Indonesian Junk’s self-titled 2016 debut celebrated everything that was trashy about late 70s power pop and slightly glammy punk-pop. Huge cues from the CBGBs scene informed the bulk of the music, which was potentially enjoyable in a fairly chaotic way…provided, that is, the band kept to the upbeat. The slower numbers didn’t always fare so well and on top of that, frontman Daniel James’s drawling vocals were the very pinnacle of acquired taste. In short, then, despite glimmers of something, it was an album that could – and should – have been so much better. [A full review can be read here.]
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Tag Archives: garage punk
ELLEN AND THE DEGENERATES – Herb Alert EP
When picking up something from US DIY label What’s For Breakfast? Records, there’s more than a fair chance you’ll encounter something in the garage rock mould, some riot grrl anger, or even something punky. All good staple sounds for listeners who like their sounds authentically rough and ready, but the 2017 EP from Ellen and The Degenerates goes a step further and combines all of the aforementioned with some great hooks and a decent recording. All things considered, it’s easily one of the best things the label has released.
BLEEDERS – Gash EP
In the run up to the release of this cassette, Bleeders had been steadily building a following on the live circuit on their home turf of Pennsylvania and the surrounding areas. That sort of makes sense since they have a sound that would surely work much better live; on record, their no-frills, no-wave, distorted, zero budget approach is hellishly ugly. So much so, that it makes label mates The Meltaways seem like a manufactured, multi-million dollar, radio groomed pop rock trio by direct comparison. The recording of ‘Gash’ is so raw and unrelentingly grotesque, it borders on being unlistenable. Looking at it another way, it’s so hard going, that’s an achievement in itself.
THE MELTAWAYS – EP
Part of Brooklyn’s extensive DIY punk and garage rock scene, The Meltaways are angry. Their self-titled release appeared on Mirror Universe Tapes in the summer of 2016 and thrust the influence of riot-grrrl music from the 90s sharply into the complacent face of the present. Via a recording that sounded like an explosive basement fury channelled into a collective of musical positivity, the trio presented combustible levels of attitude within their socio-political bursts of noise.
Audio & Anchovies: Real Gone meets King Pizza Records
Sometimes it can be easy to feel like the corporate giants are repeatedly flooding the market with expensive repackages of classic albums, hugely expensive box sets and the like. Truth is, while we all have our “classic albums”, music fans still need something completely new to discover and thankfully, we now live in a world where there’s more music than ever before at our disposal. So much, in fact, that much of it is in danger of being overlooked. There are literally thousands of underground bands and hundreds of DIY labels and you often have to put in some hard yards to find them, but we live in very exciting musical times. On the eve of the their first anniversary, a few faces from King Pizza Records – one of the US’s most no-nonsense DIY labels –met with Real Gone to give us the skinny…and, man, they had an impressive amount of enthusiasm!
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