album // Babysitters On Acid
I bought this back in my hazy university days, and I'll freely admit that its never going to sit among my favourite Blast First releases. Everything about it - its garish, luminous green front cover, its truly nauseating title track and its overblown girl-punk heavy metal sound - makes me feel just a little queasy. But, despite all of these factors, I've probably listened to this more times in its entirety than Sonic Youth's 'Bad Moon Rising', for example; there's just a curious compulsion, a certain gritty charm about it. Interestingly, long-term Youth associate and occasional producer, Wharton Tiers, is the man behind the mixing desk on this LP. The 'Chicks consisted here of Theo Kogan (vocals), Sydney Silver (bass), Gina (lead guitar), Sindi B (rhythm guitar) and Becky Wreck (drums).
Like the best punk, this is an extremely short LP, weighing in at just over thirty minutes. And, like the best punk records, its songs are short burts of noise, designed to incite the listener rather than endear them. The riffs are grungy and the drums are heavy, but the vocals are from the Lydia Lunch school of fem-rock - shrieks, bassy growls and occasionally more or less straight singing. At times I can hear strains of Kim Gordon, other times just straining. It's teen punk for drunk college students, and tracks like 'Jan Brady' and 'Cookie Monster' draw upon America's rich source of counter-culture icons, although I'm not sure Jim Henson would've approved of his character's namechecking on the latter crazy tune. Occasionally, the guitars go a bit too hair-rock for my liking, which we could do without.
There are some good tracks here - the frenzied single 'Sugar Luv', 'Glad I'm Not Yew', an urgent t(h)rashy song with a half-speed chorus, or the richocheting drum frenzy of 'Pin Eye Woman 665' - but on the whole this is goofy rock for those who just can't get enough of the likes of the Butthole Surfers and that whole acid-fried sound. As babysitters go, they certainly make Princess Superstar look like a saint.