Hooch

There was a competition to win a Melvins album on vinyl recently. I entered. You had to tell the people which was your fave Melvins song and why. It was so Smash Hits, I couldn’t resist! So here it is. It’s pretty crap, but it’s earnest enough:

My favourite Melvins song is one called ‘Hooch’, which might be a popular choice on account of it was their big single. If that’s not an oxymoron. I first heard it on an episode of Beavis and Butthead, back when I was younger and slimmer than I am now. It was horrible, and that was precisely why I loved it. I seem to recall the video was a man’s head with crazy hair bellowing out words I couldn’t make out at all. But he was aggressive, and the music was jerky, with almost nothing in the way of a discernable flow; perfect for a self-awarely angsty teen.

It would be a couple of years before I actually got round to buying the album it’s on, Houdini. I got that one partly because its non-Cobain co-producer, Billy Anderson, produced my favourite album ever: Through Silver in Blood, by Neurosis. And partly because I needed to hear ‘Hooch’ again. That was the one song whose lyrics were printed on the booklet, and I finally learned why I had not been able to understand them: there were none! At least none that one would find in the Oxford English Dictionary. The mighty Buzz Osborne must have thought ‘hey, you know when it sometimes doesn’t sound like a singer is actually singing words, and you just have to make up noises that sound like words? Let’s do that!’. And so he did.

Years before Sigur Ros and their Hopelandic language, here was a man who – on the opening track and single from his major label debut – opted to make up noises that merely sounded like words, so no radio listeners would confidently be able to sing along with it. It turns out there is a fantastic flow to the rhythm, specifically because it is so jerky: the whole song is a slow-mo drum fill! The riffs are incredibly solid, and I love it more every time I hear it. Especially when I heard the Fantômas-Melvins Big Band play it at double speed recently. It’s so awkward that it’s essentially an anti-anthem. And *that* was their big single on Atlantic Records. Pure genius.

Needless to say, I didn’t win.

Bonus ‘thing’, if you can call it a bonus: Sum 41 playing ‘Hooch’. Sadly not the real ‘Hooch’.

The Howling Hex – Earth Junk


(2008, Drag City)

There is no foundation, and that is what is so discomfiting about Earth Junk. Opener ‘Big Chief Big Wheel’ lacks that solid bass line, the catchy riff, the vocal hook. The melodies whose constituent notes seem to bear little relation to each other seem to spiral in and out like bees emerging from a half-full Carlsberg can on a balmy summer day.

After brief spoken introduction, ‘Sundays are Ruined Again’ resides in the instrumental domain, a ragged tomcat duet between two wily guitar lines over moon-walking synthesiser backing.

‘Annie Get Redzy’, far from being just a fantastic title, continues this theme of restless guitars that interplay like piss lines etched in snow by drunken Wisconsin frat boys. This isn’t Fugazi, but works just as well, much like Tom Waits’s hobo-orchestral pieces match Leonard Cohen’s stately grandeur.

Guitar lines wind round yer synapses like the freakiest worms in town; the golden femme backing vocal should be surplus to requirements but downs that tequila in one. Those honey tones take the lead in ‘Faithful Sister’. Technically sounder, though less charismatic, than Jennifer: perhaps that anodyne smoothness is the point. It fits the late 60s way-out aesthetic for sure.

But this is no hackneyed yearning for flowers in hair and Love albums. It’s the attitude of Perrey and Kingsley married to that confident flow of early Beefheart. These ostensibly disparate sounds work to a degree that would make Gestalt blanch.

Thick key tones provide the base, electric piano adding detail (hey, it’s like Bohren on crystal meth!), with antsy, irked, guitar lines weaving like those worms we mentioned earlier. It’s a cycle. And that golden-voiced girl ties it all together, like the rug in a Michael Gira acid flashback.

The sound really changes on penultimate song ‘Coffin Up Cash’, a ‘Hex take on pastoralectronica, bass pulse reminiscent of overlooked 2003 Manta Ray single ‘Take a Look’. Neither quite Nick Drake nor Four Tet, it rolls along with an irresistible charm all its own.

Lacking the muscle and aggro of RTX, the Howling Hex is an altogether more sinewy customer, the spindly limbs of a crafty veteran of disorder flying off at all angles, with wisdom belying drunken mastery. One thing is for sure – 2008 is a great year to be a Royal Trux fan.

Bohren und der Club of Gore – Dolores


(2008, P.I.A.S.)

Today was the first time I noticed the browned, fallen leaves on the floor. They have probably been around for a while, but it was only today, as the increasingly encroaching dusk kissed a sweet goodbye to a day defined almost solely by its maudlin glaze of drizzle, that I became aware of them. At around the same time, Dolores – new album from German veterans Bohren und der Club of Gore – osculated my ears equally softly.

Once a heavy metal group, Bohren are such no longer. That recent FACT description confused this writer initially, wondering if the inordinately mellow early tracks already heard were mere preparation/false security for some form of metal meltdown a la Hyatari or John Zorn’s I.A.O. They weren’t. In fact, like a far sweeter version of Lustmord’s recently brooding [OTHER] set, the relative stillness of the music herein is likely to unsettle listeners waiting for dramatic events to unfold.

Making a fantastic soundtrack for moody walks, during which the listener may fancy himself in a TV film from the 1970s in which they sell his laugh to a humourless millionaire, plangent electric piano notes chime sonorously, solemnly, while sustained organ tones lull the unwary meanderer into near somnambulism. In fact, those listening to the album lying on a field (unlikely in this dank autumn) are likely to drowse, due to the way the albums reverie evokes such delights as Manual’s ethereally still ‘Wake’.

At an hour in length, the uniform tone of the album could frustrate, as one song ends and the next begins in similar style and tempo. Dolores is mellow music with a minimalist percussive bite that adds spice. While some grand narrative-style progression would have elevated it to the next level, this is nevertheless a lovely mood piece for those who might find themselves longing for L’Altra or Low circa 2000.

***

I know it’s a bit soppy and sentimental, but I like to vary my style from time to time – even if it doesn’t work. I like to think this one did in places, and the album is very nice. Rather reminiscent of ‘Treefingers’, or () without the bombast. And not at all heavy metal. I like to reflect what the music makes me feel in the writing, rather than merely describing how it sounds. Hopefully this piece put that over to an extent, but it’s clearly just the first step in what’s ideally gonna be a decent bit of development.

P.S. Hi to those people who turned up here from that Chris Morris Facebook group and decided to click around. I’m clearly no Charlie Brooker, but who is?

P.P.S. Hey Warp – sort me out with some promos please. FACT sent me a copy of their Squarepusher one, which was great stuff.

***

Post #200! Not that I’m counting…

More-iss from Popbitch

>> Help Morris! <<
Turn terrorism comedy into movie

We told you that Chris Morris’ terror cell
comedy had been rejected by a fearful Channel 4
and BBC. It seems they have a history of
this. Muslim comedian Omar Mazouk was to
present a mockumentary about misguided
suicide bombers for BBC but this was also
nixed. He took the idea to a TV network in
Denmark instead, where it’s getting rave reviews.

And putting two fingers up to TV commissioners,
Morris is turning his Jihadi sitcom into a
film. He’s got producers at Warpfilm and a
distributor. All he needs now is enough money
to make the film. Which is where we come in.
Popbitch readers donating between 25 and 100
quid to help get the film made will get the
chance to be in it. So get out your cheque book
and burkha and email:
fundingmentalism@warpfilms.com

Chris would not deny or confirm that recruits
who sign up will also get a free al-Qaeda
explosives handbook.

***

So there you go. I was actually wondering why this wasn’t suggested earlier, given how controversial the project would be deemed by mainstream media and the rich history between Morris and Warp. Everybody watch his short film My Wrongs #8245-8249 & 117. I would very cheekily link to the film itself on You Tube, but (i) it may be down since last I saw it there, and (ii) I’m at work! I have the DVD anyway, and have done since day dot.