7"s! (Ribbon Stage / Lost Cat / Romero)

Things are looking up, finally. By looking up, of course, I mean a bunch of ace new 45s have appeared or are imminent. Not Unloved's pals at Monorail Music did the intros to New Yorkers Ribbon Stage yesterday. On the evidence of "Favorite Girl" (from their contribution to  K Records' IPU series), lovers of amped-up guitar pop that's not over-worked or over-wrought (hey...that's me!) have a new crush to set their hearts racing.

Outro Records has been busy over the last couple of years cranking out a slew of fine throwback garage punk records (The Premonitions, The Night Times, etc.). Their latest 7" to land at UK distros is the mighty fine "Don't Need A Man" by Lost Cat. The lead track makes me miss The Bobbyteens but "He's Gone" on the flip is moodier and stands up to repeated plays. I'm pretty sure you could you could sneak it unnoticed onto an early volume of Girls In The Garage without too many listeners filing a complaint with their MP.

Julian at Drunken Sailor does sterling work keeping on top of what's going on in the worlds of punk, hardcore, trash, power pop etc. so lazy lumps like Not Unloved don't have to.  For example, Australian group Romero's debut single, "Honey" (Cool Death), has been out since February but only landed with a bump in my world when Julian stocked it. It's a zesty concoction comprised of Blondie-worthy guitar lines and impassioned vocals that is clinically proven to cause fist-pumping and the shouting of "What happened at the discotheque?" . It's somewhere between Sheer Mag and The Strokes but less rock than the former and way more fun than the latter. Turn it up!

The Wrong Society "To Be Free"

Once again I find myself hugely indebted to Higher State chap Mole.  His keen ears and knowledge of the current garage scene make his m.brooks m.porium ebay store a smashing resource for helping lazy lumps like me to keep up with what's out there.  The latest smash to hit the m.porium's virtual shelves is a 7" by Hamburg's The Wrong Society:



What a fizzing tune!  That guitar solo is pure desperation and do you hear the slightest tang of Martin Phillips (The Chills) in the way the singer pleads "Set me free!", too?  "To Be Free" could be slipped without any qualms onto any of those vintage Teenage Shutdown downer jangle comps.  With Denmark's The Youth, France's Les Grys-Grys and now Germany's The Wrong Society, European garage punk is in a right good state.  My self-imposed mailorder embargo was never gonna last, not with 45s of the quality of "To Be Free" screaming for attention.  I just didn't think my resolve would crumble so soon!

The Sultanas "You're The One"

The Sultanas' "You're The One" 7" (2005-ish, Boom Boom Records) found its way into my collection through a variant of the usual process. I didn't fall for its Headcoatees-like charms through reading about it on a blog or being recommended it by a friend.  Instead, less prosaically, I chanced upon it whilst sifting, YouTube to hand, through a discogs "seller's other items" list looking for something/anything cheap that would be nice to get postage-free when buying another record from abroad.  Whatever the route it took to my attention, there's no mistaking the fact that "You're The One" is superior Girls In The Garage fare that sounds better with each play and with each upwards turn of the volume knob.  A quick Google didn't turn up much information about The Sultanas save for the fact that one member was subsequently in Sub Pop's The Duchess and The Duke (who toured with The Vaselines, if I'm not mistaken).  There don't appear to be any more records to track down which is a real shame as I'd love to have more crunchy Sultanas vinyl to knock me back into shape whenever I need it! 

The Little Bits

This is getting ridiculous.  Next I'll be listening to Minipops!  After being knocked out cold recently by Gary and The Hornets' ultra-sensitive (not "wet", J!) version of "Baby, It's You", another song by a troupe of teenage boys from the mid-60s has hit me right between the eyes. "Girl, Give Me Love" by The Little Bits is the exact polar opposite of Gary and co.'s lovelorn girl-pop.  It's full of caveboy screams (check out the way the singer tries to be as gravelly as is humanly possible for a boy whose voice hasn't broken yet - brilliant!) and is about as rudimentary (those pounding, pounding drums!) and delinquent as pop music gets.  You get the impression that The Little Bits would've made off with Gary and The Hornets' lunch money on a regular basis had they been at the same high school.  Somehow, nearly four and a half decades after its release it manages to sound uncommonly feral.  A peek at popsike reveals that an original would set me back a few hundred pounds so I can categorically say that I'll never own a copy and a peek at YouTube reveals that the somewhat dubiously named Les Sexareenos banged out a ferocious cover that is dizzyingly hyper and hence utterly thrilling.  I suspect that their version won't make anywhere near as big a dent in my finances!

Return to Wimp Scuzz: Try-Angle "Writing on the Wall"

A recent dip into the second hand cd racks of Monorail yielded a copy of "Gravel Vol. 2" (Kumquat May Recording Inc.)..  It's one of the strongest collections of garage mayhem/loser fuzz/downer jangle I've come across with Try-Angle's aching "Writing on the Wall" being the most instantly lovable of its 30 tracks.  This is largely due to the singer's fabulous, almost 1980s indiepop voice and its lilting jangle but it is also because it has thee most quintessential wimp scuzz chorus I've encountered yet:    

"You don't love me no more
 (no, no, no, no)
 And I can tell for sure
 (can tell for sure)
 You're gonna cause more misery" .

One boy's teenage letdown never sounded so good!

Update! : The prodigiously talented and ultra-suave Paul Messis recently blogged about "Writing on the Wall", too.  The Transparent Radiation looks like a great blog with writing on The Springfields (Sarah Records), Sonic Boom's Spectrum, Sun Ra etc..