Landlords – “Wheelchair Night”
Tape-Tuesday here at Dollar Bin Rippers!
A few years ago three different people recommended this cassette tape to me in the same week (Rich Ivey of Whatever Brains, Gus Engstrom of Grids, and Adam W of Kattoogra). I liked the art, thought that Arial Bold was a good choice for the font, and ordered it from the band. I never saw this band, never heard anything else about them, and have literally no idea who was in it. I do know, however, that this tape should be put on a pedestal for what every 2009 noise-rock band should sound like.
The first song does the typical feedback-into-song that almost every good record did in the hallowed year I previously mentioned. However how fast the band turned that noise into a song you actually WANTED to listen to is what peeked my interest. It’s noisey punk, or rocking noise, but it’s not quite “noise-rock”. The fact that it slows down instead of speeding up after the first couple minutes was the only thing that I didn’t initially like, but after a few listens you realize that the time change is only a trap to suck you into the second side – Frantic, pulverizing bass, guitar, and drums with a very New-York-vocal-effects thing happening.
To even further capsulize this in a very specific period of New York punk, Ben Greenberg engineered this tape, and you can hear his fingerprints all over this as it’s so easy to compare it to things he worked on around the same period of time: Drunkdriver, Pygymy Shrews, Twin Stumps, ZS, The Men, Satanized, Leather, Pampers, etc. Kris Lapke (of Hospital Productions fame) mastered this, and again you can definitely draw a pretty straight line between some of his past work, and this tape (he also worked on the new un-fuck-with-able Raspberry Bulbs long player).
If anyone knows anything else about this band (like, who was in it?) and wants to let me know, my collector veins are pulsating trying to track down anything else they were involved with.
-RD
The first song does the typical feedback-into-song that almost every good record did in the hallowed year I previously mentioned. However how fast the band turned that noise into a song you actually WANTED to listen to is what peeked my interest. It’s noisey punk, or rocking noise, but it’s not quite “noise-rock”. The fact that it slows down instead of speeding up after the first couple minutes was the only thing that I didn’t initially like, but after a few listens you realize that the time change is only a trap to suck you into the second side – Frantic, pulverizing bass, guitar, and drums with a very New-York-vocal-effects thing happening.
To even further capsulize this in a very specific period of New York punk, Ben Greenberg engineered this tape, and you can hear his fingerprints all over this as it’s so easy to compare it to things he worked on around the same period of time: Drunkdriver, Pygymy Shrews, Twin Stumps, ZS, The Men, Satanized, Leather, Pampers, etc. Kris Lapke (of Hospital Productions fame) mastered this, and again you can definitely draw a pretty straight line between some of his past work, and this tape (he also worked on the new un-fuck-with-able Raspberry Bulbs long player).
If anyone knows anything else about this band (like, who was in it?) and wants to let me know, my collector veins are pulsating trying to track down anything else they were involved with.
-RD
Andrew Kuhl, Pat Lamothe, Tony Vogt, and this other guy I can't remember were in this group. It was founded during most members senior year at SUNY Purchase probably around 2009-10. I'm not sure if they ever put anything else out, maybe a live tape or something. I don't know if anyone in the band has done anything in the same vein since then.. Pat plays in soul and power pop bands (The Shakes and Ruby Buff). Tony makes pedals and does noisy solo stuff. I don't know what Andrew does. They all live in Philly now except that guy I can't remember.
ReplyDeleteWhy aren't they still playing punk?! What a waste!
ReplyDeleteHey, I'm Andrew and I just stumbled upon this somewhat glowing posthumous review. Thanks for the kind words, time and personal constraints caused this band to be unsustainable though we're all still friends, tried to incorporate more noise/industrial/electronic elements but it proved kind of difficult without falling into the tropes of "sampler metal" like Ministry or Godflesh. I played bass on the tape and am currently working on electronic music, Tony played guitar and is also an electronic musician and a pedal builder, Pat was the drummer and plays in some more traditional rock bands as mentioned. The "mystery" member is Jesse and he lives and works in the arts in NYC while the rest of us do, in fact, live in Philadelphia. You can email me anytime if you wanna chat at emptyspace600@gmail.com. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteHey, I'm Andrew and I just stumbled upon this somewhat glowing posthumous review. Thanks for the kind words, time and personal constraints caused this band to be unsustainable though we're all still friends, tried to incorporate more noise/industrial/electronic elements but it proved kind of difficult without falling into the tropes of "sampler metal" like Ministry or Godflesh. I played bass on the tape and am currently working on electronic music, Tony played guitar and is also an electronic musician and a pedal builder, Pat was the drummer and plays in some more traditional rock bands as mentioned. The "mystery" member is Jesse and he lives and works in the arts in NYC while the rest of us do, in fact, live in Philadelphia. You can email me anytime if you wanna chat at emptyspace600@gmail.com. Cheers!
ReplyDelete