Young Skin
The Sticky Pages EP
Paper + Plastick Records
I miss the snotty, poorly produced yet self-conscious punk rock of the late ’70s. That why I love this poorly produced, self-conscious yet acoustically thin EP populated with musicians hiding under clever pseudonyms like Beau Disregard, Artful Dodger, Black Donald, and Liz Unphair. Maybe those are covers for more famous musicians, but judging by the rough and ready sounds in this micro-collective, I’ll cut them the slack of being upstarts with limited future prospects. Even their press release is unsupportive. It suggests they “sound like barf,” are “100% unlistenable,” sound like “grungy garbage,” and could be called “butt rock.” And just to disconnect my own opinion from their reality, that’s the press release talking, not me.
Having dished them with their own dirt, I’ll say this is some of the most intriguing punk to cross my digital threshold in ages. The lead singer has the slutty yet snotty edge of early Exene Cervenka, Polystyrene, or Dale Bozzio. The guitars are mostly in tune, the drummer might not be completely shitfaced, and the mix is at least muddy enough to allow any of the band members to claim reasonable denial. The EP’s total runtime is about ten minutes; that’s just long enough to demand a 10-inch but way too short to consider a full digital release. The cover art is suitably sleazy, and I’d love to see this project open for a truly shitty headliner. They may not have enough skillz to make their own career, but they could flip off a lot of “hope they never play the Social” bands I run from in fear of comprising my limited rock critic cred. This band sucks, but it sucks so much better than anything else I’ve heard this month and I hope to have the chance to pan them live someday. Rock on!
Paper + Plastick Records: http://paperandplastick.com • Young Skin: http://youngskin.bandcamp.com
