SLW cc Watt – Help Me
Similar artists: Mike Watt, Jad Fair, T. Rex, Daniel Johnston
Genre: Alt-Country
SLW cc Watt’s “Help Me” echoes great outsider music making for a beautiful, if uncomfortable, listen.
History tends to favor the music stars that were also eccentrics. Few of them, however, achieved notoriety or success when they needed it most – when they were making their music. Perhaps it is because most people like to glance at eccentrics from afar. They don’t like to deal with such characters.
But it’s likely that this also owes to the fact that people usually have to be told what they should like. The farther something deviates from the norm, the harder it is to sell. That’s why record labels hardly ever try. Outsider music gets discovered by folks actively looking for something that has little to do with the norm, and it’s their love that ensures it can have a future.
SLW cc Watt’s “Help Me” sounds like Daniel Johnston trying to make a glam-rock record. It stomps, and it swings. But it does so in all the wrong places. And it does this on purpose. Innocent-sounding and determined to ignore convention, it appeals to a certain sensibility and to folks that have heard enough perfect pop music for six lifetimes.
NECKBOLT – Fung Wah or Lucky Star
Similar artists: Guerilla Toss, Palm, Butthole Surfers, Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
Genre: Post-Hardcore, Garage Rock
In life, it’s something helpful to remember how bad things can get. And for that kind of reflection, Neckbolt might be the ideal soundtrack.
When Captain Beefheart started touring England on the back of the massively unsuccessful “Trout Mask Replica”, every music reporter wanted to ask him questions. Most of these questions centred around one collective fear of music journalists. Maybe this would-be cult leader is really just putting us all on all.
Perhaps this wasn’t entirely untrue. But as another music writer once said, the point of the music might just be to remind you of the worst day that you’ve ever had and assure you that it can’t possibly be as traumatic as what can be heard on the taped recording. Creating this sort of chaos is really something special.
NECKBOLT want nothing more than to play with the listener’s mind on “Fung Wah or Lucky Star.” A rock band discovering avant-garde sounds is not new, but this band treat their exploration with the same kind of relish of a torturer conducting mind control experiments.
These are unusual, abrasive sounds, but they’re delivered with a touch of humour too. It’s enough to, at least, let you know that the musicians are in on the joke, and that’s of their own making.
