S.M.A.K. Is Good For You

Rip It Up, Issue 175, 1 February 1992, Page 22

S.M.A.K. Is Good For You

There’s a bit of a new brand of bands recording at Auckland’s Frisbee studios, identifiable by the fact that they’re not on Flying Nun, they’re not into My Bloody Valentine or the Swans, nor are they posing as long-haired American “grunge” merchants, they're .. . . well, it’s hard to say

what they are, but who they are is bands like the Psycho Daizies, _Gestaltand S.M.A.K. who have just released a cassette album t called We're Glad We’re Bad. Its wild and crazy guitar rock such as hasn't been made in this town for longer than | care to remember. At last, a bunch of guys who wanna - make rock 'n’ roll like it should be — loud and stoopid, down and dirty, raw and raucous!! S.MAK. are a bunch of young guys in their early 20s who have

been kicking around since last July. Bob and Andrew who run Frisbee heard them rehearsing and said “Hey, we wanna record you”. Bob and Andrew have pretty good taste in music all round and good ideas to got with it. They want to release a string of 7-inch vinyl singles from some of their favourite bands

(including the Axemen, Axel-Grinders, Psycho-Daizies and Shaft) and then compile them all onto a CD for overseas release and call it Heinous Hits Vol. One. But meanwhile, back to SMAK. How they got together and the way they operate is similar fo one of those degenerate South Island bands like the Scuzzbuckets, rather than a CV-toting, paisley shirt 'n’ pony fail Auckland Arts Council band. Al met Marly at a party. “How fast can you play bass¢” said Marty. “| don't know, I've only been playing for a month,” says Al. “Have you got a car¢” says Marty. “Yep,” says Al. “Do you drink beer2” says Marty. “Yep,” says Al. “Practise is on Thursday,” says Marty. Because their attitude is kind of irreverent, some folks at BFM have said they're not ‘serious’ enough for airplay which | guess means people don't start nodding off as soon as

they strike a chord, or it could mean that Marty Sauce cites Ted Nugent's ‘Wang Dang Sweet Poontang’ as a guitar influence instead of the Pixies or fuckin’ Bailter Space. “If’s sort of like an uncool thing to like to play basic rock 'n’ roll that's just totally bad,” says Marty So bad its great! Actually, We're Glad We're Badis a beautiful recording, where feedback is installed like Batts in the atfic keeping everything warm and songs kind of explode like rotten vegetables when Marty starts straddlin’ a colossal guitar solo. Which is another aspect of SMAK.

that some misguided ‘modern’ souls think is @ no-no — they’re missing out on so much!! Ifs just that somewhere in a song there comes a point where the guitar’s just gotta break free and anyway they’re not entirely solos because they're embedded in all this other guitar from Al and bass from co-songwriter Dan Straight and samples from Bruce Hubbard's sampler and feedback and real good singing and snatches of New York Dolls tracks in the background and dumb conversations recorded between tracks. My two favourite tracks are ‘Aunt Sally’, and ‘Down By The River, inspired by the movie River’s Edge which Marty saw twice when he was 16. Which just goes to show that SM.AK. have a serious, sensifive side too. See them at the Powerstation with Room 101 and Dead Flowers on 14 February.

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