Keeping with our Crystal theme today, here’s the newest video from Brooklyn’s Crystal Stilts, who remain one of our favorite bands of the recent garage revival. Where some have gone for total punk, while others have gone psych, and we can’t forget the pop, the Stilts seamlessly can blend them all for a mixture you can still groove to without any of the guilt.

Crystal Stilts – “Love Is A Wave”

I’m going to piss some people off with the headline when they realize I have no visual or aural proof of witnessing Nobunny. That’s because my journey to see two of the Godfathers of the self-recorded garage punk scenes on both coasts — Nobunny on the West and LiveFastDie on the East — ended when midnight hit and there were still two bands to go before he hit the stage. I know, not very punk rock.

I walked in as NJ’s Liquor Store was finishing up. Definitely one of the bright spots among the crop of young garage punks, I only happened to catch the end of the last song, which featured members of just about every band from the bill on stage.

[Liquor Store]

Up next (and finishing my night), was LiveFastDie, and while I can listen to LFD records repeatedly, their live show is always something of an experiment. With no firm band members, this night proved to be one of the tightest sets of theirs I’ve witnessed. A new drummer was present, and Liquor Store provided a second guitar to compliment both Camero Werewolf’s skills and antics. That’s when midnight hit, my carriage turned into a pumpkin and I missed what will probably be a fleeting moment to witness Nobunny live in NYC. Bummer.

Man, I hate to say it, but I think I love this record. You’re undoubtedly asking yourself one of two questions right now: Why do I hate to say it? Or why do I love it? The answer to both is the same: Because the Black Lips come pre-hyped and exposed for all the world to see and hear, yet they have defied the odds and put out a record unlike anything they have done to date. Still, 200 Million Thousand is a record that is undeniably all the Black Lips.

As the number of imitators grow, and In The Red starts to become relevant on a level beyond the Goner record shop, the Black Lips still stay ahead of the pack just enough to wave a collective finger at those trying to catch up. It’s as if they’re saying to the music world, “yeah, you’re doing what we did on our last record, here’s what you’ll be doing on your next one.”

Anyone who’s seen the Black Lips live will know they are as much a spectacle as they are a band, and they’re a garage punk outfit who not only talks the talk, but walks the walk. Which makes it that much more interesting — and unexpected — that they would come armed with a mid-tempo, near-distortion-less, almost psychedelic collection of songs. This is less Reigning Sound or LiveFastDie, and more 13th Floor Elevators, maybe even a little Kinks or Monks for good measure. The result is a dizzying display of inconsistencies that keep you guessing from track to track, but makes you wanting to hear where the next turn will take you.

In fact, the most traditional and boring song on the track is probably the lead single, “Short Fuse”. It’s not bad by any means, it’s just the expected, more traditional garage leaning number — and one of the few on 200 Million Thousand. Conversely, the lazy drawl of “Old Man” has me entrenched in the slow burn of the South that they have always lived in, but haven’t displayed on record until now. Same could be said about “Elijah” or the “The Drop I Hold” — which sees Cole Alexander essentially talking over a haze-filled backdrop — it could easily be dismissed as a lackadaisical approach to songwriting, but there are few bands who could pull this off so earnestly and carefree that the result can only be reviewed with the utmost respect. I know that there is a cynicism in everything they do, and I can almost see them winking to each other as they read a review like this, but it is within that “we don’t give a fuck” attitude that the greatest musicians live.

Like a modern day troubadour of Johnny Cash’s, for every bit of lucid endeavor they describe on “Drugs”, there is an honest feeling of remorse and pain that strains through the otherwise upbeat and jangly number. Then maybe even justified or further explained in “Starting Over”, which sounds like a happy, San Fran 60s pop band giving us the pledge of new beginnings, but almost ironically, it’s more of a dismissal of the current. In order to start over, you need to discard the past, and maybe this signifies a new start for the Lips. Or maybe they’re just doing whatever the fuck they want.

Some will dismiss this album as an uncohesive mess of Southern fried scum rock, and for that, I applaud the Black Lips. 200 Million Thousand might not be the album you grab to hear your favorite hits, but from the title down to the application, it will live in infamy as the pinnacle of a band and their craft and how little regard they have for what you and I think.

The last time we caught up with LiveFastDie they were partying with the Black Lips and King Khan, and bashing the heads of writers with their guitars.

Actually, it doesn’t look like they’re up to much more these days, but they have announced they will be releasing their vinyl catalog digitally next month, which is good news for punk fans. Up until now, all of their records and 7″ singles (of which there are 9) have only been available on limited run vinyl, but last week Impose Records announced they will be releasing the LiveFastDie catalog on March 11. Here is the single “Amputated” from their 2005 debut Bandana Thrash Record

From Impose: You could toss Camero Werewolf, the highly prolific, frequently addled mind behind a seemingly never-ending stream of 7″ singles into the bin with the small army of punk-roots revivalists storming d.i.y. venues from the Beets to Mr. Reatard on up to the Black Lips, but Mr. Werewolf’s tracks come from the dirty, late night, shit-talking and shit-taking antics that inspired a band name that’s an ode to a punk legend most famous for defecating onstage. This stuff is pure, gold-rimmed, mud-stained, righteous rock music, and goddamn if it isn’t catchy as hell.

LiveFastDie – “Amputated”

Hello again ladies and gents, it’s time once again to gather ’round the old Victrola and lend an ear to some of the tastiest slabs of small wax currently littering the shelves of your favorite record emporium or web store. This week, we’ve got one of the stankiest comps of recent memory, as well as a pair of singles from bands that both contributed to the aforementioned compilation. So get your balloons out, it’s time to start huffing.

To kick things off this week, we’ve got one of the more notorious compilations to have come down the pipe in quite some time; the mildly disgusting-yet-always entertaining Wild About Jenkem, released on the upstart Killer Diller Records label. First off, you are probably wondering what the hell jenkem is, well, for the full story, read this. But to make a long story short, it’s a hallucinogenic ‘drug’ made from fermented human feces. Yes, you read that correctly; fermented human feces. Its dubious inspiration aside, the ten songs here, all of which are a minute or less, are utterly fantastic, gnarled and snotty, stinky and disorientating, just like jenkem. Particular standouts are Nice Face’s “Juju For Jenkem”, a 45-second blown-out rager that makes sticking your face in a balloon of this shit actually sound appealing, Gaye Blades‘ “My Shit Belongs To Pee”; the slow-jam, couples skate tune of the album, and LiveFastDie’s “I Need You (Leroy)”, which, despite its subject matter, is a hit single in waiting. Miraculously, there are still a few copies of this left, so if this sounds too good to be true, or simply too disgusting to pass up, hop on over to Killer Diller’s MySpace and pick yourself up a copy.

In keeping with the all things jenkem theme this week, next we’ve got a single from Alabama’s favorite cough syrup guzzlers, Wizzard Sleeve, whose “Children of Manda” is possibly Wild about Jenkem’s most disturbing contribution. After going out of print almost immediately, HoZac has repressed “Mommy’s Little Baby” b/w “Pterodactyl Meltdown” in a new edition of 200 copies, thankfully making these fantastically warped tunes available once again for non-eBay prices. The ‘Sleeve are the current master of synth-drenched southern-fried psychedelia, and the pair of songs they unleash here are epic, especially the B-Side, which is an absolute flame-thrower, drenched with Munsters-like synth lines, ratty guitar squalls and lyrics that extoll the virtues of being stoned out of your gourd in the stone age. The A-Side is similarly minded, fuzzed and blown-out of its socks by rollicking organ fills and a vocalist that clearly recorded the track with a mouthful of dirt. There’s something simultaneously precocious and dangerous about Wizzard Sleeve, and like that lollipop that you drop on the ground yet pick up and put back into your mouth anyway, they’re the guilty, fuzz-encrusted pleasure your parents warned you about.

Lastly this week we’ve got the new single from Brooklyn’s Nice Face, “Exterminator” b/w “Fubar Over You” also on the HoZac imprint. Their proper vinyl follow-up to their amazing Sacred Bones debut 7″ and the even more incredible Can I Fuck It? cassette on Jerkwave, this two song scorcher is their best material yet, stapling over-heated/modulated Dick Dale riffage to ramshackle rhythms and unmistakable melodies. A-Side “Exterminator” is what Donovan’s “Sunshine Superman” would have sounded like had he recorded it in the gutter, its sublimely lovely melodies buried beneath a frantic haze of knotty guitars, loads of reverb and crackling tape hiss. The flipside, “Fubar Over You” is better still, its insistent riff powering the song towards an amazing synth/guitar overload that piledrives the song’s head into the ground and refuses to let it up for air. Pick this up now over at the HoZac MySpace before they disappear completely. Also, take a look at the mega-awesome Hitler fucking Stalin artwork of the Gold Edition.

That’s all this week, but we promise we’ll clean up our act for next week’s column where we’ll bring you some scrumptious bubblegum platters and a few other surprises. So, for all your good, clean, family fun, make sure to check us out again next week.