Chewing Pine

Woodsist/Captured Tracks Festival

While I won’t get anywhere near this, the line-up looks ridiculous. Get a ticket…

Friday, July 3rd: Crystal Stilts, Psychedelic Horseshit, caUSE-co-MOTION!
Saturday July 4th: Thee Oh Sees, Tyvek, Ganglians, the Beets

Thee Oh Sees – Help (ITR, 2009)

Write up via the EBX…READ!

Thursday Morning Bay Area Garage und Psych

There’s a shit ton of music all over the place and over priced NorCal isn’t any different. I’ve only had the pleasure of seeing the Gris Gris outta this crop of acts thus far – and it might be hard to beat that, but we’ll see. Ty Segall should be famous here in about five minutes though…

Coachwhips – Double Death (Narnack Records, 2006)

(This originally appeared in Impose)

John Dwyer sounds distant and disturbed as he yells at listeners through what sounds like a bullhorn in time to his dirty two or three piece band – depending on what track is dialed up. What this band does well, as it’s playing its own brand of thrashy, stop and go garage, is create rhythms that are pleasing even as the melodies are ridiculously simplistic. Pretty much all of these songs clock in at less than three minutes. So, you’re looking at less than an hour of music over the twenty-four tracks presented here. To conceive of all of these melodies, even if they reach their natural end in a short time, is still an incredible feat. And while this is not an album proper, but a collection of b-sides and rarities, it serves to survey the band’s style.

In addition to the original material there’re a number of covers towards the end of the disc. Included is an instrumental version of The Velvet Underground’s “I Guess I’m Falling in Love”, a Gories track and “The Witch” by The Sonics. The last track mentioned lends itself to the band nicely partially due to The Coachwhips’ uncanny ability to stay perfectly in time with each other while playing the stop and go game.

The DVD that accompanies this slew of music is what makes Double Death enticing. On the DVD various engagements the band had over its brief career are displayed. Video and sound quality vary, but in this case – for this band - that’s appropriate. No one will say that Double Death is the buy of the year, but it’s damned entertaining and makes the Black Keys and Holly Golightly look like a buncha hacks.