Bandcamp Friday // Skin Graft Records (II)

New Music Recommendations

Checking in with our friends at Skin Graft Records again! They’re currently on a campaign to reissue tribute series to Aussie rawk godz AC/DC and Sides 7-10 (originally released in 1998) features who’s who of noise rock scene of that era.

We’re talking Mount Shasta, Denison Kimball Trio (featuring Duane Denison of Jesus Lizard / Tomahawk fame in the line-up), Tar and Killdozer, all the luminaries of that era’s noise rock scene. Now why AC/DC of all bands, you might ask? We’ll let artists take over from here:

John Vernon Forbes (Mount Shasta / Tijuana Hercules)

Some people aspire to win a Pulitzer Prize, an Oscar, A Nobel Prize, a Fickle Finger Of Fate, or a Grammy. AC/DC aspired to win the Dirty Dick Award. They were salacious. They were a muscle car. A muscle car that burned its bra! I read that Bon Scott put a lot of sweat and discipline into his lyric writing. Many notebooks were filled and edited. The band’s name is pure truth in advertising. Anyone that has been around for a minute knows that AC/DC is slang for “game for whatever when the clothes are off.

Michael Gerald (Killdozer)

I was 18 years old when I first heard AC/DC, so I can honestly say they meant nothing to me as a kid. But when I heard them, I liked what I heard—music for grown ups like me!

As the notes point out the original been tinkered/tampered with and Discogs certainly confirms as much. Don’t let that put you off, though! This one comes with a comic book and if you have even the slightest familiarity with the genre “Sides 7-10” should be a no-brainer of a purchase.

Speaking of Tijuana Hercules, John Forbes post-Mount Shasta project…they also got something new on the horizon! “Mudslod and the Singles”, self-described “hillbilly trance” record that involved more than 20 musicians!

Years in the making and featuring the talents of more than 20 musicians, Tijuana Hercules’s new long-player “Mudslod and the Singles” finds the band deep-diving into its patented “hillbilly trance” sound: an oxygen-depriving bouillabaisse of boundary-busting blues, spaghetti-strung grooves, and tangled psychedelic roots music.

Hailing from the southern regions of the U.S., John Vernon Forbes has a long and storied history of making music, cartoons, and comical mischief. His illustrations recall the golden-age of animation filtered through an absurdist lens – and this love of days gone by is rendered with a futurist’s ear in the blues-tinged music he’s been creating for decades.