CHILD PORNOGRAPHY "She's Got Legs" (Barf Records)

There’s about a million things I could say about Riverside and the group of friends, enemies and losers that comprised the brief but beautiful thriving scuzz-pop scene out there on the edges of civilization. I’ll save most of my feelings, the descriptions of various disasters and ruinous life decisions for VH1’s Behind the Music. But suffice to say, it brought weirdness such as I.E., Whitman and Child Pornography out of the ghetto and into the world. It’s definitely better experienced from afar. That’s why I can bask in its dingy glow from the yuppy village of Claremont and get all gushy with nostalgia. If I was living in it I would have probably figured out some way to move to Kansas or Idaho by now. Anyhow, what I am listening to is really a remarkable record, by far the most solid and noteworthy CP record to date. It’s bright, poppy and optimistic against all realities. I’ve been told that this is supposed to be CP’s “rock ‘n’ roll record,” so there’s a good quantity of thrashing, tinny guitars, but really, more importantly, this record bumps. There’s gut wrenching bass thud all over this thing. I think it has a lot to do with keyboardist Brian Perez's influence on the band. "She's Got Legs" competes hardcore with my Miami Bass records for providing maximum booty shake. The low end exploration has been in CP live shows for a while, but it’s exceeds expectations on record. Maybe I really know too much about the people that made this record – I mean I get all the inside jokes, understand a lot of the vague pronouncements – it’s all close to the heart. Beyond that it definitely has that Riverside-under-my-skin quality that remains common in our little crew. Therefore you get funny songs about friends on drugs, violence and getting the fuck out of town. You even get the Riverside as utopia concept presented in “New Neighborhood,” which calls for a tongue and cheek revolution to preserve the town we love to hate and hate to love. Luckily this record succeeds in two ways, it’s a record for friends who know for example what songs like “Honey Bear” and Pixel Palace Ode” refer to and can make an educated guess about who and what “Cold Fingers” is about, but beyond all this, “She’s Got Legs” is an unbelievably solid pop record that transfixes with hazy heat, dirty thud and the incandescent strangeness that is vocalist/guitarist Erin Allen. This tape is due for a wider release soon, and in any format it rules – and I’m trying to be objective when I say that. It definitely tops my list for records I’ve heard this year and beats out any previous Child P records in fulfilling the mystic vision. Oh, and to the bus stop junkies, heat addled sketch freaks and everyone in the lotto line down at Save-A-Minit, I miss you Riva…sort of. Who am I kidding?


Erin Allen at his studio in San Francisco, CA

P.S. If you live in LA please be sure to attend the benefits being set up for Brian Perez aka Brizzahh from Child Pornography. He needs multiple surgeries for stomach problems and he has to pay for a week long hospital stint he had to endure at the begining of this month. He could really use the cash. The first will be at Pehrspace in Echo Park on Sept 1st.

CHILD PORNOGRAPHY “Huff Some Jesus” (Barf Records)

Weird-ass postal-collab conceptual CP C11 with Erin mainly doing solo stuff on side A and Brizzah captaining the B music. Erin starts his piece of the puzzle off with a very Child P-sounding casio spazz-out, but the 2nd track moves into oscillating noise territory, with beats buried in static and incomprehensible vocals fighting against thick formless mixer haze. Hostile and brief. In direct contrast, Brizzah’s side begins with a playful, bouncy keyboard workout with Erin overdubbing some reverby talk-song. But it’s the second track where CP’s two polarities bond most fully. Brizzah’s casio melody is stripped and hypnotic and the barking vocal calisthenics hop up and down with the rhythm in a satisfying, synchronized way. The most surprising thing about this tape is how much it sounds like Child Pornography, despite the geographic distance and mail-art aspect. Great and weird like all the best Barf. Epic collage fold-out J-card gives ya something to read while you listen. (Allegedly there’s Deep Jew remix of something on side B, but if so, it must last about 5 seconds, cause I didn’t even notice it).

various artists "JK TAPES 1" (JK Tapes)

The new compilation by JK Tapes, their first release actually, is massive and wide in range. The aural variance is overwhelming at first. One might consider this to be best all-star document of what is mainly the west coast underground music since the Not Not Fun Bookworms Eat Tape Worms 2xCS comp. I think the best way to approach this review is to really analyze close up what tracks work really well and which don’t. But for this reason I’m not going to end up talking about any of the bands I thought I would. All the artists I normally enjoy on this release contributed merely really good tracks, in some cases not even that. So thereby we won’t be discussing Yuma Nora, Child Pornography, Rose For Bohdan or even Whitman, though they are all exceedingly dope when taken as a whole.

The really bizarre thing about this record is that the track that I enjoy the most, and actually, find to be something close to transcendent is by a band that in normal everyday practice I hate more than almost any other. I do believe I have been quoted as saying, on multiple occasions, Silver Daggers are the worst band in LA. I cannot stand to be in the same room as their grating angular shit squeal. I find them utterly un-enjoyable, especially live. Now that I’ve been perfectly candid, I must admit with equal aplomb that the best track on this compilation by far, is the one they are responsible for, and that’s despite the track having a horrendous art punk title “World Peace in Mass Decline.” This track latches onto a solid shimmering groove, adds jittery fills then suddenly breaks into a shaky slab of robot ska. The sax is smooth, the guitar is subtle – thank god – and the bass is driving and steady. Rather than feeling like I’m on the torture rack, I feel like I’m in the industrial Caribbean on some kind of confused holiday, but I’m enjoying it because I’m drunk on equally powerful alcohol.

Close runner up and the next track to awaken me from my generally impassive worldview is that by the shamefully underappreciated Jacob Smigel. I guess living in Las Vegas can cause people to have that error in judgment against you. “Snowball in Hell” is all about delivery, which is where Smigel excels. This is a simple song, broken in half by a strange skit; nothing special were it not for Smigel’s wistfully optimistic cadence. He has one of the best voices around.

This great track is followed directly by one of the album’s worst contributions. Yes, it’s recorded well, the playing is good, but everything seems so trite. The Sharp Ease’s grrrl vocals recall verbatim a hundred bands who had their heyday in post Kathleen Hanna America. The problem is Hanna moved on, while this band feels engulfed in a time they aren’t/can’t be a part of.

Though I dislike it, at the very least the above track is recorded well, seems to at have a solid goal in mind. The Futurians, on the other hand, sound the way I imagined Silver Daggers would have, if they met my lowest expectations. There is no purpose to this song. Next time try…just s little! Believe me, producing a product someone can give two shits about is good for both band and listener alike. It makes everyone feel good.

Directly on the heels, of this vacant shit fest, comes another album highlight by Cole Miller. At first I believed this to be a bizarre head fuck by the dude known as Toxic Loincloth, mainly because it begins as a somber pop tune that is suddenly interrupted by what is an entirely different song, which proceeds to play directly over the previous track. The tone couldn’t be more different – driving sax punk superseding droll sad pop, which again returns to the forefront during a lonely wail. But the Casette Gods editor informed me this was not a track by that Cole Miller, but another entirely and that the strange interruption was actually the compiler accidentally opening a Silver Daggers mp3 while dubbing. Though the effect is interesting, I feel bad for Cole Miller whose song is sabotaged by someone else’s music. His song starts well too, a strong voice and it only returns to the forefront after the song’s crescendo is in progress. Do I like it the way it is? Yes. But serio, a dude deserves to have his song heard.

All in all, this tape is quite interesting and the variety and the quality of the flow is consistent, which helps weaker tracks float instead of sinking and there are a lot of really good tracks to be found. I would definitely recommend purchasing this monster because as far as comps go the overall quality is pretty consistent with something for all parties, from noise heads (check out side 4, which is a deep psychedelic slurry with good contributions by Realicide and Haunted Castle) as well as for pop dorks. Songs range from the utterly saccharine (Stomache Aches) to panicked drugged negativity (Gowns – I like it). I wish some of the dubbing had been more careful, but it is well worth its reasonable sticker price ($8) http://www.jktapes.tk/