#castle face

In Bug on Yonkers, Dwyer’s Damaged Bug revisits nine Michael Yonkers songs. Four are from 1968’s Microminiature Love, Dwyer’s point of entry into the Yonkers catalog (and, honestly, almost everyone’s point of entry). One is a very early (1966) cut from Yonkers’ pre-Microminiature Love outfit, Michael and the Mumbles. Two are from his psych folkie experiments Lovely Gold (1977) and Grimwood (1968), and one is a previously unreleased song. Yonkers has never played live much because of his damaged back, but he and Dwyer did one show together around the time of the Sub Pop reissue and kept in touch by email. Dwyer, thus, had access to lots of Yonkers rarities, on CDRs made by the artist himself. He says in an interview that he roughed out about 40 Yonkers cuts, then got high and cut them down to nine.  

With the Ohsees, and now Damaged Bug, Dwyer has evolved a psychedelically expansive, motoric-ly propulsive rock and roll sound that is both elementally simple and familiar and deeply, mind-shiftingly strange. As such, he and his crew (Tom Dolas, Nick Murray, and Brigid Dawson) are almost ideally suited to interpret Yonkers, whose rock material shares these very same characteristics. The two cuts that elicited the first listen, “holy shit, what is this?” from yours truly were “Sold American” and “The Thunder Speaks,” two pounding, howling, vortex-staring cuts that set up a short hypnotic riff, then implode it from the inside with explosive drumming and big guitar chords. They are both insanely great songs, both from Yonkers’ great defining 1968 record, both delivered hot and raw and without reverence.

The odd acoustic folk songs are somewhat more of an acquired taste, but Damaged Bug does justice to them as well. Bridget Dawson takes over the vocals for “Sunflower,” the lone cut from Grimwood, an airy, lullaby sheathed in echo with a sax blowing softly in the background; it is as pretty, and as unusual, as the Yonkers original. “Lovely Gold” written a dozen or so years later, pumps harder, but with whimsy, a Roky Erikson-like jug sound percolating in the interstices.

The disc closes with a Michael Yonkers song you’ve probably never heard, an unreleased ballad called “I Tried” which Damaged Bug plays slowly and sweetly with a steady undercurrent of cello sound. “And I have found a way, and I will be okay, and I can be around the lights, that I don’t understand,” intones Dwyer. You can hear one artist reflecting on another’s accumulated art and wisdom and nodding in recognition.

It's a Castle Face release, so of course I like it. They're just so damn consistent. POW! are doing something that sounds like synth-pop mixed with garage punk. Sort of new wavey, sort of psychedelic. It's an interesting mix.

And they're leaning in to their chosen style by incorporating robotic vocals and a kind of tongue-in-cheek retro-futurism. Like Devo, kinda. The music here is full of buzzing, humming synth-lines that are replacing the feedback and reverb you'd hear in typical noise rock. On top of those atmospherics are some thumping rhythms and crunchy guitar riffs. The songwriting itself is manic, frantic and fun.

It's worth a listen. Very high-energy and proudly weird.

Highlights: Back On The Grid • Necessary Call • Cyberattack #3

STREAM IN FULL below via Impose Magazine (direct link).

AMAZON • iTUNES

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