BARRY THOMPSON

Soup to completely nuts

BARRY THOMPSON — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:34:05 GMT

Rise Against at T.T. the Bear's, October 7, 2008
I half-expected Rise Against to play their obligatory hits for 20 minutes and say “goodnight”; instead, they tore it up for well over an hour.

Star Fucking Hipsters | Until We’re Dead

BARRY THOMPSON — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 03:50:50 GMT

Fat Wreck Chords (2008)
Of course, one could argue that anything called Star Fucking Hipsters gets an automatic three stars.

Sweet release

BARRY THOMPSON — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:33:50 GMT

The Urinals can’t hold it in any longer
I don’t want to waste your time waxing philosophical about the problematic logic behind qualifying music “good” or “bad,” much less pontificating on whether “sophisticated punk” is an oxymoron.

TAKING THE PISS: Originating as a “parody of punk” in the ’70s, the Urinals’ choplessness turned into their biggest asset.

I don’t want to waste your time waxing philosophical about the problematic logic behind qualifying music “good” or “bad,” much less pontificating on whether “sophisticated punk” is an oxymoron. That said: I prefer the Urinals’ late-’70s/early-’80s UCLA phase to their mid-’00s, post-reformation, oodles-more-sophisticated What Is Real and What Is Not era. So do I write that they were better before they knew how to play their instruments well? Only if I want to look like a jackass.

“What I like about punk now is, it’s turning away from the very strict formula it’s been adhering to for the last 15 years,” says Urinals enduring bassist and singer John Talley-Jones, communicating from Pasadena. “For a while, punk rock was strictly defined as very aggressive, sort of melodic, maybe a little surfy, and very fast. There were expectations about it that people were adhering to. Now, people are going back to an earlier model of what punk is, which is a lot more open-ended. It’s rife with potential.”

He’s referring to faces around the proverbial campfire of LA’s alt-punk hub, the Smell, mentioning in particular No Age. Despite the generation gap, the Urinals are also a periodic presence on the Smell’s stage, and not solely because of their elder-statesmen cred. Like LA’s new batch, the Urinals have always defied punk dogma, ’cause punk with rules is the real oxymoron. Well, fuck yeah!

The Urinals, who are in the class of post-punk precursors with Wire, Mission of Burma, and the Minutemen, originated as a “parody of punk” in 1978, playing their first set at a UCLA cafeteria. Their technical ineptitude limited them to minimalistic, vigorous numbers like “Ack, Ack, Ack, Ack” and “I’m White and Middle Class.” Those songs are awesome, however, so the band’s choplessness turned into a major asset.

The Urinals did ascend the punk totem pole, eventually landing on bills with the Go-Go’s, the Last, and Black Flag. To distance themselves from the chest-beating meathead form of early-’80s hardcore, they changed their name to 100 Flowers. In 1983, citing creative differences, the band members parted company. Years went by and people developed an interest in (or a longing for) the punk of yore. In 1996, the Urinals were invited to re-form for a friend’s CD release. The results — experienced musicians playing songs written by novice versions of themselves — were damn intriguing.

Sex on wheels

BARRY THOMPSON — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:19:09 GMT

My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult just never get old
Subcultures all need their touchstones: entities that over time assume the stature of full-fledged institutions.

AMERICAN IDOLATRY “There’s no difference between Jesus Christ, Santa Claus, and the Devil. To me, they’re just images, just characters,” says Groovie Mann (left, with Pepper Somerset and Buzz McCoy).

Subcultures all need their touchstones: entities that over time — for their hand in defining the æsthetic, or taking up the mantle of time-honored traditions — assume the stature of full-fledged institutions. In the late ’80s and ’90s, Tiger Beat bubblegum had New Kids on the Block, tabla drumming had Aloke Dutta, and goth-industrial dance had (among others) My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult.

“It was me and Buzz, and the other people involved were friends of ours, so it was like a cult of bartenders and club people that were, say, non-star types,” TKK’s Groovie Mann explains about the group’s early years as he sits on a fire escape somewhere in Los Angeles. “It was more about people being who they really are instead of showcasing their egos or personality.”

Groovie goes on, “I’m a performer. I went out seven nights a week, got drunk and danced to the Vibrators and the Sex Pistols and all that. Somebody asked me to sing in their band and that’s how I went after it. Don’t say I’m a singer. I didn’t start out being, like, ‘I’m a singer and I’m looking for a band.’ ”

Matter of fact, the TKK project wasn’t even supposed to be a band. When Groovie (who functions as a kind of ringmaster in TKK and, uh, actually does sing quite a bit) met Buzz McCoy (who pens music, plays keyboards, produces, tour-manages, books shows, and occasionally sleeps) in Chicago in ’87, they set to work collaborating on a horror film. Somehow, the importance of the project was eclipsed by its soundtrack.

“It [the circumstances of the band’s formation] was one of those moments that no one can really understand until the record company turns it into some kind of hype,” says Groovie, who claims that someday they’ll get around to finishing the TKK movie. If they don’t, we shan’t be wanting for hedonism, Satan, drugs, and disco as seen through TKK’s ominous looking glass. For two decades, our supplies of throbbing backbeats, Groovie’s slithering encouragements to get down with our bad selves, and samples of B-movie dialogue repeating like incantations have been steadily expanding.

Satan's little helpers

BARRY THOMPSON — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:53:13 GMT

Thrash legends Wargasm only 99 percent pure evil
Everyone knows that metal is the most evil of all music, what with all those references to the occult, destruction, drinking, the color black, and long hair.

HARD SELL: “As far as whether metal is a legitimate form of music, or commercially viable, I could care less,” says Bob Mayo.

Everyone knows that metal is the most evil of all music, what with all those references to the occult, destruction, drinking, the color black, and long hair. But Greater Boston thrash-metal statesmen Wargasm are a paradox. Their demonic influence doesn’t just incite acts of brutality and other non-Christian behavior, it occasionally assists Rawkstars, Inc., a non-profit providing instruments and lessons for underprivileged young-uns. Makes you wonder whether metal really is evil. If it isn’t, could those three wackos from West Memphis be innocent after all?

“With metal, it’s kids looking for an outlet for their dark side, y’know?” says Wargasm bassist/vocalmeister Bob Mayo. (Brothers Barry and Rich Spillberg, on drums and bass respectively, fill out the line-up.) “In one form or another, metal will always be around. Popular, yes, popular, no, that’s irrelevant. It serves a real purpose with people. As far as whether it’s a legitimate form of music, or commercially viable, I could care less.”

After 13 tireless years of pulverizing thrash in the face of endless industry-oriented dilemmas, Wargasm called it a day in 1995. Nine years later, they were resurrected at the behest of Rawkstars executive director Jonathan Jacobs, who was aiming to maximize revelry at a benefit show. The next phase of the plan commences this Saturday, when Wargasm devastate the Middle East in commemoration of the old and celebration of the new. It’s the 20-year anniversary of their first full-length, Why Play Around? (which they’ll play in its entirety, plus a few covers they haven’t performed in a blue moon), and the release party for Knee Deep in the Middle East, a DVD of the ’04 reunion. But whereas all proceeds from that ’04 show went to Rawkstars, only part of the bank generated Saturday will go to the righteous non-profit. Altruism is all well and good, but this time around, the emphasis is on the thrash.

It was during the heyday of hairspray metal (then as prevalent in Boston as on MTV) that ample underground buzz elevated Wargasm, originally from Stoughton, to bona fide headlining status opening for such top-echelon acts as Megadeth, Slayer, Manowar, and Biohazard. Those of us who were filling diapers around then (me, for one) might lack the perspective to understand that this was before every outfit ever was a link in the MySpace daisy chain. In those days, guiding underground tuneage into one’s noise holes took time and energy. Which is why music fans were a tad more passionate about such things.

Painfully sweet

BARRY THOMPSON — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:32:00 GMT

The Toothaches are a gas
Ask the same boring question enough times to enough people and you’ll get a not-so-boring answer.

THRIFT SCORE: A uke, a glock, a plastic wood-block thingy, a trumpet, a tambourine, a megaphone, shakers — anything in the bargain bin is a potential accessory.

Ask the same boring question enough times to enough people and you’ll get a not-so-boring answer. Posterity mandates the “How did your band start?” question, despite the foregone conclusion of its near-certain negligibility, but, golly, the story behind the Toothaches reads like a tale decreed by the cosmos, or some such shit.

“He approached me and said, ‘I figure since we’re walking down the street in the same direction, we should get to know each other. My name’s Zimmy.’ He started talking about starting a band to take over the world. I really wanted to be in his band but didn’t say anything about it. Then we parted ways. We didn’t exchange cellphone numbers, so I looked for him for two months, couldn’t find him, and gave up. Then I was getting on the train at Hynes Auditorium, he was there, and we both got off at the same stop, which was just weird. I asked, ‘Would you like to get a drink with me?’ He said, ‘I thought you’d never ask.” Then we became platonic life partners and started writing music.”

Now, Rose Blakelock and guitarist Zimmy Ayer have matching tooth tattoos on their inner forearms. Aw.

Blakelock tells me this story in front of the Sound Museum, Allston’s labyrinthine jam-space multiplex. About a half-hour later, inside, under the Christmas lights dangling from the ceiling in their rehearsal room, her band play a few Be-Your-Own-Pet-with-a-glockenspiel-style tunes, demonstrating that they play rock and roll now and that their syrupy-Kimya Dawson-if-she-sang-well æsthetic from months ago is out the window. There is an elegant simplicity to the A Month of Sundays EP, that phase’s foremost artifact, and you have a black heart and no soul if “I’m hungover and over again” doesn’t make you smile. Maybe it would’ve been prudent to stick with what was working. Then again, if something else also works . . .

“We’ve always been working with what we have,” says Blakelock. “We never wanted to be a twee band, but there were three of us, we didn’t have a lot of money, none of us could play drums, so we’re like, ‘We bought this ukulele for $30. I’m going to learn how to play it. We got this glockenspiel for $30. We’re going to learn how to play it.”

The kids are all right

BARRY THOMPSON — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:39:11 GMT

Teenage kicks courtesy of Mindwalk Blvd
There is an outstanding possibility that your high-school band sucked.

SONIC YOUTH: With Ferreira just short of voting age, Mindwalk are already too old (and too metal) to be the next Hanson.

There is an outstanding possibility that your high-school band sucked.

If your outfit was like most others, stealing chord progressions from Blink 182 reaped a tiny following of mall-core kids who lost all interest upon discovering better local bands. After going nowhere for a few years, in a desperate bid for instant success, you went emo (as was fashionable at the time). Months later, an epic on-stage meltdown caused your singer to be hospitalized and your drummer to get divorced and put a long-overdue nail in your band’s coffin. Now you’re resigned to a future of nondescript yuppiedom. All before your 21st birthday.

But there are exceptions to this rule, like Wilmington’s Mindwalk Blvd, a bona fide non-sucky high-school band. Well, actually, two-thirds high-school — the other third is in middle school.

I had assumed that all teenagers who listen to Dream Theater would be Soul Calibur enthusiasts. Yet when I track down 17-year-old guitarist and lead vocalist (he’s also the son of Portuguese singing sensation Jorge Ferreira) Jordan Ferreira and 16-year-old bassist Mike Avakian, they’re busting caps into giant beetle asses at the Woburn Cinema’s Time Crisis 4 machine. Shortly after dispatching the vermin, the rock prodigies are slain by terrorists. Maybe they don’t usually consider video games a good use of their time.

“It’s fun rehearsing every weekend,” says Avakian a bit later, when I sit down with him, Ferreira, 13-year-old drummer Tyler Hudson, Tyler’s mom, and their “managing consultant,” who functions as a PR dude for this occasion. “I get dared to wear these robes and things when the pizza guy delivers our food, and I follow through with it. Good times. What comes after music? Making a fool out of yourself. Then you go back to play and write some stuff.”

With Ferreira just short of voting age, Mindwalk are already too old (and too metal) to be the next Hanson. Whoop-de-friggin’-do. And they’re indifferent to what anyone makes of their youth. “I don’t know. We play music” is Ferreira’s response to the “How do you feel about kids-doing-stuff-oriented newspaper articles?” question. In other words, Mindwalk rock out and don’t think too hard about why or what for. They’re not corrupted enough to concoct clever-sounding bullshit to say to reporters. Which makes a greater degree of young, vibrant brainforce available for rocking out.

In and out of fashion

BARRY THOMPSON — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:23:12 GMT

Paradosaurus Wreck invades the Dilboy VFW
Something felt eerie about scruffy, squirrelly Rhode Island trio Deer Tick as they entertained the bleep out of the densely occupied VFW.

Smokin’ rock

BARRY THOMPSON — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:09:34 GMT

Leftover Crack at Club Lido, August 7, 2008
With an all-star cast of Choking Victim, Morning Glory, and F-Minus alums, NYC’s Leftover Crack have a sometimes problematic knack for jacking adrenaline levels.

Refuse Resist

BARRY THOMPSON — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:20:31 GMT

Mind: Yourself | Rodent Popsicle
With almost every song making its point and ending in well under three minutes, Mind: Yourself isn’t out to waste anyone’s time.

AOR with ADD

BARRY THOMPSON — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:15:40 GMT

The Coke Dares take a minute to rock you
I’m told there’s an epidemic of shrinking attention spans, yet our demand for rock remains unchanged.

TIGHT BRIEFS? With 82 percent of their songs running less than a minute, the Coke Dares are ahead
of their time — by about 40 seconds.

It’s not that I can’t appreciate “Stairway to Heaven,” “November Rain,” “Free Bird,” “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” “Thick As a Brick,” and, uh . . . classical music — but I spent my childhood watching sugar-cereal commercials. Then I upgraded to MTV. Now I have high-speed wireless Internet that enables me to check my seven e-mail addresses in seconds, once every 10 minutes. If any shiny objects are within eyeshot, my interest is as good as lost.

I’m told there’s an epidemic of shrinking attention spans, yet our demand for rock remains unchanged. With 82 percent of their songs running less than a minute, the Coke Dares of Bloomington, Indiana, are a band ahead of their time — by about 40 seconds.

“There are so many classic-rock choruses with terrible verses or bridges, but the good parts of those songs are so memorable, you’ll listen to a whole song just to get to them,” says Jason Groth over the phone from Bloomington. “So there’s this idea that we can be more efficient.”

If there is a scientific formula that will maximize the volume of rock per second, the Coke Dares are on the cusp of its discovery, and they make it look as easy as sticking a simple idea to proto-punk hookage and ’70s rock riffology, with gusto . . . and brevity. Any ol’ idea will do — assholes at AutoZone, an offhand remark from a co-worker or stoned person, trucker speed, or a dream about broken hand bones. But the Coke Dares are no joky-ha-ha band. They’re serious musicians, so the reductive policy yields a ton of songs.

“Some of our songs have to be 15 or 20 seconds while maintaining a sense that they’re actually songs, not just fragments,” says Groth. “I think we don’t always succeed, but we spend as much time learning them as we do standard two-and-a-half-minute songs.”

The band’s 2005 debut album, Here We Go With . . . (Essay Records), was recorded for $90 in three and a half hours; it detonates 32 songs in little more than 30 minutes. Their newest, Feelin’ Up, takes it to the next level: 33 songs in just over 20 minutes. Groth: “We’re not just trying to be ridiculous, but we are trying to see how far we can push it. Maybe the next full-length will be 34 tracks. I don’t know if it will be shorter, but if it is, we’ve done our job.”

Pariah Beat

BARRY THOMPSON — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 20:38:45 GMT

Pariah Beat Radio | Vital
Pariah Beat Radio might have benefitted from some tactful restraint.

All action, no talk

BARRY THOMPSON — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:26:18 GMT

Mouth Sewn Shut speak louder than words
At the end of civilization, there is Wonderland.

SO THERE: Writers and editors aren’t always as smart as they’re supposed to be, and MSS don’t need press to draw respectable crowds.

At the end of civilization, there is Wonderland.

Okay, that’s a bit much, but Wonderland is the last stop on the Blue Line in Revere. Sort of the same thing. Directly beside the train tracks of the Wonderland T stop is the multi-stage, multi-purpose, and esoteric Club Lido. Its illicit overtones and derelict movie-theater æsthetic make it a damn appropriate spot for a punk show. I bet Revere isn’t so scary once you get to know it.

Same goes for the gaggle of celebrants who showed up Friday evening to see Mouth Sewn Shut, Lower Class Brats, the Wednesday Night Heroes, and Refuse Resist. Whether through the workings of Providence or because there are usually dead things around Club Lido, a mangled black bird carcass near the load-in door bore great resemblance to the cover of MSS’s full-length, Doomed Future Today. I also spotted the phrase “True Punx Are Hippies with Mohawks” on the back of a leather jacket.

According to Mouth Sewn Shut’s lyrics, it isn’t just immoral to pump bullshit into the sky, blow one another away for dubious reasons, and ruthlessly exploit other species — these practices will kill us all as dead as the aforementioned bird.

“They come from an ecological perspective, and that’s what we need right now,” said Ben, 19 years old, from New Jersey, accosted while waiting for the doors to open.

“Political punk’s a pretty intense genre, but they’re talking about pretty intense issues that piss people off,” added Brit, 18, more crunchy than crusty, also from New Jersey. “I feel like it makes sense to make a lot of noise about it, to make people aware of shit.”

Mouth Sewn Shut consist of Bill Damon and Will Sullivan of Boston crust-punk standard bearers Toxic Narcotic, along with Nick and Rich DellaRocca. But MSS are more like an extension of Toxic than a side project, with the same message, same teeth-rattling corrosive crustcore, extra gobs of reggae jam-outs, minus the baggage any band would accumulate after almost 20 years, as Toxic have.

“This song’s about shooting people who deserve it,” proclaimed Damon as a segue into “Ass Ass in 8,” prompting a relatively small but turbulent circle pit that I got tuckered out just watching. MSS did their thing after Refuse Resist, and whatever Damon does to make his voice sound like a coarse machine gun requires that big veins pop out of his neck. By the end, at least 10 people were screaming the chorus to “Shoot People, Not Dope” (originally a Toxic track) directly into the mic.

Future perfect

BARRY THOMPSON — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:49:05 GMT

Ladytron at the Paradise, June 30, 2008
If you stood close to the stage, your torso bones rattled along with the backbeat.

Disbelief: suspended

BARRY THOMPSON — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:20:37 GMT

Dethklok lay waste to Worcester, diss Cambridge
Where does “common sense” get off telling me that I’ll never meet, interview, or see William Murderface perform, just because he happens to be a cartoon?

Feign and fortune

BARRY THOMPSON — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 19:21:31 GMT

The US Air Guitar Championships
McNallica shredded upon nothingness like an unholy hybrid of Mick Mars and a feral burlesque dancer.

Another fine mess?

BARRY THOMPSON — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:45:31 GMT

Real Life Time Machines clean up . . .
Real Life Time Machines are not insane morons.

COSMIC PUNK: Real Life Time Machines deal in gobs of zonky alterna-pop bad-assery.

Real Life Time Machines are not insane morons. Having known them for almost two years, I can attest that they are kindhearted gentlemen of integrity and patriotism whose knowledge of popular music is matched only by their passion for playing it. But I understand why some might think otherwise, especially anyone who’s had to clean up styrofoam peanuts, confetti, glitter, broken vacuum-cleaner parts, French fries, Hostess snacks, and God-knows-what after one of their shows.

I’ve done my part in spreading the misconception. When last I wrote about the mostly JP-based RLTMs, keyboardist Ben Izenson and drummer Chico Suave expounded on fetish porn and slaying ninjas, in flagrant disregard of my questions. Singer Eli Osheyack couldn’t fathom why he was being interviewed in the first place. The ordeal did have a silver lining: the term “cosmic punk,” which I coined to describe their sound, has since turned up in enough of their publicity for me to feel I’ve added something to the lexicon.

But nobody wants to read my made-up words, and though all four RLTMs often say rational things in real life, trying to get them to do so in print is a recipe for disaster. So I sought out alternative perspectives.

“I’ve seen people’s reactions at their shows, and some people are like, ‘I don’t even like this band, and I’m having a great time!’ ” says avid RLTMs devotee (and Campaign for Real-Timer) Michael Potvin, who produced and co-mixed RLTMs’ first-ever studio excursion at the Compound 440R space in Somerville. “The first B-52’s record was definitely an inspiration to me for working with these guys. It’s loose but dancy, y’know? The Time Machines have the same thing, where the song almost loses itself and [then] comes back in at just the right time. That looseness was what I wanted to capture on the record. It has this life that could easily be stripped out by a computer. We chose not to do that.”

The resulting as-of-yet untitled, barely 10-minute-long gob of zonky alterna-pop bad-assery is slated for release later this month on CD and vinyl, with different spiffy extras appearing on each edition.

Potvin is just one among the growing ranks of influential Boston music types disseminating the RLTMs. It’s getting to the point where they’re in danger of becoming trendy and alienating their “true” fans. Fans like one Jonathan Tierney, also of JP. Tierney first bonded with Osheyack when an assignment on lipids for their 10th-grade health class went straight to hell, almost getting them suspended from Hanover High School, in New Hampshire, which the rest of RLTMs also attended.

Awesome mistakes

BARRY THOMPSON — Mon, 12 May 2008 21:29:38 GMT

Thunderhole write what’s wrong
Jaunt across the astral overpass between experimelectronic noise and garage rock and about halfway in you’ll find Thunderhole’s tastefully cacophonous onslaught.

DISSED CHORDS: Halfway between noise and garage rock lies Thunderhole’s tasteful cacophony.

“Instead of learning real chords, I learned squealy sounds,” says guitarist and vocalist Eric Dill, over pizza and beer at Doyle’s Café in Jamaica Plain. “If I got a lot of frowns, I stopped playing it. If I got smiles, I kept playing and waited for a part to come around it. If Joanne had her way, we’d have songs where you’d envision unicorns or wizards or something.”

“A little more complexity and fantasy,” agrees keyboard player and vocalist Joanne Dill. “But I have to tame myself a little bit and save that for another time.”

These might be unfair generalizations. Not all wizards are unsuitable images to associate with their band, Thunderhole. Merlin might be too D&D, but Grant Morrison could work, and not merely because Eric Dill is easily persuaded to discuss superheroes. Jaunt across the astral overpass between experimelectronic noise and garage rock and about halfway in you’ll find Thunderhole’s tastefully cacophonous onslaught. Too burly and serrated to fit among the synthpop hordes, and at times easy to confuse with a series of awesome mistakes, Thunderhole offer an alchemy of barely restrained technical proficiency, why-the-fuck-not methodology, and sensible yet brutal backbeat.

In July of 2004, after the dissolution of the band Eric shared with drummer Mya Davis, the Cotton Ponies, Eric and Joanne Dill began fashioning Thunderhole songs while Davis finished school in Chicago. The Dills, both of JP by way of the Midwest, were already living together (they’ve since married, hence the stereo surnames), which spared Eric the trouble of scanning Craigslist for new musicians. Having begun her musical journey at age five under the discipline of an uncompromising Russian piano instructor, Joanne is sick at keyboards. That made things tricky in the early goings-on.

“It was rough, because Joanne would constantly ask, ‘What is that chord?’ or, ‘What is that note you’re playing?’ ” recalls Eric. “Not that I don’t know some of my chords, but when my guitar is tuned all stupid, I really don’t. For at least a month, we didn’t think we’d get a decent song unless one of us wrote the entire thing, or one of us didn’t play for the whole song.”

Oh but they did a good deal better than a decent song. Flash-forward two days after our Doyle’s encounter: Thunderhole are playing the Milky Way, and there’s a remarkable juxtaposition between the repetitive innocuousness of what is seen — Eric steps back and forth, Joanne sways, Mya flails her arms, nobody makes a discernible facial expression — and all the ugly pretty sounds that roar from the stage.

Amateur overture

BARRY THOMPSON — Tue, 06 May 2008 17:44:33 GMT

Harvard's Last Minute Orchestra takes on the 1812
Even at Harvard, with its many time-honored traditions, the best rituals involve kazoos. Lots of kazoos.

Vampire weeknight

BARRY THOMPSON — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:34:56 GMT

Tiger Army bring the horror show
Sunshine is so overrated.

NO BOOING: Despite their spooky motifs, Tiger Army neither bite nor suck.

Sunshine is so overrated.

From the hours-too-few between the simmering California dusk and dawn howl Tiger Army: psychobilly phantasma of love, death, madness, and supernatural vertigo, conjured with haunting croons, rockabilly twang, and an upright’s popping and clicking, with periodic digressions into darkpop and capitulations to gotcha-by-the-throat punk ferocity.

“Whereas many songwriters write directly about an experience, I might be drawing on the emotion of a particular experience, but what’s happening lyrically is a situation I may not have lived through,” says musical and creative hierarch Nick 13, from his home in Los Angeles. “I guess horror is an influence. Vampirism, for example, can be an allegory for a lot of things; but when we do stuff that’s horror-themed, I try to take a fresher approach than the cartoonish, novelty approach.”

For 12 years and four full-lengths, Nick 13 has been the sole recurring Tiger Army member, unless you count upright-bassist Geoff Kresge, who recently rejoined after playing guitar in HorrorPops for a few years. Kresge’s résumé also includes stints with Blanks 77 and, yup, AFI. Regardless, Tiger Army — who come to the Middle East’s downstairs this Tuesday — won’t be rechristened “Nick 13 and friends” anytime soon. “There are bands like the Cure and Social Distortion that are bands even though there’s one person holding it together. I guess I would put us in that weird category.”

Among the few regular contributors to Tiger Army full-lengths: AFI. Adam Carson played drums on the first one, and Davey Havok makes sporadic vocal cameos on three out of four (Nick 13 also lends his voice to most AFI CDs) — and why not? Two-thirds of present-day Tiger Army and the bulk of AFI enjoyed adolescence together in sunny Ukiah, California. Havok, 13, and AFI guitarist Jade Puget even got friendship tattoos, which is too adorable to be hardcore, not to mention a little spooky. AFI have amassed sufficient accolades and (utterly warranted) backlash to humble Panic at the Disco. Meanwhile, Tiger Army remain slightly less famous and far more influential. “When Tiger Army started, there were maybe five bands in the entire nation that were doing anything along these lines. Psychobilly was something that was mostly in Europe. Things have changed a lot since then. I’m proud to know we had a role in that.”