SOUNDTRACK: MAYYORS: 3 EPs (online only) (2008-2009).
I learned about Mayyors from the NPR’s Best Metal and Outer Sounds releases of 2009 on All Songs Considered. I enjoyed Viking’s picks for 2010 quite a bit so I thought I’d investigate his previous years’ selections. I’d never heard of Mayyors before, but he makes the band sound so intriguing (and dirty).
The write up is so wonderfully enigmatic that I had to find the tracks online. I mean, how can you pass up this:
This is a plea to Mayyors: If you’re going to release one of the ugliest pieces of noise rock this side of The Jesus Lizard, please start issuing your music in editions bigger than David Yow’s beer gut. After a couple of ripped 7″ singles made the rounds on blogs last year, those seeking the puss-popping skronk of Mayyors scavenged message boards and listservs to get their hands on the next limited affair. (After all, these Sacramento-based dudes don’t have a Web site or any known email addresses. Punk rock, I guess.) The Deads 12″ EP significantly dirties the rock gene pool with nauseating feedback and power chords dumber than the actual mud driven over the orange covers. Once again, Google is your friend.
That link to Google is the only way I was able to find these songs.
So Mayyors have released three EPs since 2008. Each had a pressing of about ten copies, apparently. You really can’t find any information about them online. I don’t even understand how the band plays shows since their total recorded output is about 2o minutes long. But I was able to get all 9 songs.
Having said all, that I don’t always like the music. It hurts your head. The general sound is really downtuned sludge rock. It’s not squealy feedbacky noise, it’s just distorted guitars played very loud and fast with vocals that are pretty incomprehensible (with lots of echo!). I have no idea what he’s singing about. I’m sure it’s not very nice. But I feel like their music would be even more subversive if they sang about love and kindness (or like the cover of Megan’s LOLZ: unicorns and rainbows).
The first EP: Marines Dot Com has two tracks “Metro” (3:08) and “Fatigure” (3:35). “Metro” reminds me a lot of early Butthole Surfers. “Fatigure” has a discernible riff (which is of course very downtuned. It’s entirely possible they have only a guitar and a bass. About half way through, the song changes into a noise-fest. Of course, nearly 4 minutes of noise is pretty tough to handle. Especially since the noise is sludgy and loud loud loud.
The middle EP, Megan’s LOLZ, is my favorite. Three songs: “Intro” (0:59), “Airplanes” (3:23), “White Jeep” (2:18). The noise and sludge is still there, but you can actually hear nascent riffs under all the noise. It also seems a little crisper (or something), which makes the tracks stand out a little more.
“Intro” actually plays around with different kinds of noise, suggesting they’re in for something new on this EP (of course, it’s still buried under noise and sludge). “Airplanes” has another discernible riff, although it does sound like it’s recorded in an airplane hangar. “White Jeep” has a similar (if not the same) riff, but it plays a bit more with feedback and genuinely piecing noises. (There’s even a kind of guitar solo).
The latest EP, the one that Viking likes, is called Deads. It has four songs: “The Crawl” (1:41), “Ghost Punch” (1:41) “Clicks (2:42) and “Deads” (2:53). And as he describes above, the cover does appear to have been driven over by a muddy truck.
This album is a bit more “polished” (how dare anyone use that word). In fact the sludge doesn’t really get put onto “The Crawl” until about 50 seconds in. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a sludgy mess, but you can sort of tell what instruments there are and that there’s a guy singing. “Ghost Punch” sounds a bit more death metal-like than their other songs, although it’s so tinny, it sort of transcends the genre somewhat. “Clicks” seems to be the song of choice for examples of what Mayyors can do. It’s got intense delay, squealing noises and a vocal melody! (Do I hear screams of sellout?). Hear it and “The Crawl” here. “Deads” actually has staccato notes in the opening, but it’s all sludge from there.
And then there’s silence. Blissful silence. Mayyors: Not for the sensitive.
[READ: March 5, 2011] “The Other Place”
Mary Gaitskill is generally acknowledged as a master short story writer. I haven’t read all that much by her.
I’m not sure if her stories are all as dark as this one, but man this is quite dark, indeed. It’s about a man and his son. Well, actually it begins with the son. He is into guns. Like really into guns. He draws them, he makes stories about them, he plays guns outside even if they don’t have guns. He also loves violence on TV, especially if it’s funny. The boy is thirteen.
When I read the story, I initially thought that the father was upset or worried about this gun fascination, because he opens the story with “How did this happen?” But he seems to know how this happened: “The way everything does, of course. One thing follows another, naturally.”
And so, with the wrong impression, I couldn’t quite understand why the father was so surprised by the son’s behavior because as the father relates his own past, it’s pretty full of violence itself. Indeed, as it progresses, it seems like the son inherited all of his father’s traits. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 