Review Text
This is the 3rd CD from Chicago's Red Wigglers. This time around, they have horns to go with the quirky, jangly, sometimes noisy, often upbeat and/or political indie songs with female and male vocals. Chairman Meow sez: 'Ben Ratliff's review (in the 8/18/06 NY Times) of an X show lamented that 'Having imagination, bad habits and no money isn't celebrated in our culture anymore... X arrived at the end of the romantic-failure tradition' and influence(d) the Red Wigglers. Other influences include Joe Henry, the Minutemen/Mike Watt, Alex Chilton/Big Star, Billy Bragg, the Beautiful South, Yo La Tengo, JB, Mudhoney, Gun Club, Lou Reed/VU, Howlin' Wolf, Eleventh Dream Day, Sonic Youth, Marvin Gaye, Reivers, Pavement, Mekons, Chocolate Genius, early Replacements, Uncle Tupelo, Talking Heads, Sonic Youth, the EZLN and subcommandante Marcos, Trudell/AIM, Rosellini, Bresson, Tarkovsky, Bertolucci, Gramsci, Marx and Engels, de Beauvoir, Galeano, Cesar Chavez/UFW, Russian and Latin American lit, Sartre, Freire, Edward Said, 'Trane, Che, Lumumba, Stoli, The Red Krayola, LaCrosse beer, rye whiskey, et al - Peace, Love and Justice! Vera Wigglesworth sez: "These cats have quite different frames of reference and come together... to create increasingly accessible stuff - but certainly not music for non-music lovers! Thank your mama fer skafolkdustiesindierock with a punkrawk ethos! Original yet derivative... they must read Gramsci while standing on their heads with the stereo cranked in isolation tanks. ... students of the history of pop/punk/indie/dusties: Minutemen, Alex Chilton, Yo La Tengo, Beautiful South, X, the Reivers, Marvin Gaye, Billy Bragg, King Kong, Joe Henry, Chocolate Genius, Richard Buckner, Magnetic Fields, Gun Club, Howlin' Wolf and others influence their often humorous and subversive nuggets cloaked, more often than not, in love - and love lost - songs. Puree, pour, and let's wiggle!' Vera Wigglesworth sez: Live, on some nights, they sound like a big frickin' train! The Red Wigglers definitely have a varied sound. They have so many influences, come from such varied backgrounds/perspectives and are way easily bored. Thus the Red Wigglers' CDs sound like mixtapes. They've many different sounds: live, it's a mix of an English pub band and, sometimes, a noisy Yo La Tengo show. Mehinks you'll like both the recorded and live versions.
