Cherubs - I Want Candy
(The Smitten Love Song Compilation)

And we close out the week with actual-criminals Cherubs just murdering some poor old song.  It’s not pretty. 

Sorry.

Vinyl Sunday and Austin Week come together quite nicely, thanks to sorely-missed anger-merchants Trance Syndicate.

The Dicks - Dicks Hate Police
(Live At Raul’s Club)

Communist, gay, angry, confrontational, and werewolves, the almighty Dicks seem straight out of Glenn Limbaugh’s nightmares, but they were actually from the middle of Texas.  Their musical career is sporadic at best, as the band frequently went on hiatus while they hunted lizard-people, but they still play the occasional show, and still kick unbelievable amounts of ass.

Experimental Aircraft - Sit Still
(Third Transmission)

The most tenacious of the late-90s Texas shoegaze revival thing, the Experimental Aircraft are still plugging away; playing killer shows, making giant whooshy sounds wherever they go, and recording the occasional album.  May their bloody-mindedness never fade.

Explosions in the Sky - Day Six
(The Rescue)

Virtuosic loud-core post-orchestra Explosions in the Sky use a devastating mix of pounding drums, intricate guitar noodling and dynamite to secure their place on top of the instrumental-“start off real quiet and then get super-loud”-thing heap.  One time they just sat around at home for a week messing about and still managed to make a great record. Quit showing off Explosions in the Sky.  That’s just tacky.

^{(via asplosions.com)}

Astroblast - Get Ahead
(This Will Help You On Your Way)

Adorable noise-slingers Astroblast played what can only be described as Twee-gaze.  They were short-lived, but highly delightful.

The Swells - Without A Trace
(Yesterday’s Song)

After shoegaze’s early-90s heyday, many proclaimed it dead, buried, and replaced by the new effects-laden sounds of the Mogwais and Godspeeds.   But all was not lost!  In a little Texas town called Denton, shoegaze made its last stand, and it was noisy.  A few bands in Austin heard the ruckus and decided to get in on the fun, and a revival was born. 

Ed Hall - Pollution
(La La Land)

Gleefully deviant hobgoblins Ed Hall spent much of their early years in a Vietnamese restaurant working on their Butthole Surfers impression, along with other like-minded bands (they were called the Dong Scene, and I’m not making any of this up).  Their impression was so excellent that actual Butthole Surfer King Coffey ended up taking them under his wing.   He taught them many unspeakable things, and released their records.   Believe in your dreams.

Monroe Mustang - Dee
(The Elephant Sound)

Elusive lo-fi cultists Monroe Mustang live in a cabin somewhere in the Texas hill country, crafting intense jams, crawly dirges, and fractured pop songs that sound halfway between late-period Beatles and an Appalachian jugband.  Nobody knows if they’re still together (or even alive), but every few years they emerge from the mists with a new record, and disappear as silently as they arrived.

Knife In The Water - Rene
(Red River)

Morbid alt-twang dinosaurs Knife In The Water know what country music is really about.  No fairytales, no honky-tonk badonkadonks, just sex, whiskey and murderings.  Somewhere Hank Williams looks down and smiles.