Thursday, February 24, 2011

Snake Flower 2 on Southpaw Records



I think I got in on this single from Snake Flower 2 when Southpaw records had that package deal to pick this up with a limited live Ty Segall full length...I've been slowly trying to pick up all of Ty's releases and finally get caught up. There was a while there where Ty had at least 3 albums out all at once, and I couldn't even get them all, let alone listen to them.
Thinking about Matthew and having had Bare Wires and his solo full length in constant rotation I had to take extensive time out of my work day to come up with the official 2011 Garage Punk Gods top 5 list as of 2-24 in the final forever order, for all time (I can't even write that as a joke, and yes there are six).

Jay Reatard
Ty Segall
Seth Sutton
Jeff Novak
Matthew Melton
Daniel Dimaggio

The only reason I even attempted making the list is to put them down in the same group and imagine they got together for one album and worked it out for an unlimited amount of time and of course, no budget. I mean what qualities are these guys hitting dead on?
It would have to be a minimal setup, not too crazy effects on the guitar which is front and center in every track. Just classy raw, crunchy distortion with at least one reverb pedal available. The songwriting starts with that instrument on every track. Not too many changes, but of course they have that incredible catchiness. They would have multiple choruses, informed by classic '60s garage rock, possibly a slight distortion on the vocal as well. It would be recorded with not more than 3 mic's, one somewhere near the kit, one jammed into the screen of the amp and one for vocals. It goes without saying they can all get away with leather jackets and moustaches, it's important to have that bad ass factor.
Matthew Melton is an important piece of that puzzle, the secret songwriting genius, stepping away from the textures that can be overused, he goes strictly classic...like Jeff Novak, from another era. They just got off the time machine and guess what, things aren't really that different when it comes to this style of classic rock and roll. Write a good bare bones song with the same shit everyone's been using for years...isn't that harder?
So if this guy is starting a side project...count me in. I don't even need to hear it. I never get sick of anything he's ever done.
Southpaw has it.


SNAKE FLOWER 2 - Memory Castle - Southpaw - SOUTHPAW 018 - 7" - $ 6.00
***SNAKE FLOWER 2 is fronted by prolific and amazing song writer MATTHEW MELTON who also fronts the glitter fuzz champs BARE WIRES. Four songs of killer psyched out fuzz pop. Limited press of 300 copies.

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