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Album Review
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Amar International, Album Review >>
Crazy 80s Political Punk Stick Against Stone
If you google these guys, you’ll see the same phrases repeated over and over: “a product of their time, but playing twenty years in the future.” If you see the live version of The Hopping Frog at Oregon, you can fully understand the truth of the first part of that statement, but the more you listen the more convinced you will become that there has not yet been a decade in which their sound wouldn’t make you think “what the actual fuck?” There’s something attractive about their weird free flowing “post-punk” vibe, however, and if you can find a half-decent recording they’re worth a listen, if only because there is no one quite like them.
Stick Against Stone (so named in answer to the question “what was probably the first music ever made?”) formed in 1981, but its members apparently jarred as often and as much as the music they recorded. It was in an almost constant state of flux, leaderless in principle, and experienced fleeting popularity and lots of bad luck. The band were part of the Rock Against Reagan tour in 1983, and this political streak informs some of their more listenable tracks (EL Salvador especially).
A recording of their Oregon show has recently been found, polished up and re-released, and despite the jarring The Hopping Frog that opens it, the rest of the album is much more satisfying, if no less discordant. You can find bits and bobs on YouTube etc. but the best place to have a listen if you don’t have the album itself is their website (link below). Be warned, though – the website’s band bio turns pretty depressing, and by the 1991/2004 segment we find out the harrowing details of core-member Richard’s life after the band: suffice it to say that it’s not what.
Depressing personal stories of emotional torment, tragically-ended friendships and ultimate failure to achieve commercial success aside – they’re still pretty cool. The live recording of the Oregon performance is probably their best (and best preserved) music. If you think post-punk-funk might be your think, give them a chance.
For something more chill but still pretty experimental try the Sticks Against Stones Orchestra, one of the band’s incarnations – despite substituting Sari’s staple vocals for gruffer male voices, the music carries the singing to the extent that it’s actually kind of enjoyable anyway.
Top Tracks: Body Motion, Rhetoric, Products Throughout The Store, The Cosmic Spy From Turkestan, Instant 09/09/14 >> go there
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