Reviews - 5/5/10

Blotto, Conniption Fitts, Sass Dragons and Prohibition - "Come and Take It" 4-Way Split 7" - Blotto opens things up with "Annie".  Growly vocals over a simple, almost country-ish tune.

 Conniption Fitts take the honors of best song on this 4-way delight.  "I Can't Buy This" finds them a little meaner and a little tighter sounding than usual.  Not that they're wimpy and sloppy on other efforts, but this track is a prize, dear friends.

The Sass Dragons offer up another catchy ditty pleasantly entitled "Young Professionals Can Suck My Fucking Dick".  Good tune and quite juvenile.  Even for the Sass Dragons.

Prohibition wraps things up with "Is Decency Retro Yet?" which at first seems a little heavy on the "whoa, whoooa, whoa" quota, but eventually wins you over with it's punk-spunkiness.

Is it backhanded compliment day at this blog?  Must be.  Anyway, good little record available at Let's Pretend Records (http://www.letspretendrecords.com/).

the Mushuganas - "Lows in the Mid 90's"...almost here.

After years of legitimate setbacks, procrastinating and...well that's about it, Beercan Records is very proud to announce that the Mushuganas retrospective "Lows in the Mid 90's" is just about ready for release to the general public. We're expecting the CD's in our hands by the end of this month. Yes, this month. April. Yes, 2010. Why don't you believe us?

Anyway, the stars seem to have further aligned and it just so happens that the Mushuganas will be playing a show on Saturday, May 29th at Subterranean (2011 North Ave.) here in Chicago as part of the Windy City Sound Clash. Jeff, the WCSC mang in charge, has found it in his heart to co-bill this already momentous eventous as a CD release show for "Lows in the Mid 90's" as well.

More details to come very soon so check back here often. In the meantime, you can get lineup info on the Windy City Sound Clash at www.myspace.com/windycitysoundclash and you can get tickets at http://www.subt.net/.

If you can't wait another couple days for these details mentioned in the last paragraph, feel free to drop us a line at beercanrecords@gmail.com you impatient creep.

Reviews - 4/16/10

The Wide Angles - Wide Angles 7 Inch - Rock solid, and dare we say anthemic, punk rock from out Elgin-way. That's Illinois to our out-of-state and international readers.
By way of references, think the Arrivals or maybe the Bomb. Workmanlike but very talented daddy-o. These here Wide Angles are the band that are on the bill opening for the band that you planned your evening around. But maybe before you go to bed, maybe the next morning, maybe the next week, you say to yourself, "you know what, I think that Wide Angles band was the best band I saw that night."
Here's to the next time you see them. We like underdogs.
And you can also pick this one up at both http://www.letspretendrecords.com/ or http://www.nobreaksrecords.com/. We also like split label releases.

Tweak Bird/It Burns - Tweak Bird/It Burns Split 7 Inch - First things first, great artwork on the sleeve of this fucker. On to the music...
Our prodigal sons, It Burns (www.myspace.com/itburnsrockmusic), offer up two ditties of palpable hatred and frustration. But as always with these guys, it sounds like a great time. The title of track 2 pretty much answers the question of what is the rudest possible question you could ever ask of someone. From personal experience, a couple of rude ones are, "when are you expecting?" (she wasn't pregnant) and "why do wear so much make-up? (she didn't think she did). But those were honest or, at least, good-intentioned mistakes. It Burns just straight-up asks some fucker, "Why Can't You Be Dead?" And the music matches the gist of the question. Does it ever.
2 more destroyers from It Burns that you need. 8 years of unbelievable rock and roll by our count. Do yourself a favor.
Ironically, the first lyric from the Tweak Bird (http://www.tweakbird.com/) side of this slab proclaims, "Life on Earth is great/Full of surprises". But this isn't necessarily the polar opposite of the It Burns side of the split. There's a pretty heavy psychedelic vibe to the Tweak Bird track like they're on kind of a Hawkwind trip or something like that. Thundering drums, twisting bass-ish lines (is that a bass or no?), some pretty high-pitched vocals, etc. Definitely some cool stuff going on here. We'll keep our eyes open for another release with more than one song, and so should you.
If you beat us to it, let us know.
(Minimal internet searching after the fact now tells us that Tweak Bird has a new album coming out. Don't worry about alerting us anymore...we'll pick it up ourselves.)

Reviews - 4/8/10

We've been very, very backlogged on the reviews lately, and for good reason, but to get the ball rolling again, let's fire up a compare-and-contrast of a couple demos that showed up in the magical PO Box (PO Box 457, LaGrange, IL, 60526) over the last few weeks. In other words, we'll review one longtime favorite of ours and one new lemon-du-jour. Then, after getting through these, we'll move on to the considerable aforementioned backlog even though some of them are probably over a year old at this point.

But first things first, even though they're not technically "first" no more...

Colleen Green - Milo Goes to Compton - So, to start the comparing and contrasting, this 8-song demo starts off with a cover of the Descendents "Good Good Things" and it does a really nice job of dropping the listener into a trance right from the get-go. I was stone-cold sober when I put this disc on and after the first few notes kind of felt like I'd guzzled 3 beers really fast and was sitting on a beach or something. And yes, I realize that that last sentence sounds like I'm favorably comparing Ms. Green's cover to a Best of Jimmy Buffett album, but I'm not. Let's just say that track 1 sounds nothing like the Descendents, nothing like Jimmy Buffett, but is nice and ethereal.
The next 7 songs are all put together with the help of a drum machine which, as discussed at least a couple of times at other points in our meandering reviews, is OK with Beercan brass so long as we get the impression that the drum machine is just being used as a medium to get some songs committed to tape in lieu of taking the time to get a full band together and running the risk of never getting the songs committed to tape. And that's the impression we got here but really, for all we know, Colleen Green could be crazy for drum machines and think them to be superior to real live drummers in all aspects. We would disagree, but the point is, it works for this batch of songs.
For avid readers of the Beercan reviews (probably an oxymoron) you may recognize the vocals to be one and the same from previous pleasant-surprise picks that appeared in the Beercan PO Box, Fenwick and the Have-Mercy's. While the speed and volume has been toned down from the aforementioned bands, Colleen's voice is still mondo-cool and controlled, while emotive and punch-packing. No idea how she's performing this stuff live as far as a backing band (if she uses one at all), but at this point it doesn't really matter. Whether tunes like "I Wanna Be Degraded" or "(I Want A) Nice Boy" ever get a full rave-up, live band treatment or if they remain just-this-side-of-tranquil slow-burners, there is no denying that the Green one knows what she's doing and we approve.
In fact if you disagree and find yourself at a show in the front row, she'll probably call you a bitch or a dirty-ass ho.
Sorry, but there was literally no chance that I'd get through a review of a CD called "Milo Goes to Compton" without making some dumb N.W.A. reference. No chance. (www.myspace.com/c0lleen1)

Matchstickmen - Demo - (www.matchstickmenuk.com)

Won't You Please Help?

The Mushuganas discography, "Lows in the Mid-90's", is going to the pressing plant in a few days. To scrape together an extra few bucks to offset costs, we're putting a bunch of old vinyl up on Ebay. Most of it is of the punk rock variety, but if you're reading this, that's probably something you may have already deduced. Anyway, you may be interested in picking up some of these 7-inches and albums for cheap.

Here's the link to the full listing and keep checking back over the next few days as we'll continue to add stuff.

(http://shop.ebay.com/ohals73/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p4340)

Here's what's up for auction as of Sunday, January 31st.

Full-Lenghths
-the Dickies - Live In London
-Gang Green - Older...Budweiser
-Gaunt - I Can See Your Mom From Here
-the Gories - I Know You Fine, But How You Doin'?
-Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers - Jonathan Sings!
-No Empathy - The Same Mistakes Endlessly Repeated
-the Queers - Love Songs for the Retarded
-7 Seconds - the Crew
-Violent Femmes - Hallowed Ground

10-Inch
-Electric Frankenstein - Sick Songs
-the Jewws - Heartbreaker

7-Inch
-Aliens & Strangers - Go-Go-Goes Dragstrip
-the Campus Tramps - Stick Around
-Clone Defects - Lizard Boy
-Electric Frankenstein - An Evening with Electric Frankenstein
-Electric Frankenstein - Up From the Streets
-Estrus 1995 Nationals - Drags, Impala, Insomniacs, Mono Men, Lord High Fixers
-Gotohells - If I Could Make a Girl
-the Hectics - Come Booze Down With...
-Jack o' Fire - OK Class...Let's Review
-Jodie Foster's Army - My Movie
-Jon Cougar Concentration Camp - Victoria's Secret Sauce
-Lonestar Showdown - Motards, Reclusives, Wormdirt, Cryin' Out Louds
-the Makers - Shout On!
-the Makers/Magnitude 3 - Split 7 Inch
-Mooney Suzuki - Taking Me Apart
-the Motards/Cryin' Out Louds - Split 7 Inch
-the Motards/Fuckemos - Split 7 Inch
-Murphy's Law/Aggressive Dogs - Split 7 Inch
-Mushuganas/Chemicial Blue - Split 7 Inch
-New Bomb Turks - Sexual Dreaming/My Hopes Are Copacetic
-New Bomb Turks/Entombed - Split 7 Inch
-Pagans Tribute - What's This Shit Called Punk - New Bomb Turks, Aggravators, Quazi Modo, Slak, Solid State Ignition
-the Reatards - Get Real Stupid
-the Registrators - Monkey/Stupid Girls
-the Spits - 19 Million AC EP
-the Stranger - Prison Called Life
-the Supersuckers - Can Pipe/Play Some Rock 'n' Roll
-Teengenerate/Bum - Split Double 7 Inch
-Teengenerate - Car-Crazy! Speed-Crazy! Japaneze!!

If you win any of the auctions after reading about it here, shoot us an email at beercanrecords@gmail.com or through Ebay, let us know and we'll drop an extra musical treat in with your record.

Reviews - 1/27/10

King Mastino - 4-Song Demo - Well, these folks contacted us via the MySpace account asking for our worldly and sophisticated opinion on their music. As points of reference, King Mastino let us know that they draw from the proverbial wells of the Hellacopters and the Stooges. And you know what? I can hear the Hellacopters comparison in here in that there are some decent hooks and well-timed parts in the each of the 4 songs where most of the band drops out and then piles back in for some punchy effect.

However, this is one of the cleanest sounding recordings I ever done heard. Very professional sounding but, for better or for worse, that is off-putting to us here at Beercan Records. Maybe "professional" is the wrong adjective...perhaps "polished" or "controlled". Not to hammer the Hellacopters comparison too much (because, to be fair, King Mastino never said they were trying to sound exactly like the Hellacopters) but the beauty of the Hellacopters was all the fuzz and the feedback and the fact that it sounds like your stereo is about to explode when listening to their shit at appropriate volumes.

So, decent tunes but a little too spotless for our tastes. Oh, and they sound nothing like the Stooges. Don't know where they're getting that. (www.myspace.com/kingmastino)

Big Show on 12/26 in Elgin, IL

A couple of months back, our pal Chris Musatto got in a pretty bad car wreck and while he is fighting hard and on the road to recovery, it looks like he's going to have a few bills to deal with when he gets home.

In order to help, Chris' pal and fellow Repulsator, Jeff Zimmerman, is putting on a big show on December 26th at the Gasthaus in Elgin (15 N. Grove Avenue). If you can't make the show but would like to contribute a couple bucks to help Chris with those bills, go to http://www.chrismusatto.com/ and look for the Paypal "Donate" button at the bottom of the page.

Show starts at 3p.m. and here's the top-notch lineup:

The Bungdoons

Vacation Bible School

Oil Can Boys

Chronic Seizure

Canadian Rifle

Love Mound

Groovy Love Vibes

The Mashers

The Repulsators

Biscayne

The Phenoms

That's a whole mess of new, current and old punk rock goodness for you to enjoy AND do something good for a fellow human being. So be there fuckface.