Reviews:: Electronic Voice Phenomena :: Triptides

Triptides :: Tropical Dreams EP :: Beachtapes :: Released April 12

I want you to know that I hate wintertime. Wesley Willis would say, "Fuck uh snow flake in dee ass." And I know just how he feels, because he's not just talking about snowflakes, he's really talking about man's inhumanity towards man made somehow worse by nature's inhuman unnaturality towards man.

Yuh dig?

But then every now and again some kind of good can come from entire cities boarding up for the zombie-er months of the year: first off, there's less meatheads running around, chasing skirt in Adams Morgan and Georgetown, then there's the occasional plainclothes Dirty Harry drawing down on snowball tossers (those hippies), reminding us all why it's good to make sure cops get their Xmas bonuses, and, finally, a few talented and very fucking bored individuals sit down and record some totally sweet sounds. And when spring unfolds its splendor, unfouls its lines, and dumps it shitty rain on us, we can stay inside and give those songs a listen. We can think about the sun-baked beaches where we'd rather be.

Triptides take me there.

Out in the winter wasteland of Bloomington, IN (go fig), these dudes put down one, two, three, no wait, four tracks of the smoothest possible surf pop instead of going outside and facing certain death. The arrangements here are so goddamn natural, you'd swear you wrote them yourself. I'm listening to them now with the last of my bourbon balanced on my chest, and I'm pretty damn sure I'm not awake because I keep falling for the charms of a winking crab, gesturing for me to lie down, take a load off on his stretched out towel. There's no where to go, and no where to be, anyway. So just embrace the sandy tranquility offered by the Maryland Blue with the caviar eyeballs and the simpleton grin. What say you, Triptides: Now that we're looking summer straight in the mean-eyed face, how about you get out and take a trip down the coast?

Must be some kind of record since this is the second Indiana band to be mentioned here this week. Should I be getting paid for this? Nah, I don't have to be here. I could be in Florida, basking in the sun. This is just a hobby for me, yuh hear? A HOBBY!




Ripped from their Bandcamp page:
Glenn Brigman - vox/guitar/drums/keys
Josh Menashe - vox/bass/guitar

Review :: Armchair Telepathy :: Apache Dropout

Apache Dropout
S/T
Family Vineyard Records





Apache Dropout :: It's a Nightmare
Apache Dropout :: Sam Phillips Rising

I'm supposed to say that the Nava-joe Deadbeats are a gravelly, neo-psych garage outfit with a lot in common with someone else from the same sub-Great Lakes dead zone, only nuanced or hyperbolized in some way that's not really worth stopping to consider.  The Arapaho Louts got the Motor City scene by the balls, crippling the Stax-style sounds they rode in on, onomatopoeically drawing life and fire from their instruments.

Just eat the words and move down the buffet line.

Instead I'll say something equally meaningless: these pigeon shit mongers buzz, hum, and click just like they're supposed tuh. Got some organish happenins, some samples of other people's voices to make you feel a little more likely to let these strangers into your homes. There's some wailing here, some stomping about, some sense of plucking or strumming. The sneaky natives put a thing in my head, a whirring device, much like a 2-barrel carburetor with the same pipe fittings and welds. It thrombs loudly in my ears when I swing from the ceiling fan. Bitter maidens dump their buckets of milk and come on out to the fields where the tribal bird-callers wait, hand to mouth, flapping the loose air expelled from their lungs, manipulating the flow to imitate water over pebbles. Riverbed. Bedrock. Asphalt. Gravel. Warbling pigeon shit punk rock.

Oh, wait, I'm supposed to be talking about the band. Instead I tug at words. Fuh-fuh-fuck that.

You can actually get your slippery hands on the entire A-side of the new album over at Apache Dropout's Bandcamp page.  Makes you wonder why it's even worth going to work to make money anymore. As drafty as the Midwest plains they strike out from, this Indiana band ride into town to play Comet Ping Pong on 5/7. That's the first Saturday in May for those of you who don't savvy numbers and symbols suh-suh-so well. Stop staring and mop it up, my man.