Drunk Tank, “Drunk Tank” (Radial/Matador, 1992)
Noise-rock from NYC via Chicago. Rooted equally in Gang of Four, Birthday Party and Motorhead, with metal-shard guitar and a rumblingly polyrhythmic bass/drums axis, this is an excellent racket, like a rhinoceros stuck in a giant washing machine.
Try 1/1, 2/1, 2/2, 2/3.
4/19/13
Drugs Dragons, “Drugs Dragons” (Dusty Medical, 2010)
Garage punk with twisted song structures and a heavy, dynamic sound, reminiscent of Stooges/MC’s/etc. Good stuff, and a great band name.
Try A/1, A/3, B/2, B/4, B/6
1/29/12
Dow Jones And The Industrialists, “Can’t Stand the Midwest” (Family Vineyard, 2016; original recordings 1979-1981)
These guys got together in college, at Purdue, in East Lafayette, Ind., and this is absolutely classic Midwest avant-garage rock and roll, as catchy, driving and hard-edged as Cheap Trick but with an Ubu-esque command of weird post-industrial discord-effects and a snotty/dystopian view of the straight world that outdoes Devo.
Try 3, 5,7
11/10/16
Dog Party, “Lost Control” (Asian Man, 2013)
Garage-punk in the now-ubiquitous surf/girl-group style, but these two sisters are younger, faster, and snottier. Still, while the blowout stuff is great fun, the more melodic midtempo stuff is just flat-out great, hook-filled and affecting.
Try 4, 8, 9
7/15/14
Disco Inferno, “D. I. Go Pop” (Second Wind, 1994)
This group were part of the postpunk-turning-into-electronica zeitgeist of early ‘90s Britain, but despite some remaining Joy Divisionisms here, this is ultimately a showcase of some of the craziest, most un-guitar-like sounds ever wrung out of mere guitars, courtesy of gadgetry that was then still wild and unexplored.
Try 1, 4, 8
1/23/14
Dirty Dishes, “The Most Tarnished Birds” (Stolen Apples, 2012)
Another band rediscovering the 70s – in this case a blend of soft/loud dynamic alterations à la Throwing Muses, and grainy mid-range sludge-lite à la a hundred bands I can’t think of right now – and doing a pretty good job of it at that.Try 1,5
7/12/12
Dictators, “Bloodbrothers” (Asylum, 1979)
Third and last LP by the proto-punk NYC legends, the surf/garage/trash stylings of the first and the more Böc/metal flourishes of the second now augmented with a warm, almost Springsteen-ish East-Coast-hometown sensibility.
Try 1/ 1, 1/ 5
6/18/18
Dickies, “The Punk Singles Collection” (Spectrum, 2000; original recordings 1978-80)
Early punk had a strain (feeding into hardcore) that was faster, lighter and sillier than the NY and U.K. predecessors, and the Dickies were the fastest, lightest and silliest of all. Helium-crazed chipmunks on a sugar jag, they blaze through their performances so fast, almost to the point of jabbering gibberish, that you don’t realize how crazily acute their pop song-sense is.
Try 2, 3, 6, 15
8/16/15
Denali, “Denali” (Jade Tree, 2002)
This band was nearly unique in making the often self-deflatingly introverted emo sounds of its day into something mysterious and immense, gradually surrounding you in gray, glacial waves of guitar with Maura Davis’s resounding voice swooping in. This is their debut, recorded in the immediate wake of 9/11, and it captures that moment’s peculiar combination of clinical numbness and chaotic fury better than anything I know, without direct comment. This band’s attack never left any marks.
Try 4, 10
7/26/12
Deep Time, “Deep Time” (Hardly Art, 2012)
A cool one, this features blasé/accented female vocals over mildly dissonant melodic guitar, and keyboard whooshing. The feel is simultaneously domestic and interplanetary, like if Stereolab had been on Woodsist.
Try 4, 5, 8
7/19/12