Record Reviews 9/15/08

Kim Phuc - Wormwood Star b/w Freak Out the Squares 7" - Criminal IQ Records

It was a rainy Friday afternoon and I was meeting up with my pal and gang leader of Criminal IQ Records, Darius Hurley, in a very straight laced part of town. The only things remotely interesting near by was a record store where I picked up some fairly odd releases, a punk rock hair salon, where I was once stabbed in the back of the head with a pair of scissors and a really good sandwich shop called Costello's.
We were meeting up to exchange some goods and the conversation went like this:

Darius: "Hey Chris, have you ever heard Kim Phuc?"
Me: "Who's Kim and why would I have heard her fuck?"

Then my favorite Brit handed me a 7" that he just released for the Pittsburgh Pa. band, Kim Phuc. He told me that he thought I'd like it and described it as "death rock," sort of like the Swans. Being a fan of death rock as well as the Swans, I was looking forward to hearing it. It was an added bonus that he released it, because I'm a fan of Criminal IQ and just about all of their bands. When a label consistently puts out records that seem to live on my turn table, I'm more than willing to blindly check out artists I've never heard of.
All I knew about the name Kim Phuc, beyond a failed attempt at being a smart ass in the previously mentioned conversation was the famous photo from the Viet Nam war. Kim Phuc was the naked burning 9 year old running from her napalmed village.
When I got home, I almost immediately dropped the needle on this 7", starting with the B-side, Freak Out the Squares. What struck me first was the fact that this band had a great deal of dissonance, much like Sonic Youth, or early Brainiac (minus the moog), but they did indeed rock heavy like the Swans. The vocalist came out of the gates not unlike the front man of any number of early SST bands. They lyrics to the song were that of a more intelligent GG Allin, with lines about flying to California and fucking on Reagan's grave, wiping his ass with the American flag and various other crude lyrics that cracked me up. It's an amazing track all around. I listened to the b-side three more times before flipping the record.
The a-side, Wormwood Star, again reminds me of mid 90's Sonic Youth with a snotty LA hardcore singer fronting the band. Not quite as amazing as the b-side, but still a fantastic track. I hope for a full length at some point, as I think it would have potential and could be seen as a psych-punk/death rock classic.
Kim Phuc
Criminal IQ



Sass Dragons - Bonkaroo! - Johann's Face Records
Remember in high school, those dudes everyone said was on drugs and had drinking problems and there were always rumors about them being high in school? They didn't hang out with the smug pretty-boy punk rockers with the fancy hair cuts, but instead they wore long coats and had dirty, stringy hair and commonly smelled of stale beer and cigarettes? That's who these guys are.
These guys are straight up party-punk and are surprisingly excellent musicians, despite the fact that their songs are pretty much about drinking doing drugs. This is a really tight, well executed record, full of pop-punk hooks, thrash parts and screamy, yelly vocals that make you think of twenty or thirty shirtless dudes in a basement screaming along while spilling Old Style tall boys on one another.
This band is pretty much everything that Plan It X records band, the Bananas wish they could be. Where Plan It X bands are usually hippies, these dudes are the polar opposite. They're crazy dirt bag punks playing the kind of music you'd expect them to play. Why these guys aren't best friends with Chicago's Catburglars is completely beyond me.
Sass Dragons
Johann's Face Records