Today’s Sounds: Timmy’s Organism

Record:

Timmy’s Organism, Raw Sewage Roq (In the Red)

 

 
Pop Montreal has hosted some of the best shows I’ve ever seen. Swans, Mission of Burma, geez, way too many to mention. But the fest really earns its stripes when you stumble into a show to see a band that you have no previous knowledge of and sit slack-jawed at their pure genius. Detroit’s Human Eye was one of the bands that surprised and conquered when they levelled Casa about three years ago. That was a truly golden Pop Montreal moment.

When I found out that demented Human Eye frontman Timmy Vulgar had started Timmy’s Organism and released a killer blast of punk (2010’s Rise of the Green Gorilla, on Sacred Bones), I scooped it up, pronto. Their new jammer Raw Sewage Roq doesn’t grind any gears, continuing where Green Gorilla left off. Vulgar’s blood-curdling raunch ’n’ roll taps the dementia of Captain Beefheart and the guitar offensive of Motor City’s old guard, the Stooges and the MC5.

Like he did with Human Eye, Vulgar commandeers this bucket of bolts right into the wall. On the fuzz-drenched ballad “Drunken Man,” he duets with himself, laying on some serious Stiv Bators sleaze before putting the whole thing to bed with some oddly chosen Bowie-like croonin’. But don’t let this talk of ballads throw you for a loop: this trio is as punk fuckin’ rock as they come, and could ride shotgun with all the greats, like Rocket From the Tombs, the Electric Eels, Jeff Dahl, the Angry Samoans, Crime and other old punks who knew how to keep it young, loud and snotty as fuck. Even when they get off the punk rock path, as on the psyched-out jam “Un-hook My Leash,” the band is frothing at the mouth, testifying hard on gum-numbing crank.

Lyrically, Vulgar is as lysergic as it gets, babbling barbs about medieval war, getting fucked up, reanimating monsters and motorboatin’ boobies. Just as their mid-song noise jams starts to feel a little too familiar, these street urchins get back to business on the perfectly punk-titled “Poor and Bored,” which is a near perfect slab o’ sleaze. And they save the best for last with the anthemic “Mind Over Matter,” punching right from the pelvis before the all-too-short trip ends with the brilliant sludge-ridden title track.

If you pine for a time before punk rock lost the curl of its upper lip and the swagger in its hips, it’s here and it’s happening right fucking now.

 

Track:

Poirier feat. Face-T, “What”

 
514  producer Poirier drops a fresh track from the EP compilation Synesthesia #3 – Tactioception (Touch), on U.K. label Senseless.
 

 

Video:

Feistodon, “A Commotion”

 
Adult contemporary queen Leslie Feist lets her weird roots show, wrecking shit and spewing evil in this ace showcase of her fusion with Mastodon. May they never separate.