Psyched to see the Melvins are coming back to HG. This is the new, four-piece incarnation of the band, with two drummers. Sludge-tastic!

OK. Here’s a really dumb thing. Remember Andrew WK? Had to think about it, dintcha? Back in my record shop days, we used to sell the everloving shit out of his debut, I Get Wet. It didn’t do a damn thing for me, but then again, I hate KISS. I remember actually trying to talk people out of buying it. All I know about the follow-up, The Wolf, is that it had ridiculous, Elton John-style piano. By the time of its release, most folks had moved on.

Well, I was just sent a copy of AWK’s new one, Close Calls With Brick Walls, and I gotta tell you, he’s lost his fucking mind. It has to be the weirdest *mainstream* music I’ve heard in a while. Who is the intended audience for this stuff? It’s too out-there for many rockers, yet experimental snobs will no doubt find it juvenile. Somehow, while no one was looking, the Dude in White Denim made a truly odd album that will likely sink without a trace. God bless him.

Some songs sound like Meatloaf channeling Dennis Wilson. Other tunes are are the crack-rock (not a pun) that he’s known for, but with even more ridiculous ramp-ups.

I didn’t ever want to champion this guy, but how can I not talk about a record this bizarre?

Don’t take my word for it:

“I Came For You”

“Pushing Drugs”

And quite possibly the weirdest one:

“Close Call With Bal Harbour”

And finally, there’s this, courtesy EC. Dig the non-expression on the kid’s face.

I almost forgot: tomorrow I talk to Saget. Will it, too, be dumb? As Asia once sang (and apparently still do), only time will tell.

Holy shit — that’s like five or six dumb things! An all-time record!

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Casey Rea was the Seven Days music editor from 2004 until 2007. He won the 2005 John D. Donoghue award for arts criticism from the Vermont Press Association.

4 replies on “Three dumb things. One dumb post.”

  1. Nobody here did — it’s a Japan-only full-length release!But is it really crap? I think its gone completely past bad into a kind of clueless brilliance. Trust me; in 15 years (if we’re all still here, or even care about records) this baby will be considered a classic of left-field lunacy along the lines of Arthur Brown’s Kingdom Come or Lee Hazlewood’s Requiem For an Almost Lady.

  2. Its possible that it will come out in the US, but then again, maybe Universal turned it down due to excessive weirdness.

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