From Bad Sports’ tongue-in-cheek pre-teen pop punk to the more hallowed and harmonious ground of former Shins member Dave Hernandez’s Little Cuts, Dirtnap Records’ 2012 Sampler is a volume of variations on garage punk, all buzzing with high voltage and hailing from basements throughout the land.
The sampler features two tough Texas tracks: one from Mind Spiders and a track by one of Mark Ryan’s other punk projects, High Tension Wires (Marked Men, Ryan’s third band, has also put out a number of releases with Dirtnap in previous years). The Canadian White Wires contribute the chugging “Down On My Own,” and “Election Day” from fellow Canadians Steve Adamyk Band fits in well with the theme of the month.
Mean Jeans and one of my favorites on the sampler, the sick and sludgy surf-rocking Guantanamo Baywatch, share the label’s hometown of Portland, Oregon. Baywatch regularly play without pants, and seem to love dinosaurs. Typical of the 2012 sampler, the two bands play garage tunes that live less in discontent and more in tear-your-shirt-off glee, setting the mood for a skinny dip into something new.
Tracklisting:
01 Legendary Wings, “Nachos”
02 The White Wires, “Down On My Own”
03 Guantanamo Baywatch, “Boomerenga”
04 Mean Jeans, “Anybody Out There”
05 Something Fierce, “Warlords of Information”
06 Sonic Avenues, “Giving Up On You”
07 Steve Adamyk Band, “Election Day”
08 Bad Sports, “I'm In Love With Myself”
09 High Tension Wires, “Get Weird”
10 Mind Spiders, “Wait For Us”
11 Little Cuts, “Plastic Disaster”
