In Which Shitgaze Is Panned as a Name But Musically Praised

By Dan on October 20, 2008 in mp3blog

The biggest musical story of 2008 for me has been the raised profile of lo-fi garage rock. Today's hype cycle encourages a name for every nascent trend, and with the inexplicable "shitgaze" moniker, this one is no exception. My problem with "shitgaze": Besides the fact that it just sounds dumb, the word shitgaze makes it sound like these acts are simply ripping shoegaze acts and putting a lo-fi veneer on it, which is really not the case. In my mind, shitgaze evokes acts like Grouper, who has a kind of downsized Cocteau Twins thing going for her, before it does, say, the Hospitals, whose recent sound is as thick as shoegaze, for sure, but is also more way more art-damaged punk than it is blissful swirly pop. And plenty of these bands have shitty-sounding songs, but the "gaze" is lacking. But "shitgaze" bullshit aside, with the attention the sound garnering on blogs, message boards and in reviews, I think I'm not the only one to come across many great new lo-fi garage and punk bands this year.

Grouper - Opened Space

As David Berman pointed out in a recent interview with a friend of mine who has frequently blogged here, in the year 2008 making a lo-fi record is much more of an aesthetic choice an economic one. Professional sounding records can be made with pirated recording equipment and a half-decent microphone. Some critics have said that the lo-fi revival is a cop-out for shitty bands trying to hide the fact that they suck with their terrible-but-"authentic" recordings. I'm on the other side of the spectrum; I'm a total sucker for it. There's something about the lo-fi sound, in which the drums are way too loud, the guitars are screeching madly and the vocals are buried beneath stupid amounts of reverb, that can potentially make any brash three-chord act, hooks or no hooks, sound like something special

Bands like the Coachwhips, King Khan and the Hunches and other have been keeping the garage rock flame alive for years before it became cool again. But it seems that in 2007 and 2008, acts like these have reached a noticeable level of popularity among the general music loving population. Even if you haven't been feverishly scouring the punk underground for good stuff, the recent critical success of acts like Times New Viking, the Vivian Girls and Jay Reatard shows that this stuff has reached a level of crossover popularity.

Yesterday Nicole made mention of In the Red Records, which along with Goner Records has been the label home for this sound so far this decade. A glance at the In the Red discography includes releases by classic acts like the Country Teasers, Pussy Galore and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, along with more recent favorites like Human Eye and the Intelligence. In addition to re-releasing the mega-hyped Vivian Girls record, this year In the Red has released the Cheap Time's awesome self-titled debut, the much-anticipated Jay Reatard single compilation and a new album by old favorites the Dirtbombs, called We Have You Surrounded.

Here are some of my favorite In the Red-related tracks from the past few years. I say related because some of these (the Human Eye) are from bands that have released stuff on In the Red but come from albums that were not.

Cheap Time - People Talk
Cheap Time - Glitter & Gold
Cheap Time - Permanent Damage

The Hunches - Murdering Train Track Blues
The Hunches - Let Me Be
The Hunches - Peeping Tom Crawl

Human Eye - Car Was Alive
Human Eye - First Taste of Crime
Human Eye - Sly Glass Foam

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