Vivian Girls’ S/T album  encapsulates all that made C-86 great, that fortunate connection between Spectorian Pop and Post-Punk lo-fi, topped up with a good dose of cavernous feedback which makes us think of the ‘Girls in the Garage‘  compilations, i.e. teen turmoil unfurls over a spanking 60s psyche beat, natty!

This is an In The Red affair after all, but it wouldn’t be out of place in the distinguished catalogue of Sympathy for the Record Industry, just check out the awesome ‘Alright This Time Just The Girls’ pts. 1 & 2.

Somehow in between the angelic melodies of Love is All and the charismatic raucousness of Mika Miko or Times New Viking, with a pinch of B52s, ‘Tell the World’s’ conjunction of chugga-chugga take no prisoners rhythm and reverb drenched instinctive incantations cast in a shadowy voodoo bedroom (that’s what this music is for) is the kind of song I would have put in every single cassette mixtape for a friend back in the 90s when I used to wear stripy tops. As it is, I am putting in this erm, ‘virtual’ cassette mixtape for you guys, because I heart you.

Vivian Girls- Tell the World

As you well know, we have been keeping an eye on Abe Vigoda, smiling delighted as they ride the skies in a rhythmic walkaround full of jaunty melodic pirouettes , well, we have their ‘Skeleton’ album now and the promise is fulfilled, all those hits you have already danced to like crazy in the discotheque are included, as well as a few tunes we hadn’t heard yet, all of ‘em upholding the proud heritage of supreme nerdy masters of jangly discoid post-punk Talking Heads with illuminated & fierce spirit.

This is party music which is both passionate, intelligent and good natured, kind of twee, but in the right way. It makes Vampire Weekend sound like the second-rate ska act they are without even trying because it’s not about that, the Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’ reference is truly valid for these kids, not plain wishful thinking.

They plant the seeds of a tree and the tree grows and its leaves spread towards the sun and the sun rains a shower of light upon them in the same way in which we stretch our fingers to touch something pretty, so that shadows of strange species of bird with wild eyes and colourful plumage flying up high in the sky, and free, can be projected upon the ground to dance jittery over the patch of luscious green where we stand, as we said, smiling, sweet, sweet!

Abe Vigoda- Dead City/Waste Wilderness

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We mentioned Times New Viking above, well, they have teamed up with the excellent folks at Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction to bring us some t-shirts which are ace and true (hippies are the new punks, punks are the new avant garde, and new wave hippies should listen to Psychedelic Horseshit), get them here before they run out! (the Paper Rad ones are also well sweet, of course)

Perhaps it is that the dynamics of the music industry in this country where so-called indie (aka indie schmindie) is the scene du jour (the kind of music that might make you money and get you laid via your ‘cool’, or something) create unhealthy pressures and incentives, watch a zillion uninteresting revival acts bloom, while those that were original and interesting in the first place go shit real fast, or vanish into the void. The Libertines were the prophets of our doom.

The hysterical fashion-driven ‘getting started-getting signed-getting dropped’ churn cycle makes it difficult for new promising bands to find their own voice before they become the best thing in the history of mankind OMFG hyperspace portal jump straight into becoming last-week’s news, as the fringed mob moves somewhere else (always in London). This might perhaps be a consequence of the strong association between indie and pop in the UK: pop is great, but by definition is disposable and fickle, an ethos which doesn’t fit well with the perhaps loftier aspirations of true independent rock music. Here we are not talking about novelty and entertainment, but something more durable, hrm, art? culture? Hell yeah! Why not?

We are actually fun people, believe it.

Additionally, live music has been punished by draconian licensing policies, with the ensuing reduction in the number of small venues, which are more suitable for non-mainstream gigs (i.e. by bands who don’t sound like Bloc Party). Consolidation pushes hiring fees upward making life really hard for adventurous promoters, this results in a situation where bands almost need to pay from their own pockets to tour the country, and this can’t help either. We have never made money in a gig we have put, but we haven’t been able to pay many amazing artists the money they deserve either, which makes us feel a bit shit. And puts us off organising shows…

Where’s the Smell in this country?

So I guess the UK is an environment where those real indie-rock acts that will publish the 7” I want to buy find it very hard to thrive. Which is sad when one thinks of past scenes started here (post-punk, C-86) whose awesomely groundbreaking output was captured to live forever (or until the desperate mainstream record industry develops cybernetic DRM roaches that devour vinyl and shit gold) in that lovely format. What happened?

Anyhow, what all this means is I have to get my 7” fix from the US instead. From bands like these.

That ‘every act that has no heart will be found out at the end’ is an statement we agree with in this blog, we love music made with passion with a passion. Faked smiles won’t get you anywhere in these parts.

Abe Vigoda- World Heart

So if the previous is true, then what happens to acts who don’t just have a heart, but a World Heart? I dunno, I guess their music, upon being created and played, helps reanimate those Ghibli-style colourful fairy folks of the forests whose life-power was drained away by contamination and industrialisation, a colourful festival full of joyful situations ensues as they parade through campings and bungalows across the land, the green-hued pool of goodness to which all acts of kindness contribute overflows as Abe Vigoda’s rambunctious polirrhythmical mini-symphonies stumble and crash in every direction, think El Guincho and a bunch of Unicorns charging onward to bring down the grey damp walls of reality like an EMP-bomb of positive energy going BLAMM whenever you press play in the turntable, find ‘World Heart’ in their 7” split with Mikaela’s Fiend, and love it.

Jay Reatard is a power-pop-punk savant who never fails to tie our innards into a bleeding knot with the intoxicating energy of his amphetaminic power ballads, then pulls the laces tight with fuzzy chops and relentless rhythm, out comes the heart still pumping through rupturing grimacing smiling mouths, haemoglobin & saliva splatter all over the emotional charnel-house, filling a bucket inside which the brush dips frantic, to then scribble cryptic graffitti in 7” discs such as See/Saw, underground transmissions of thee secret fucked up teen super hero legion HQ, we forget about broken hearts and start worrying about broken rib-cages through which intestines spill like the petals of an ugly and colourful flower, and in the midst of a chaotic cloud of noise, spazz in, love out.

Jay Reatard- Screaming Hand

Finally Punk crash and stomp in the midst of a fiery whirlwind you can’t learn to summon, you either have it or not, 20 boy indie rock bands can practise in their basements, then go out and get wasted, party til the cows come back home or play it wacky and start saying they are wizards or some such shit and at its shining best their music won’t be but a feeble drop of ‘energy’ and ‘fun’ in the vast ocean of goodness that Mika Miko are, same goes for gloriously loose Finally Punk, whose Primary Colors 7” doesn’t make us wanna boogie, it makes us boogie, an affront to all that is balanced and righteous, but ridiculously fun too, you know, WTF, missile!

Finally Punk- Boyfriend Application

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*Actually it was this O.I.B. split. Kudos to them, to Yeborobo, to Upset the Rhythm (Hands on Heads!), Shimmy Rivers and and Canal, Gay vs You, Gentle Friendly, Munch Munch, Buttonhead and the other good ‘uns, you know who you are. And someone sign Medicine and Duty please.

For example Chicagoan outfit Loto Ball Show, about whom we wouldn’t have found out perhaps in a long time if it hadn’t be for a fortunate coincidence on the myspace place, another object of constant derision which has nevertheless been a steady source of goodness.

Loto Ball Show look and sound business, they are the sort of band you would expect to see playing in some dingey and damp basement cellar where people dress in black jack it old school style, you know, get sweaty and dance the mess away, that is the way to go. They make a dark, muscular and intense hick garage blues racket with the relentless gusto of The Bad Seeds fucking Deanna, sharpened by the non-cliched post punk apocalyptic edge one finds in Public Image Ltd. (also exemplified in early-day Liars), sexy horns add an extra bit of epic omph to their clanging and banging onslaught, the outcome sounds awesomely instantaneous in the same excellent way as, for example, the Black Lips or In The Red days Deadly Snakes, now kids, that is a rare thing.

Loto Ball Show- Dead Kiss

This is from their ‘I Can Be Your Eyes’ EP, out in Reversible Records.

We have loved Abe Vigoda for a long time, we first heard them in a wild split with Hot Girls Cool Guys, and then saw them trashing LA in the fantastic 40 bands 80 minutes DVD, since then they have continued changing and evolving from their initial greatness to absolute incandescence, in the way becoming one of the two or three ‘indie’ (see above) bands out there who seriously kill it on every side, as DJ Rick has dutifully documented, we grabbed a copy of their Animal Ghosts 7” at a No Age show (also fucking out there, napper) and this is what we found in it,

Abe Vigoda- Animal Ghosts

Which is, together with El Guincho’s stuff, one of the sweetest things to blow us away for a while, listening to this music makes us happy because we realise that it is not that we are eternal pop-hating obscurity loving geeks, but that good pop stuff is fucking hard to make, and hence to come across, Abe Vigoda have struck gold here most undoubtedly, Animal Ghosts pounces simultaneously joyous, jangly and powerful like Unicorns trapped inside a Liquid Liquid loop, or Animal Collective doing the post-punk splits with Q and not U, it sounds like it was recorded by people jumping up and down and smiling which is coherent with its contagious impact on our winter-afflicted spirit, this tune shines rays of Californian sun on us withered nerds and that’s all we could ask for, thank you Abe Vigoda.

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Post title taken from a song by the mighty Hands on Heads

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Talking about California, if you are in San Francisco on Thursday, go to this: