The making of Polysics
By MATT PARISH | November 3, 2008
Polysics |
Hitting the Middle East downstairs this Sunday are Japanese futurist-absurdos Polysics, who’ve somehow been at this game for 10 years now. Their new We Ate the Machine, which dropped last month, has more hyperactive synths, finger-in-the-outlet yelping, and Saturday-morning bombast than a Transformers marathon. The once blindsiding move of using punk bands as B-movie spoofs on postmodern conundrums might have lost a bit of its bite, but Polysics’ progenitors have carved out a comfy little niche to bend and tweak the way only a quartet of sugar-addled Tokyo punk ninjas could.Polysics, “Rocket”
The second track off We Ate the Machine jerks around through glitchy call-and-response electronics like a few NES consoles bickering at one another via slo-mo eight-bit sentence fragments. Vocalist Kayo chirps over the bleeps and bloops like a Japanese laundry-detergent spokeswoman. By the time the machine-gun drums and power chords come in, you’ll have abandoned your hunt for subtle social critique.
Devo, “Jocko Homo”
Polysics heroes #1: Devo. Consider Polysics’ blatant appropriation of Devo coveralls, the no-body Steinberger guitars, the ritual Greatest Hits played over the PA before their shows, and even the Devo lyrics, which pop up all over their songs in warbled phonetic transpositions. This video is the essential collision of punk, detached robotic minimalism, and cable-access social manifesto.
Brainiac, “Vincent Come On Down”
Like Devo, Brainiac grew up out of the underbelly of post-industrial Ohio, using haywire keyboards and uncontrollable vocal effects to less restrained and more pissed-off ends. You know all those smart-ass, spazzed-out punk bands with token keyboards you stumble across on MySpace? Thank Brainiac.
Servotron, “People Mover”
Servotron was one of the several projects to pop out of the conceptual, alias-laden pool of Man or Astro-Man? personnel. It was an ostensibly all-robot band who never broke character and spread the praises of a cyborg takeover of the planet, nerdily injecting Kraftwerk theatrics into rock clubs at the height of ’90s confessional alt-rock. You’ll find a human counterpart to keyboardist Proto Unit V-3 (Ashley Moody) in Boston these days playing with the Information.
Related:
Devo | Something For Everybody, Japanimayhem, Two great flavors, More 
- Devo | Something For Everybody
Given the theory of de-evolution these Ohio brainiacs began expounding more than 30 years ago, it makes a sad kind of sense that Devo's first album since 1990's Smooth Noodle Maps offers such a charmless, base-level version of the band's synth-addled new wave.
- Japanimayhem
Japanese acts attempting to interface with Western audiences often do so from behind a veil of inscrutability. Never mind that Japanese artists emerge from an alternate J-rock history that seldom intersects with ours. Tokyo's enduring Polysics have bridged this gap by expressing themselves as plainly as possible: with screaming, bouncing, eyeball-popping pogo pop so spastic that it breaks the language barrier.
- Two great flavors
"When I said that I wanted to use 'What We Do' as a single," Freeway explains, "people said it couldn't happen because it didn't have a hook. You know how the rest of that one goes."
- Review: Jonathan Richman at Middle East upstairs
The closing show of Jonathan Richman's three-night stand at the Middle East upstairs hit an early peak on the second song. "My Baby Love Love Loves Me" (from 2004's Not So Much To Be Loved As To Love ) smothered the audience with the intensely romantic side of his persona.
- Beats, rhymes, and Li(f)e
Cult-status indie wordsmith Sage Francis digs deep and blows the black mold off the diary on Li(f)e (Anti-), while enlisting an impressive roster of indie-rock songwriters.
- We are Devo
It’s been almost three decades since five guys in baggy yellow industrial clean-up suits sporting the letters D, E, V, and O took the Paradise stage, jerking about like robots, playing clipped, caustic art punk.
- Gift rap
Boston hip-hop promoter Edu Leedz celebrated his 29th birthday in carnal mediæval-king fashion. The only thing missing was a three-pound turkey leg for Leedz to gnaw on.
- The Shapes of things
The first song on the Pete Kilpatrick Band's new Shapes and Sounds EP might be called "Dear July," but the five-song work is clearly an ode to winter, to its delicious melancholy and the joys of finding cozy corners in overheated bars or naked bodies under six or seven blankets.
- Best Coast | Crazy For You
The simplicity that Best Coast have cultivated on a handful of '60s-inspired, surfside fuzz-pop EPs and singles over the past year or so has created an easy opening for the band to deliver on the blog cred they've racked up in the same time frame.
- Slideshow: Video game heroes run amok in Boston
The Laser Orgy awards ceremony got a little out of control, and we followed our red carpet video game stars as they ran amok in Boston.
- Ten local shows to break the ice in early 2011
If 2010 was the year Boston re-acquainted itself with its local music scene, then 2k11 should be one big party, right?
- Less
Topics:
Download
, Entertainment, Middle East, Music, More
, Entertainment, Middle East, Music, Pop and Rock Music, Punk Rock, Jocko Homo, Devo, Devo, Polysics, Polysics, Less
