Geza X: Need More Power

Geza X, a key producer, solo artist, inventor and musical theoretician of the early California punk scene, is one odd duck. His notoriety began with his production work for the Dead Kennedys, the Germs, Black Flag, the Avengers and the Weirdos. The of course he pioneered the use of the now-ubiquitous face mikes (a.k.a. head-mounted mikes) and the less-popular Gezatone guitar. Using said guitar he led a band called the Mommymen through a series of singles, e.p.'s. He and the band also appeared on compilations such as Jello Biafra's Let Them Eat Jellybeans where they add the weirdly wonderful, "Isotope Soap" and Rodney Bingenheimer's Rodney on the Roq where they contributed the thundering "We Need More Power."


"We Need More Power", with it's shredded-speaker guitar sound has held me in thrall since I first heard it as a teenager. Geza called their sound, "x-music", a sort of art-school punk but filled with saxes and marimbas as well as slashing power-chords and squiggly leads. It's like an experiment to cross-breed Devo with AC/DC performed in Captain Beefheart's laboratory. If that doesn't sound promising, Geza always does.



Download We Need More Power 7"





Lee Jospeh reminds us that we can now buy Geza X albums at Dionysus Records!

Bowling For Soup: I'm Gay

How uncool are Bowling For Soup? Well, if it's any indication, I first heard one of their songs (one that I can actually remember) while grabbing some lemon hummus from Safeway. That's not even mall-punk - that's deli-section punk. So go ahead and scorn these Texans for their Grammy nomination, their Jive Records contract or their obvious debt to Blink 182 and the Offspring (who both ripped SoCal pop-punk in the first place) if you must but in their chart-aiming, kiddie-punk goofiness they do hearken back to the Dickies.

This song, "I'm Gay" gets points for a killer chorus, a reasonably witty take on the use of the word gay, some post-modern la-la's in the bridge and of course a few dead-clever lines like, "I think rock n' roll is really funny when its serious". Call me indiscriminate but a well-written song is is a well-written song; it doesn't matter about the band's overly wacky image, their less-funny-every-time-you-hear-it name, their token overwrought ballad or even their musical kleptomania. Just enjoy the uncoolness.


To hear the UK single (with extra tracks, including another of one of those dreaded" funky B-sides" - sorry 'bout that) or anything more, please see the links below:

MySpace
Amazon
iTunes

The Pixies: Dig For Fire

Garychching over at Always Searching for Music recently solicited for readers' favourite Pixies song, Without thinking much I typed out "Monkey Gone to Heaven" and clicked post comment. Then a wiser Longy from Punk Friction chimed in with, 'Today it's "Debaser". Of course, it always shifts, settling on on final favourite Pixies song is like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. Perhaps today I'll choose a less obvious song.


The Pixies we're never 'my' band. The alterna-types a couple of years younger than me (the ones who thought the Church were revolutionary and bought everything on 4AD whether it was the Pixies or Dead Can Dance) adopted them. However, one of the aforementioned altera-types lent me a cassette of Surfer Rosa and I remember listening to it on my Walkman as I walked to her house down the dark streets of North Kildonan. When that voice barked, "You touch my stuff you fuckin' die" I whirled around dead sure someone was gonna knife me. It took a few seconds for me to realize it had been on the tape. But that tape held more such shocking moments not the least of which was "Gigiantic" with it's transfixing juxtaposition of noise and melody in a way that must have pleased Hüsker Dü if not necessarily Peter, Paul and Mary.



Now "Dig For Fire", from 1990's Bossonova, makes up what it lacks in shocking newness with breath-taking intricacy. The song is anchored by a a fascinating central metaphor (for his love of twisted morality tales, Frank Black's the Flannery O'Connor of rock n' roll). Of course what holds us is the finely detailed melodic structure, not just that unforgettable chorus but those huge layers of guitar which are by turns surf-y, distorted and stuttering, which is as resplendent as a Gothic Southern mansion.
(As a bonus here, you get another surf instrumental, a fine cover of Neil Young's "Helpless" and "Santos" which sounds, well, like a Pixies B-side.)












Support the band!

• 4AD
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Grant Hart: 2541

So while Mould's solo debut came after Hart's, it seems that in the divorce settlement that Mould got to keep the cultural cache that Hüsker Dü had built up. Hart's solo career did began with brilliance but he soon stumbled and has never fully re-gained his footing.



Surprisingly, considering how he'd referred to Mould's late period Hüsker Dü work as "square", Hart's debut is even more more sensitive singer-songwriter fodder than Mould's! "2541" is however, a moving song of loss with a fittingly mournful melody. The fine lyrical details and the the swelling chorus make for the perfect eulogy for the Hüskers. It's blatantly autobiographical but unsentimental and it contains many a stinging line like, "It's probably not be the last time I'll have to be out by the first". While "Come, Come" is a respectable, if a bit duff, "Let Go" is the dreaded "funky B-side" which is, as it always must be, a real low point in the entire artist's discography.


{MRML readers leave a comment: Who's first A-side, Mould's or Hart's, was better?}

Download 2541 single

{Thanks to the incredible Hüsker Dü Database for help with this post.}

Support the artist!

• Amazon
• Hart's MySpace
• Hart's homepage

Bob Mould: See A Litle Light

When Hüsker Dü split over innuendo about drugs, suicide and selling out, the members found themselves in terra incognita. After all they began the eighties as a hardcore band on indie SST Records before becoming a major label college rock band in the mid-eighties and finally ending the decade as solo artists. (Well Bob Mould and Grant Hart became solo artists, Greg Norton went back to the kitchen.)


Mould sobered up, got a new record label and sequestered himself in a farmhouse to write the gentler-but-not-kinder songs that would become Workbook in 1989 . Workbook's folk-rock sound, with its prominent cello and acoustic guitar, found critical acclaim but no more commercial success than Hüsker Dü. This problem prompted a re-think for Mould's next solo outing (the results of which in turn prompted an even greater re-think; Mould's a re-thinking kinda guy.) Whether you fully embrace this slightly more pastoral album or not (and it's surface calm is deceptive), it's not hard to believe that "See A Little Light" is one of the most gorgeous songs he's ever written.



Besides the luscious pop of the title track, this e.p. contains the more Hüsker Dü-ish, "All These People Know" as well as a rawer live take on the album's "Compositions for the Young and Old" and Mould's blistering live version of Richard Thompson's "Shoot Out the Lights".

{Thanks to the incredible Hüsker Dü Database for help with this post.}

Support the artist!

• Amazon
• Mould's MySpace
• Mould's homepage