Continuing on the tradition of liking things that are weird, I’m gonna jump right into the land of 7” records. It’s a fantastic world that you really should visit more often. To help with that, I’m gonna tell you about what I’ve picked up over the last few months. Also because I need to review the new CoCoComa 7”, and a few other things that I told people I’d do. Yes there was payola, it was with beer and records (not really) More importantly, for my time at Buddyhead I’ve yet to talk about Rocket From the Crypt, something that’s gonna change RIGHT NOW!

Rocket From the Crypt: Normal Carpet Ride (Sub Pop)
Released in 1992, 3,000 copies pressed. All copies are translucent blue vinyl
A-Side: Normal Carpet Ride.
B-Side: Where are the Fuckers/Slumber Queen/Flip the Bird

RFTC’s 4th 7”, and second of six 7”’s that year as well as their second full-length album “Circa: Now”, is a powerhouse. As something of a junkie for factoids about the band, the records B-Sides are made up of two songs (“Where are the Fuckers”/Slumber Queen”) from John Reis’s first band, Conservative Itch, and one from his solo project Back off Cupids (“Flip The Bird”). Conservative Itch is Reis’s band from when he was 15. As a side note, all of Reis and friends early bands were “CI” bands as according to Mr. Reis they made a really tight looking logo and didn’t want it to go to waste. Its hard to think of what each tune might have sounded like in their original context, particularly “Flip The Bird”, as its heavy riffage and slamming distortion would stand in stark contrast to the rest of the material on the Back Off Cupids record which is mostly slower stoner jams. The A-Side “Normal Carpet Ride” is pure vintage RFTC, as with most of the bands early singles it’s loud and sloppy.

So there you have your nerd facts. So what’s the real deal here? Well its RFTC, they guys GO OFF better than any band that has ever walked the planet. Even better than whatever band your thinking of saying is better. Your wrong, RFTC = #1. You get to see RFTC finding their sound on this record, Apollo 9 and his mighty sax are starting to make their presences felt, and unlike every other shitty band to use horns in the 90s, Apollo 9 amps up the rock. So yeah, you got a great early set of standards, Speedo and ND busting out savage riffs, with Speedo and Petey X rock’n the distorted vocals. Remember, RFTC is #1.

V/A: The Estrus Cocktail Companion (Estrus)
Released 1994, Boxset
See below for track listing

Alright so I don’t got the fanboy chops on this badboy like I did for that RFTC 7”, but that makes this find no less groovy. Put out sometime in 1994 by the legendary record label Estrus, this compilation is some serious shit. It comes with a coaster, an Estrus stir stick, and a fancy little add thingy. All in one very cool looking box. I picked it up cuz the artwork was cool. Inside I found some classic Estrus surf-punk-rock, which aint to bad if you ask me. It’s all sorts of lo-fi goodness. I’d say you should buy it, but good luck with that! Thankfully you can buy it on CD or something. That is if you wanna be lame. Cool people buy Vinyl.

So what about the tunes you ask? Well it got 12 (count’m 12!) cuts on three 7” records, each with some most groovy artwork to on them. Those 12 are as follows:

7” #1 A-Side
1) The Apemen: Pogo A’ Go-Go
2) The Cowslingers: Strip Bars, Liquor & Fireworks

7” #1 B-Side
3) The Del Lagunas: Intoica
4) Girl Trouble: A Shot In the Dark*

7” #2 A-Side
5) Jackie & Cedricks: Mockingbird
6) Jack O’ Fire: Trouble Man *

7” #2 B-Side
7) The Makers: The Jerome Tree *
8) Man Or Astro-Man: The Carbonated Comet

7” #3 A-Side
9) The Mortls: Atomic Cocktail
10) Southern Culture on the Skids: Moonshine Martinis *

7” #3 B-Side
11) Satan’s Pilgrims: Vampiro *
12) Teengenerate: Let’s Take Another Booze

If I were gonna sum this 7” up in anyway it would be to say that is sounds exactly like I thought it would. It’s a terrific snap shot of where Estrus was at the time, and where it more or less stayed. Its odd, because it also seems to be strangely close to what’s going on now, though with a lot more surf. I’d post the tracks here, but alas I only got the vinyl, and that really doesn’t work. So there ya go, dig it. I’m gonna go have a martini before I put on the next record. And yes, the songs with * marks are ones that rule.

Subtle Turnhips: Fuck The People Fuck The Power (HoZac)
Released 2008
A-Side: Fuck The People Fuck the Power/ Fuck The People To The Power
B-Side: Dinner Time/ Summer Wine

O HoZac, you know JUST what I need! The Subtle Turnhips is some dude from France. From the sound of it, he’s been around for years, like 18 of them (thanks terminal boredom for keeping me up to speed!). This particular 7” does in fact, rule; unlike most of France. This is exactly the sorta thing that I dig on, lo-fi, catchy punk rock tunes. I have no idea what the deal is, but I know its good and that I like it, which should be more than enough for you.

Once more HoZac rewards my faith with this out-of-left-field slab of sure to be classic rock’n'roll music. Who ever “Subtle Turnhip” is, it’s clear he digs Teengenerate, Television Personalities, and some other rad stuff that you, poor reader, don’t know about. I googled homeslice and found an internet only record that I’m gonna download after I finish listening to 7”s. http://subtleturnhips.free.fr/

V/A The World’s Lousy With Ideas Vol. 7 (Almost Ready Records)
Released 2009
A-Side: Super Wild Houses – “How Do You Sleep”/ UV Race – “I’m So Tired”
B-Side: Straight Arrows – “Magic Scepte”/ Eddy Current Suppression Ring – “Sometimes”

I got this comp cuz the Eddy Current Suppression Ring had a song on it. But jebus, I’ve been missing out! I gotta find me the other 6 volumes! There probably sold out, but from the look of the track listings I can see why. Who ever these kids are, they got a bunch of the best, most rock’n bands of today to put out stuff on their comps. Vol 7. is no exception. This parade of lo-fi noise pop is fantastic! The Straight Arrows “Magic Sceptre” sounds like it came out in 1965, and by came out I mean the dudes recorded it in their basement and put out like 100 7” for their friends, the tapes were then found years later and this song is all that survives. Yeah man, Ugly Things would lose there shit if that were true. Who ever the girls in Super Wild Horses are (I’m to lazy to google them right now), they really should come play in Chicago, I know for a fact that stuff like “How Do You Sleep” would go over BIG. UV Rage’s tune “I’m So Tired”, brings home the pop, in a kinda spacemen 3 type way. They don’t sound like spacemen 3, but if you listen to you’ll see what I mean. If not then o well, you’re just a terrible person.

The real star of this 7” is, as you can imagine the breathtakingly good Eddy Current Suppression Ring (who we’ll talk more about later). “Sometimes” fits right in with the bands style, but its lo-fied up for the comp. It sound hella weird, but in a good way. These guys basically wrote the song, got hammered, then WENT OFF and recorded this shit. That’s how I picture it, and I personally like that image.

In the end, people from NYC made this, proving once more that things don’t suck out there; in fact, some cool shit goes down. The rest you can blame on Vice and coke.

Sneakers: Children Into People (Permanent Records)
Released 2009
A-Side: The Daze/Chick Freaked Out/ Crap UC
B-Side: Deep Busch/I am the disease/Nudes

This shit is weird. I picked it up at my favored local record shop, Permanent Records, cuz they put it out and I heard good things. But it’s still weird. In a kinda Urinals/Minutemen sorta way. Only with some more sludge. I guess its a side project of this band Caves, but I have no idea what their deal is (i’ll get around to checking out caves at some point i’m sure). I think the Urinals reference works really well here. The songs are short, fucked up, but they still hold together with some sort of bizzaro pop structure. If I did drugs, I’d totally do them and listen to this. Drinking a martini and listening to this is not as cool as you’d think. Getting back on track, I like this. Its great to play if your roommate isn’t into punk rock and his stoner hip-hop loving bro friends come over. They’ll leave you the fuck alone, as you drink their booze.

CoCoComa: TIM 7” #1 (Trouble In Mind Records)
Released 2009, 500 Pressed, Pink Marble Vinyl, comes with download
A-Side: Ask, Don’t Tell
B-Side: The Anchor

I started this review writing a very long alternate history of the band. With the bands name coming from the fact that it was formed when Lisa Roe’s fake grandma (Coco Chanel) was in a coma. Thus coco-coma. Cleaver wasn’t it! There was a bunch of Dune jokes, and some stuff about TJ and AJ being time traveling brothers from the civil war who had to save the nation though the power of rock’n'roll. I had been watching Quantum Leap that day. Also Bill Roe is the secret identity of a guy named Patton Oswald. Yeah it was self-indulgent writer crap that you didn’t wanna read. Though some of it was funny. Lisa wasn’t so hot on it when I drunkly brought it up to her at a Radar Eyes show, when I sobered up, I realized why. ANYWHO!

The brand new CocoComa 7” does inspire such thoughts of grandeur. It is hard not to get swept up in sounds coming out of your speakers. This is the first record released with the new line up, recorded around the same time as there forth coming record “Things Are Not Alright”. At the time Lisa Roe was also 6 months pregnant, but jebus can she slay on that guitar. She might be my favorite guitar player right now. There is something in the way she plays. It’s elemental, raw and unbridled, yet its simple and direct. Basically she goes nuts on her Ax and it looks and sounds really cool. She’s #1 in my book so far this year.

The singles A side in particular showcases her skills. She plays with the simplicity of Bill Childish, and the fuzz and downstroke of Greg Sage. It does help with you got Anthony Cozzi backing you up with his solid rhythm guitar/organ playing, not to mention of really solid rhythm section of bassist TJ Brock and drummer Bill Roe slaying it all over the place.

These guys sound like what would happen if you took the Ramones, the Saints, the Milkshakes, Mummies, Wipers, and Psycho Surgeons and mixed them all up. The 7”s two tracks do a great job of showcasing the bands current sound, there more going on now that Anthony and TJ have been added to the line up. So dig it, also go read/listen to my interview with the band. Its good for your health!

NoBunny: Give It To Me (HoZac)
Released 2008, Translucent Green Vinyl
A-Side: Give It To Me
B-Side: Motorhead With Me

NoBunny, you know what I like. Sure this came out last year (it was December so screw it), but NoBunny loves you, and I love NoBunny, and this is my article and I can do what I want. Besides its on HoZac and I like those guys. So, lets talk about this for a second. What you didn’t read about in Buddyhead’s other review of NoBunny is how his tunes are perfectly constructed to make people lose their shit and go buck wild. I’m not kidding you, when this guy plays live everyone goes nuts. Sure he might have a bunny mask, and tighty whites, but who cares. In fact, that’s part of the fun, even if Chip Norman doesn’t think so. This 7” is a perfectly constructed pop masterpiece. I love every singe second of it, I cant get enough of the NoBunny. Remember, NoBunny Loves You.

Eddy Current Suppression Ring: That Time of Day (Nervous Jerk Records)
Released 2009
A-Side: That Time Of Day
B-Side: It Ain’t Cheap/ Noise In My Head

Yes it’s more from the Eddy Current Suppression Ring. The “That Time Of Day” 7” contains some left over tunes from the Primary Colors sessions. I’m sure by now you know how much I like that record, because you went out and picked it up when I told you too. These three tunes bring us some classic ECSR stuff, the heavy bass line, surf guitar sounds, and just all around good times. You always need more ECSR in your life, so get this it’ll help tide you over as we wait for the next record and hopefully an American tour. O yeah and “It Ain’t Cheap”, well it sounds like a classic Milkshakes song, and you know how much I do enjoy the sounds of Mr. Childish, and anyone who rips him off. I almost forgot, Noise In My Head”, yeah that one sounds like something off disk one of Nuggets, its fucking savage. Good times.

Pierced Arrows: In My Brain (Tombstone)
Released 2007
A-Side: In My Brain
B-Side: Caroline

I’ve been going though a solid Dead Moon kick as of late, and I can’t pass up the chance to talk about Fred and Tooty’s new band the Pierced Arrows. They have newer 7” records out, but I wanted to start with this one, as it was first. I like going in order of things. Like these reviews, I did them in the order that I’d stacked up the 7”s in. Which by the way was totally random, except for that RFTC one, I liked the cover art so it put it on top.

“In My Brain” is classic Fred and Tooty. I know Andrew’s gone, and I miss him, but the Pierced Arrows still rule hard. These guys have been making the same noise for longer than you’ve been a live. That goes for you too people in your 40s, Fred Cole was doin it way back in the early 60s. No one brings it like the Coles. They still have that sinister edge to them, as you can hear on the opening of “Caroline”, and no matter how old Tooty is, she still sounds fantastic.

So yeah perhaps I like this guys a bit too much, but so should you. They’ve been doing it, and doing it on less, and better, than just about everyone that you gotta give’m there due. Besides if you haven’t seen the Dead Moon movie, you really need to get on that. It’s an amazing film, a worthy documentation of the majesty of Fred and Tooty Cole. O and new drummer dude, no hard feelings your alright by me.

Night Marchers: Tour 7” #2 (Swami Records)
Released 2009
A-Side: Mystery Machine
B-Side: Rock-A-By Maybe

This is the second of the Night Marchers 7”s, and my favorite. Yet it sounds almost nothing like the band does right now. I’ve seen the band a boatload of times, and when I first got this record in the spring, I thought these tunes would be the direction the band was headed in. When I saw them last month at Wicker Park Fest, it was clear I was very very wrong, the Night Marchers found their groove and their gonna end up bringing the rock more along the line of that RFTC 7” I talked about than this Night Marchers 7”

That’s not to say I don’t like these songs. “Mystery Machine” is a Gene Vincent style rockabilly tune, and it’s almost too bad that Tommy Kitos wasn’t playing a stand up bass. Still, you can tell the bands confidence is up in this track, way over where it was on the record. The real smash hit is “Rock-A-By Maybe”, which is some solid sad bastard music, and being that I too can be a sad bastard, I enjoy it. Besides its basically the bands version of “Hey Jude”, and everyone’s favorite ‘Marcher Gar Wood gets some great riffs to work with. Anyhow we like the Night Marchers here at Buddyhead, and so should you.

Radar Eyes: 4 Song Demo (Self-Released)
Its on CD, I’m cheating sorry.

I thought about talking about a band that isn’t from Chicago, but why would I do that? I mean I still have a big old pile of demo’s and records from bands right here at home that I gotta cover! Besides, I figure this will lead to more free drinks for me.

So this is Anthony Cozzi from CoCoComa’s other band. It seems that homeslice and his comrades really dig on the Jesus and Marry Chain and the Velvet Underground. The records got four songs, (Track One), Not You Again, Shakes, (Track Four). To be honest, I was not down with Shakes at first. Its got a weird intro, hell I even complained about it in a public place, only to see the band play it live and be forced to take everything I said back. The band does a oddly good job of subverting your expectations, for all their JMC/Velvet sounds, they got a solid buzzsaw guitar attack. On this demo its a bit played down, but even the very very spacemen 3 styled (Track Four), has some great sounding guitars.

These guys might get weird, but they know how to bring it. I really dig this demo and band. Story has it you should be on the look out for a record on HoZac in the near future. As long as it’s got the incredibly solid tune “Not You Again” on it, you can count me in. Hell, I’ll pick it up anyway.

The Half-Rats: Throw It Around (Culture Cast)
Released 2007, On Purple Vinyl
A-Side: Throw It Around
B-Side: BMW/Nuns
Also tracks that were given to me: The Girl/Johnny Savage/For The Sake Of Love/ Glass Eyes

TJ Brock and crew know one of my many weaknesses, stuff that sounds like early period Beatles/The Milkshakes. There is something so, pleasant, about the Half-Rats. I saw these cats with the Dumpster Babies, Empty Heads, and Bare Wires on a few fridays ago, and I shit you not, couples were dancing. Yeah man, it was like a 1950 or 60s sock hop. I got no idea when sock hops were cuz I’m not old and Mad Men hasn’t talked about it. That’s the vibe, a good old fashion sock hop. Before you nock that, remember the Sonics played that type of gig, and they rule.

Anyhow the Half-Rats are just good clean fun. I’ll talk about the 7” later, but let’s talk about ye old myspace tunes (as that’s where you can hear these things until their record comes out later this year). When you hear something like “For the Sake of Love”, its clear these guys would have fit right in with the Medway Sound of the late 70s and early 80s. I totally could see these cats opening for the Milkshakes. Hell these even got a song, “Johnny Savage” that sounds like their version of Thee Headcoatees, as its got all sorts of girl vocals. They take all the right notes from the British Invasion, it’s a hard sound to get down, fuck it up and you look like a jerk. Do it right, and you look awesome. I can’t really argue with ripping off early Beatles, Kinks, Pretty Things, and more english 60s garage bands. There is a reason it stood the test of time, and why people keep ripping them off.

They do have a heavy surf edge to them, just listen to that guitar breakdown type thing on “Johnny Savage”, how the hell are these guys from Indiana? I mean there’s no beach there, or anything that even could look like a beach. Right southern california? The surf edge does actually do a lot of the band, giving them some room to move around. The tunes on the 7” keep up with that style, only the new stuff is better. I cant wait for the “For The Sake of Love/Glass Eyes” 7” on Douchmaster later this year.

So there you have it, a whole bunch of solid records, I’ll probably do more of these in the future, but I’m out of 7”s to review for the moment, so it’ll be a while. I mean I have more, but there all RFTC records. Either way, I’m gonna go back to drinking and eating pizza. Remember kids; things are looking up for r’n’r these days!

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