When my interest for music was first awoken in the mid 90s by bands like Soundgarden, Nirvana, Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam, I kept hearing talks of the bands that came before them. The ones that started it all, the ones everybody was influenced by.
All these mysterious but apparently fucking amazing bands roaming the American underground in the 80s and early 90s, raising hell wherever they went. Cool bands with imposing names like Hammerhead and Killdozer etc were mentioned. In my mind I envisioned these dangerous, mentally deranged people destroying stage after stage in a blizzard of carnage while producing heavy, ear-shattering noise that left nothing in their wake.
This was before you could just download anything you wanted, so it took while to track these bands down. And sure enough: the disappointment was gargantuan. What the fuck is this? Sounded like something not even your mom would disapprove of.
I was instantly reminded of interviews with Kurt Cobain where he said he would read punk rock magazine and imagine what the music would sound like. Then he heard The Clash's Sandinista and his world was shattered.
That was a pretty atypical album for The Clash, so I figured maybe I had just stumbled upon a rotten apple. But no.
TAD had their moments, but largely they were pretty weak. TAD was at their best when their music was as heavy and unstoppable as their frontman, and the second a melody showed up it turned gay and lame. TAD should've been more Wood Goblins and less Dementia, if you know what I mean.
So I dug deeper. There had to be something worthwhile here, and by god I was gonna find it. I gave Scratch Acid a shot. A handful of brilliant tracks, the rest completely unlistenable. Big Black? Rapeman? Sonic Youth perhaps? Don't make me laugh.
All these bands had one thing in common: they all promised you the world, and delivered little more than one or maybe two good songs. The only band that lived up to their reputation were The Melvins.
Then 2005, Todd and I crossed paths. Whilst listening to P3 Rock one fine Thursday evening, the most extraordinary music came shooting out of the speakers and kicked me in the cajones. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
This UK/US band, which apparently features one or two former members of Hammerhead (but I'm not sure because I can't be bothered to look it up), sounds exactly as vicious as I had hoped all of those old bands would. It's basically the sound of a bunch of inbred, lumberjack hicks drinking watery beer and raping their instruments.
It's heavy, it's noisy, it's catchy, it's filthy and smelly, it's borderline insane, it's funny, it's scary and it makes you want to buy a guitar.
If you like extreme music in any form, you need Purity Pledge in your life.
(mp3) Todd - Butlers portion
(mp3) Todd - Mr. Harry
(mp3) Todd - Eagle and child
Buy it @ Amazon.com.
2 comments:
In the end neigther Todd nor TAD did it for me.
You're bang on regarding the pre-grunge and really so much of the punk being played at that time. It was an experimental time, and as any scientist knows, many more experiments are failures than success.
Just for a gas, from the same era check out the song "American Desert" by Shanghai Dog, what a difference. Of course at that time I was into Peace Sells so what do I know in hindsight?
I do remember thinking Kerosene by Big Black was a good song at one point. Any Canadians listening here may remember the CBC Radio show "Brave New Waves", they used to play all this stuff. One one hand I got introduced to PJ Harvey, on the other, to stupid shit like God Is My Co-Pilot. Are there radio shows anywhere on the net that still hit the pulse? Or is this blog it?
I'm gonna be smug and say that this blog is indeed it, my friend.
And I'll go check out Shanghai Dog straight away, thanks for the tip.
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