Singles Going Quickly

If you’re a regular listener of What We Do Is Secret (Tuesday nights on KRCL from 10:30 to 1:00), then you probably know that singles clubs are hot right now (and I ain’t talkin’ dating services). Sub Pop, the originators of the single subscription service in the indie rock realm, brought their Singles Club back to life (to mixed results) with singles by Mika Miko, Tyvek, Blues Control, Circle, etc., last year; HoZac has their (rather underwhelming) Hookup Klub, which features releases by Woven Bones, TeePee, and current media darlings Dum Dum Girls; and then there’s the consistently great Columbus Discount Records Singles Club, which is now in its second year, and has delivered 7″s from acts both regional to the Columbus, OH area (Psychedelic Horseshit, Puffy Areolas, Mike Rep), and not (Hue Blanc’s Joyless Ones, Jakob Olausson, Pink Reason).
Now to add to the fold is the fledgling Lemon Session label out of Oakland, run by Kevin Jones of defunct Seattle post-punkers the Popular Shapes. Tonight’s WWDIS will feature the first four releases from the new club (which are all adorned in really nice unified cover art) and they all definitely have me rooting for future offerings from the label.
#1 is a four-song hard-hitter from new West Coast band Rib Cages, harkening back to some of the straight-forward garage-punk salvos released in the earlier Oughts by labels like Big Neck and Criminal IQ.
#2 is from another band new to this writer’s ears, Teenage Nightwar, doing up a couple a’ snotty, bass-heavy post-punk jams (Gordons? Killing Joke? Yes please!).
#3 really brings the quality with a new one from Terrible Twos. The a-side is a melodic slice of art-punk tangential to their Detroit forebears Human Eye, Pirhanas, et al, and is nice enough. But the b-side, “Catch a Cold”, is really where the action is. Featuring some real venomous vocals, heavy organ stabs, and odd ur-prog time changes (while still staying on the dumb side of smart if, ya catch my drift), this thing reaches almost Black Metal levels of EPIC (I really hate that word).
Finally, #4, what really drew me to signing up for this club, the debut release from the Bay Area’s Butcher Cover, the new project from Rob Vertigo, former mouth-piece for Seattle noise-mongrels Tractor Sex Fatality, with all the music, replete with odd horror samples, made by a dude simply named “Mike.” Straight off their self-released cassette from earlier in the year these four tracks come off like a home-spun West Coast answer to all that ferocious noise being made out in New York by bands like Twin Stumps and the recently departed Drunkdriver. Hot!
There are subs still available and Kevin is nice enough to offer an installment plan for those on the cheap. Check out the details here: http://www.lemon-session.com/2010/01/27/the-unveiling-lemon-session-singles-club-2010/