Look Out! Grunge is Back!

HEAVY CHAINS /// STONED STRIPPER from Patrick Cruz on Vimeo.

Above, find the video for "Stoned Stripper" by Vancouver punk super group (ugh) Heavy Chains.  You'll be getting Andrea from Nu Sensae, Anne-Marie from White Lung, and Brodie McKnight from Sex Negative.  They've got this EP thing called A Very Real Hell and it's pretty goddamn fantastic.


Basically, Heavy Chains take the classic "Grunge" formula and deconstruct it into punishing, warped, incoherent minimalism.  And as long-time readers of this fine publication can tell you (hi, mom!), I like punishing, warped, incoherent minimalism QUITE A BIT.


The video track is the closest that Hell gets to standard songwriting, in that it actually has lyrics.  The vocals on most of the other songs are just bloodcurdling shrieks, usually slathered with a heavy coat of crazy outer-space effects.  The guitars and bass are ostensibly rooted in classic grunge tropes (mid-to-late seventies metal, psychedelic blues/punk) but the riffs are approached with such brutal repetition that they cease to offer the listener any reference points, so the only guides to where the songs are going are the drums and those awful, awful screams.  Oh, and the guitars have crazy outer-space effects on them, too.  Taken as a whole, it's like listening to old Nirvana albums while caught in a particularly violent hurricane.


So, here's "Shit Burning Piss Tubing" and "Commo Wire" off A Very Real Hell.  No, you don't get the whole album.  It just came out!  Go buy it from Nu Sensae and White Lung, they're ALWAYS on tour, and god knows they can use the money.
 

Anytime, Cowboy.

There is a question that every practitioner of the rockwrite has learned to fear:  "So, who's your FAVORITE BAND?"

On its surface, this query is innocence itself.  All I do around this joint is opine about musics.  Surely there must be one I like the best... the toppermost of the poppermost, as the Limeys like to say.  It should pose no trouble at all to name that Blessed One... hell, one might even expect such action to give me PLEASURE.

But.  Such things are not simple.  Such things are not Clean Cut.  After a few decades of immersion in The Rock Game, most scribes find their tastes becoming... mercurial, I suppose.  Rather than One True Love, we find a series of dalliances, changing our affections to fit a certain mood or fancy.

All of which is a lot of poncey bullshit cooked up to keep from answering a question that you, in all honesty, did not ask:  Who is my favorite band?  Well, this is where things get awkward (it is?).  Because I must now admit (in mixed company) that my favorite band (at least twenty percent of the time) is a bunch of racist, misogynist, homophobic cowboy art-punks.  From Scotland.  Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you... The Country Teasers.

Calm down.  Be still.  Cease your sputtering, "What... do you mean to say... how can you... are YOU... if... but then... ARE THEY REALLY?!"  Yes.  They are.  And no.  Or, at least, not entirely.

Perhaps singer/guitarist/mastermind Ben Wallers puts it best when he says "There is no bias on my hates... I will pick you all off, one by one, as you walk through the gates."  Or perhaps he puts it best when he says "We are the Hitler of comedy, and everybody else is the Jew."  Or perhaps "Personally I think, and this is just my point of view, ALL HUMAN LIFE SHOULD BE DESTROYED."  

The Country Teasers exist in that magical place where one is so exhausted by the horrors of the world that a sob turns into a hysterical laugh.  Where, upon viewing the grand agonies and tiny tortures that humans visit upon each other daily in the guise of "civilization", one sneers, takes a sip of whiskey, and says, "Aw, fuck it, what the hell."  And then begins to laugh, long and loud and clear.

So, can one fault an artist for holding up a mirror to society if the reflection is TOO ACCURATE?  TOO UGLY?  Not when the artist is HILARIOUS.  For such are The Country Teasers.  All this misanthropy and gloom would be indescribably tedious if handled with po-faced seriousness  (Michael Gira, I'm looking at you) or fake-macho aggression (Whitehouse, I'm looking at you), but the Country Teasers remember the cardinal rule of Being Offensive:  You can get away with anything as long as you're funny.

So, what have we got here?  Why, it's my own primitive stab at a Teasers Career Retrospective... a "Best Of," if you will.  No, it cannot hope to capture the full glory of their vision.  No, it cannot give a proper accounting of the subtle nuances (yes I said it shut up) that allow their songs to transcend shock comedy for the realm of the absurd, the triumphant, and (yes, even) the tender.

To business.  First album, The Pastoral Not Rustic World Of Their Greatest Hits gives us a cover ("Stand By Your Man", which is always a chortle when a bloke sings it), a pseudo-cover ("Black Cloud Wandering"), and a stone-cold fucking classic ("Anytime, Cowboy") which serves as fine advice for any young couple hoping to manufacture a happy relationship in These Modern Times.  The lads are in basic art-garage-country mode on this one.  A fine effort, but it pales in comparison to...

Satan Is Real Again or Feeling Good About Bad Thoughts is what we in the trade call "A Fucking Masterpiece".  Choosing which songs to share on this behemoth is a challenge for which my drinks-addled brain is not well prepared.  You are receiving "Panty Shots", "It Is My Duty" (which has the above bit about Hitler in it, along with loads of other chuckles), and "Thank You God For Making Me An Angel" (which blatantly rips off Joy Division and is probs my favorite Teasers song of all time).  I could have given you anything else off the album and you'd thank me for it.  Find yrself a copy posthaste, and get me another bottle of rye while yr at it.  Something seems to have happened to mine.

Destroy All Human Life is next, and it marks the point at which the few critics who bothered to show up started shitting on Our Boys.  No, it's not a career-defining pinnacle like Satan, but it DOES feature a sort of thoughtful melancholy that would help the band to escape the horror/shock corner they were in danger of painting themselves into.  I have, of course, chosen to showcase exactly NONE of the gorgeous heartbreak jams ("David, I Hope You Don't Mind" and "Golden Apples" are both weepy stunners that I can perhaps play you if you want to come over some night with a bottle of something medicinal).  INSTEAD:  "Hairy Wine" (about the dangers of being a stupid junkie), "Destroy All Human Life" (which showcases a burgeoning experimental vibe that would, along with the moodier numbers, keep this shit fresh for Ages Yet To Come [it is also possibly The Teasers' most offensive song yet, if yr keeping score]) and "Song Of The White Feather Club" (mainly for the bit where Wallers announces his intention to play the "KKK Klassic, 'Even My Shites Is Whites Whites Whites'".)

Science Hat Artistic Cube Moral Nosebleed Empire (nice album titles, fellas) is a singles comp that I bought on double vinyl after watching The Country Teasers share the stage with Wesley Willis and a Burlesque Troupe from Seattle.  While the heathen tough-guy assholes in Seattle chose to heckle the ladies, The Teasers proved to be perfect gentlemen, eventually coercing several of the scantily-clad lovelies onto the stage during The Teasers' set.  "Let's Have A Shambles" is a pretty standard Country Teasers jam about having sex in a public lavatory, "I'm A New Person Ma'am" is a personal favorite but won't play on my computer... maybe you'll have better luck?  Oh, and here's a cover of "No Limits" by techno-jock-jam favorites 2 Unlimited.  Giggles.

 Recorded entirely on 4-track, Secret Weapon Revealed At Last received a whopping 3.1 rating from the stupid cunts over at Pitchfork.  While easily the least cohesive (and coherent) record in The Country Teasers discography (a good portion of it is so fucked and experimental as to be almost unlistenable), it does feature some BRILLIANT material.  "Deaths" is perhaps the most touching song Ben Wallers has ever written (about the deaths of early Teasers guitarist Alan Crichton and Wallers' Aunt Pen), while "Please Stop Fucking Each Other" and "Man V. Cock" are both hilarious and expertly recorded.  And "The penis mocks the soul for not fucking around more," is an amazing lyric.

So, here we are, almost caught up (there's a newish split 12-inch out that I've been too poor to import).  The Empire Strikes Back finds The Country Teasers back in prime form... it's easily their best record since Satan.  "Spiderman In The Flesh" cops from Pink Floyd while painting a masterful portrait of postmodern alienation and ennui (perhaps I WILL have a bit more whiskey, thank you!).  "Points of View" ties together Zyklon B, English Football, and toast to scorchingly incisive effect.  Finally (whew!) "Please Ban Music/Gegen Alles" praises "The woman-loving Taliban" for their progressive stance against noise pollution while urging the listener,  "Do not conform to type, and don't mock the avant-garde.  You only mock the avant-garde... because it's a bit too hard."


And with that, I take my leave of you.  Thanks for yr patience.  A terrific interview with Wallers is HERE.  Good night.