If you loved Joy Division, you’ll like Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, who similarly inhabit a bleak world in which swirling guitar figures and pretentious, gloomy lyrics are the only comforts. While Joy Division was the unchallenged champ of these nether regions, Leeds’ Lorries work the territory with enough savvy and intelligence (not to mention a…
The title of the Stimulators’ ROIR cassette-only release is a bit of a misnomer. In the wake of supersonic hardcore thrashers like the Bad Brains and the Descendants, the Stims sound like they’re keeping the speedometer close to 55. Which is fast enough for me. The Stims, seminal NY punks who stuck by their guns…
This Ft. Lauderdale trio (not to be confused with the San Francisco a cappella group of the same name) led by future Silos co-founder Bob Rupe plays quirky, satiric music with an edge, steeping their hard pop in reggae and funk, occasionally interrupting it with a distorto-guitar solo. If the Bobs weren’t as engagingly clever…
Duke Bootee (Edward Fletcher, in his other life a Newark, NJ schoolteacher) is one of the unsung heroes of rap. As a member of the Sugar Hill label’s extraordinary house band, he wrote the tune, “chorus” and half the raps for “The Message.” Although that groundbreaking single came out under the name of Grandmaster Flash…
Play the Velvet Underground’s “Sister Ray” at half-speed — go ahead, do it — and you’ve got Swans plus a sense of humor and the possibility that, if you just adjust the speed control, everything will get good. Take away the sense of humor and the speed control, and you’ve got Swans. In all probability,…
It helps to have a gimmick, and this Brooklyn trio — originally known as the Disco 3 — had several. While most rappers brag about what great lovers they are, Prince Markie Dee (Mark Morales), Buff Love (Darren Robinson) and Kool Rock-ski (Damon Wimbley) brag about what great eaters they are. In this, their claim…
This punk-identified San Francisco quartet-plus-horns ensemble, possessed of both art and boogie aspirations, won a place in rock’n’roll history with the single, “Everyone’s a Bigot,” one of the best songs from the almost uniformly fine Let Them Eat Jellybeans compilation. A rolling sax riff and naive but sincere lyrics gave the song a compelling sense…
To be the coolest band in Minneapolis nowadays you need a little more vision and talent than the gallant Man Sized Action could muster. But to be a cool band anywhere, all you need is this unpretentious lot’s commitment to a few good ideas. Man Sized Action opened up punk structures with distorted, ringing guitar,…
A couple of songs from Jam on Revenge were successful, so it would be unfair to call the youthful Newcleus a one-hit wonder. But the only track that’s worth talking about is “Jam on It,” a hip-hop celebration of the joys of juvenilia. Innocent but not gooey, the song takes rap off the street and…
Most people, if they get the chance, have to settle for one great achievement in the cultural arena. Not for Malcolm McLaren. Besides being an imperialistic cultural plunderer (a non-judgmental designation), he is one of rock’s true visionaries. His role in the formation and promotion of the Sex Pistols has been construed as everything from…
Obnoxious, crude, offensive, blasphemous, tiresome and funny — the Meatmen are one band you’d never be able to explain to your parents (or even the vast majority of your peers). The rude punk parodists from Michigan heard on the infamous Blood Sausage and Crippled Children Suck 7-inches stomped on the sensitive issues of society with…
As the seminal hardcore band of our nation’s capital, Minor Threat played fast, impassioned music that defined the genre while never succumbing to its shortcomings. The quartet had both a sense of melody and a sense of purpose. “Straight Edge” was among the first hardcore songs to call for abstinence from drugs and booze, and…
In the fine tradition of pre-grunge Northwest punk bands, Feederz made an art of being irritating and abrasive. Their lyrics are fairly offensive, their album cover has a piece of sandpaper on each side, and the insert offers such words of wisdom as “Don’t say ‘yes teacher’ — say Jam it bitch!” and “time to…
This Denver-to-San Francisco artpunk trio of brothers Joe Pope (bass/vocals) and Jon E. Risk (guitar/vocals) plus drummer Michael Hursey serves up uncompromising, driving music in a number of directions on their debut EP. They get funky on “Pig,” a heartwarmingly old-fashioned song about the law, drone on the junked-out “Another Day” and drive straight ahead…
This Ohio punk quartet’s crunching thrash metal is devastating — and not just in its speed and power, although those qualities are present in brutal abundance. The tough part about listening to the Necros is the awkward, ungainly chord sequences they drag you through. As soon as they gather a head of steam, the band…
After hearing so many art bands buried in their own sense of self-importance, it’s refreshing to bask in the modesty of Athens’ Oh-OK. Like R.E.M. (with whom they share a family tie), this humble group put their elliptical ideas over as much by being good guys as anything else. Oh-OK was a guitarless trio on…
You wouldn’t know it to listen to their records, but West Los Angeles’ 100 Flowers started as a joke, a black-humored parody of the punk scene. As the Urinals, they recorded a pair of 7-inch EPs and a single for Happy Squid, then got serious, changed their name and got real serious. In their second…
