Shake Appeal is a column that highlights new garage and garage-adjacent releases. Get dumb with Evan Minsker this week as he digs into new stuff from Free Weed, the Memories, LiveFastDie, Shockwave Riderz, and Lumpy & the Dumpers.
Free Weed / The Memories: Bong Pop / Touched By an Angel [Burger]
Because it's never too early to stock up for the next 4/20, prolific stoner-pop auteur Erik Gage has two vibing, breezy full-lengths. His Free Weed tape is astutely titled Bong Pop, and his song "Marijuana" is a beatific, blissed out celebration of smoking weed. Gage is joined by Colleen Green, and their voices sound gorgeous together. With the Memories' Touched By an Angel, he's taking a similar route: low budget, carefree, happy pop music. Gage has made hundreds of songs like these, and if he keeps making them sound this good, here's hoping he keeps cranking out tapes at a steady clip.
Lumpy & the Dumpers: Demo 7" [Negative Jazz]
Earlier this year, Total Punk continued their hot streak with a 7" from St. Louis punks Lumpy & the Dumpers, and this week, Negative Jazz is unleashing that band's debut 2012 demo 7". In the realm of screaming, searing "throbbing idiot punk" (as Lumpy calls it), this is gold. It's fast, vicious, and it does not give a fuck. "One of these days you're gonna face the meat," he screams on the B-side over a simple, raw power hook. And who knows what he's saying on the A-side—the obliterating noise pretty well overpowers his voice.
LiveFastDie: Hit Stains [Almost Ready]
You read that right, don't let the brown smears on the cover throw you off, it's Hit. This is a singles compilation—21 tracks from the New York punks who disbanded back in 2009. Especially if you missed out on any of their 7" offerings the first time around, this is an essential slab of, yes, "shit-splattered wax." These songs are blown-out and trashy (see: "Pizza and Vomit", "He's Got Pecker Breath"), but also genuinely catchy and well-written. If you're in New York, be sure to catch their record release show at Union Pool on May 3 (with their fellow New York wreckers Pampers).
Shockwave Riderz: "Dearest" [Velocity of Sound]
The Pittsburgh trio Phil Boyd, Paul Quattrone (both of Modey Lemon), and Sara Mac are Shockwave Riderz, and the A-side of their new 7" features a spaced-out cover of Mickey & Sylvia's 1957 R&B classic "Dearest". It's a faithful version of the song, but its surrounding sonics give it sci-fi textures—an intriguing take on the song, for sure, and also a good excuse to revisit the original. The B-side is "The Punisher", an industrial, muscular, fuzzed-out track with a thick low-end and heaps of intimidation. Their sonic textures made them a natural pairing for Bitchin Bajason a recent split 7", and their other recent releases are definitely worth exploring as well.
Shockwave Riderz: "The Punisher" on SoundCloud.
Also Check Out: A split tape from Pookie & the Poodlez and Cumstain; the Lemon LP from Mother's Children.