Holy Smokes is a supergroup which consists of members of Hella, Flying Luttenbachers, Pinback and The Advantage. They were described equally “Voivod if they formed in 2084” and “barefoot shoegazing on a bed of hot coals”. So far they produced two records, one of which came out on Suicide Squeeze label and the other on Skin Graft.
Their debut was 2004 “Masculine Drugs”, which was released under the name Zach Hill & The Hill Smokes (eventually, they shortened the name to Holy Smokes). The album was a soundtrack to a book written by Hill and was described by Splendid Magazine website as “a literary mindfuck set to a deathmarch of scowling, broken junk-blues rhythms and torturous guitar work”.
By 2006, they released their first record for Skin Graft – “Talk To Your Kids About Gangs” LP. Splendid Magazine pointed out that “Where the band’s debut offered a discordant free-jazz-noise-rock shock, “Talk To Your Kids About Gangs” emerges as a harmonic tangle of pitches and thunder claps, that as they unravel, come into focus as intelligible, infectious oddments of grooving sonance.”
Members:
Zach Hill (Flossin, Goon Moon, Hella, The Ladies, Nervous Cop, Team Sleep)
Dan Elkan
Rob Crow (Alpha Males, Heavy Vegetable, The Ladies, Optiganally Yours, Physics, Pinback, Thingy)
Carson McWhirter (Hella)
Jonathan Hischke (Flying Luttenbachers, Harvey Sid Fisher, Head Of Femur, Hella, My Name Is Rar-Rar, Pablo’s Triangle, Plastik Trumpet, Roosevelt Franklin)
Ian Hernandez
J.R. Thompson
Discography:
Masculine Drugs CD+Book (Suicide Squeeze, 2004)
Talk To Your Kids About Gangs CD (Skin Graft, 2006)
MP3: Quantum Leaper Of Los Angeles County / Pretty Much None Of Us Know Anything / Don’t Squab On God’s Tracks