Wouldn'tchaknowit, the band we were drooling all over ourselves to see last weekend pulled out. Now, we like this band, and we've written radiantly about them before, so we ain't about to wage Mr. Johnson at 'em in print. From what we hear, anyway, they had a damn good reason to shine the show. Seems they thought they had scheduled expensive studio time from noon to 1 p.m. But-oops!-someone screwed up, and their time was actually booked from midnight to 1 a.m. So we wound up spending our Saturday night driving all over town, looking for a theater showing that hot World War II-themed gay-porn flick we keep hearing about called Shaving Ryan's Privates or something like that. Sadly, our hands came up empty-so to speak-and we were forced to go home and spend another grotesque evening listening to music from off our floor. El Centro
Alto!
Finger Records
We're not sure what's worse-that these guys sent about 4,000 copies of their album to the Weekly's offices, thereby wasting a whole helluva lotta plastic that'll only net us about a penny a pop when we sell 'em all to used CD stores anyway, or that their positively vile mucous music is so disgustingly cheesy that our cholesterol count shot way up with each listen. El Centro bridge the gap between '80s hairspray bands and watered-down '90s redunda-punk, which, naturally, is not a good thing. They play catchy, Night Ranger-esque guitar riffs that seem designed purposely for “modern-rock” radio airplay-with enough pseudo-punk gruntin' and a-growlin' so as to not make them seem hopelessly irrelevant to their “target market” (that would be all the carbon-copy zombies who buy tickets for the Warped Tour). Plus, they pose with broken bottles in the photo on the back of the disc, which makes them look about as threatening and badass as a pile of crusty, fly-infested poodle turd. Frankly, we appreciated this much, much more when the Cadillac Tramps were doing it, and they did it far, far better. Everyone knows by now that old punks can't play swing. They sure as hell can't do corporate rock, either. Michael Miller
Lifeboat Into Mighty
Steepleglow Records It's time for Bad-Lyric-Quote-a-Mania, with this week's guest, Michael Miller, featuring songs from his Lifeboat Into Mighty CD: “Your sweet face turned my blue day from dark, gray skies to sunshine/Your dream smile is all I need, child, to live and breathe so free and wild.” “Skybombs and fireworks, your glimpse to her universe/Her lips are rocket ships burning and you drink her in when you kiss her, kiss her, yeah, kiss her.” “We'll say goodbye like butterflies when caterpillars kiss goodbye.” So deep, so soul-searching, so emotionally wrought, so . . . so . . . uh-oh . . . (urp) . . . bbblllAAARRRFFF!!! For more information, call (562) 598-7425. Uncalled 4
Now here's something that's so freaky we just gotta brand Uncalled 4 the saviors of the known rock universe. Or maybe they're so horrible we're down with all the Weekly people who laughed out loud when we spun their tape in the office. Yeah, depending on our wild mood swings, we guess our P.O.V. of Uncalled 4 changes about every hour. Call it art-rock, then, a band with a bunch of Pere Ubu-ish esotericisms who give us a sense of euphoria-and a migraine at the same time! Check out “Deadbeat,” which sounds like a pent-up Adam Sandler parodying Zach de la Rocha over lines like, “She wanted another cookie/Told her she had to beg me/Please daddy please can I have another cookie?/No fucking way, shut up!/Come back here so I can beat you!” Hmmm . . . sounds like somebody could use a decent therapist. “Transatlantic Bees” is another li'l gem, something we think is about the yellow-jacketed rent-a-Nazis who always hassle you at shows. And those personnel names! Velvita Jones, StrapOnUponAvon, PhilZilla and Pitaman, all apropos, considering the bizarre noises they fart out. We're intrigued enough to be on the lookout for live dates, though. Fascinating stuff. Maybe. For more information, call (562) 621-6408.Send tapes, CDs, show dates and comp tickets that we'll just turn around and scalp to Locals Only, OC Weekly, P.O. Box 10788, Costa Mesa, CA 92627.
