Sheriffs With Dark Sides Make Bands With Dark Minds

There is something serendipitous about the sudden rise in interest in dirge punk slackers Pop. 1280. I went on a Jim Thompson reading frenzy about two months ago, reading The Getaway, The Killer Inside Me, The Grifters, and finished with Pop. 1280. For me, this was the best of the four, which is saying a lot considering the high caliber offerings that the other more famous noir tales offered. There is just something to Sheriff Nick Corey that supersedes Lou Ford in The Killer Inside Me - maybe its the fact that Corey is a scheming psychopath from the beginning, and it is slowly shown as the story unfolds. Anyway, its a brilliantly dark piece of art.

Which leads us to Pop. 1280, the band. Besides from choosing an amazing literary tome as their moniker, these New Yorkers dole out a vicious slice of visceral squalling post punk that is spat at you with violent disdain. There is more than a dollop of Venom P Stinger in Pop 1280's poisonous sonic stew, with a light pinch of Twin Stumps for that added kick...in the teeth.

The prowling, sinister groove permeates their sound, best heard on their Bedbugs 7". Now with The Grid, their forthcoming six-song 12" out on Sacred Bones, you can discover the fervent, fevered urgency for yourself. And to promote their new release, Pop 1280 are doing some incessant touring of parts of the US in November, most notably on the 6th in Columbus, Ohio, where they are playing alongside SM faves Puffy Areolas as well as the excellent Cheater Slicks. These guys are gonna produce something special in the next twelve months - you heard it here first.

Pop. 1280 - Step Into The Grid

Pop. 1280 - Bedbugs

Dirtier Three

Dirty Three - seminal Melbourne three piece whose instrumental menageries can evoke edginess, anarchy, meloncholia, and beauty in equal measures. An intrinsic part of the Australian - indeed, the global - musical fabric. But before the inception of the Dirty Three, there was...

Venom P Stinger - an unrelenting hardcore prowler of a Melbourne band, completely uncompromising in their approach to music and their audience, unable and unwilling to fit in or sound like anyone else, forever destined to wade waist deep in the ether of the subconscious darkness. Formed by two-thirds of the Dirty Three, guitarist Mick Turner and drummer Jim White, along with bassist Alan Secher-Jensen and mencing vocallist Dugald Mackenzie, Venom P Stinger put out a killer LP in 1986, Meet My Friend Venom - so pertinent today in its rawness and power, and amazing sound considering the age and the lack of production values. The band split up and reformed a number of times over a decade-long career, producing two more albums (What's Yours Is Mine and Tearbucketer) and a smattering of EPs and 7" releases, plus various lineup changes.

This is one underground act that is begging to be followed, devoured and worshipped. They reformed again for Pavement's ATP in May. I didn't go, but I told my sister to go see them, therefore seeing them by proxy. But did she or her boyfriend listen? No. However, the rest of you listen - they are still, all these years and other projects down the line, a completely uncompromising blitzkreig of a live act, and if you ever, EVER, get the chance to see them, sell your vital organs to do so. I know I will.

Venom P Stinger - PCP Crazy

Venom P Stinger - Full Circle