Matty’s Punk Roundup

3.31.21 by Matty McPherson

Sometimes when you load up the Tabs Out tape blog webpage, you expect to receive a recommendation for the latest in sonic experimentation and cryptic otherworldly goodness. This is decidedly NOT that. In fact, today I’ve got three punk-adjacent tapes from across America. All of these have been driving me crazy over the last several months, and I gotta get them out of my system and perhaps pass them onto you, dear reader. 

Sad Eyed Beatniks – Places of Interest

Paisley Shirt Records continues to carve out one of the most under appreciated niches in Bandcamp tapery. Their roster is stacked with honest-to-god California guitar pop gurus, cranking out melodic chords that channel perfect fresh grass smell from lawn mowers. Sad Eyed Beatniks’ latest, Places of Interest, is a shambolic pop nugget perfectly suited for a long spring day. Unvarnished and free-spirit, it channels a “Mekons type drum beat” alongside a collection of tape noise, voice memos, and odd call-outs for the ultimate third gen bootleg of the “Dunedin sound.” Tapes come with a map of San Francisco that detail lyrics and their reference point call outs!

Low Pass Killer – Crust Funk

The continuing adventures of Anthony Pandolfino’s science-funkified Low Pass Killer project led over to Spider Baby last fall, with a double A-sided C-30 pushing heavy into the red. Maximum crunch! Against all odds though, this crunch imparts a crispy, furious percussive blast across a litany of 70’s no-fi library instrumentals and gnarly hard-rock fuzz riffs. The Final Come Up” and “Dancefloor Crowd Scatterer” are amongst the perfect synthesis of these three together, with the crunch practically disintegrating and breaking apart as synth keys reach for the skies.

Now, don’t think that it’s all noise and games; Low Pass Killer is actually quite the king when it comes to making music for the bachelor pad, with a series of quick bops like “Halfway Home” and “Here a Wroagh There a Worh Everywhere A Wogahrohh” that dazzle with their synthpop atmospherics and wobbly EQ’ing. Needless to say, it has constantly slinked in and out of tape decks at the residence here!

Big Clown – Big Mad

The Memphis, TN quartet known as Big Clown used 2020 to stretch their CV with a rollicking Gonerfest 17 performance, in addition to pushing out two 20 tape runs of Big Mad. Coming in at an impressive 9 minutes and 36 seconds, Big Mad is a high octane, buckshot blast of inspiration that you find at the tail end of a fifth 5hr energy. Big Clown spokeswoman/kazoo-gal Lucy is a propulsive lyricist, wailing out simple demands like “gimme twenty bucks; i don’t give a fuck” and “I wanna eat my burger salad” against a laundry list of dipshits and yokels. Aided by Stephen (guitar), Jesse (guitar/echoplex), and the one-man rhythm section Zach (drums), Big Mad always teeters on the edge of collapse until it goes kablammo!

Perhaps their greatest nugget though is the recontextualization of Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap into “DDDDC.” With a meaty guitar riffs and Zach’s tenderized rhythm section, the track becomes a sort of rallying cry/wrestling anthem in its 55 blistering seconds of life. An automatic dive bar classic. Kudos to the band for a superb tape dub; never a moment that pushes into the red (talk about that live to 8-track mix!!), with the TABS LEFT IN, so you can dub more nonsense! 

Best grab this bad boy before it disappears into the wild.

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