The Smell Scene

Randy Randall and Dean Spunt of No Age

A good friend of mine who still lives in LA who knows my continuing fascination with all things Black Flag sent me a YouTube link recently for a performance by a band called No Flag that he saw at MacArthur Park a couple weeks ago.  No Flag is basically a combination of Chuck Dukowski and Keith Morris, formerly of Black Flag, and Randy Randall and Dean Allen Spunt of the contemporary noise rock band No Age.  I really liked their run-through of some classic Flag material, particularly early stuff, particularly songs like “Wasted”, “Revenge”, “I’ve Had It”, and “Nervous Breakdown” (“Breakdown” is my favorite pre-Henry Rollins Black Flag song).  Chuck’s bass is huge and pulsing, Keith is in ripper shape and belts the songs out with his trademark yowl, and Randy Randall does a very capable job of imitating the legendary Greg Ginn. 

Because I wasn’t too familiar with No Age, I checked them out online, and found they are associated with a very large and acclaimed punk/noise scene centered around the all-ages club The Smell, which is in downtown LA.  Spunt and Randall do a guitar-and-drums thing a la the White Stripes, but their sound is way more lo-fi and experimental and is rooted in the avant-noise of early Sonic Youth but with a heavy garage punk overlay.  My favorite song by them is one I actually downloaded a year or so ago off of iTunes and forgot about, which is “Sleeper Hold” off their acclaimed album Nouns.  This song has clear influences from Sonic Youth, in particular the minor chord atonality of songs like “Brave Men Run (In My Family)” but it also has a sweetness under the fuzz that reminds me both of the earnest pop punk of Husker Du (on, say, “Pink Turns To Blue”) and even more of the Jesus and Mary Chain’s first album (think “Just Like Honey”, only sped up).  The other touchstone for me is the fuzzed-out pop of Dinosaur Jr., particularly “Little Fury Things”.  This is a really great song.  “Teen Creeps” and “Cappo” remind me even more of Dinosaur Jr.’s work on You’re Living All Over Me, with its sludgy drone, which somehow manages to be both atonal and melodic at the same time.  “Here Should Be My Home” is less overtly noisy and hews closer to the punky pop of Jay Reatard.

Their most recent album, Everything in Between, continues in a similar vein but is a little cleaner and the pop elements shine through a little brighter; songs like “Chem Trails” are downright radio friendly and sound like shoegazer indiepop a la Blur or Pulp.  “Positive Amputation” has the same guitar fuzz/drone of their previous work but links it to a hauntingly beautiful piano line, giving this the feel of contemporary classical song by Steve Reich.  This is a really amazing song, haunting and delicate, verging on the morose but optimistic simplified post-rock of late era Talk Talk.  “Dusted” has a similarly non-conventional rock feel to it, with its trip hop rhythm and the clanging, repetitively droning guitar it evokes in my mind the elegant beauty of “Where Do I Begin” by the Chemical Brothers.

Another great product of the Smell scene is Mika Miko, an all-girl band that manages to maintain a contemporary edge while playing old school punk.  The big and obvious influences on most of this work is a broad swath of early punk and no-wave, everything from X-Ray Spex to Penetration to the Slits to Lydia Lunch.  “Blues Not Speed” and “Turkey Sandwich”, off their most recent album, We Be Xuxa, touch on some of the female-intensive first-wave punk groups of Los Angeles, including the Controllers and the Bags, and have that first-wave simplicity to the lyrics that characterized work by the Dils and Germs.    “I Got a Lot” (New New New)” is boppier and catchier—it made me think of “Too Much Junk” by the Alleycats.  “Sex Jazz” sounds like a cross between Romeo Void and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, with its squalling sax, pulsing bass, and strident guitar line.  “On the Rise” reminds me of post-Raw Power songs by the Stooges, like “Heavy Liquid” filtered through the SF punk sounds of bands like U.X.A. and the Lewd.  They also do a great, lo-fi cover of the Misfits song “Attitude” on their second album, 666.  “With My Ducks” off this same album offers a wild punky ride similar to “We Don’t Need The English” by the Bags. 

Jenna Thornhill, sax player and singer for Mika Miko, also plays in the similarly atonal Silver Daggers.  The sound here is less overtly punky and much more art damage/no wave with a dash of punk funk.  Lydia Lunch, Teenage Jesus, the Contortions are what you’ll probably think of.  But “New High and Ord” off the album of the same name also has scratchy synths and a repetitive, throbbing bass that makes it sound like Sonic Youth and even, to a much lesser extent, the Screamers.    “Untame” has a wild, squalling saxophone and a big, heavy funk bass/rhythm that almost sounds like a very grungy Tom Tom Club; “We Didn’t Pay” is similarly funky but with a heavier garage punk feel that straddles early Red Hot Chili Peppers (like “True Men Don’t Kill Coyotes”) and Fugazi as filtered through Ty Segall and Guitar Wolf.

One of the stranger Smell bands is Abe Vigoda, formed by four kids from Chino and named after the famously ancient Barney Miller actor.  Their first album, Kid City, hewed to a fairly traditional avant-noise sound similar to scenemates No Age, with a smattering of Minutmen-esque quirky time signatures (as best evidenced on the title track as well as “Gallop”, “Homonomy”, and “Infinite Face”).  But starting on their second album, Skeleton, these crazy kids took a bizarre and unexpected musical turn towards an Afro-Caribbean/calypso/world music direction that gave them a sound that was utterly unique.  “Bear Face” and “The Garden” have swirling steel drums and staccato drumming that occasionally settle into a slow island rhythmic jam.  Overlying this is still the brooding presence of early Sonic Youth and its contemporary interpretation by fellow band No Age; “Don’t Lie” off their 2009 EP Reviver is a good example, as is the slower and more island-infused “House” which nevertheless still straddles that art/noise boundary between Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. 

But on their 3^rd full album, Crush, Abe Vigoda take yet another unexpected musical turn, eliminating for the most part the world music elements and infusing instead a lush, synth and drum machine-driven sound that sounds like early Human League and Depeche Mode (the pinging synth on “Dream of My Love (Chasing After You)” sounds very much like the synth line on Mode’s first hit single “New Life”) as well as contemporary new ro revivalists such as She Wants Revenge and the Editors (particularly on songs such as “Papillon”).  I’m a little concerned, if only because I really felt the Living Things destroyed their fierceness and impact by making a similar musical leap, but on songs like “Crush” they somehow manage to maintain the shaky balance between noise squall and new ro lushness; this song also evokes the Cure’s early balance between these two disparate musical genres on their work after “Boys Don’t Cry” and before Head In the Door.  “November” also hangs on this uneasy balance and in doing so brings to mind the clang and sway of “When We Were Young” and “Midnight Show” by the Killers, not bad company to keep musically.  “Repeating Angel” burbles ominously like a musical brook flowing between the morose introspection of Joy Division and the slightly more uplifting interpretation of Ian Curtis carried out by the Editors on songs like “The Weight of the World”.  Given how radically this band has changed in just its first few albums, I’m curious to see what comes next for them.

HEALTH, another band from the Smell scene, has gained notoriety for the pummeling dissonance of their sound.  Equal parts Sonic Youth and the Jesus and Mary Chain, but with far less structure than either of these bands combined, HEALTH’s sound also draws on such non-rock antecedents as Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music and the minimalism of Terry Riley and the atonal blasts of John Zorn’s Naked City.  This is a little too out there for me—after all, even the Butthole Surfers made the occasional standard song—but can see how this is gaining attention.  However, their most recent work, on their second album Get Color for example, eschews the unstructured abrasiveness of their first album for a more traditional synth-driven post-punk similar to Abe Vigoda’s latest album.  “Die Slow” marries some of the dissonance of their first album with a heavy drum sample and synths that alternate between the squack of Neubauten and the lushness of Yaz.  “We Are Water” veers toward the Cure but still has that proto-industrial feel of early Godz songs like “Permanent Green Light”, a strange combo indeed.

The Mae Shi have even further deconstructed the standard rock song on their 2004 album Terrorbird.  More conventional songs, which rebound between quirky jazz/funk a la the Minutemen  (“Revelation Two” and “Power To the Power Bite Two” are good examples) and the sleazy rock of bands like Louis XIV on songs like “Takoma the Dolphin is AWOL”.  Interspersed are strange, brief pastiches of noise (like on “Terror Bird”) and song fragments (“Revelation Six”).  “Jubilation”, on the other hand, is a sweet organ and sample filled confection.  In a way this almost reminds me of a very post-post-modern take on the hyper-eclecticism of Husker Du’s Zen Arcade, as interpreted by Matmos or Atari Teenage Riot. 

The Mai Shi broke up in 2009, but their final album, Hlllyh, moved away from this strange but compelling post-rock toward a more conventional structure that nevertheless managed to be fresh and interesting.    “The Lamb and the Lion” has a pinging, trilling synth that launches into pounding drums.  “Pwned” has a spare synth that sounds like  “FemBot” by Robyn but then launches into a wild assault of noise, finally settling down into snarky emo style vocals.  “Boys in the Attic” is a surprisingly straight-ahead punk/hard rock song that reminds me of “Death of Two Lovers” by the Flower Leperds crossed with Aerosmith.  It is clear the Mae Shi were maturing and evolving, but they still managed to keep that Butthole Surfers-like unpredictability, where no two songs sounded the same on any given album. 

Much more conventional are Lavender Diamond, who’s sound is a mix of sweet 70’s singer-songwriter and straightforward alternative.  “Oh No” is an example of this off their 2007 album Imagine Our Love.  “Garden Rose” has a sweet country lilt that sounds equidistant between Emmy Lou Harris and Iris Dement.  “Open Your Heart” has the winsomeness and simplicity of the Magnetic Fields or even the Cranberries.  This isn’t my usual cup of tea but in small doses this isn’t bad at all.

The Lucky Dragons combine the sweet girly vocals of Lavender Diamond with the post-rock experimentalism of the Mai Shi.  Not nearly as abrasive as that band, the Lucky Dragons’ songs are nevertheless a cut and paste of found sounds, electronic burbling and soft synths.  It makes me think of Gus Gus with an element of Beth Orton’s work with the Chemical Brothers (particularly on more recent tracks like “We Made Our Own Government” off their 2009 album Rara Speaks).  Their second album, Widows, continues this sampling/producer-driven vibe but with actual acoustic instruments sampled, cut, and pasted together; songs like “The Sound of Waves”, “Dark Falcon”, and “Dissolve Yourself” almost sound like shadows of songs, not really true songs but the reflection of songs but still have a spritely beauty.  Their work would be terrific to have on in a new age store or the front desk of a yoga ashram, kind of like the Echelon Effect.   

BARR, the name given by Brendan Fowler to his own post-rock work, is artier and consists of Fowler reciting his poetry with musical accompaniment.  This has clear rock antecedents (most notably Patti Smith) and isn’t bad in a weird beatnik kind of way. 

In a completely different vein are the Ancestors, who’s sound couldn’t be farther than the sampled stylings of BARR or the Lucky Dragons OR the art/noise of No Age or the Mai Shi.  Their musical territory is a ponderous dinosaur classic rock amalgam of 70’s Pink Floyd and Deep Purple.  Very strange stuff, like Purple it has lots of organ and like Floyd it swirls, reforms, swirls some more in psychedelic confusion.  One thing they hold in common with the groups above, however, is their ability to mix together longer (in this case 10-15 minutes long) songs with shorter flashes of sonic texture (such as “A Friend” off their 2009 album Of Sound Mind, which sounds like some of the electronic explorations of early 70’s Hawkwind).  There is a heavy electronic element to their work as well, along with occasionally introspective piano, such as on their 2011 song “Invisible White”.  The one song I like the most is “Orcus’ Avarice” off their two-song first album, Neptune With Fire; its got the ponderous roar of early Sabbath. 

Equidistant between psychedelia and ambient is the music of Pocahaunted.  Swirling electronic soundscapes overlie strange, almost chanting vocals.  Again, one musical strain I’m detecting is Godz and their strange 60’s proto-electronica.

Coming on like a cross between the Dillinger Escape Plan and King Crimson are Upsilon Acrux, a San Diego progressive band that has also integrated into the Smell scene.  Songs like “In-A-Gadda-Devito” are polyphonic guitar/synth workouts heavily influenced by the mathematical precision of Bach.  But it also reminds me of the Meat Puppets and even to a lesser extent Greg Ginn’s work with Gone or October Faction or his post-Black Flag work.  This is WAY not my scene—I’ve never been much of a prog rock fan—but these other elements make it at least somewhat interesting.  At the very least they’ve seen the connection between mathcore and prog, which to me was obvious.  

Captain Ahab play what at first listen sounds like straightforward techno but there’s an element of smirking knowingness about it—some people have called this “ravesploitation”, and others have referred to them as the “Tenacious D of techno”.  The song “Girls Gone Wild” sounds like it should be playing during a night at the Roxbury, and indeed it was used in an episode  of “The Office” during a party scene.  The lyrics are a hysterical take on what motivates young women to take their shirts off for sleazy exploitation porn videos that sounds like it was sung by Will Farrell using a vocoder.  They also do a weird vocodered-out techno version of Avril Lavigne’s “Sk8ter Boi” that comes off as a male Robyn.  “Death To False Techno” is very reminiscent of Voodoo U era Lords of Acid.  Their EP I Can’t Believe It’s Not Booty features a passel of raunchy rap/techno songs that touch on 2 Live Crew, Peaches, and Lords of Acid even as it takes the sexual crudity of these artists to new extremes.  And yet the song “Was Love” is a slow, haunting, echoey song written for the Syfy original series “Caprica”.  Strange strange stuff.