Reviewed by Tom Mott
Released: 1980 The Avant-Gardeners Dig It Genre: New Wave Psych-Punk Rating: 3.3 out of 5 Highlights: Strange Gurl in Clothes Blood Cat Boogie Baby Strong riffs, dentist-drill guitars, and a snide, nasal vocalist. I guessed SF or AZ (DKs, Flipper, Feederz, Residents), but they're from England. What I would never have guessed is that four of these songs originally appeared on a 1977 EP. The beginning of Strange Gurl in Clothes sounds like two different songs playing simultaneously. Those first 30 or 40 seconds set expectations very high and are the best part of the album. Gotta Turn Back has a jokey, loping C&W sound reminiscent of Ween, with gunshots and shattered glass sound effects that pan between the speakers. Blood Cat Boogie Baby goes on for almost nine minutes, with a bouncy ska bass rhythm and clickity-clackety stick work dancing along underneath various odds and ends: bad vocals, ska sax, skronking sax, sound effects, lo-fi mic sounds, quirky keyboard stuff, and noodly MC5-ish solos way back in the mix. The last 5 or 6 minutes of that song--after the vocalist shuts up and just plays--end up an unexpected hypnotic highlight. Their two defining traits are hard-panning competing instruments left and right in the mix, and a terrible "punk" vocalist. He gets points for being an interesting guitarist though. If you've ever wondered what The Thirteenth Floor Elevators would've sounded like if they morphed into a new wave noise band, this seems as good a guess as any. They even cover Roky Erickson's "Two Headed Dog."
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