NEON BLUD – Whipps / Eeew Look at that Pickle 7”

Fan Death Records – Tampa 2009

 

Horrible noise-punk from Tampa, I think….Horrible in the best sense of the word. Jarring snotty female vocals over chaotic fast distorted riffs recorded just right. I find it quite catchy. They should be rock stars by now – but alas 99.999% of people hate stuff like this. Some of their other records are a little ponderous – look for this one….

 

 

SLOANE PETERSON -- Knots / Telephone 7"

Steve's Pizza and Records -- Miami (2009)

Steve Hersh -- vocals
Brian, Chris, Peter, Andrew -- guitars, drums, etc.

Knots
Telephone

A website hawking this disc says: "Miami pop punk, catchy, fun." The first bits I can't argue with. It's poppy mid-tempo punk sporting a (305) area code and 'Knots' in particular is catchy. 'Fun' might be a stretch, although I admit I'm not sure I'd recognize fun if I ever saw or heard it. So, I'll give them that too.

The two songs deal with issues that confront young men regarding girls, self-confidence and telephones. Yawn.

I'm never going to listen to this record again. You can do what you like.

GODS DICK – Shitlife 7” EP

No Label – Boca Raton – 2009

Last Knife

Phud Hong

God$ Dick

Shitlife

Mid-knife Crisis

One Knife to Live

Amos White – guitar, vocals

Micah Grahat – bass, vocals

Mike Pineyro – drums, vocals

I can’t imagine a sane person, viewing this for the first time, feeling it’s worth their $5.00 ($5.00 is really $5.00 again!!!). Gods Dick is a terrible name for a band – I’m almost offended and I’m a heathen. The cover’s gaudy and ridiculous and ultimately pretty fukkin’ sad (but sealed the deal nonetheless) – and then there’s the song titles. I was pretty sure this was going to be a piece of shit in one fashion or another. One listen and I started to wonder if these guys were complete retards or perhaps………… students of Faxed Head. A quick check of Myspace confirmed it. Gods Dick are brilliant enough to be retards! You get proggy, punky metal with grunting vocals and slightly nihilistic overtones that had me rolling on the floor. But – I’m laughing with them, not at them. Easily the best $5.00 non-alcoholic purchase I’ve made this year. I am proud to be a Floridian once again.

CUTMAN -- Big Deal 7"

TEAM SCIENCE RECORDS -- Gainesville (2009)

The Itch
Bulldozer Blues

Jonathan Hamilton
Ryan McGrath
Derron Nuhfer
Jason Rockbill

This is one of two simultaneously (or nearly so) released singles that are also available on a single CD. Pretty damn nice heavy cardboard packaging; reminds me of a Rapeman single I have somewhere. Wait a minute...Cutman...Rapeman... No, it has to be coincidence. But then again, I saw this band the other night at the Social in Orlando and didn't I hear a Rapeman song played between Awesome and the Ass-Kickers and these Cutman folks?

I did, but this band does NOT sound like Rapeman. I am confusing things. This is tightly controlled emotive heavy song-driven rock-punk sung by a big guy with low sorta gutteral voice. It is not exactly slow, but these songs aren't going to win any Land Speed Records. And no, it's not cold or angular and there's no synthetic drums or anything.

The B-side could only be written by a Gainesville band as it about land use planning, but not so much from the point of view of anarchists but of urban planners. Bikelanes, property values, widening crosswalks, etc. No Miami (or Chicago) band would write a song like this.

The first two lines of the record: "All your heroes may die in plane crashes/but all my friends will die in their vans."

VIVA LE VOX / PAPERDOLLS split 7"

Boca Raton (VLV) and Miami (Paperdolls), Incest Records, 2009

Viva Le Vox:

Tony Bones, vocal, guitar

Manimal, drums

Scarecrow Jenkins, bass, vocal

Paperdolls:

Tara, guitar, vocal, ukelele

Guido, guitar, vocal, percussion

Down at the Laundromat (VLV)

Six Inches off the Floor (VLV)

Dark Cold Sudden (PD)

Woodburning Kit (PD)

Two very different bands here. VLV is a three-piece punkabilly outfit made up of a standup bass, tattoos and sideburns. Live you can hear how they came to rockabilly through Joe Strummer (through affectations and choice of covers) but the record is more straightforward -- one song is about hanging on and the other about hanging yourself. They are a high energy band with an acoustic feel so the sound is not particularly big. When I saw them in Lake Worth, some 40-ish English guy was heckling them demanding "real punk rock."

On the flipside, the Paperdolls play what the band calls 'doom folk.' I appreciate the description because I was sort of at a loss. This duo plays music you can enjoy while sitting down or at least looking down, but not as dull as that may imply. Some interesting guitar picking and vaguely mysterious lyrics.