K’Dawg’s Music Korner

Welcome to K’Dawg’s Music Korner or KDWG Radio. I’m here to talk about long dear love, music. Each week or so I will pick an album that says something. Consider this a M.A.N. education programme (as part of B.U.). So I not going to write a review of why Revolver is truly a better album than Sgt Peppers or advise you not to tell anyone you don’t own Blonde On Blonde. Hopefully I will be talking about albums you won’t of heard or more importantly would be likely to hear. So to kick off I’m going to start off with an album you are unlikely to want to even pick up.

BLACK EYES
Cough (2004)

Second release from Washington, DC’s the Black Eyes makes an even harder listen then their debut a year earlier (which was a top 10 for me in 2003). It’s punk all right. It’s anarchic without question, but is it still music? Cough finds The Black Eyes at one of those magnificent musical crossroads where many artists find all goes to shit, but despite the odds can produce remarkable outcomes. Albums like Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours or Green Day’s American Idiot are two examples you might know… but unlike those bands that have leapt their own personal and/or external hurdles… Black Eyes simply run straight into it. Highlights include the lead track with impossible loops of sound, bible verses and featuring the two lead singers (and I use the word singer as loose as I ever have) jockeying for airtime, the remarkable third track “Drums”… and that’s about it. The rest of the album is a roller coaster of noise upon noise and vaguely put together lyrics, which in different circumstances could of surpassed their first release and possibly started them on a road towards achievements like ‘labelmates’ Fugazi’s brilliant The Argument. Cough is by no means just “white noise” and, damn it, there are some really good (not just promising) bits. The last few tracks of the album are a lot easier to deal with (still quite disjointed), but lose vigour as the trade off and just ain't much chop.

It is undoubtable that few Shenaniga (or indeed humans) could listen to album all the way through. Gone are the original proto-punk tunes of their self-titled debut album, replaced with a prog-punk sound, not in early gestation, but rather in dying throughs. Chaotic, violent and ‘squonky’ (read the constant intrusion with a broken reed sax). So I hear the question, “Jesus, K! Why the fuck should I even give a rat’s arse?” Well allow me to retort. As I mentioned earlier, there is a certain calibre of album that comes from, and more importantly OVER comes turmoil. Cough is quite the opposite. This five piece (two bassist, two drummers and guitar) broke up shortly before this album was released. These recordings are of a band in free-fall and self-destruction… and everyone’s throwing fuel on the fire. It’s a fascinating snap-shot of a band falling apart and like true punks – they don’t care!

Released by Discord records and produced by… satan on smack. And the album art looks like stuff I did in college. Ready to borrow for the K’Vaults NOW.

KK½ (Two and a half Ks)