Album Review: Thunders ‘Beautiful Baby in the Bummer of Love’
Since its humble beginnings in the early 1960s, “garage rock” has progressed through a series of adjustments. Styles have evolved over the years, but there has remained one constant, the guitar. In 1964, South Bend band The Rivieras took their early garage rock beginnings to the mainstream with their smash hit “California Sun”. They used a joyful organ to keep rhythm and thundering bass to measure time. The key to note is that they leaned on a memorable guitar lick to bring it all together.
Bands like The Animals used the influence of the British invasion to progress garage rock, by adding a blues influence to the guitar in songs like “We Got to Get Out of this Place.” The Stooges helped to introduce garage rock to the ever so important hidden ingredient of distortion during the influential punk era. During the 1980s and 90s, contributions to the growth of the garage rock scene proved spotty. However, the turn of the century brought the familiar sound back to the forefront. Bands like The White Stripes and The Strokes gained notoriety by pulling from all eras of the garage rock evolution while making their guitar sound their own. As a loyal follower of the scene, I keep my ear to the asphalt to find bands that sound like they pull from the classics. This one comes in the form of a referral and can be found in a garage nearly next door.
Thunders is a loud, grungy, present day garage rock contributor that appears on a mission to blow out my speakers with each successive spin. Lead singer, Ryan Reidy, is an Indiana product that has spent time building influence in the Indianapolis and Muncie scenes. Reidy now calls Chicago home, fronting this project with Hotfox members Michael Preuschl and Duncan Kissinger. The band released their long-awaited full-length debut, Beautiful Baby in the Bummer of Love last week. This release came nearly four years after gaining local interest with their 2008 EP Sympathetic Oscillations. The electric guitar shines throughout this debut release.
EP carry over “MagicSick” opens up the record with a moan and ever so important squealing guitar, offering listeners a brash beginning. This track adopts the type of punk attitude that would make Iggy Pop proud. Reidy screams, “We’ve got love that is deep in our hearts” several times during the chorus and uses a ripping guitar over his vocals to add a timely build as the song closes. This song provides an attention-grabbing introduction for listeners looking to find early value.
Title track, “Beautiful Baby in the Bummer of Love” stands on its own legs and is the centerpiece of this record. If you are the type of listener that needs an ear full of distortion to sleep better at night then this one is for you. Cymbals crash throughout the song while guitar licks, heavy on the effects pedal, disrupts the song…for the better. The listener will find little flare in this song or most of the others on this record like most garage bands offer. Thunders uses songs like this to be confrontational. It is this chew you up and then spit you out mentality that is able to demand my interest as the record progresses.
Just when I thought I had Thunders completely figured out, they throw a curve ball to close out the 9th. Reidy exists through the back door and escapes the sound in final track “Freedom Throat Blues”. A stripped down acoustic closer displays an unexpected vulnerable side of Thunders. Ending this heavy record in such a gentle manner helps to maintain an initial level of honestly with listeners, while keeping us on our toes. The guitar always seems to be the focal point of garage rock, even when it leans acoustically by itself.
Reidy has established himself as a captivating front man on this release. Add Preuschl and Kissinger to the mix and now there is a solid base to keep a direct garage rock contributor alive in the Midwest. It is encouraging to see local extensions of classic records that have kept garage rock alive for the last 50 years. Beautiful Baby in the Bummer of Love is another release that locals can be proud to rep, and a record that promotes the art of making a loud guitar the star of the show.
Connect with Thunders via Facebook | Bandcamp
Written by Brett McGrath
EP Review: DMA ‘The Boardwalk’
The first time I saw David “Moose” Adamson perform under his new moniker DMA was at a release party for his Drem Beb cassette at Earth House last summer. I remember feeling pissed off. The mix was rough, the vocals inaudible and the beats were not developed – at least for a live setting. DMA came off as pretentious. The performance felt like a big “fuck you” to everyone in attendance. As if he was saying, “This is what I’m up to now, and I don’t give a shit whether you like it.”
Neither then nor now, would I qualify as an expert on electronic music, by any stretch of the imagination. However, I have seen and heard enough to know that this was an artist still figuring out his sound.
Earlier that year, I stood in the same location and watched DMA and his former band JOOKABOX tear the roof off of Earth House during their farewell show. It was a bittersweet party. The feeling was something like watching an athlete retire in their prime. Though JOOKABOX’s members likely had legitimate and worthwhile reasons to part ways, that performance left anyone within earshot certain that they could still rock a room with the best of Indy’s musicians.
Fast forward to last week, when DMA dropped his sophomore solo release The Boardwalk. The six-track EP finds Adamson still tinkering with the same experimental electronic medium – a genre he has dubbed “crust funk.” However, this time around the material is less abrasive. The vocals, though sparse, resonate as more stream of consciousness than lyrical, but they are coherent and interesting. The title track builds on a beat that appears inspired by the consistent beep of an electrocardiogram, with vocals entering two-thirds of the way through.
“I’m standing in the Holy Spirit parking lot, next to Amy’s old blue car which I have borrowed from her. A black woman comes up to me and tells me I need to have the battery(?) replaced. She is a car psychic. I say okay, but give some reason not to do it right now. I have somehow come to this parking lot after leaving a confusing vacation resort with clear blue pools of water and nice families that are afraid of me. When I came at the resort, people were gathering to rage. But I was cruising through the darkened areas of The Boardwalk.”
This is not a release I would pass off to any lighthearted listener. The Boardwalk is built for adventurous ears with an appetite for experimentation. Nevertheless, the production has improved and the sound is more accessible. I am particularly taken with the closing track “It’s Funny.” Here, the melody is built around looping vocals of “Oohs”, a lighthearted whistle and a sporadic bass drum. The track fades out, sending the listener off in the same dreamlike state that the release maintains throughout. The Boardwalk is a definite mind fuck, but an enjoyable one. Now I want to see if DMA can pull it off live. Listen to the title track below.
Connect with DMA via Facebook | Bandcamp
Written by Rob Peoni
Album Review: Ka ‘Grief Pedigree’
Ka’s Grief Pedigree is an album that seemingly came out of nowhere. A survivor of New York’s mid 90’s underground hip hop scene as a member of the group Natural Elements, Ka released his solo debut Iron Works in 2008 to little fanfare. While Iron Works flashed glimpses of Ka’s meticulous wordplay and impressive storytelling, the production faltered and the album lacked direction. Fast forward to September of 2011 when Ka dropped the first single from Grief Pedigree “Cold Facts” via a self-made YouTube video. The song’s minimalistic beat and black and white visual contrasted perfectly with Ka’s intricate, vibrant wordplay “I own the night / The heat’s my receipt” to create a hypnotizing track. The video was an overnight sensation and exponentially expanded Ka’s small fan base. Ka capitalized on the buzz by producing more videos in the coming months, including the astounding “Collage”, to preview the album’s February release. A microcosm of the album, “Collage” is the best display of Ka’s amazing rhythmic flow and is my favorite of his creative videos.
With each video that he released, it became clearer and clearer that Grief Pedigree would be an outstanding album. Ka realized his calm, cadence-driven flow had advantages and disadvantages. Instead of making a raw New York hip hop album in the traditional sense, Ka opted for minimalistic, almost anti boom-bap production. Following in the footsteps of his frequent collaborator Roc Marciano, who self-produced his own album Marcberg in 2010, Ka made all the beats on Grief Pedigree himself. The sample based beats are still 100% hip hop, Ka just isolated the elements that fit his sound the best instead of sticking to a classic template. It almost sounds at times as if he crafted the beats around his layered verses and choruses instead of the other way around. The sparse beats allow Ka to use his voice as another instrument, filling out his skeletal soundscapes.
Grief Pedigree’s poetic verses work well on paper because of the way Ka plays with words’ double meanings “ride with pride, like the last lion”, “eatin’ in the city till the apple is a core”, but in rap form over the right beats, his art really comes to life. Roc Marciano is also the album’s lone guest on the rugged “Iron Age”, returning the favor for Ka’s feature on Marcberg. Ka’s driving beat provides the perfect canvas for Roc and Ka’s visual, survivalist verses. Marciano goes off on the track, showing why he’s widely considered one of the best rappers in the game. Through repeated listens “Iron Age” has become my favorite song on Grief Pedigree and serves as an appetizing sample of their upcoming collaborative album Metal Clergy.
Grief Pedigree is a quick listen at under forty minutes, but not a second is wasted. Every track is filled with quotables and its hypnotic rhythms make it make it an addicting front to back listen. Survival is a constant theme and Ka’s reflective, confessional raps make it clear that growing up in Brownsville, NY was no picnic. He never glorifies hustling, instead painting it as a way of life, and a dangerous one at that. On “Summer” the chorus “Is this gon’ be the summer they come for me?” describes the paranoia that the street hustler constantly faces. Threats can come from anywhere, whether it’s the police or rival gangs/dealers and Ka takes you into the psyche of a hustler on the edge. His movie-like verses are reminiscent of Illmatic era Nas. “8 blastin goons, late afternoon form roadblock/ Started clappin, my little man was unwrappin’ his blow pop/ Shot in the face, never got to taste the sour apple/ Strays from the treys put him down like a power tackle”.
Sandwiched between “Summer” and “Collage” in the heart of the album, “Decisions” takes a look at the street lifestyle from a different perspective. Almost a warning call to younger generations, Ka’s either/or song structure illustrates how one small decision can destroy someone’s life, even at a young age. A simple line like “Honor my moms or who I’m thuggin with” takes on real meaning in the context of the song and forces the listener to consider perspectives outside of their own. While the sentiments expressed and the subject matter aren’t groundbreaking territory for hip hop, Ka’s attention to detail, both in his intricate rhyme schemes and thoughtful production, make Grief Pedigree a true classic that would stand out in any era.
Ka’s resurgent career is another example of how silly the old idea that “rappers should retire at 30” is. One of many 30+ rappers to finally get some attention after years of grinding recently, he’s proving that hip hop is only beginning to evolve and its fans are growing up just like the art itself. Social media and the internet have allowed Grief Pedigree to reach audiences that it never could have before. Ka recently announced that he will be giving up his day job to focus on music. While that has to be a good feeling for him as an artist, it’s be even better news for hip hop in general. Despite a corporate music industry that seemingly has no interest in finding or marketing true musical talent, Ka has found a way to not just survive, but to excel. Check out the seven videos he’s already made for the album and grab your copy of Grief Pedigree for $10.
Connect with Ka via Facebook | Twitter
Written by John Bugbee
Thought on Tracks 