Fuzzy Guitar Power Pop & Indie Rock

The Exbats - Song Machine
Out Oct 13, 2023 on Goner Records

The Exbats
Song Machine
Goner Records

In a just world, Song Machine, the fifth full-length album from The Exbats, which arrives October 13 via Goner Records, would become one of the most-loved and most-listened to albums of the 2020s. With the 13-track Song Machine, the Bisbee, Arizona-based band further their analog back-to-the-future combination of the Shangri-Las and pre-Velvet Underground doo-wop wannabe Lou Reed, churning out catchy tunes laden with buoyant choruses that rank alongside the best A-sides recorded in the shadow of the Brill Building or with the Wrecking Crew in tow. The Exbats are effortless time travelers–this time, they’ve set the dial for the early 1970s, incorporating the sonic magic of the Partridge Family, Muswell Hillbillies-era Kinks, and Brian Wilson into the crux of their musical ethos.

“What I remember about that era is going to record stores and seeing a wall of 45s that somebody was tasked with moving around [in concordance with] the Billboard charts,” says Kenny McLain, who, alongside daughter Inez, is the driving force behind The Exbats. “With our band we’re kinda moving things around on that towering wall of singles, as if it were from some sort of ancient tomb, and we’re trying to crack a code and make it to number one. So, I suppose, some magic door will open. And we’ll all be free? Or something like that.”

Inez, namesake of the Monkees’ wool-capped guitarist Mike Nesmith, has played drums and sung for The Exbats since she was just 10 years old. Surveying the band’s back catalog in relation to Song Machine, she adds, “I always felt like our progression is similar to that of the Kinks–starting off garage and punk and then becoming more deliberate about everything.” 

When asked to contemplate the possibility of what comes next, fame or fortune, Kenny and Inez declare that “it’s impossible.” “We made Song Machine for kids who bought 45s from 1965 to 1975, and those people aren’t around anymore,” Kenny explains. Then, in his next breath, he marvels that “We’re really lucky. People have heard us. If Inez and I can start a band when she’s ten years old and I’m 40, anyone can. We are the unlikeliest duo in rock’n’roll, yet we’re putting out really cool little things that people enjoy across the board. I think it’s making a difference.”

The Exbats - Song Machine

the same common denominator

Future Me Hates Me

Turn It On!

Gee Tee
Goodnight Neanderthal
181 GONE

Based in Sydney, Australia and lead by the iconic Kel Mason, this band of maniacal rock n roll miscreants has been blowing drooly-punk minds for the past few years with a rash of out-of-print records and ridiculous videos that have bounced around the proper channels of the internet underbelly. A white hot set on the web-only Gonerfest 17 was greeted with cheers of joy, and ultimately re-issued as a cassette and LP. They made it over in full three-dimensional form for Gonerfest 19 and a completely unhinged US tour in 2022. Now Goner is proud to unleash their new album -- Goodnight Neanderthal -- ten blasts of the spazzy lo-fi attack you know and love, full of buzzy guitars, cheap synths and earworm hooks that demand to be sung in the shower. Or in your car. Or on your bike. Gee Tee rules. Get on board or get out of the way. 

Goodnight Neanderthal is available January 24, 2023 for pre-order. It comes out March 3, 2023 on Urge (Australia) and Goner (rest of the world).

Goodnight Neanderthal

Gee Tee - Stuck Down

183 GONE
Ibex Clone
All Channels Clear

Imagine a world apart from our own—an agrarian utopia where the corroded cables of the 20th century lie in moss-covered heaps and the Mississippi River runs clear. New structures rise from the detritus, gnarled patchworks of the natural world and everything else humanity left behind. This is a world where Nirvana and NAFTA never happened, punk didn’t break but bloomed, and guitars jangle in the breeze. This is the world of Ibex Clone and their new album, All Channels Clear. 

Formed by members of essential bands from the modern era of Memphis rock and roll, Ibex Clone reconfigures the paranoiac punk of Ex-Cult, NOTS and Hash Redactor into something altogether different, a vision of music from a timeline that split with ours a long time ago. Guitarist George Williford’s dizzy six- and twelve-string explorations form a lush thicket for Alec McIntyre’s fluid basslines to slip in and around, anchored by Meredith Lones’ steady, driving rhythms. Williford’s powerful vocal melodies ward off impending death and decay with visionary lyrics about humanity’s place in the ecosystem, the balm of love and friendship, and the complex feeling of being alive in this version of the world of tomorrow.

With All Channels Clear, Ibex Clone develops the woozy, folk-tinged post-punk of their excellent debut From Nowhere into a catchy, complex approach to the pastoral power pop of XTC, the Meat Puppets, and Guided By Voices. These ten beautiful tracks tunnel back through the shredded remains of folk, pop, blues and psychedelia to rediscover the real, the human, and the good in this world. Listen close and you’ll hear the ramshackle chime of Big Star, the fingerstyle melodicism of John Fahey and Gimmer Nicholson, and the wild experimentalism of Amon Düül II. Ibex Clone doesn’t offer an antidote or a soundtrack to a world in rapid decline, but instead a window into something much stranger and, maybe – if we can find the path – better.

All Channels Clear is out February 3, 2023 on Goner Records.

Ibex Clone - Nothing Ever Changes

05 - Like It Like I Do

04 - Himbo

03 - Easy To Be Sorry

02 - To All The Mothers That I'd Like To Forgive

01 - Riding With Paul

OUT 3/15 - pre-order here:
https://lowlife.bandcamp.com/album/downer-edn

Downer Edn

Low Life - Lust Forevermore

Perfect Love Song

Cross My Fingers

Tell No One

Cool Generator

New cassette only E.P from Lewis Evans aka: Good With Parents and Felix Stephens aka: Triple Stephens.

'Comments & Reflection' is the first collaboration between Good With Parents and Triple Stephens.

The 4 tracks combine their writing and production styles to create what can only be described as 'Alternative Music'.

Regicide

Where to Start

A label. A store. A state of mind. 
Headquartered in Memphis, TN. Host of Gonerfest. Record store in Cooper Young carries vinyl records, CDs, cassettes, and more, specializing in garage rock, punk, indie rock, soul, jazz, blues and Memphis music. Home of Elvis Impersonator shrine. 

Label artists include: Jay Reatard, NOTS, Ex-Cult, Ty Segall, Guitar Wolf, King Khan & BBQ Show, Carbonas, Quintron, and Eddy Current Suppression Ring, and many more.