Select Rich Kroneiss reviews from Terminal Boredom #28, Winter 2010

Liquor Store “Free Pizza” 7”
The much-anticipated debut from Jersey no-counts Liquor Store. What a novel idea…dumbasses singing about pizza that actually are from Jersey, I'd say "Free Pizza" is taking the piss out of some West Coast poseurs if I thought these drunks really put that much thought into this shit. Absolutely ridiculous from the relentlessly nasal vox and na-na-na-ing to the Chuck Berry licks and dumbass lyrics. Pissing all over your budget party pie. Comes with an actual coupon for a free personal pizza from Sarim's family's joint. B-Side is "Trash Sandwich (Parts 2 & 3)" which is East Coast style no-fi punk with blazing guitar licks which I'm assuming are of the Name Brand variety. Pretty fucking anthemic and reminds me a bit of the raw VCR demos from way back when. East Coast is the best coast, dummies. Scum stats: 500 pressed. That's a lot of free pizzas.(RK)
(Almost Ready Records // www.almostreadyrecords.com)

The Mantles “Pink Information” 12” EP
Let’s just get this out of the way, again: Mexican Summer blows as a label, this 12” (and all of their releases) is far too expensive to the point where I’m going to call them price gougers. The Mantles, good fellas that they are, sold their band copies at the nice price and should be commended for their actions (as did The Young). I just hope good bands stop releasing shit on this label altogether and put an end to this problem, and let Mexican Summer fade into the bottom-feeding hipster label they truly are. Okay, enough about that shit. The Mantles LP on Siltbreeze was a dream and I fully backed at least half of the cuts on it, even being a non-pop oriented guy I had to respect their moves. I love this 12” though, as the band gets right to the point. “Cascades” is a jaunty breeze of fresh New Zealand airy-pop and “Situations” is a brief fractured moment in (Nineties guitar-pop) time that mate perfectly together. “Lily Never Marries” and “Summer Read” (which sounds just slightly like Thunders on the chorus in a bizarre twist) close Side A and assure me they’re the only modern day band that deserves a Clean comparison. They’re that scrappy and excitingly poppy. The side-long “Waiting Out The Storm” is the real gem here though, an extended indie-guitar-rock sprawl that dances with the ghosts of the VU (who aren’t dead anyway, I know) in a loft somewhere with opaque sunlight warming the window panes. So good it passes by in what seems like seconds. I like that The Mantles also don’t really sound all that “West Coast” to me somewhow – they seem out of place in way, they could be Australian or from New York or Phoenix or Miami. I dig that. In short, I’m into this more than their LP, but I have a short attention span anyway. Fuck you Mexican Summer. Long live The Mantles.(RK)
(Mexican Summer // www.dicks.com)

Personal & The Pizzas "Raw Pie" LP
Singles compilation LP from the cash cow that is Personal & The Pizzas. Label spew sez these versions are all "mastered" or "re-mastered" or whatever from the singles/splits/cassettes/8-tracks, plus "studio" versions of two already released cuts. Does pizza-punk really need to be mastered? Or recorded in a studio for that matter? I'll fully admit I enjoy more than a few of these songs, but I've also never seen this schtick live, which I can imagine might dull the experience a little after the first guffaw. But one can't help but like stupid Stooges and Ramones parodies/tributes done as well "I Can Reed", "Tearjerker", "Brass Knuckles" or "I Don't Wanna Be..". I'm not going to lie about enjoying something this intentionally schticky and well, stupid. It's the same conceit that allows one to enjoy The Spits or The Mummies when you think about it. Nothing wrong with that. The disturbing thing about this release is that there are 500+ people who are willing to buy the same shit not just once, but up to four different times. It's silly to complain about it, but doesn't this sort of shenanigans devalue the music more than a bit? It just makes it all seem so disposable. And maybe it is. I guess the New Bomb Turks or Billy Childish followed the same template to an extent – release a shitload of singles, then comp them all somehwere along the line or slip them onto full-lengths or whatever. But it didn't seem so tossed off in those cases. I don't blame Personal and his boys for this at all, and I'm sure there's no conspiracy here, but just in general, I think we all need to think about this shit a little more. How am I supposed to care about some of this crap? It's more than a little insulting if I think about it for too long. Best thing I learned from this LP = Personal smokes Newports, a man of impeccable taste. Worst thing about this record = I hate to say the words "vinyl glut", but I'm just sayin…also, I love Ben Lyon's work as a whole, but this thing would've looked sweet with the art from the Raw Pie tape blown up to LP size. Scum stats: I'm not playing along with this one.(RK)
(1234 Go! // www.1234gorecords.com)

Personal & The Pizzas "I Want You" 7"
Personal & The Pies soldier on regardless of all negative pizza-rock novelty band stereotypes thrown at them. Hey, these guys are from Jersey, they're used to having garbage thrown at them, right? Hey-yo! "I Want You" is slowdance love songing a la "Swallow My Pride". B-Side has two, a cretinous lo-fi stomp about not trusting "Party Boys" with a less cheezed-out vocal than normal and someone pressing some random keys on an organ for a solo-oh-oh, and the unlisted "I Don't Wanna Think About It", another heavily emotional semi-acoustic handclapper with a watery yacht-guitar solo. Par for the mini-golf course here, except there are no songs actually about pizza?!(RK)
(Trouble In Mind // www.troubleinmindrecs.com)

Tyler Jon Tyler “Separate Issue” 7”
Chicago trio’s second single of indie-pop styled garage, again on a Chicago label. One of the those bands I think people in their hometown love a lot more than anyone outside of town is going to. We like to call them “local heroes”. It happens. Having some familial relations to The Ponys, whom they also share some sonic similarity to, both tracks are crisp and clean mid-tempo indie-rock with firm female vocals and just the slightest twang to the guitar. Pleasant and well played, but I don’t hear anything to make them stand out from the dozens of other outfits doing the same thing.(RK)
(Rococo Records // www.rococorecords.com)

Tyvek “Nothing Fits” LP
I didn’t mind Tyvek’s first LP at all. It was good. I would have liked for it to have been great, but
it just wasn’t in the cards – the band just didn’t strike until the iron was a little less than hot, their seeming lack of new material at the time had many thinking they were bored and of course the artwork (which was funny in its own way) had the record nerd cognoscenti scrambling to their keyboards to make Primus jokes. In the end, it was a good record, a little plain, but good. After another tape-to-vinyl release got everyone pissed about sound quality and other crap again, Tyvek snuck out there and recorded ‘Nothing Fits’, and it sits as the frontrunner for record of the year right now. A lot of people would say this is the record Tyvek should have made for their first LP – which is true if you want to talk about the record in general just having a massive impact – but also false, as the Tyvek that made that first LP and all that came before certainly didn’t seem confident enough to make a record this forcefully punk. All the smarts are there, and I still think they retain their shambly DIY approach in a way, but the guitar attack on this thing is stunning coming from a band we’re used to belting out scrappy and trebly songs that were sort of…nerdy, I guess. This thing just bares its teeth, sometimes in a grin, but it’s still showing off those fangs. “4312” opens as a rip-roaring garage cut, surprisingly traditional, then they do a double jab combination with the stuttering “Potato” and “Animal”, and you start to realize the guitars are going to be staying this loud and chunky for the whole record – in fact, whoever recorded this did a great job in welding all the instruments together for a monstrous and primitive thud, yet still giving them some separation. They do a new version of “Future Junk” that is tough as nails, or as tough as a guy that looks like Kevin Boyer can sound. Fantastic and this begins a three song stretch which convinced me I was truly listening to a great record the first few spins. I’d keep putting the needle back to the beginning of “Future Junk”, through the pounding anger of “Nothing Fits” into the DIY-punker of “Outer Limits” and it’s excursions into future rock. And speaking of DIY, tell me these guitars don’t sound like the fucking Swell Maps, loud . Side 2 continues strong, with “Underwater” being a choppy example of “vintage Tyvek”, and their playful continuation in “Underwater To”, another strong candidate for best song on the LP, which turns the guitars down a little for some dreamy and strummy and gorgeously off-key pop. Then they rattle off three quick punkers (“Pricks In A Car” is particularly humorous and expletive-laden, maybe a sequel to “Honda”?) and they close with the confidently aggro anthem of “Blocks” which is another of Boyer’s vague rants against or into the future that they break down into some wall of guitar damage that just exudes natural force. A great idea to end on such a powerful song. His shouts of “Fuck the bullshit!” are exactly what this band is doing. No bullshit. A band out there taking punk rock to the next stage. Simple. Brilliant. A band evolving, changing their sound quite a bit and sounding magnificent doing so. Something not many bands are capable of doing, making it that much more impressive.(RK)
(In the Red Records // www.intheredrecords.com)