Review: Get Help | The End Of The New Country [MP3]

The release (well, pending release) of New York duo Get Help's solid debut is as good an occasion as any to give thanks for the stalwart musicians out there who make dependable indie rock. Not dancepunk, not nu-rave, not electroclash, not... well, you get the picture. There are now countless bands, and many of them chase countless, cycling trends. Thankfully there are still plenty of acts making great music without aping the latest tight-legged or baggy-arsed hype-riders. Like The New Year. Like Thalia Zedek. And like Get Help.

The web site of Boston- and New York-based indie rock giants The Beatings continues to offer its message, "welcome to the country." So it is hard not to view the title The End Of The New Country as a sort of response, what with 50% of Get Help being comprised by Beatings guitarist and co-fronter Tony Skalicky. There is definitely a sense of old endings and new beginnings baked into the tracks on The End Of The New Country, particularly the anthemic rocker "Red Jacket Orchards" (a real place, incidentally -- the weird thing is we found that reference totally by accident) and the pensive strummer "Life Is Full Of Surprises." The other half of the the duo -- which is augmented for live performances by various labelmates and cohorts -- is Mike Ingenthron of Strikes Again. All three of the aforementioned acts record for Midriff Records, a bi-city collective formed by The Beatings seven years ago. With all those tight relationships in place, it is little wonder that Mssrs. Skalicky and Ingenthron's record doesn't stray far from the Grade A indie rock The Beatings trade in, but it is certainly more than a small comfort.

Like the solo efforts of The Beatings' Eldridge Rodriquez, Get Help doesn't fully embrace the kinetic squawl and electric snarl the characterizes the most compelling Beatings tracks. Instead, The End Of The New Country is as much as collection of moods as it is a group of songs. To that end, Get Help deploys reverbs, acoustic guitars and keys ("Travelers Shave Kit," "Punishing Good Deeds") with the same facility as the distortion levied in the balls-to-the-wall title track. As far as points of reference are concerned, the ballad "All Else Fails" is reminiscent of Yo La Tengo's "Tears Are In Your Eyes," as is the looping guitar at the close of the aforementioned "Travelers Shave Kit. The breezy rocker "It Begins Well" sounds like newer New Radiant Storm King. Mostly of course, Get Help's music sounds like good indie rock. Midriff Records releases The End Of The New Country Oct. 14, and the band will perform a record release show at Great Scott the following night. Now get a load of the title track.

Get Help -- "The End Of The New Country" -- The End Of The New Country
[right click and save as]
[pre-order The End Of The New Country from Midriff right here]

Get Help: Internerds | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr

Related Coverage:

That Was The Show That Was: The Beatings | TT The Bear's
That Was The Show That Was: E.R. | TT The Bear's
Review: Eldridge Rodriguez | This Conspiracy Against Us
Review: The Beatings | Holding On To Hand Grenades

Today's Hotness: Ringo Deathstarr, New Radiant Storm King

>> Texas-based shoegaze quartet Ringo Deathstarr plans to spend at least part of its late spring and summer recording new music, according to a MySpace bulletin from the band. This is very good news, as the band's sadly small body of recorded work is excellent, but, well, sadly small. The Deathstarr also plans another East Coast tour at the end of the summer, which makes us happy, as we were sick when the band played Boston earlier this year. We'll try to take vitamins between now and the band's return to ensure our attendance. In the meantime Ringo Deathstarr heads west in the first week of April to convert the unwitting. No word yet on who will release the planned Ringo Deathstarr recordings.

>> Legendary Western Massachusetts rockers New Radiant Storm King have been working on a ninth record, which will be released by Darla in the fall. The band will showcase new songs during two performances in early April, including a show at PA's Lounge Sunday April 6. New Radiant Storm King plays The Brass Cat in Easthampton the previous evening. Both dates also feature sets from Dr. Powerful, a band that counts among its number former members of even more legendary angular North Carolina rockers Polvo. No title has been announced yet for the next New Radiant Storm King record, its first since the release of The Steady Hand two years ago. We reviewed that latter set for Junkmedia right here.

>> We're pretty sure we read a MySpace bulletin from exemplary Philadelphia-based rockers The Swimmers last week reporting that they would have a Daytrotter session posted at the venerable music site Friday. We just checked Daytrotter.com and found nothing. Maybe The Swimmers were simply recording the session that day -- this seems likely, as the band is on tour in that general area of the country. The band's recently issued Fighting Trees has been getting a lot of play around :: clicky clicky :: HQ and we reviewed it here.

>> Fans of London-based indie rock act Fields who missed last week's MySpace blog post about the goings-on of fronter Nick Peill, drummer Henry Spenner and plastic dinosaur Godzuki certainly missed alot. Amusing photos and travelogue here. Notable items include the fact that, among other equipment, the studio Fields is using for final tracking and mixing of its planned sophomore full-length contains a piano owned by Phillip Glass and drum gear of The Walkmen. Wild and wildly amusing.

>> We're still hoping that someone out there has ripped their copy of Retriever's "Q-tip" single, which was released in 1995 or so and which we first requested here. In the meantime, however, we finally thought to search for Retriever stuff on EMusic and lo and behold the site is selling one track by the band. The song "Evil K" is the lead track on Zum #10 A CD Compilation. It scorches. You should download it from EMusic here. It is also notable on that comp includes tracks from Boyracer, June Of 44, The Raymond Brake and Vehicle Flips, although only the Vehicle Flips and Retriever tracks rise to the level of remarkable. Not that you asked, but the best June Of 44 release is the 1997 Anatomy Of Sharks EP, and one of the band's best numbers is the harrowing lead track from said EP, "Sharks And Sailors." Here it is.

June Of 44 -- "Sharks And Sailors" -- The Anatomy Of Sharks
[right click and save as]
[buy June Of 44 records from Newbury Comics right here]
[we just noticed the copy of The Anatomy Of Sharks we bought used is autographed by two members of the band; how cool are we?]

Today's Hotness: Zeke Fiddler, Home, Johnny Foreigner

>> Folks of a certain vintage whose stomping grounds included the Western Massachusetts music scene may have heard the name Mal Thursday bandied about, if they don't already know the guy. Our spidey sense tells us we met Mr. Thursday once, but memories of our time spent in the clubs in Northampton during college grow more and more faint. Imagine our surprise to see email from Thursday a week or so ago pointing to his new blog and posts therein in which he details his stewardship over Chunk Records. For us Chunk is best known for releasing in 1994 the scene compilation Hotel Massachusetts, a spotty collection that included a handful of excellent tracks from scenemakers including New Radiant Storm King, Sebadoh and Zeke Fiddler. But there is far more to the Chunk experience, and we encourage you to read the first two installments (1, 2) of "The Chunk Records Story."

Here are two of the best tracks from Hotel Massachusetts. First up is Zeke Fiddler's "Half Baked," an excellent song also released as Chunk's seventh single (as described in "The Chunk Records Story Part Two."). Zeke was a big, friendly guy who played a small black Les Paul. Unfortunately, nothing from Zeke's full-length debut on Spin-Art, Watery, grabbed us nearly completely as "Half Baked." But the tune is among the finest written by a musician working in Western Mass at the time. The second track we're offering is "Sunday" by a band called Home. Information about Home is hard to come by on the Interweb. We know because we've tried looking, spurred on by memories of a very impressive live set at the Bay State Hotel during the Loud Music Festival in 1995. At the time Home struck us as kindred spirits of Pittsburgh's Karl Hendricks Trio. "Sunday," a melodic folk-rocker with some nice cascading chord changes, doesn't necessarily bear out that comparison, but that made the performance all the more affecting.

Zeke Fiddler -- "Half Baked" -- Hotel Massachusetts compilation
Home -- "Sunday" -- Hotel Massachusetts compilation
[right click and save as]
[buy Hotel Massachusetts from Amazon here used but real cheap]

>> The critical praise for Johnny Foreigner's Arcs Across The City is starting to roll in. We won't be getting the record until the band's show Nov. 30 in Manhattan, but you can be sure we'll have something to say after that. Especially since we've already written a couple hundred words about the record based on the fact that we've already heard all the songs on it (although not the exact versions). Drowned In Sound here rates the EP a 10 out of 10 and dubs the set "the [U.K.] debut album release of the year, hands down." Another Form Of Relief here says "Johnny Foreigner are the best band in the [U.K.] right now." The only correction we have to that is that technically Johnny Foreigner is in the U.S. right now, recording their full-length debut. Assuming you are not as rabid a fan as we, you probably do not know that the Birmingham-based trio just posted a new track at its MySpace berth. It is called "Eyes Wide Terrified" and it was recorded for a recent Radio One session. Go listen to it now.