Local Bands On Parade
Record review roundup, 11/18/98
GIRL TROUBLE Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays (Wig Out) ****After 15 years years of high-test garage shows, and five years after the group’s last recording, Tacoma’s own masters of fun-time three-chord power finally have another record out, even if the members did have to release it themselves (with distribution help from Estrus). It’s loud, it’s fast, it’s smart-alecky, it’s smart, it’s their best ever. My fave part’s singer K.P. Kendall’s sax solo on “Strother Martin,” but it’s all great. Kendall’s vocal snarls blend perfectly with Kahuna’s guitar, Dale Phillips’ bass, and Bon Von Wheelie’s drums (yes, the only girl in Girl Trouble’s the stick-slammer). This disc firmly establishes Girl Trouble as the true successors to the T-Town hard-pop tradition of the Wailers and the Sonics. Get it. Now.
VARIOUS ARTISTS Designer Drug Volume Two (Estate) **
Estate entrepreneur Wallace Hargrave had been out of action for much of the four years since his first Designer Drug collection. The story why (the death of a bandmate and his own near-death) is very briefly touched upon in the liner notes. When combined with the online memoir of Hargrave’s ’80s punk-scene existence, it’s is one of the all-time hard-luck tales, as powerful as anything on his second compilation of his and his friends’ bands.
Like most indie-label promo compilations, it’s an uneven batch (that’s what programmable CD players are for). Among the several highlights: Primate Five’s almost dangerously aggressive garage stompin’; Pretty Mary Sunshine’s mix of ethereal vocals and art-damage guitar; Iron Beef’s sprightly power-pop ode to Sumo wrestling; and, completely out of place yet the best thing here, Michael Rook’s ultra-ultra-fast composition for a computer-controlled acoustic piano. There’s also some old-school metal, acoustic-metal, and metal-punk hybrid cuts (there used to be a word for that latter genre; darned if Ican’t remember what it was).
SLUGGER Back to Our Roots (Swizzle) **
That brief early-’90s subgenre, the three-girls-and-a-boy-drummer band, returns via this snappy suite of harsh yet cheery hard heartbreak tunes. If you like Goodness or remember the likes of Maxi Badd, you could get into Slugger.
XING Worldwide (Laundry Room) **
You could wait for your favorite ’80s new wave stars to show up on reunion tours at the Fenix or Ballard Firehouse. Or you could listen to the Portland combo Xing, which recaptures the expansive synthpop stylings of Gary Numan, A Flock of Seagulls, Duran Duran, Missing Persons, et al., without directly aping any one of them. A pleasant little trip back to yesterday’s sound of tomorrow.
17 REASONS WHY The Dark Years (Laundry Room) **
It says here 17 Reasons Why won Musician magazine’s 1998 “Best Unsigned Band Competition.” It’s easy to hear at least a few reasons why: Slickly written and produced singer-songwriter ballads with standard neo-soft-rock band arrangements backing Sattie Clark’s nice, unthreatening vocalizings. It’s nice, it’s laid back, it’s mellow. I hate laid back and mellow. I prefer something distinctive–even distinctive mediocrity–over the merely well-made.
LOSER s/t (self-released) **
Ex-Posie Ken Stringfellow produces the first two tracks, which would make a dandy little cynical-pop 45. They don’t have the lyrical bite of Stringfellow’s own work, but they could otherwise pass for a Posies cover band. Then we get to the group’s own production work, which sounds more like Revolver-era Beatles. They do a fully competent job at it (at least as good as the Rutles did), but the Beatles’ own material is already widely available on CD. This three-man Tacoma combo oughta work some more on getting its own sound together.
