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Barrio Tiger Ave Maria (Ghost Highway Recordings) Guest Post by The Heathen It literally took the length of the Obama presidency for Los Angeles garage punk stalwarts Barrio Tiger to complete and finalize their debut album Ave Maria for all of us to hear. Some of you may think, “What are these guys? The Kinks!?” But who the hell are we to think anything of it? Sometimes a record just needs time to complete.Also, life gets in the way; it was nine years after all. No explaining it and doesn’t matter now because it’s out and it’s damn good, sonically speaking! Ghost Highway Recordings is the culprit responsible for taking a chance on these four and and it’s a good fit.  10 tracks and 21 minutes of high octane, garage punk fury, this is the type of sound that fueled labels like Estrus, SFTRI and the name of this here website you’re reading currently. These guys have been active in the Los Angeles underground rock scene for an extensive period before banning together with individual members doing time in local veteran acts such as The Hangmen, Junkyard & Wooly Bandits. Barrio Tiger’s sound is a little more full throttle than their other projects with Ave Maria’s opening gut punch statement “Pete’s Dragon” kicking the experience off until the conclusion of “Bullet.”
Their influences are pretty cut and dry in such tracks as “Let’s Play Dumb” with its derivative hooks stemming from the Ramones catalog and the come down track “Fading” which has a sound similar to the feel of Supersucker’s Must’ve Been High record. It’s rock and roll for people who dig rock and roll; something we’re not hearing too often or the media isn’t paying much attention to, but. The visual packaging coincides well with a bit of lowbrow humor via an illustration depicting Our Lady Of Guadalupe in tiger form. Ave Maria indeed! Ghost Highway Records has the album on order right now from their shop in Spain, and here’s to hoping some mainland US shipping rates will apply in the near future. – The Heathen Barrio Tiger Facebook Ghost Highway Recordings Facebook Barrio Tiger Twitter Ghost Highway Recordings Twitter  Motosierra, the cut throat speed-rock outfit from Montevideo, Uruguay have re-started the machine and graced the masses with a new 7” EP entitled Buzo Nuevo/La Marcos via the Spaghetty Town imprint.
This EP clocks in under 5:00 of blistering music which combines balls out punk rock fury and a hard rock groove with lyrics shouted in their regional Spanish dialect. Rock n’ roll is dead? What does that even mean!? From the sounds of it, groups like Thin Lizzy, Negative Approach and Nashville Pussy STILL leave a considerable impact across the earth to this day and this 7” is proof of that. The A-side “Buzo Nuevo” could have very well been a song that Valient Thorr wrote during their tour through South America last year, only to be given to these guys to go nuts with. The B-side rips through a minute and a half of stripped down, explosive punk with singer Marcos Motosierra’s snarling vocals lending the impression that their hiatus didn’t let up on them in any way. These guys are tight throughout the recording. Don’t expect any shout-along choruses or themes/messages in their songs; this is not that kind of band, just look at the 7” artwork. Play this loud, with your buds and plenty of Norteńa to pass around in the process. HAILS! Grab a copy of the 7” for yourself over at Spaghetty Town Records and experience all that is mentioned above. –The Heathen https://www.facebook.com/SpaghettyTown/ https://www.facebook.com/motosierra/ @spaghettytownrecords @pibedestroy This post was guest-written by Matthew Hutchison, a longtime Gearhead fan. We had been emailing back and forth and he mentioned he first got turned onto Gearhead when he was 15 (he's now 29)! I was surprised, pleased and curious and asked him to tell me his story. Matt did PR for Self Destructo Records, and is now a freelance publicist. With his permission I'm sharing his story with you. Thanks Matt! xo Rev. Michelle Gearhead Records was 33% of my introduction to punk, garage and underground rock in general. I was introduced to the label as a 15 year old kid by a friend of mine named Rob Greene who was an employee of a record store I visited often back in the day called Do Dah Depot. He was always wearing a Gearhead shirt and the store had both the magazine and Gearhead apparel on display. One Sunday afternoon, Rob threw me and my oldest friend in a listening booth and began force feeding us Iggy Pop’s Kill City, Turbonegro’s Apocalypse Dudes, Fireballs Of Freedom’s Welcome To The Octagon and Mensen’s Delusions of Grandeur. It was an introduction to a new world that would impact me and leave a lasting impression.  Matt and his buddy Chris When I asked him about Mensen, he told me about Gearhead and the Scandinavian rock scene. Thanks to an allowance from my folks and Internet access, I bought CD’s from the Gearhead family when I could (first one being New Bomb Turks The Night Before The Day The Earth Stood Still, which I still play regularly.)
Thanks to Michelle, Mike and crew, I was given a good introduction to Scandinavian and Japanese rnr, everything from “Demons” to Gito Gito Hustler and then some. Gearhead Records introduced North America to The Hives (who were a hell of a lot better than White Stripes could ever be). I started looking through the magazine well after it went under and wish I started earlier on that, so much cool shit was crammed into that and the scene needs that back. It’s rare to have two people join forces to bring together all the best in punk/garage, drag racing, and counter culture artists into a brand that is globally recognized! Hell, they even pulled off their own festival in Sweden (Gearfest) and the compilations they released were incredible, I personally recommend the Welcome To Gearhead Country compilation to anyone who is reading this and is interested in learning more! |
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