BANGS
Call and Response (KILL ROCK STARS; www.killrockstars.com)
4.0
Ah, Olympia, WA. Welcome to the mythical land of good ol'
Sasquatch rock n' roll. If you look to your right, you will
see Kurt Cobain's childhood home, where he strummed out
his first plots at suicide! And on your left, the scene
of Courtney Love's very first airline stewardess- related
arrest! Aww! Straight ahead, the Kill Rock Stars offices,
the legendary records label of all things fem-rock (duh!)
Oh! Look! We're in luck! Local band Bangs are just departing
from their record label's main building! Let's stop and
ask them to sing our fresh copies of their new EP, Call
and Response!
That was an actual Olympia Bus Tours recording (note: No
it wasn't! I made it up! Ha ha!). But it could have been.
Seriously. Olympia has always been (well, at least since
the late 80's) some sort of promise land for beautiful,
outrageous grunge and female art-rock (just like, say, Florida
is a sort of Mecca of crap).
Bangs is no exception to the rule. Call and Response is
made of all the right stuff: yelping girly vocals, snotty
guitars, infectious drum beats. Actually, Bangs' music is
perfectly depicted on the cover of their EP (a photograph
of a dude in a snake mascott costume with a bullhorn). It's
green and fuzzy, so you sorta want to cuddle it, but then
you notice it has fangs, and scary eyes. And it's loud.
You know, the bullhorn.
Call and Response's best track is the stellar finale, "Dirty
Knives", a haunting tale of youth, despair and suicide.
Perfect for air guitar, and legendary Bikini Kill drummer
Tobi Vail lends Bangs a few funky hand claps and banshee
wails. Any self-respecting rock critic, like myself, will
immediately find themselves hitting repeat on their stereo,
and drinking the song in, in all it's glory.
This said, it's no secret where Bangs draw their influences.
They sound as if they plopped fully formed out of the collective
womb of the Lunachicks, Bratmoblie and Bikini Kill. (In
fact, bassist Maggie Vail is Tobi Vail's sister.) But who's
complaining? The world is in dire need of punk-fueled female
rock icons (anything is better than Avril Lavigne looped
for six months). Bangs could very well be the worthy successors
of riot-grrrl, carrying the torch, we hope, well into the
21st century. CAMERON COOK
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