Dusted Reviews

What we’re getting at here is the lifestyle that celebrates music with a reckless or depraved element about it, fresh outta give-a-fucks and really in need of a mommy, or alternately a wetnurse who also gives you ca$h and cleans up all of your messes, so you can make them with that much more gusto. Alas, that person is pretty hard to come by, unless you happen to be insanely talented in your field of work in a way you could translate into a high-paying Beverly Hillbillies lifestyle, or came from enough money that it didn’t matter what you did, and were too old to get cut off. (Family looks away from you at the dinner table). (By the way, this situation is almost never true; odds are about even with winning the Powerball jackpot.) You occupy the margins between the DO’s and DON’Ts pages in Vice, because really, nobody knows what to do with you in C E 2006.

I’m compelled to think about this guy, the guy who lights a cigarette in a museum, because Nevermind by Clockcleaner is THIS GUY’S RECORD. If he ever found it, it would be his new favorite record by his new favorite band. He’s a guy, too; not to get sexist about it, but he just is. He’s aspiring to a level of decadent Jim Dandy slob that no women aspire to. He farts in an elevator then looks at you. And it stinks.

Eh, who am I kidding. This guy is dead and forgotten, and his stories aren’t worth repeating. Moreover, he’s softened up. Before, he was likely to get his girlfriend’s dad to pull a shotgun on him. Now, his name is Earl. But it’s a surprise to hear his music alive and well again, played by a trio of twentysomething kids from Philadelphia, and doing as good a job as the bands that inspired it … which could be anyone off the Amphetamine Reptile roster, the Jesus Lizard, Born Against, Cherubs, Mount Shasta, Arab on Radar, Sightings, Noiseville scumrock, the Monorchid, or the St. Louis worthless wave mounted by Drunks with Guns or any of their side projects.

Clockcleaner plays relentless noise-rock dirges with no room for air and a chest-thumping dynamic, as dissonance splinters off of the heavy delay/reverb processing like broken glass from a shattered picture window. At the center of this storm is singer-guitarist John Sharkey, who spent his formative years destroying venues and pissing on their ashes while in Cleveland hardcore act 9 Shocks Terror. Sharkey’s the guy behind the effects pedals, which add artifice and annoyance in equal measure, obscuring lyrical details and segueing in between tracks with queasy smears of piercing noise. He’s also the barker in this circus, recalling Gibson Haynes and David Yow in his words and delivery. Kicking things off with the words “I saw your girlfriend leaving the abortion clinic yesterday with another man,” he sets the stage for the narrator to frame a heartsick boyfriend for a murder he didn’t commit, over a needling one-note high tension line. The tribal pound of “New Slow” throws a bone to Flipper, while the thrashy “NSA” throws the bone to Slip It In-era Black Flag. “Blood Driver” has that type of swagger the Midwest was known for in the early ’90s, and could fit with dancing in a moshpit or on a pole at a gentlemen’s cabaret.

Onstage and off, Clockcleaner may offend the thin of skin, and with songs titled “Interview w/ a Black Man” and “Gentle Swastika” printed on the back, and paintings of deformed children on the front, they can do so without a sound. But there’s a pretty serious wink going on here, one that’s aware of crossing a boundary or breaking a confidence, and at the same time putting an angry audience on a pedestal for ignoring the problems of the real world that a moderately dangerous rock band won’t be held accountable for. Some of the best punk rock, the most forward-thinking, has also been the most nihilistic. The most downtrodden have been known to make the angriest music, the most relevant to the times. Clockcleaner is a crucial throwback to the horrors of late ’80s “don’t worry, be happy” blind consumerist optimism, and throws your own PMA back in your face like mace in the eyes of a victim on an episode of “COPS.” Nevermind is not pretty, but it works like a classic noise rock record should; it rocks hard with both middle fingers extended, staring down a dead end with a leering, maniacal grin, and that’s possibly its greatest asset.

By Doug Mosurock

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