While inferior but fine noise + noun outfits like Wavves, Women and White Snake, elicit the brunt of blogger bombast, Wooden Shjips stay buoyed if not blotted. Other than Dusted (who consistently get it right), judging from the relative critical and public apathy Wooden Shjips have received, the San Francisco four-piece seem fated for a cult following, It makes sense. Not even in the most chimerical alternative universe could they ever reap radio play. Last time I checked, psychedelic drone wasn’t ready to supplant “Womanizer” on KIIS, or any Airborne Toxic (non) Event track currently in KROQ vogue.
But I expect more from the critics, so all apologies if I call bullshit for the unfettered fawning over the latest phalanx of baby-faced noise nerds, still a shave and a decent haircut away from being fully formed. It’s not that they’re “bad,” it’s just that the hype they’ve engendered would dupe one into believing that they’d invented flight, rather than borrowing broken-in riffs from old Siltbreeze songbooks. Some are more punk, some are more ambient, some are more garage, but all of the latest critical darlings are unified by their love of reverb, lo-fi haze, grimy drums, and of course, the gibberish jeremiads for the cherry on top. The next best things? Maybe. But not yet. I won’t argue with you that “Black Rice” isn’t a great song. It is. Hell, the Smell scene is solid, if less spectacular than the No Age deists declare. But for whatever my chump change is worth, out of any of the lo-fi bearded brigade, Wooden Shjips is the best of the bunch. Breathe into a paper bag No Age fans, you’ll be fine.
Of course, they don’t have cool t-shirts; they record for Holy Mountain rather than the taste-maker approved indies (though Sub Pop did put out a “Loose Lips” 7-inch in ’07), and they lamp in the Bay Area band badlands with a name nabbed from a terminally un-hip David Crosby song-at least, until Fleet Foxes finally take over. But when I fortuitously discovered that Wooden Shjips were playing at San Francisco’s Eagle Tavern, not even the place’s gay leather bar rep could dissuade me from seeing them live (nothing against gay leather bars, it’s just that if I wanted to see that many bears, I’d go camping).
Wooden Shjips: Sturdy, Solid, Mahogany
In person, it’s not hard to fathom why the band has yet to induce hallucinations from the hype machine. Each Shjipsman appears 30-plus, not quite conducive to the untrained noble savage myth so popular in the contemporary underground. You know, the glory of garble, the idolatry of the incondite, strength in blunders, etc.. Wooden Shjips are too old for those nostrums. Instead, led by guitarist/singer/Charles Manson look-a-like, Ripley Johnson, they detonate into hypnotic, motorik grooves. Rock at its most minimalist and mesmerist. Johnson, with a murmured baritone, bellowing imprecations and incantations, letting off scimitar guitar riffs that undulate in weird waves. Drummer/Kal Penn clone, Omar Ahsanuddin drills his kit primordial and primitive. Two drinks, three songs in, and you’re in a land of the lost, straining to ignore the Sleestak leering at you while leaning on the pinball machine.
The sound is somewhere between “Sister Ray”/”Murder Mystery” Velvets and The Doors stripped of bloat and pretension. A lean carnivorous howl that belies the group’s unassuming esprit de corps. They don’t talk–the communication is psychic and if that sounds like a cliche, it might be. Wooden Shjips’ genius lies in subverting those sallow ideals. Bliss through chemical means is cheap, as is the ability to scrape and scar your stapes with punishing guitar feedback. What isn’t easy is ditching that pit of lysergic orthodoxy–the ability to release bruising welts of noise that still ring with powerful irridescence.
The songs are there, they just drape loosely off the bone. The groove is compulsive, the assault cracks clavicles. Wooden Shjips are the apotheosis of that noise. A sinister, shaggy, stoned bunch who can out-freak your favorite freaks and out-drone your favorite drones. Am I generalizing here? Maybe. Is it possible that the bands I’m comparing them to aren’t technically noise bands. Naturally. But the thing is Wooden Shjips can float alright, but really, they should burn.
Download: (From Their Holiday Cassingle. Ignore the Yuletide connotations–they knock.)
MP3: Wooden Shjips-“O Tannenbaum”
MP3: Wooden Shjips-“Auld Lang Syne”
From Wooden Shjips
MP3: Wooden Shjips-“We Ask You To Ride”
