Beach Balls is a classic 1960's "beach party" film, via unmistakable late 80's excess. That is to say that it is chock full of scattershot plot, cartoonish characters, gratuitous nudity and profanity, and above all just plain fun in the sun. Not to mention the hair-metal soundtrack courtesy of fictional band 'Severed Head in a Bag'. This is the last movie you would use as the subject of a film analysis essay, but it certainly is an exhibition of camp done right- consistently entertaining with the perfect level of self-awareness. Beach Balls is tough to beat if you're looking for some mindless, lighthearted, good times. Beach Balls is available on Netflix NOW
Behind all of the fun and games associated with Halloween lies a very dark and mysterious past. While customs such as carving jack-o-lanterns, trick-or-treating, dressing up in costumes and so on have become time-honored traditions ubiquitous with the season, and many variations of monsters and ghosts have rightfully become pop-culture icons, we mustn't forget the darkly rich history of the relatively recently mainstream holiday. The underlying purpose of Halloween is less about celebration as it is paying respect to the certainty of death, and the frighteningly unknowable thereafter.
This eerie correlation with the the unknown and the otherworldly is, in my opinion, what really makes Halloween special. Therefore, I've taken great care to include in this series those songs which I feel most effectively acknowledge the darker aspects of the human (or not-so-human) condition, and bring them to the forefront of a fittingly ominous atmosphere.
Suicide - Frankie Teardrop
Suicide is quite simply a weird "band", both during their active years and within a historical context. The were the first group to ever use the term "punk music" to advertise a show, yet they were widely detested by much of the punk scene for their provocative demeanor and reliance on keyboards, drum machines, and murmured vocals.
This artist/audience conflict came together for several stunning moments on their 1977 self-titled debut album however, most notably on side two's minimalist epic Frankie Teardrop. The song immediately establishes a disturbing claustrophobic atmosphere of doom with a pounding, straight eighth-note rhythm of industrial noise that drones on for its ten minute entirety. laid over the top of this agonizingly simple beat with unnerving volume are Alan Vega's nervy, tense, half-whispered vocals. As the metallic noise pounds on Vega weaves a tale of a young father on the brink of insanity trapped in poverty and the maddening repetition of his factory work. Good ol' Frankie hopelessly grinds through the days to support his family, but when his desperation reaches its breaking point he is left to pick up a gun and let it provide all the "support" his family needs. All the while the constant pounding noise continues. The song can explode into hell at any moment, but the real terror is that you know it won't- it will just keep droning on and on. When listened to in the right setting, you have already long been firmly on edge by the time the utterly blood curdling screams come out of nowhere.
In the years before and since I made that post reviewing When the Kite String Pops I haven't come up with a better description for their sound than that which must constantly play within the mind of a serial killer. From their overbearing menace to the unrelenting brutality of their lyrics and their schizophrenic straddling of genres, Acid Bath creates a musical environment that is directly engaging in it's heaviness yet consistently unnerving in its twists and turns, and it has a way of getting you lost in the fractured mind of the deeply disturbed.
At no point in the album are these qualities on more troubling display than during Finger Paintings of the Insane. As vocalist Dax Riggs alternates between morbidly dark crooning and agonized verbal assaults of self-destruction, torture and pure evil, the band weaves a spellbinding web of shifting dynamics and jarring tempo changes, bookended by skull-crushing rhythms and guitars that grind and slash their way through the nightmare. As a listener you are left disoriented; scared and lost in the mind of a psychopath, yet morbidly fascinated and unable to take yourself away from the hellish, unforgiving sonic landscape.
The Beatles - Revolution 9
Possibly the one song that I would call the creepiest comes from an unlikely yet ultimately unsurprising source. More widely regarded for their mop-tops and desire to "hold your hand", The Beatles were certainly no slouches when it came to experimental recording, and the results heard in Revolution 9 are nothing short of terrifying.
Revolution 9 begins with a minor piano theme and a mysterious voice repeating "number nine", panned jarringly between stereo channels. For the ensuing eight minutes, it spirals deeper and deeper into pure insanity. The piece consists entirely of various different tape loops that have been treated with odd, disquieting effects. Most of them are taken from classical music or opera, but there are also everyday sound effects such as crowd noise, laughter, voices, breaking glass, and car horns that in this context are made harsh and grating. The loops fade in and out, dance around each other, and, at the absolute scariest- burst unexpectedly out of nowhere on only one side of the mix (DO NOT listen to this loudly on headphones late at night). In a move of subtle production genius, the piano and "number nine" motif recur and echo almost tauntingly in and out of the mix, confirming that the suddenly not-so-Fab Four realize exactly how uncomfortable of a listening experience they have created.
It seems almost counter intuitive in a day and age where only a few clicks of a mouse can land you headfirst into a virtually endless sea of music, but it is getting harder and harder to find stuff that you can truly describe as unlike anything you've heard before. Gay Witch Abortion, a noise/sludge/garage/metal/punk duo from right here in Minneapolis, is one band that, against all odds, manages to stand out.
Gay Witch Abortion released their debut album, Maverick, on Learning Curve Records back in 2007. The 36 minute LP is packed from cover to cover with grinding, squealing guitars, walls of pile-driving noise, and just general unrestrained fury. It is the soundtrack to destruction. It is for those of us who like it dirty, heavy, and raw. It is the gleeful embracement of primal aggression- pain, fire, blood, dirt, broken glass, broken bones, maybe sniffing some deer repelant, etc.
(not recommended)
The Witch released their equally brilliant sophomore album Opportunistic Smokescreen Behavior in November of last year, and continues to regularly play shows around the Twin Cities - Scheduled next for February 20th at The Turf Club.
WARNING: Go easy on that volume knob until you know you're equipment can handle it, this album is more than capable of blowing your speakers to smithereens.
While I like to keep this focused mainly on new (or at least active) bands and current musical happenings, I do have quite a backlog of bands/albums/etc that I feel are worthy of writing about given their impact on the music world and my personal outlook on it. This is the first of such blurbs, but will not be the last.
Now I'm no metalhead, but that doesn't mean that I don't occasionally enjoy taking a little journey into the darker corners of music and the human psyche. Granted triggering such an experience is no easy task for a record to accomplish, as simply being heavy doesn't cut it. This is an album that pulls it off. Regarded as a classic of underground/alternative metal, it has become increasingly engulfed in legend over the years to the point that it transcends itself. The band burst onto the scene for a few short years before all but disappearing. Their music on their breakthrough album is too heavy and innovative to ignore but too defiant of categorization to make a lot of sense of. The cover of the damn thing is a self-portrait of John Wayne Gacy done while he was in prison awaiting execution. Everything about it adds to the overall menacing vibe.
Acid Bath formed in 1991 deep in Louisiana, where the only thing sludgier than the swamps is the music. The band (led by vocalist Dax Riggs) set out to make what they described as "death rock". In practice this revealed itself to be a unique take on sludgy doom metal taken to extreme lengths and infused with blues, folk, and country. After their demo earned them a deal with Rotten Records, they put out When the Kite String Pops in 1994.
Simply put, WtKSP is an engaging, provocative, and often outright disturbing exploration of sprawling dementia. It shifts seamlessly from thundering lurch to thrashing hardcore punk to deranged ballads featuring almost spoken-word poetry. All the while the songs make their way through a maze of time and tempo changes while somehow maintaining the simple feel of insanity. The compressed drums and processed vocals add an industrial dimension to the overbearing menace of the album. Riggs does an admirable job of navigating the diverse and ever-changing material, moving seamlessly between tortured screams and crooning poetics reminiscent of Glen Danzig. At times he displays the surprisingly complex lyrical passages with an almost southern sounding twang. I suppose it goes without saying that the aforementioned lyrics consist of relentlessly dark themes including psychosis, drug abuse, death, and violent depression. That said, the album manages to frame the material in such a way that presents it as a darkly poetic and musically stimulating exhibition of the dark side of human nature. That said the length of it (clocking in at over an hour) makes it a difficult straight-through listen- (It's usually somewhere around "Dr Suess is Dead" that I feel the need to take a shower)- but The Blue, Finger Paintings of the Insane, Scream of the Butterfly, etc are still incredible as standalone tracks.
