Big Crux

The Bad Joke That Ended Well - ST

Another Bristol band worth making a note of. Dirty bluesy psychedelic (isn’t everyone these days) rock band.

The band play with a distorted banjo at times that ads to the diverse sounding garage feel. In the line up is also guitar, bass, drums and organ. The new album which is self titled has 8 tracks on it which range from ‘I’m not there’ a full blown carnage of a garage punk rock song to dance of the dead being a sombre guitar led blues piece. 

Miami Dolphins - Capri Sun

Minneapolis clatter garage punks. Female fronted (always worth mentioning, never sure why). Exhuberant noise punk with screechy vocals, a bit too glad for me to suggest they sound like TJ&TJ’s but nay far off - you should know the thing anyway if you’re at all familiar with this place. Love the rawness. At times the underlying sound is reminiscent of what The Minutemen (early in their career, pre double nickels) would be like if fronted by Yasuko Melt Banana. (Similarly, at other times they sound nowt like that).

You can grab the above tape from this link via a pay wodja want download (mek it lots huh?) or via a tape which you can get via this link (if there’s any left).

Like 99% of the bands I like tiz unlikely they’ll ever get anywhere but “getting somewhere” probs aint why they’re doing this.

PS Ooh, and the cover art’s cool cuz it doesn’t look square like (if it’s on a white background). Which is unreal. (In a pretty real sense of the word).

Sauna Youth

Ok, so I lied about no more references to the Ceremony gig. This band was the top support. I’ve been hearing murmurings about them for a while now, all to the effect that they make good noise. I first read about in Loud & Quiet who have a reputation as far as I’m concerned for getting on board with new hc / punk bands before the rest of the music press catch up (e.g., they were onto Cerebral Ballzy way before any of the rest of the music press got on message about them). So it’d be nice to think that it could take off for these guys soon too.

Sauna Youth are another of those bands that fit into the ‘tricksy hardcore’ bracket, something that made them an excellent support for Ceremony. Last.fm tags em ‘garage rock’. Not so sure I 100% agree with that although they do cite The Ramones as an influence & their earlier stuff does come over more garagy than the music they were playing on Weds. They’re an old sk00l diy punk band; they have no manager to book gigs, they design their own art work, they shoot their own vids & of make their own noisy. Hardcore noisy.

The drummer’s also the lead singer (shouter). Quite an achievement considering all their songs are 200bpm or faster. I like that they put a couple of spoken word stories on their first release & have played more live gigs than they’ve had practice sessions (or had when the L&Q piece was written). 

If you like what you see in the video then go visit their website where you can listen to more music & maybs download some if you fancy. I did & I’m dead poor so there’s no reason for you not to do so too. Unless of course you’re even poorer than me. Or don’t like their sound. 

Becoming Real - Snow Drift Love

Saw Becoming Real support someone last year. Buggered if I can remember who but he was really good. It’s all about the future garage hybridised two-step ital innit? Ooh, now I remember, it was Mount Kimbie. Here’s a thing he’s bunged up on his soundcloud anyway. You can download it gratis if you want.

EFFLUENCE

John Robb wrote effusively about this band almost a year ago. I remember reading it, thought “these kids sound great” then promptly forgot about them. Wonder how many great  bands I forgotten about over the years? Luckily for me though this time Dandelion Radio’s Andrew Morrison played a track by them just last month, causing my ears to, y’know, prick up. I sent myself an email “Subject: Effluence, Content: Effluence” & thought “I hope when I pick up this email later I don’t ring the plumber”. 

Anyway, I checked the band out, found their Tumblr, found the link to John’s article & it all came flooding back. However as I just tweeted, I find it a bit troubling that it’s almost a year since the post on Louder Than War where John said ”They are going to be massive” & they still aren’t. People obviously haven’t heeded his words. 

They are really good anyway. A little bit like nothing you’ve heard before they have a crazed intensity to their sound, are incredibly talented & wear their raw yet complex sound very much on their sleeves.

They did a session for BBC Lancs last year. It was videoed & they put it on their Youtube channel. I’ll embed here mainly because they look like their creating nonchalant mayhem in the BBC (Lancs) reception:

Here’s the LTW article about them. And here’s their Bandcamp

Black Moth

Garage punk from Leeds on the New Heavy Sounds label.

You can swipe yourselves a wee free download or just stream the bugger here: