The Vermin Poets – s/t 7” EP (SmartGuy)
Another Billy Childish joint. Song-structure suggests a post-Beatles template was decided during the inaugural band meeting. To these ears, there’s the bounce and melodic lines of freak-beat with the low-impact punch of pub-rock and production values short of professional but still way north of garden-variety garage-scuzz. A theme song? Sounds like a good idea. Also sounds like something a prog-rock band would do to lighten things up. The unit is a non-traditional four-piece in that the back cover credits two drummers (one’s a lady). Or they could be a three-piece that went through two drummers in the process of recording four songs. What’s certain is the neither good nor bad music on this record has nothing to do with the exhilarating pummel possible when double drummers are done correctly. The band is named after the literary movement born when Billy Childish and four other people decided to affect a fictional literary movement’s fake history for the purpose of writing, recording, and releasing a four-song 7”. (http://www.smartguyrecords.com)
(Andrew Earles)
