. Fuck a...Jesus, I don't even know what the last record was called. Pretty In Pink? Ah, there was some kinda alliterati for the literati in there. Fuck it. You know.
And, of course, only then do I notice they've kicked jams on Ecstatic Peace. Ha! The dish is officially passed, I guess. Why not catch it? Look in the horse's mouth to find the tools of Paypal conquest.

NO AND YES, and then MAYBE AND YES... So that's TWO YESES

21st CENTURY SCHIZOID RUBE - Keeping Up With the Jaspers

In an effort to be less mud-stuck and snarky, which I assure you is both noble and aimless, I'm going to try to catch up on the goings on of two much-oozed-over acts and see if I actually give a shit or if I can convince some other sap to do likewise.

JAY REATARD
I think I've heard everything he's put out this year by his lonesome--so far. We are talking about a scene full of people who have fallen in the YouTube-gen trap of thinking everything is worth preserving, even if it's only in an edition of 4.5 & given to dudes with bigger beards than waists. This shit's been a club for longer than I've been breathin y'all's air, so no surprises all around that the Reatard club's a piece of junkmail with fancy packaging while I'm waiting for a letter from a nice girl: when I actually surpass my irritation and give it 5 minutes of my time, I get the dull taste of being right the first time around. Not offensive, sure, but basically just passable. They're songs. You know. Songs. I remember liking the B-sides on the Night of Broken Glass 12", but that's probably because I hated the A-sides. Anyhow, the whole thing is amazingly unremarkable and totally worth your time and eBay watch list. Available through places that have things that I also didn't want so I don't remember them.

CHEVEU - My Answer Is Yes 7" (Rob's House, 2007)
Okay, I'll bite. I actually really liked this. I keep expecting to be massively underwhelmed by all this post-punk-post-punk coming out of the seams, but then a lot of it cooks and I get all blushy. Cheveu take their master's tools out for the weekend and give you a Saturday and a Sunday unlike anything those old dudes would've thunk of but still make them wanna put their new boots on. Some glorious Pstone Suicide with the bloke from the Tronics sangin'. Or something. I didn't check my facts. It's fussy in a vintage-keyboard-not-some-shit-Rebirth way, and not in a balalaika-over-Hagstrom kind of way. This should become suitably huge and then jump the shark like most good things. Hey, you've got to learn to love the cycle or love being mad all the damn time, right? Plus, in the meantime I get to take a modicum of pride in my home's own Rob's House Records seeing the power & the glory and bringing this to my neighborhood. Go get it at S-S Records or Fusetron if you please.

YOU WANT HALF OF THIS

KVLTY WORKRATE REPORT! Skaters - Dispersed Royalty Ornaments (LP, Ore Wabana Limited 2007)

Okay PR is PR and I ain't talking San Juan, but damn does Wabana lay it on thick! They set these here Skaters to share a booth with Coltrane, Sanders, and Ayler like they was gonna nosh. Dubious, right? So, who picks up the tab & who's shooting up in the alley?

WHAT WORKED:
-Mint cover and mint title. Land of Make-Believe dowries blow right up me.

- I can't blame zeal-overload on the poor put-upon Skaters. They didn't write it and I'm sure they could care less what some bloke called Justin thinks of their bedroom disturbance.
Still, I didn't so much get the free-jazz linkage as the far more obvious Sun City Girls and Far East-jocking. What with the mysterious monkey cackling and bowed strings and under-production, you know. Dom's Edge of Time occasionally came through the Minsk-y warble to bury me in space dust, so this isn't all one-point perspective.

-It's got that Finnish underground structure that the kids seem to love and I've got my soft spots for. You know, where the things are all doing one thing or another and then they do something harmonious and then they do something beautiful and unexpected and strange and then it all comes to a klunky hault? Yeah yeah, like that! Pop Gold, right? Well...

WHAT DIDN'T WORK:
-This just isn't going to catch many spins from me. Once more around the track is probably as far as the Skaters will get. Too much of one thing, not enough of anything else--at least for 38 minutes of my undivided.

NOT ENOUGH MELTED KNOWLEDGE

BETTER LATE THAN SOBER

There's a slew of dicey discs going round, but mixed up in em are some honest-to-G-d rubies. So here's a list of shit that I could talk on for eight pages like usual, but instead I'll just join the chorus of YESYESYESes & go melt some butter. There's work to be wed:

Cherry Blossoms - s/t
Pink Reason - Cleaning the Mirror and that new joint
Sic Alps - Teenage Alps
Dead C - Future Artists (danceable!)
Blues Control - s/t CD on Holy Mountain (a summer drug record for many ages)
Los Llamarada - Exploding Now
The Bad Trips - s/t
Acid Mothers Temple & the Bag of Detachable Lips Or Whatever the Doo Da Band Horse-Hockey They're Calling Themselves Today - Starless And Bible Black Sabbath

and so on back to about 6 months ago. And to further get into my head,

Tijuana Carbomb
one part tequila
one part Kahlua
1 pint dark Mexican beer

3 or so later, and you'll forget everything you like, too. The first time I had this, it was with some fussy tequila, an even fussier coffee licquer and a Xingu, which amounted essentially to a 9-dollar root beer float that had me whistling the Carpenters at my girly all down N Highland.

WE TOAST THE DAYS OF WINE AND HOSERY

I NICKED EM FROM THE POH-LEESE - Messthetics #102 & #103 (CD Hyped To Death 2007)

Hot on their own heels, Hyped to Death scrawls in even more DhighY/pyosty-pyunky blanks. Seems to me this series features the best & dimmest of the 8 Messthetics volumes (previously hyped ad-death somewheres on here) plus buckets more soupy singles. Some of my biggest boners were culled from The Dad, Cult Figures, Spizzoil (one of the many Spizzincarnates), Cracked Actors, 012, the Lines, and the lovely Walking Floors. Steve Treatment's "Danger Zone" still cranks, of course, but these flaps aren't free of surprises. Check the Frank Details for some of the most un-London jams ever struck in any bleedin decade.
I get the feelin H2D could go on with this forever. When will they align powers with the Mutant Sounds crew and coax every gifted&jilted motherfucker out the woodwork? The liners'd come leatherbound, for shit's sake!

SUCK AT THIS TEET THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID

NEW WEIRD CHEAT SHEET - V.A. - Folk Is Not A Four Letter Word Vol 2 (Finders Keepers 2007)

Jeez, having spent 3 weeks bumming around Italia & Greece like a privileged youth oughta, being able to read shit isn't such a blessing. Seriously. It's much harder to fake ignorance, which in turn will prevent you from getting things like quick access to fancy museums and mis-priced train tickets. Whitey ain't buying in.
So with that all in ya mind, I really dug all the tracks where I can't tell what the shit is being said. Turid's "Pa Tredje Dagen Uppstandna" is Sandy Denny levitating down the stairs--instead of...uh, failing them?--and then dipping right out the second floor window brushing the junipers with the palms of her hands. In Swedish. Elly & Rikkert's "Heksenkring" is Straight Outta Lidsville, complete with terrifying flute lore. Vanica Doble's "Dime Felix" fixes Veloso up with the Wilson clan, hoping Manson'll keep his paws off the ladies.
Okay, I shut my eyes and picked some tracks. And you know what? They were all in English & not a bit hateful! Well, Susan Christie's "Paint A Lady" had me wondering where Rowan Morrison ended up, but that's just good ol' anxiety. 11:59's "The Waters of Babylon" isn't the unmixed Congos track I hoped it would be, but they've certainly got their Perhacs all in a row. And if you bite at the Sibylle Baier spoon, check out the disc Orange Twin put out lasty yeary; it's a fine pot.
Loveable chestnuts all about. With his here Andy Votel Hulk-up helping me along in the most lovely & scary of ways, I'll be reading my mail in no time.

GOOD SHOW NICE FORM