Pretty – “Mustache In Your Face” – [Numero Group]

Thurston Hunger   2/14/2013   7-inch, A Library

Four-piece from yesteryore (1969) the liners detail their
history: brushes with “greatness” (a shot of Electric
Prune juice) and cool oddities (recording in a studio
built into a former industrial cave in Missouri.) The music
on this double 7″ is groovy, a rock solid capture of
psych rock with Jeff Mann’s driving bass lines setting up
great guitar work on top by Bob Theen. His use of effects
is tasty and varied on each track here, from fuzz to the
acoustic intro to “Electric Hand” to reverb tweak to
backwards stylings. Discriminating keyboards too, and a
killer Numero uno Group package! But all of that being said,
oddly what has grabbed me the most by this release are
four simple words
……..MUSTACHE……..IN……….YOUR…………FACE
Is it a foreign curse broken directly into English? Was
it a drunken throwaway after a bitter breakup? (The song
also has misguided lyrics like “You broke my own heart.”)
Part of a sound poem? I don’t know but I look forward to
that phrase taking off not just in KFJC playlist announces
but beyond. A catch phrase between friends? A political slogan
(veiled hawkish threat to a yet-to-be-named Middle Eastern
country)? Something on par with “Andre the Giant Has
a Posse?” Can we have a dramatic reading of the entire song
every hour on the hour? Lyrics evidently writ by Electric Prune
Michael “Quint” Weakley who svengali’d into MO and joined
the band briefly. The other songs are worthy of plenty of
play too, Electric Hand with its acoustic intro before a
kind of Vampyrous Lesbos carpet ride, Funhouse with COW
BELL and a Hendrix grunt/sigh steal, Red Spoon Gravy has
a Stones swipe plus hand claps and lyrics that *almost*
rival the title cut. Perhaps I shouldn’t dig this as much
as I do, but I guess the mustache is on the other face.

-Thurston Hunger