My first reaction to Emergency's Only Friend, the debut LP (out this May 2006 Modern Radio Record Label) by the experimental art-punk humorists known as Styrofoam Duck was terrible and confusing shock. I noticed the first track was titled "Intro," and being in a bit of a time crunch, I skipped immediately to song two. I listened to maybe 32 seconds, precisely the time it takes me to dress myself in a hurry, and became helplessly depressed that it sounded much more pop sensible than anything I had heard previously. After all, the care-free raucous adventurism inherent to the lo-fi grit I'd been accustomed to was one of my favorite aspects of the band. What sweet relief it is to know that was simply a moment of acclimation to the sound of a slightly more sophisticated production pallet.
Guitarist/vocalist Ben Brockway mashes out the kind of furiously fun guitar chops that no 'real' musician could ever pull off with a straight face. Yet contrary to that early Stooges or Sid Vicious style punk ethos that waves a proud flag of technical incompetence, Ben really can play, and in hilarious sarcasm he is somehow able to grind out his goofy licks with an over-the-top manic stage presence, and yes, stone faced seriousness. Yet with a drummer (Dan Ciernia) who plays like he's cranked on amphetamines and putting on his best Chico Marx, and a towering, garish, hand-painted styrofoam duck sculpture blinking a giant orange light for an eyeball each time the dude in the back comes up with another bad pun or exercise in poor taste, even the late Marlon Brando couldn't have kept any seriousness from being eschewed into a zany carnival of cerebral whip-it hits. But as of April 7th, the sculpture which so hilariously dominated the band's live shows has been officially fired. Or retired, ....or whatever.
I know some of you are probably thinking, "For God's Sake! If The Schtick Works, Stick With It!" But here we are in the daylight of the downloading age, and no matter how great a concept a band has, the tunes gotta get to ya in order to open up that bear trap of a wallet long enough to let a few presidents through. You should be relieved to hear that Styrofoam Duck are focusing on music. Sounding something like the mutant offspring of Beck, Old Time Relijun, and the Sex Pistols goofin' on Dr. Seuss in a friend's basement, Styrofoam Duck's music is both overtly idiosyncratic and irresistibly catchy.
While embracing a sound simultaneously too funny to be punk, and too authentic and raw to be anything else, the Duck seems fascinated with, if not devoted to, experimentation and the avant-garde. Three of the eight songs included on 2004's EP were sound explorations without any intelligible lyrics. Similarly, Emergency's Only Friend fades in and out with sonic freak out, sandwiching the song orientated tracks along with the ironically appropriately titled "Empty Space." And then there's the way they routinely dismantle their songs into atonal arrhythmic noise as if they got lost meander-jamming and decided to kill it with a musically nonsensical spastic climax. But it's all in the name of using unpredictability to stir up frenetic energy.
Goofy, arty, and experimental, but also engaging as hell, Emergency's Only Friend shows titillating promise for a band some seem apprehensive to take seriously. Frank Zappa once famously asked "Does humor have a place in music?" If you're one of those people who's inclined to respond "Of course humor has a place in music, everything has a place in music! And humor is welcome anywhere!" then you can skip the salt and bite right in to a hefty helping of Styrofoam Duck.
www.styrofoamduck.com |
