expresswaytoyrskull:

Another month, another Maximum Rocknroll column from a few issues back, namely #391 (December 2015). I’ve probably referenced Devo & Delta 5 a minimum of a dozen times since I started writing this thing, but this particular column marks the first time I’ve ever mentioned Sabrina the Teenage Witch (and it will almost definitely be the last). 

Even if  “Underappreciated Classics of 1980s Midwestern Post-Punk” isn’t a premeditated regular feature of this column, it might as well be, and I’m turning the discussion toward two such neglected rippers in particular this month. Oil Tasters were three Wisconsin weirdos (including bassist/vocalist Richard LaValliere and drummer Guy Hoffman, both previously of Milwaukee’s KBD/power-pop heavy-hitters the Haskels) who adopted a bass/drums/saxophone formula that, at least on the surface, didn’t veer wildly off course from the angular mutant-funk of late ‘70s/early ‘80s New York no wave (James Chance and the Contortions being perhaps the most obvious parallel). Look past some of those more superficial similarities, though, and it becomes clear that their musical aesthetic was less aggressively confrontational than Chance and company, shaped more by the deeply Midwestern, tightly-wound neurotic post-punk bent that marked fellow freaks like Devo or Dow Jones and the Industrials. On the band’s self-titled 1982 LP, Caleb Alexander’s slithering sax lines are paired with LaValliere’s equally snotty and surrealist vocal delivery to create a sinister art-damaged punk/experimental jazz meld, but the really dizzying highs come when Oil Tasters take the frantic, oddball post-punk intensity of early Pere Ubu and completely strip it of that band’s more serious/humorless tendencies. Hearts of darkness and final solutions are replaced by whiplash anthems about not wanting to be an encyclopedia salesman and television sets possessed by specters of significant others – see, uh, “(I Don’t Want to Be An) Encyclopedia Salesman” and “My Girlfriend’s Ghost”. Fun fact: Guy Hoffman wound up playing drums for fellow Milwaukeeans the Violent Femmes during the mid ’90s, which was, unfortunately for him, the same point in time when they finally crossed the line into complete irrelevancy – if you haven’t seen their truly unsettling, surreal-as-hell appearance on the Sabrina the Teenage Witch TV show during that era, go look it up on YouTube. The Oil Tasters LP, though? Still unfuckwithable.

Underappreciated Classics of 1980s Midwestern Post-Punk, part two: From Chicago by way of Lawrence, Kansas, Get Smart! reflected the relative isolation and desolation of the American plains via the harrowing and bleak angularity of Action Reaction, their debut LP from 1984 (even the release year is thematically appropriate). Both geographically and musically, the band occupied a literal middle ground between the early ‘80s West Coast/East Coast punk and post-punk divide – “Black Mirror” has ominous echoes of the most frantic, paranoid Wipers moments (minus the flashy guitar work and plus some female backing vocals), while the dissonant “Berlin on the Plains” suggests Mission of Burma’s “Secrets” dismantled and rebuilt from the ground up. Bassist Lisa Wertman’s vocals and the stark, jagged slashes of guitar on “Knight” both underscore a totally Pylon-esque hypnotic rhythm, and when she and guitarist Marc Koch (who handles the most of the lead vocals on the record) converge into a disaffected duet over the martial post-punk pulse of “Just For the Moment,” it’s not too difficult to imagine them as a Factory Records-backed John Doe and Exene. Get Smart! were hitting all of the same nerves as their contemporaries who have since been aggregated as textbook 1980s American underground rock (with a lot of credit and/or blame going to Our Band Could Be Your Life), but Action Reaction is still one of those nondescript records that you’ve probably flipped past in the bins a dozen times without even paying it a second thought. Bona fide overlooked post-punk gem.

I had the good fortune of getting to put on a Portland show last autumn for Wireheads, who had traveled from Adelaide to record at Dub Narcotic Studios in Olympia, Washington and had decided to fit in some quick stops along the rest of the US West Coast while they were on this side of the Pacific Ocean. Their new LP Big Issues is the result of the recording sessions on that trip, a sprawl of scratchy, stream of consciousness post-punk racket that made me feel like I was in the presence of a 21st century Australian reincarnation of the Fall when I saw them live (it’s not really a stretch to say that Wireheads have Mark E. Smith beat at his own game these days) and also got a tiny all-ages cafe space packed full of people on a cold November night to discard that most crucial of punk rules and demand an encore (even more impressive given that they were the second band out of three on the bill). There’s faint glimmers of the Scientists’ uniquely Southern Hemispheric take on howling, swampy garage rock at play here, coupled with some piercing John Cale-meets-the Birthday Party violin drone and frontman Dom Trimboli’s eminently Fall-like cryptic talk-singing. There’s a punk barnstormer called “Year of the Horse” with all of the white-knuckled rage of the prime SST Records back catalog, and it seamlessly segues into the soft-spoken strum of “Victorious Hermit,” which puts Wireheads right in line with the bumper crop of modern Australian jangly pop bands (Bitch Prefect, Dick Diver, et al). There’s borderline non-sequitur lyrics that touch on interior decorating and bridges in Oklahoma and people getting hit by buses. Do you need this LP in your life? Yeah, probably. (Tenth Court; https://tenthcourt.bandcamp.com/album/big-issues)

While their band name unfortunately invites lowered expectations of sickeningly saccharine twee-pop, Foggymotion, the new cassette from Islington, UK trio the Choo Choo Trains has (if anything) resurrected the hazy, narcotic lo-fi fuzz of Detroit’s dearly departed Velvet Underground-worshipping, molasses-slow psych queens Slumber Party. Their echo-drenched budget production values, haunting harmonies and bare-bones instrumentation draw equal inspiration from raw, tambourine-bashing Girls in the Garage stomp and the heartbreaking, Wall of Sound stylings of the classic ‘60s girl groups, presented with the foresight of the half decade or so worth of underground musical history that followed as a result. I’m especially partial to the moments when the tell-tale loose threads of their DIY pop leanings are fully exposed, like the shuffling drums and naked guitar strumming on “Margo T and Me” that have all of the delicate pop primitivism of Beat Happening when Heather Lewis got her turns at the microphone, or the ethereal girlish vocals and persistent jangle on “The One I Love” and “Things You Do,” where the Choo Choo Trains transform the wild and giddy C86 rush of the Rosehips, Fat Tulips or the Shop Assistants into something more sleepy and subdued. (Meat ‘n’ Tatty Tapes; https://thechoochootrains1.bandcamp.com)

London’s Shopping have a pedigree that reads like a crash course in modern UK post-punk – between the three of them, they’ve played with Trash Kit, Sacred Paws, Wetdog, and Covergirl (that’s just the short list) – and their latest LP Why Choose draws a similar inspiration as their many side projects from the minimal, edgy tension and angular precision of the late ‘70s/early ‘80s English post-punk canon. Anyone familiar with her other bands is likely well aware of the fact that Rachel Aggs is a total genius at crafting stripped-down and stuttering ping pong guitar lines that seem to exist in a world where the entire recorded history of the instrument begins with the Fire Engines’ “Get Up and Use Me” circa 1980, and those jagged stabs of guitar are the center point from which the rest of the band’s off-kilter jump cut rhythms tumble out. The dryly delivered, overlapping and slightly asynchronous female/male vocals on “Wind Up” have some historical antecedents in the likes of Delta 5 and Gang of Four – think “Anthrax” at 45 rather than 33 with consumerist ennui standing in for romantic disaffection. It’s always great to hear contemporary bands who have assumed not just the stylistic mantle of post-punk from the Thatcher era, but also the lyrical emphasis on the pointedly political (and personal-as-political), which is a critical advantage that sets Shopping apart from so many of their peers who are content to simply throw back to the danceable slash-and-burn musical trappings of their heroes without paying much mind to the purpose of their ideological provocations. Why Choose is straight-up ‘79 in ‘15 and I’m totally okay with it. (FatCat; https://soundcloud.com/shoppingband)

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