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Dusted Features
Every Friday, Dusted Magazine publishes a series of music-related lists compiled by our favorite artists. This week, we tap the brain of some young punks playing WFMU Fest this weekend in Brooklyn: Drunkdriver and TV Ghost.
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Listed: Drunkdriver + TV Ghost
Drunkdriver
Drunkdriver sprang to life in late summer 2007, providing an outlet for journeyman drummer Jeremy Villalobos (ex-Wives/Neon King Kong), upstart guitarist Kristy Greene, and tattoo supply shop manager/vocalist Michael Berdan, to levy their disgust with the world. They have architected a polarizing, abrasive sound; a throat punch of hardcore punk, metallic blues riffage, polyrhythmic warfare and excoriating lyrics. Audiences either love or hate them; there is no middle ground. The Brooklyn band has released a full-length (2008’s Born Pregnant, on the Parts Unknown label), singles for Fan Death and Fashionable Idiots, a cassette, and now a new 12” EP in collaboration with sound artist Mattin entitled A List of Profound Insecurities (Badmaster), which leverages their assault with harsh noise bursts. Drunkdriver opens the final night of WFMU Fest at the Music Hall of Williamsburg on Saturday, October 3, with Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Sightings, and Talk Normal.
1. No More - ”Suicide Commando”
Stark, moody minimal synth at its best and possibly my favorite 7” of all time. While both sides of this record are complete gems, the b-side (“In a White Room”) hits me harder than any other example of the genre. I often find myself listening to it on repeat throughout any given day. The delivery of the lyric “Falling trees coming down on me. / Falling trees coming down. / Falling trees try to kill me. / Falling trees try to kill me,” wedged itself in my head years ago and has never really left. (Mike)
2. This Mortal Coil - It’ll End in Tears
An absolutely essential album. The rotating cast of 4AD artists (curated by label founder Ivo Watts-Russell) managed to produce some of the most chilling music I’ve ever heard, albeit through covers or originals. While the b-side is mostly lumbering instrumental bullshit, I defy anyone to challenge the merits of side A. My personal highlight is the cover of Rema Rema’s “fond affections.” Oh, the number of times I’ve found myself drunk and alone listening to that track and feeling pathetic. I’m a fucking cliché… (Mike)
3. Swans - Soundtracks for the Blind
My favorite record from my favorite band. Many will disagree with me, but I feel that Swans’ final studio release was them at their zenith and the logical conclusion to Michael Gira’s ever-developing sound (with that project, anyway. Dramatic, impeccably sequenced, and damn near flawless. “You feed me with gasoline, I’ll burn my name in your head...” (Mike)
4. Laughing Hyenas - Life of Crime
The best thing about this record is how straight-forward rock it is. And how totally crushing it is at the same time. They were a fantastic example of how rock music can still be played like nobody else before or after. (Jeremy)
5. The Mice - For Almost Ever Scooter
Brilliant pop songs from Cleveland that were played with a lot of heart. I listen to this record when I need to be reminded that life can be pretty great sometimes. (Jeremy)
6. Rudimentary Peni - Death Church
This band was my favorite band when I was 16 and is again at 27. In my opinion they are punk at its highest creative form. (Jeremy)
7. Havey Milk - Life…the Best Game in Town
Ugh… I even start to THINK about this record and I get soooo excited… My hair stands on end. My guts hurt…. That thick oozing but at the same time crunching GUITAR, OH that BIG, SAD, SWEATY MAN pushing dusty air thru dried out, stretched-out vocal chords. I LOVE THIS RECORD. This guy plays the AMPS, and I’m totally a sucker for Hendrix style guitar ecstasy. (Kristy)
8. PJ Harvey - Dry
This record didn’t change my life or anything, but it SHOULD HAVE. While I was sitting in my room listening to the Cranberries, Tori Amos and Fiona Apple, I should have been listening to PJ Harvey. This record should have been my personal anthem, and then maybe I would have picked up a guitar when I was still in high school, and you’d be seeing me on MTV doing the theme song to the next Twilight movie or something. (Kristy)
9. Enslaved - As Fire Swept Clean the Earth
BEST BIRTHDAY PARTY EVER would consist of Enslaved playing this record live, a petting zoo of cute animals, and a $100,000 gift certificate to Top Shop where I could buy all the crazy shoes and reflective clothes I want. The guitar playing RIPS, there’s great dramatic grimness, AND for some reason I BELIEVE this band… true Vikings in a swirling sea of black metal LARPers (although, I like that stuff too… can’t help it. (Kristy)
TV Ghost
TV Ghost, out of Lafayette, IN, has been wrapping its antic, vaguely sinister discord in monster layers of fuzz since 2007, getting lumped in with the ‘00s lo-fi class, but more accurately recalling No Wave icons like the Cramps, the Fall, the Birthday Party and Suicide. The singles and EP came out on Die Stasi, but for the full-length Cold Fish, TV Ghost moved to garage rock uber-label In the Red. TV Ghost will be appearing at WFMU Fest tonight at the Williamsburg Music Hall, along with Pissed Jeans, Vee Dee and Guinea Worms.
1. The Country Teasers - Satan Is Real Again or Feeling Good About Bad Thoughts
This album is the reason Tv Ghost exists. If you were to dig through old records and find this dusty old thing, turn on to it, and learn it’s from 2027. You can hear true contempt seeping through Ben Waller’s meanderings and the bands ramshackle backbeat. He lays down the blueprint for the songs and the rest of the band build on top of it, only to find an off kilter skyscraper peering through the black clouds of your most wonderful dream. I grew my first chest hair listening to “Satan is Real Again.”
2. V/A - No New York (Contortions, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Mars, DNA)
The first time I heard this record, I was super stoned, I pissed myself, ejaculated, woke up the next morning naked with a tiger in my bed. Or maybe it was just kitten, I don’t remember, whatever. my mind was blown to shit. A record any music enthusiast should already own.
3. Pink Floyd - The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
When I die from auto-erotic asphyxiation and float to heaven, the first thing I want to hear is Piper at the Gates or I’m gonna slap St. Peter. This is the most underrated Pink Floyd of all time and in our opinion the best. This shit is FAR OUT MAN!!! When we’re not playing shows, which is like three quarters of the year, we’re dropping acid and listening to Piper at the Gates of Dawn. We just wish the hole in the middle of the record was bigger so we could make love with this record.
4. David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars
I don’t think we’ve gone on tour without listening to this record. I don’t think we’ve ever gotten drunk without listening to this record. I dont think we’ve ever made sweet love to a woman..or each other without listening to Ziggy Stardust. Usually about an hour, or so, before every show, we join hands in a circle, close our eyes, and sing along to Ziggy Stardust -- not just the title track, but the whole album. The magic of Bowie whisks our minds away to Mars, where, yes, there is life. And spiders.
5. Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath
Really who doesn’t like Black Sabbath. It’s just the perfect music. Winter, summer, pissed off, happy it doesn’t matter you can always listen Black Sabbath and it always sounds so right. It speaks to everyone because it evokes that mood that you can’t deny. Every person in this band is a power house and when put together, it creates a symphony of energy. Every one of the eight songs on this album is a banger with no filler.
- Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers
Bitches.
7. Swell Maps - Jane from Occupied Europe
One of the best records ever recorded. It still has the raw punk that ruled their first record, but with psychedelic layers on the top of the mess. I usually like to put it on during one of those Robitussin “Trips” we do nine times a week.
8. Miles Davis - Bitches Brew
Bitches Brew stirs up something in between my conscience and subconscious. I hear this when I wake up in the morning, right up to the end or day where I lose my mind and exhaust into sleep. This is an explosive record. Melodic all throughout. Improvisational rhythms. Lustful and Psychedelic. And very free.
9. Aube - Evocation
Comes on slow. I put it on forget, that it’s there, and five minutes later wonder how it so seamlessly got from the squirming backdrop of an electric brain hum to a the numb throbbing of a chewed-up adrenal gland. Everything melts together into a slowly evolving ooze of unfaltering intensity. Works best (for me) on long late-night drives in unfavorable conditions.
10. Pussy Galore - Dial M for Motherfucker
The cover of this album says it all...baddass motherfucking shit! What’s more baddass than a guy with an afro kicking down a door holding an AK-47. This album is pure pissed-off aggression and yet is has a groove you can’t resist. Multiple guitars weaving in and out of unison with shrieking tones, a drum set with more car parts than a redneck’s backyard. And that Jon Spencer grunt. What’s not to love? Oh, and did I mention it’s produced by Steve Albini? I think 2 Live Crew said it best: “WE WANT PUSSSAY!”
By Dusted Magazine
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