Nuggets 244 – LoFi

 Nuggets 244 - LoFi

Todays words are rough, grungy, unfinished and unsettling.

This mix combines some bands that are new to me with some of the usual suspects.

That’s Naomi Punk on the cover and there’s four tracks in the mix to savour.

Sez noisey.vice.com

Born out of the DIY grunge/punk scene in Seattle/Olympia Washington, Naomi Punk channels the sound of their punk ancestry through warped and strident guitars, beautifully jarring hooks, and heavy tribal drums. It’s hard to wrap your head around it all, but it’s guaranteed to blast your skull apart.

The trio–comprised of Travis Benjamin Coster, Neil Gregorson, and Nicolas Luempert–are childhood friends who grew up just outside Seattle. Coster is currently living in Seattle, making music and art, and Gregorson and Luempert are studying music/art at Evergreen State College in Olympia. After playing in several independent projects (U, Masters and Johnson, Seahouse) they formed Naomi Punk.

Their first record, The Feeling was released in April 2012 on Vancouver’s Couple Skate Records, and re-released by Brooklyn’s Captured Tracks in October 2012. The Feeling is one of the year’s most original in the punk/DIY/best-new-band-on-the-planet category.

We were fortunate to have Naomi Punk lay down a killer session just before they played a sold out show at Music Hall of Williamsburg with Calvin Love and Mac DeMarco, and then we saw them again at the Savannah Stopover Festival in Savannah and they blew our minds completely apart.

Watch Naomi Punk perform “The Spell” and”Burned Body” off The Feeling as well as a new song, “Television Man,” [below].

The mix starts off with Yo La Tengo from their latest album, Fade. Its good to see them rocking on – 30 years of making music! There’s also tracks from the new Deerhunter album – Monomania – which I am still absorbing.

Is it me or does the P.S. Eliot track sound like the Banana Splits intro? Surely not, Katie Crutchfield and her sister wouldn’t even have been born when the series was playing…

Almost all the tracks are up so those blessed with a web browser that speaks Flash, enjoy.

Nuggets 211 – Punky

Nuggets 211 - Punky Punk never made it to Invercargill. I saw flashes of it on Radio with Pictures (not many kiwi bands although I remember Suburban Reptiles and The Scavengers). There was a more active scene in Auckland although it didn’t get much mainstream press coverage.

Bowie and Mick and Keith were our heroes. At home I listened to Loxene Gold Disk compilations, Split Enz, Mi-Sex, Screaming Meemees, Steeleye Span, Jethro Tull, Genesis, Yes, Brian Eno and later Felt, Hüsker Dü, The Replacements, R.E.M.,Violent Femmes and Wire.

Neil Young was played at parties.

REM came to Christchurch in 1979 as did Violent Femmes and then I was off to the midwest of America – Mountain Dew, Football and Nixon. I was near the Appalachian Mountains so lots of Bluegrass banjo pickin’ and country music. The Bangles were on AM radio and REO Speedwagon and Rush played on the 8 track cassettes in the big Chevy trucks.

By 1982 I was in Dunedin; the Jam, the Dunedin sound and everything Velvet Underground.

So I guess I missed punk. However I have always loved the energy, the excitement, the attitude. Kids making loud music and swearing.

From the 70’s to current date here some bands with punk jizz.

I am a big fan of Bad Banana (aka Katie and Allison Crutchfield from PS Elliott) and their album Crushfield. (Get their demo here or listen unplugged here.). Katie’s new sound is a little more refined.

bad banana

I also like the riot grrrl sound that Akiko Matsuura makes with with Pre and here Comanechi. She drums for The Big Pink. I am not sure how her free punk spirit jells with the boys from the Big Pink…

She said Destroy reminds me of Auckland band Las Tatas who recently did an excellent Iggy Pop cover (here’s the right gig, but the wrong song…)

The Coverband song is from a sold out Vinyl only comp with a most excellent name. Here’s the cover to show what we are missing.

Why Diet When You Can Diet

Jello Biafra come though town the other day, another gig missed.

When I think of the Ramones now, I think of the scene from the recent Undertones doco when they explain the wonder of listening to the Ramones for the first time.

Nuggets 211 – Punky by Paul on Grooveshark

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