Mika Miko, Strange Boys, Coathangers play Drunken Unicorn tonight (Tues., June 9)
June 9th, 2009 by Chad Radford in Audiovisuals, Music news
Mika Miko’s last proper album, C.Y.S.L.A.B.F., earned the L.A. lady punks props by merging spastic hooks and focused amateurism. We Be Xuxa is a superior album, due largely to the addition of drummer Seth Densham, whose motorik beats refine the group’s visceral, art-punk kick. “Blues Not Speed” encapsulates their growth and opens the palette for what is perhaps the group’s catchiest Dada manifesto, “Turkey Sandwich.” A cover of the Urinals’ “Sex” pays homage to their southern California punk roots. And with “Sex Jazz,” the subtle no wave leanings of their past aren’t so subtle anymore. We Be Xuxa kicks the group’s infectious grooves up a notch, by fine-tuning the art of what happens when primitivism and high-energy grooves collide.
Austin, Texas, garage-punk quartet the Strange Boys craft a primitive, lo-fi rock and roll sound that’s both dirty and addictive. At its most predictable moments, the group comes across like the Lone Star state’s little brother to the Black Lips. But when they’re on, they’re on. Their In the Red Records debut, The Strange Boys and Girls Club, unleashes a psychedelic post-punk jam that’s part Texas psychedelia and part slow, Southern post-punk.
The band that rolls together holds together, and the Coathangers make the perfect gang. The band’s second full-length, Scramble (Suicide Squeeze), highlights marked growth for Atlanta’s premiere punk banshees. When Julia Kugel (guitar/vocals), Stephanie Luke (drums/vocals), Candice Jones (keyboard/vocals) and Meredith Franco (bass/vocals) dropped their self-titled debut in 2007, they caught both heat and praise for penning such juvenile party-punk anthems as “Tonya Harding” and “Nestle in My Boobies.” Scramble finds the group in a darker, more poetic mood, but they’re still not about to get all serious on us.
Mika Miko “I Got A Lot” mp3
Strange Boys’ “Heard You Want to Beat Me Up” mp3
the Coathangers “Stop Stomp Stompin’” mp3
Mika Miko, the Strange Boys and the Coathangers play the Drunken Unicorn. $10. 9 p.m. Tues., June 9.
(Mika Miko photo courtesy 230 Publicity)
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