In the midst of the thick New Orleans summer of 2017, Chris Lyons of garage punks Bottomfeeders found himself sitting on a small batch of songs that didn’t quite fit the fuzzed-out pileups of that band. The new songs were more chiming, driving but relaxed, full of little corners begging to be filled with classic pop harmonies and wayward country licks. He called in his trusted confidants: Bottomfeeders drummer and longtime musical partner Lucas Bogner-the two started playing music together at the tender age of 15-plus bassist Pete Campanelli, and Kunal Prakash (Jeff the Brotherhood) dug the songs and signed on, and the quartet started playing in earnest, hunkering down in the practice space. By the time the band played its first gig in late 2018 at the opening of Nola’s ManRay Records, the songs had multiplied and the members of the newly christened Silver Synthetic had become genuine rock & roll craftsmen. In a world that doesn’t seem capable of swaying, Silver Synthetic’s self-titled debut shakes and boogies. It makes sense that the band’s first gig was in a record shop ’cause folks, this is record nerd-core in a major way, evocative of the LP’s first golden era, as the late sixties oozed into the strange 1970s, with the requisite T-Rex stomps, Britfolk twists and turns, and dueling Verlaine/Lloyd guitars. It’s about warmth, and you can practically smell the gently glowing amp tubes on “In the Beginning,” which wafts along on a gust borrowed from Lou Reed’s beatific Coney Island Baby breeziness. With “Chasm Killer,” the boys lean into jammy heartland rock, almost approaching Silver Bullet Band territory at one point! Even when the band kicks into charging lean rock-n-roller, like on the Kinksy “Around the Bend,” there’s a laid-backness that allows more room for the spirit. You could call Silver Synthetic rock & roll formalists, but the truth is they’re more like minimalists, stripping away tired clutter and unnecessary bloat and just zooming in on the essential.
SILVER SYNTHETIC
Spoon Benders is a three-piece punk rock band from Portland, Oregon, delivering raw volume, sharp hooks, and nonstop momentum. Stripped down and loud, the band thrives on a high-energy live show that feels just barely contained-fast, sweaty, and direct, with nothing wasted. Built on constant movement, Spoon Benders have spent years touring relentlessly, honing their sound on stages across the country and earning a reputation as a band that hits hard and never phones it in. Their music channels punks urgency and grit, powered by tight chemistry and an aggressive edge that only a three-piece can deliver. Now, Spoon Benders are preparing to release their highly anticipated third album, capturing the intensity of the road and the confidence of a band fully in its stride. With new songs on the way and the volume turned up, Spoon Benders continue to prove that three people are more than enough to make some serious noise.
Sur le tout premier album d’Opinion paru en 2016, Hugo Carmouze chantait pour les gens dans sa tete. De nombreux heros garage, punk, psyche, noise qui avaient contribue a faire jaillir une musique electrique et incandescente dont on avait bien du mal a imaginer qu’elle etait alors enregistree par un adolescent de 14 ans a peine dans le fin fond de la campagne franaise. En quasiment une decennie, la musique d’Opinion a subi plusieurs mutations toujours guidees par la folie creatrice de Carmouze, capable d’enchainer triples albums, chansons folk, collaborations choisies, side-projects harsh-noise ou black metal. La scene lui aura peut-etre donne un cadre, Opinion devenant un groupe en concert apres sa rencontre avec le label bordelais Flippin’ Freaks. Capable de composer et d’enregistrer un album en une nuit si a lui chante, Hugo Carmouze aime a jouer avec les contraintes et surtout les regles de bienseances de studio. Il a nomme ce douzieme album, le “Troisieme Opinion” pour capturer eux, une intimite plus franchement assumee. Ce Troisieme Opinion est aussi l’occasion pour le songwriter de se liberer definitivement des ombres de ses peres spirituels pour parvenir a un son personnel, homogene dont l’equilibre guitare-voix est immediatement reconnaissable. C’est aussi un album “produit” au sens o on l’aurait dit dans les annees 1960 et 1970, aux arrangements souvent audacieux. Opinion s’y devoile comme un projet rock intemporel capable de lier une veritable science melodique (la discographie riche de Carmouze comme ecole du songwriting), une quete sonore et une faon d’aborder la production par une approche libre et empirique. Un petit chat avec sa rythmique doom, ses guitares kraut, et sa ligne de chant douce-amere ressemble a une comptine deviante et terriblement attachante. 19 rappelle a notre bon souvenir la capacite d’Hugo Carmouze a ecrire des hooks accrocheurs. Sa voix s’y balade sans peine comme si le chemin le plus court entre pop 60’s, garage et shoegaze e internet generation… Well, not quite, as the young Occitan has never stopped producing an impressive number of albums since, reminiscent of his great master Ty Segall. Recorded in his room with rudimentary equipment, Opinion’s albums quickly found resonance in the French scene and the Flippin’ Freaks label, combining seriousness, hyperactivity, and great creativity. In nearly a decade, Opinion’s music has undergone multiple transformations, always driven by Carmouze’s creative madness, capable of producing triple albums, folk songs, selective collaborations, and side projects in harsh noise or black metal. At the dawn of his 18th year, the musician settled in Bordeaux and released his seventh album under the name Opinion. Molly (2020), a monumental double album that explores themes of solitude and passionate love. The album received a very enthusiastic critical reception. While the energy and inspiration from the Californian garage scene continue to be a significant foundation of his music, Opinion unfolds in a diverse range of influences, showcasing an emotional sensitivity reminiscent of Kurt Cobain or Elliott Smith. Accompanied since 2020 by some offspring of the Bordeaux label Flippin’ Freaks, Opinion quickly turned the stage into a playground as exciting as the studio. Performances are intense, oscillating between noisy urgency and disconcerting fragility. After numerous concerts and a handful of albums and EPs released online, Opinion announces 2 highly anticipated new physical albums for 2024. -“Horrible”, recorded on the night of December 31st to January 1st, 2023, is an album influenced by American slacker and shoegaze. Released on February 23rd, 2024 on Flippin’ Freaks Records, Les Disques du Paradis, and Nothing Is Mine Records. -And “Troisieme Opinion”, his twelfth album recorded between 2020 and 2024, will be released on December 6, 2024 on Howlin’ Banana Records, Flippin’ Freaks Records, Les Disques du Paradis, and Nothing Is Mine Records.
Taking inspiration from the weirdest aspects of ’60s psychedelia and Baroque pop, the records made by White Fence in the 2010s sounded like they had been recorded on the cheapest tape available and then left out in the sun for a week to melt. When the band started out, Tim Presley, who had once been a member of the Fall as well as indie rockers Darker My Love, was the only bandmember, and he recorded their songs in his bedroom. As the decade progressed, however, he brought in other people and ventured into recording studios, which resulted in slightly more polished yet still enjoyably weird albums like 2014’s For the Recently Found Innocent. In the last half of the decade, Presley put the band on hold to record solo and with Cate Le Bon as DRiNKS before returning in 2018 with Joy, a collaboration with longtime cohort Ty Segall. Presley began recording his warped pop-psych songs in his bedroom in 2008 and 2009, while still a member of Darker My Love. The first White Fence album, a self-titled effort released by Woodsist Records in 2010, was made up of these recordings. For the project’s next release, 2011’s White Fence Is Growing Faith, the sound and approach didn’t change much. Also in 2011, White Fence released a live cassette (Live in L.A.) on Teenage Teardrops and a single ( Harness/The Pool ) for Afterlife Records. Presley must have spent all his free time recording as well, seeing how the first half of 2012 was overrun with White Fence records. Family Perfume, Vol. 1 was released in April, Family Perfume, Vol. 2 was released in May (both by Woodsist), and a collaboration with fellow West Coast garage rocker Ty Segall, Hair, came out in April on Drag City. The next album was meant to be a collection of older tracks that had yet to see the light of day, but Presley changed his mind partway through and 2013’s Cyclops Reap became a batch of his most recently recorded tracks. White Fence weren’t just a one-man bedroom project, though; they were able to translate their sound to stage with a live-wire energy. Their first live record, Live in San Francisco – featuring Jack Adams and Sean Presley on guitar, Jared Everett on bass, and Nick Murray on drums – proved this to those unlucky enough to have never seen them live. It was released by Castle Face in late 2013. The next White Fence recording found Presley leaving the bedroom and heading out to Ty Segall’s garage, where the two friends recorded For the Recently Found Innocent in 2014 for new label Drag City. Segall and Murray handled the drums, Mikal Cronin played piano on one song, and Presley did everything else (as usual). Around that time, Presley and Cate Le Bon had become friends, as both had recently moved to Los Angeles and were admirers of the other’s work. She joined the White Fence live band as guitarist and the duo bonded, quickly deciding to work on a new project together. Under the name DRINKS, they recorded an experimental album of off-kilter psych-rock called Hermits on Holiday. It was released in August of 2015 on Birth Records. He also branched off in an even more experimental direction, releasing an album of electronic music and weirdness under the name w-x in November of 2015 for Castle Face. Presley continued working with Le Bon, and she produced and arranged the first album he made under his own name, 2016’s The WiNK. He reteamed with Le Bon for another DRINKS album, Hippo Lite, in 2018 before bringing back the White Fence name on a record made with Ty Segall. More experimental and weirder than their previous collaboration Hair, Joy was issued by Drag City in mid-2018. Presley quickly followed up with a proper White Fence album in January of 2019. Slightly rebranded as Tim Presley’s White Fence, the more sophisticated and sometimes ambient I Have to Feed Larry’s Hawk was the first album from the project in four years.
Now The Judges, who first banded together in musical protest against the prevailing “pop” music, find themselves caught up in a routine similar to that of any pop star. The radio and television broadcasts, the concert tours, the ballroom and club engagements and so forth – these are now part of the life of The Judges. But their greatest satisfaction is that in spite of their phenomenal success they can still play the kind of music they believe in and carry it to an ever widening audience. The smiles on the five faces of The Judges are quite understandable.
THE MAKE UP is the Washington, DC group that re-defined underground music in the middle and late 1990s with their peculiar and incendiary blend of gospel, garage and yeh-yeh music. Known for their dynamic and interactive live presence at hundreds of shows across 5 continents, the group also recorded 7 LPs, 14 singles and EPs and and collaborated on films, videos, pamphlets, and happenings. They toured extensively as a headliner and with groups such as Royal Trux, Sonic Youth,, Fugazi, Dub Narcotic Sound System, Lung Leg, Harry Pussy, and many others. The group has been called “dazzling … best dressed … martial … terrifying.” Their shows were known to feature communication, sermonizing, crowd participation, and dancing virtually unknown in the staid world of indie and garage rock. Their style was perfect, with matching Mao style jackets, with new versions designed for each tour. The group was widely copied as well and precipitated and inspired a wave of “garage” imitators in the 21st century who often had commercial success but lacked the spark, character, nuance of the Make Up. Occasionally, when the moon is bright and the wolfsbane blooms, the group has come out of hiding for rare and exciting personal appearances since disbanding in 2001. They are making one of their rare returns now for a short time only, available for very special events. Featuring Ian Svenonius on vocals, James Canty on guitar, Michelle Mae on bass guitar and Mark Cisneros on drums, and performing classics such as “they Live By Night”, “I am Pentagon”, Walking on the Dune” , “Here Comes the Judge,” “Every Baby Cries the Same,” etc, the Make-Up is as extraordinary as ever.
The two people in Warm Drag do specific things. Vashti Windish sings, the way Siouxsie sang power, the way Nico sang allure, the way Patti sang sex. Paul Quattrone makes the noise with two Akai MPC 1000 samplers. Beats that pummel or seduce, usually simultaneously, synths that soar like Morricone or pump like DAF, and gloriously twangy guitars that clang and echo like Duane Eddy spiraling down a k-hole. A chance reunion in Los Angeles led Quattrone (of Oh Sees and !!!) and Windish to attempt the outlandish ambition of marrying her love for the genre-defying genius of Blondie’s ‘Parallel Lines’ to Quattrone’s love of Bomb Squad’s production styles. Warm Drag gives me the chance to blend genres up into a musical milkshake that remains uniform despite all of its parts. I can scream, dance, cry, rage and seduce, all in a single show Windish explains. I basically wanna make Bomb Squad versions of rock n roll songs, Quattrone says. It sounds weird but I can hear a common ground where girl groups, dub, harsh noise, minimal synth, repetitious industrial, voodoo percussion, power electronics, black leather jacket rock n roll and DJ Screw-inspired slowing down/pitching down of samples all meet. Lyrically, Warm Drag dive head-first into right now, careening from love to the end times, broken hearts to rotting bodies, devastation, lies and emotional self-defense. They have something to say, but they’d never be so gauche as to over-explain. They’ve been winning over notoriously-inert Los Angeles audiences just over a year now. An early show caught the eye of Ian Svenonius. Their cut-up collage of electronic stomp-music embodied everything people were searching for that summer, he remembers. There were just two of them but the sound was magnificent. Vashti was a revelation and Paul looked tough and cool and preoccupied in just the right way. Warm Drag are the soundtrack to the best night of your life. It probably hasn’t happened yet, or maybe it happened in Berlin, in 1980. You won’t remember much, but you still have this record and a few bruises to jolt your memory. Sangfroid has never been sexier.
The world is filling up with trash. Humanity remains addicted to pollution despite the planet getting hotter by the minute. People are downing horse dewormer because some goober on television told them it cured COVID. Tom Herman of pioneering avant garage band Pere Ubu still doesn’t have his own Wikipedia article. The apocalypse, it seems, is stupider than anyone could’ve predicted. Fortunately, the absurdities of modern life have always been prime subject matter for Seattle-based band Mudhoney. The foursome take aim at all of them with barbed humor and muck-encrusted riffs on Plastic Eternity, their 11th studio album. Mudhoney (vocalist Mark Arm, guitarist Steve Turner, bassist Guy Maddison, and drummer Dan Peters) remain the ur underground group, their gnarly primordial punk stew and Arm’s sharply funny lyrics as potent a combination as they’ve been since the band’s formation in the late 1980s. From taking on climate change from the perspective of the climate if the climate tried to play guitar like Jimi Hendrix (“Cry Me An Atmospheric River”) to a driving rock and roll song about taking drugs meant for livestock (“Here Comes the Flood”) to a classic punk attack on treating humans like livestock (“Human Stock Capital”), Plastic Eternity is a heady run through all the proto-genres of guitar rock with a keen eye on the inanities of the world in the 2020’s. The recording of Plastic Eternity delivered several firsts for the band. With Maddison planning on moving his family to Australia, Mudhoney was forced to work on a deadline, booking nine days at Crackle & Pop! in Seattle with longtime producer Johnny Sangster. Since the pandemic had made it impossible for them to convene in their practice space for nearly a year and a half, this meant they were going in to make a record with an assortment of half-forgotten riffs and nascent ideas rather than fully-fledged, well-rehearsed songs. This was unusual for a band used to writing songs by “standing in a room and looking at each other and playing,” says Arm. “We had the time and space to think about things as we were doing them, and to make a kind of course correction-to use a fucking terrible cliche.” They built “Flush the Fascists” around a looping synth line, broke out a harmonizer on two tracks, added a vocoder to “Plasticity,” and even created a protest song out of a spontaneous jam on “Move Under,” the chorus of which Arm calls “something the Runaways might have come up with if they were us.” “Undermine the foundations/ Of the lies that they repeat,” implores Arm on the chorus. “You gotta move under/ Until it all comes down.” Plastic Eternity also marks the first time Mudhoney has given writing credit to anyone outside the band, thanks to Sangster, whom Arm calls “a brilliant musician and way more adept at musical theory than any of us,” stepping in at times to offer advice on where the songs could go. Also unusual for Mudhoney: Plastic Eternity contains two genuine love songs. The first is for the aforementioned Tom Herman, one Arm’s favorite guitarists and the protagonist of “Tom Herman’s Hermits.” Then there’s closing track “Little Dogs,” an paean to the simple joys of hanging out with tiny canines, and one in particular: Arm’s Pomeranian, Russell, whom he couldn’t bear to give up after fostering him, sure that any other owner wouldn’t allow the little fellow to “let his freak flag fly.” No irony here-just gratitude to a little pal in dark times. So it seems, despite its mordant delivery and crusty exterior, Plastic Eternity is not just a rebuke to the constant attacks on our intelligence and our planet-it’s an ode to the connections we make with other living beings. What is the persistence of Mudhoney but a testament to that? When asked why they continue making records nearly four decades after forming, Arm’s answer is simple. “We like each other and we like being in a band together,” says Arm. “Some people have poker night or whatever the fuck, and they have the excuse to get together with their friends. For us, this [band] is that. This is what we do.”
Time stumbles on. So does the clan DATSUN. Change the inevitable. Despite the ever warping landscape, the DATSUNS find those paths of least resistance up the mountain, and take their lifetime’s accumulated lessons & mastery of rock, up the proverbial giant rock, to dispel their latest riffage & learnings, from the highest point, upon the masses, with joyous savagery. The workings towards an eighth volume of Datsun sonics proceed steadily. Though the clan have lost another drummer, Scandinavian thumper Adam Lindmark of Dead Lord fills the seat for upcoming 2025 live action. A host of Swedish drumming familiars also litter recordings thus far, to deliver the Stoogeoid evil, the powerpop crunch or the classic proto rawk assault & battery. Lead string wrangler Christian, comes to grips with the literal new hand he’s been dealt, after a literal handicapped year, whereupon next level surgical intervention was required to save a paw ravaged. Entrenched in the semi-rural NZ paradise, Phil has wracked mind & mitts to conjure up new weaving guitarring rhythms to dispense to his comrades across the seas. In the lands of ice & snow Dolf has soundboarded hooks & crunch w/his like minded Scandinavian pals & also shot back many a reshaped idea & burst of rok energy to his Datsun brothers. The end result, a new & eighth album beckons. Touring across lands not visited by the DATSUNS in an age, the first visit to the UK in over 10 years. The promise of more running, riffing, dancing rock, in the Western calendar year of 2025, both studio wrecked & wrangled, and delivered hot wired alive.
Watching Australia’s Straight Arrows in concert stirs a visceral reaction. Throbbing, sweating, pulsating urgently across the stage, delivering melodious hits with an unrelenting, volatile energy before a final climactic burst, departing the podium and leaving a riled-up audience to contend with whatever lesser events the remainder of their night may hold. On record, Straight Arrows offer perhaps a little more nuance. Sure, the urgency and buzzing 60s punk-inspired energy is well and truly present, but this mingles with moments of the other-worldly and the truly sublime, across an array of eclectically influenced tunes. Amongst the brilliant chaos lie a few calm, introspective moments before the band subjects the dear listener to another catchy, melodious blast, relentless hooks still trailing through one’s mind. Just ask fans like Henry Rollins, Iggy Pop, or John Dwyer, the former two gladly hawking the group on their radio shows, whilst the latter gleefully dragging the band across Australia and the USA in support of his latest opus. Along with Oh Sees, Straight Arrows have shared stages with many friends and heroes: The Buzzcocks, The Sonics, Ty Segall, Black Lips, Jay Reatard, Deerhunter, and the New York Dolls – when the best in the biz hit Australia, they know who to call! At home they’ve appeared at the Hoodoo Gurus’ curated festival Dig It Up! as well as under the dome at the world-renowned Sydney Opera House as part of their hometown’s Vivid Festival. Not wanting to leave anyone out, they’ve also proselytised the good word abroad, having toured the UK/EU and the USA widely on numerous occasions and been invited to play at Memphis’ legendary GonerFest. After 11 45s, three albums plus a live LP – released across the USA, the UK and Europe on labels like Goodbye Boozy, Hozac, Spacecase, Agitated, Rice Is Nice, Budget Living and RIP Society – 2024 will see Straight Arrows thrust their fourth album across the globe, and what a feast it is! Entrees in the likes of the resoundingly rapid Fast Product, and the kaleidoscopic psychedelic blast of Walkin Thru My Mind have already delighted underground radio presenters, and audiences across the globe. Just wait until they hear the whole thing! Straight Arrows’ album number four will be available worldwide on record in May 2024, out on Rice Is Nice (Australia), Agitated (UK & EU) and Lollipop Records (North America). Straight Arrows: the fuzziest, most catchiest, escapist, good-times vending, rapscallion trampoline shiners this side of the Murray River” – John Dwyer “A new Straight Arrows record is always something to look forward to. What a great band.” – Henry Rollins
