Showing posts with label The Deep Freeze Mice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Deep Freeze Mice. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 2, 2022

The 1981 Listening Post - The Deep Freeze Mice - Teenage Head in My Refrigerator

The Deep Freeze Mice - Teenage Head in My Refrigerator 



1981 Housekeeping

The Deep Freeze Mice

Teenage Head in My Refrigerator

Genre: New Wave

2.75 out of 5




Highlight:

Teenage Head in My Refrigerator




Is the title a play on the band Teenage Head? Did they put their Teenage Head album in the refrigerator? Are they getting head from a teen whilst resting in a refrigerator? Is there a severed head of a teenager in their refrigerator. 

I need answers.


The Deep Freeze Mice was a project that lasted about 10 years. One of the members, Mike Bunnage, would go on to become a successful cartoonist and magazine editor. I don’t know what happened to the others. I like to imagine that at least one of them spent the remaining years woking in a cubicle selling toner. But that’s only because I recall that a member of The Alarm ended up working in some cubicle thanks to Bands Reunited. 

Man I miss THAT show. They never got around to Deep Freeze Mice cuz, why the fuck would they?


This stuff is all mostly retro-paisley garage psychedelia that reflects the ramblings of the song writers. It’s not meant to be popular. I don’t think the intent was to sell records. And that puts me in the conundrum of thinking about music as commerce vs music as art. 

As my mother used to say about Rothko’s “White on White”: “Anyone wanna buy a canvas??”


This is more inventive than a blank canvas. But there’s little to hold on to. I do find myself simultaneously loving and loathing Sherree Lawrence’s incessant organ playing on “My Geraniums are Bulletproof”. And the singer sounds like he’s about to throw up roughly 75% of the time. If Bob Geldof had a constant stomach virus he would sound like Alan Jenkins. 

Its as though they all drew straws on who would sing cuz they were all awful and Alan drew the short one. 


It’s at the end that we learn that the singer is a murdering Dr. Frankenstein and his victim is a head of a teenager that he keeps in the fridge. He’s sexually frustrated. He’s probably an Incel. He’s the very thing every father of a daughter lives in fear of. 


So, extra point for that track, which plays out like a leftover tune from Rocky Horror. 


Missed?: Nah. 



https://music.apple.com/us/album/teenage-head-in-my-refrigerator/263005148





Monday, June 3, 2019

The 1985 Listening Post - The Deep Freeze Mice - Hang on Constance, Let Me Hear the News

The Deep Freeze Mice - Hang on Constance, Let Me Hear the News


#192
1985 Housekeeping
The Deep Freeze Mice
Hang on Constance, Let Me Hear the News
Genre: Alternative
4.5 out of 5


Highlights:
Number 5
Is it Safe?
Neuron Music
What More Can I Do?



(This is based on the LP release as defined by Discogs)

This sounds very little like that lo-fi mess of a recording we heard last year.
The 60s tv theme super spy of “Number Five” was jarring. I wasn’t expecting it. It’s excellent and so much better produced. 
This is zany. Like the last one, I can’t liken it to anything. It’s its own thing. Psychedelic but with audio samples. Is that backward masking? 
This is the musical equivalent of dropping acid. 
If you recall a band from the early 00s called MGMT, they were very influenced by The Deep Freeze Mice, apparently (as well as Cleaners from Venus). I’ve included a link to an interview with them below. 
There are so many influences here that I can’t name them. I just love them. 






Friday, February 8, 2019

The 1984 Listening Post - The Deep Freeze Mice - I Love You Little Bobo with Your Delicate Golden Lions

The Deep Freeze Mice - I Love You Little Bobo with Your Delicate Golden Lions


#136
1984 Housekeeping
The Deep Freeze Mice
I Love You Little Bo Bo w/Your Delicate Golden Lions 
3 out of 5

Highlights:
Polanski’s Dog
Whose Afraid of Humans?
All Through the Summer

I have no point of reference for this band. They defy description. Well, except that they named this album after a line in an Allen Ginsburg poem, The Lion for Real. They seem to be a local rock/new wave/post-punk band with an indeterminate genre. Some of it is just acoustic noodling. Other parts are actual songs. I have no other way to describe it. 
This is a double album. Side One is the aforementioned collection of…songs…or noise…or semi-instrumental compositions. It’s weird. 
Side Two is the 25 minute “Untitled” which is just a free form…jazz? No, that can’t be right…improvisation? Not really. It sounds like a high school jazz ensemble…warming up. And every so often a child comes in, picks up and instrument and starts blowing in it, pr banging on it…it’s formless but, hey, why not, right? If you play this, there’s a very good chance that whoever is in your house will ask you if there is a band getting ready to play in the next room. 
Then there’s some new wave beat suite…about 14 minutes worth, which turns into New Wave Odyssey while exhausting itself.
There’s (to me) delightful chaos in the battle between coherence and chaos on a bunch of tracks, most notably, “Thunderbirds”. I don’t know if I can recommend this album, but I admire it’s existence.