Is this the face of modern punk?
At Bowery Ballroom the questioned lingered in the downtime between songs as a cable was doing its best to destroy sets by Wavves and first band up Total Slacker.
I’ll get to Wavves and rock nyc faves Smith Westerns on later posts and deal with the excellent Total Slackers here.
Total Slacker are a three piece drone rock band. Tucker, a quintessential all American kid, is the lead guitarist and leader and the other Slackers Emily on bass and Tucker on drums. In what would have been a first rate 30 minute set if the cable hadn’t stopped proceedings midway, Total Slackers were like grunge if grunge sounded nothing like grunge, it is a droney racket going out of its way to fuck you on the dischords.
I wish I could make out the lyric, something about “we’re gonna die in the USA” as the band cruises at a lo fi hi fi or a hi lo fi: they seem a little bored with life (lyrically, not on stage, on stage they are the real deal) and at first the songs don’t feel fully formed, a melody here and there will peek out but mostly in is wards on this proto-ambient punk.
Towards the end of the set, Tucker announces that Total Slacker first songs, a vinyl incher, is available for purchase. Most people no longer own a turntable unless they DJ -and even then, so it hits me as completely redundant and elitist to not make your music available for purchase in formats people can actually use. Having said that “Crystal Necklace” is really good and should at least stream it on their myspace
:
“Magical Daylight’ wrecks a perfectly good song by playing all the wrong chord changes and still works and the last song ends with an obstreperous Hendrix meets Thurston, feedback drenched, guitar behind the back, extended riffarama by Tucker which hits me as a trick ending, like the bloke being dead in the sixth sense, where you have Total Slacker where you want em and they slip out of your grasp.
Good stuff. Good band.
We will be listening if they ever give us something we can listen with…