One night Drew got drunk and started screaming, “CHOMP WOMP!” The next thing we knew it was written in every sleazy bathroom across America. Somewhere down the line, we buried Chomp Womp under sacred grounds, like what you do when you want your dead pet to come back to life. Now it's haunting us up and down the coasts, no matter where we went or how far we traveled.
Boo and Boo Too
We were lucky enough to have Boo and Boo Too on our Not-CMJ show when their full-length debut No Tempo was fresh off the press. The grittily reverb-heavy rock outfit has since been touring, with the hope of spreading “their own brand of noise and punk and whatever, all busted guitars and blown-out eardrums.” While I'm usually not one for outright endorsements, their coordinated assault live, and their disciplined recordings amount to serious staying power on the circuit.
Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk
Like flying a kite over the Great Plains in your floating bathtub, Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk are light-headed, hallucinatory shoegawkers straight outta American indie rock. Baby Birds… are touring through the Southwest as you read this (unless you are from the future). According to the source, “born in the belly of a whale, discovered by the kool-aid man.”
Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk, “Fort Pork Chop”
Bandit Teeth
Bandit Teeth is sort of proto-Blood on the Wall if you're linear like that. With touring BotW drummer Zach Campbell a full time Bandit Teeth's member along with BotW guitarist/vocalist Brad Shanks, you can sort of see B.Teeth doing an angry Pavement where Blood on the Wall is going after a stripped down Pixies via Sonic Youth. A main difference between the two bands is the lack of a clear dichotomy between frontman/drum man/side man in Bandit Teeth. While there's an obvious breakdown of roles in Blood on the Wall, all three members of Bandit Teeth (Charley Downey completes the trio) claim to play bass, drums and guitar.
Rooftop Vigilantes
Blissful, earnest pop punk with a sweet streak of 60s farfisa psychedelia, Rooftop Vigilantes are gearing up for a two month US tour in 09 to show off “what could be described as Taco Tuesdays or The Zombies drunk on Hamm's.” Whether a metaphor for their cheery summer fix or fact, the band claims to have gotten “lost on their way to watch a softball game” and “never finding it… bought some beer, went home, and began constructing the songs that would become their foundation.” Lookout for a 7″ on Blue Sea Records, and full length “Carrot Atlas” on WoodenMan Records, available in 2009.
Rooftop Vigilantes, “Copper is Free”
Coat Party
Thank god for the survival of primal Riot Grrrl punk rock. There's increasingly fewer situations where snotty anthems like “we make a mess!” sound so appropriate as the tumbling squabble of drums and shouting girls making catchy ESG vs. Raincoats tunes (their self-nominated influences, not my approximations). Lookout for an upcoming 7″.