Anyhow ... I'm a big ol' Mayyors groupie, can you tell. It would make my life if they would leave their sunny Left Coast home to come out this swing state and play (and in exchange I would promise to vote for the presidential candidate of their choice). You should definitely try to pick this up, not sure who all has (or had) 'em, but I got mine from here: http://www.mtstmtn.com/. You can try them, but the first one sold out right quick, and this one may have followed suit. Worth the effort. I'd direct you to their Myspace, but they seem to be charmingly anti-Internet.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
LOLZ to the wall
Sure, anyone can do "heavy," given enough high-wattage amplification, but not just anyone can do Mayyors' pile-driving juggernaut of heavy. It's not enough for them to make you survive their onslaught of guitar foulness--they pile on the dizzying Hawkwind-esque spacerock touches as well. On their 2nd 7" (Megan's LOLZ, lol!) as on their (excellent)first, the negative aggression blasts from the speakers as though pumped from a firehose. The Mayyors have done the math for you, which is: velocity x heavy = Melvins + the Fall. Hey. I just came up with that "Melvins/Fall" thing right now, but ... what the hell. I stand by that. A vomitous blast of hate, delivered with a menacing smile and packaged in unicorns and rainbows: I can ask for no more from my music. Oh, and Chris Woodhouse of Hospitals FM Knives/Karate Party fame and general purveyor of musical awesomeness is also a member of this band, if really you need another reason to get this record
Anyhow ... I'm a big ol' Mayyors groupie, can you tell. It would make my life if they would leave their sunny Left Coast home to come out this swing state and play (and in exchange I would promise to vote for the presidential candidate of their choice). You should definitely try to pick this up, not sure who all has (or had) 'em, but I got mine from here: http://www.mtstmtn.com/. You can try them, but the first one sold out right quick, and this one may have followed suit. Worth the effort. I'd direct you to their Myspace, but they seem to be charmingly anti-Internet.
Anyhow ... I'm a big ol' Mayyors groupie, can you tell. It would make my life if they would leave their sunny Left Coast home to come out this swing state and play (and in exchange I would promise to vote for the presidential candidate of their choice). You should definitely try to pick this up, not sure who all has (or had) 'em, but I got mine from here: http://www.mtstmtn.com/. You can try them, but the first one sold out right quick, and this one may have followed suit. Worth the effort. I'd direct you to their Myspace, but they seem to be charmingly anti-Internet.
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8 comments:
Hi, Laura...Excellent summation of the Mayyors 7"! But if I may wear my ombudsman cap for little bit, lemme just explain about the Woodhouse/Hospitals connection. This is the first time I've seen him referenced as "of Hospitals fame". The main Hospitals guy is Stonehouse. I know...I mix the names up, too, sometimes. I mixed their names up once when I was in a three-way conversation with them. He did recording and mixing for some Hospitals records...particularly the first 7" and the 2nd LP.
Woodhouse has been the MVP of several bands, but the ones that get mentioned the most are FM Knives and Karate Party. Karate Party is the one we love to geek out about around here in Sacto, especially if we were regulars at any of their 8 or 9 live shows back in the day.
I often tell the story about the time that Karate Party played with Bend Sinister, a pre-A Frames band from Seattle. Everyone was yelling for the band to play "Pressure", which was the consensus favorite from their record. I guess the story was that Woodhouse didn't wanna perform that song live because it was about some private hell, but people just kept egging and egging. Finally, he begrudgingly ripped into the song, and it was an absolutely ON FIRE performance. We'd been wowed by this band everytime that it was becoming routine...but this brimming anger was unprecedented and really jolted us. The performance came to its cathartic end when Woodhouse kicked over his prized drumset and grabbed the hi-hat stand and started jousting the audience with it. Really, he just picked it up and aimed it straigt ahead and bolted toward the back of the room. I was in the way, so the hi-hat stand poked me hard in the chest. I thought it might've broken skin. It was one of the rare moments I've ever been seriously scared at a show. But I only had a small cut. The bruise was nasty and lingered for weeks, though. Woodhouse continued to the back of the room where his head dented the wall.
The Seattle dudes were so impressed that they bought up nearly every remaining copy of the Karate Party 7" and started proselytizing around Seattle. They also broke up their band and rekindled as The A Frames, and Woodhouse's sound was like some sorta paradigm for how that band developed. And that's still probably his most oft-mentioned production credit. He's also had an indelible touch on the latest LP of Thee Oh Sees.
Karate Party made a 7" of great songs that suffered from flawed mastering and tightly packed grooves. All those songs plus unreleased stuff--pretty much the definitive document of the band--is still available from S-S Records. That is the "Black Helicopter" LP. Recordings from the late 90s, these sound pretty revelatory today when compared to all this excitement over so-called weirdpunk or CLOWNING ON BITCHES or what-have-you.
Wow I fucked that one up pretty bad. You have to admit, the name thing is confusing ... plus, correct me if I'm wrong, they both sound kind of ... how do you say, crazy? Or maybe it's just time to lay off the green.
Thanks for setting me straight DJ Rick, and for the show war-story. Gotta pick up that Karate Party LP from S-S sometime soon.
Seriously, Woodhouse and Stonehouse need to get together and establish a few more clearly defining characteristics for their respective persons.
In the meantime, make sure you go to DJ Rick's blog, http://www.artforspastics.blogspot.com for his incredible weekly radio show and actual, 100% accurate facts.
Now where are my fact checkers? Heads are gonna muthafuckin' ROLL ...
shame you let this blog die on the vine. not that it blew my doors or anything but it was cool that you cared about what was out there. what happened, did wendy's build a skyscraper in Columbus or something? you got distracted by a new president? In the words of Woody Haynes; 'focus your fucking mind"!
wurz yr blawg?
I have +50 googles and will share them with you!
www.LOLzToTheWall.com
Get your daily dose of interneting!!!
the real columbus band is the bug chasers.
www.myspace.com/thebugchasers
nice article. I would love to follow you on twitter.
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