30 November 2021

GAY FLORISTS // WIGGLY WIGGLY AND OFF WITH MY FACE

 

Early sounds from the Stow, Ohio tree of rock (if you know, then you know - if you don't know, then I'm lumping all SOCKEYE-related musical projects into same category) on a split that was first released in 1988. It might be just the approach that sets both of these outfits apart from the voluminous nonsensical anti-punk Wheelchair Full Of Old Men catalog, but it might also be the result.  Remember that the US underground was just a few years removed from Confusion Is Sex, and experimentation was rife in the face of the same four hardcore riffs that had been blasted on repeat for the preceding eight years in the American Midwest. In this case, that experimentation is a decidedly non-musical split that falls somewhere in the chasm formed by the separation of NY No Wave and 1970s Kraut Rock and raises a drunken, defiant middle finger to both while jamming some dub records on the way down. But it's....good. Casually chaotic and gloriously monotonous, GAY FLORISTS and WIGGLY WIGGLY AND OFF WITH MY FACE share an approach (and if we're being honest, probably more than one or two members) that might have been a blueprint for further experimentation. It might have also been some dudes drunkenly fucking around with a tape recorder. 

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