Bad Dudes – “Eat Drugs” – [kill shaman]

Thurston Hunger   1/31/2014   12-inch, A Library

There’s this weird little world, where pop/punk/prog intersect
and kinda work. It’s like finding dinosaurs tap dancing. Too
much prog, and rigor mortis sets into your ear…too much pop
and bubble gums up the same ears. Too much punk…well that
would be okay actually. This release from 2008, features an
LA Band with a crack dummer, Chris Mezsler and dual guitarists
Mike Rando and Dan Gerchick riffing away…lot’s of single
notes and clean-in-key runs that pivot with precision. Keyboards
from Gabe Castro sometimes add that faux classical fanfare
the prog purists will like. He sort of aims for press-on funk
on “Better Than Nature” which might have been better left
for dead. Indeed the b-side kinda fizzled my swizzler, but
that title track with Daniel Howarth’s thick bass drops
and they yelped stupid vocals got things going. Side A is just
messier in a better way, still with plenty of dot-dot-dot-dot
dash-dash-dash counting exercises. Doctored vocals on “Suez”
awoke an old Sleepytime Gorilla Museum watchman inside. For
folks who want Cueniform to party more, or Ugh Explode to be
less brutal, or want to hear echoes of “Pretty Woman” spilling
into a herky-jerky “Heterosaucer” chow down on this like a
hyperactive kid on his third bowl of Neon Cuckoo Trix. Kill
Shaman is always worth an ear…

-Thurston Hunger