Dizzy Twin is a super-secret studio project created in San Francisco by UK transplant Paul Simmans (Gone to Ground) and freak-about-town Mia d’Bruzzi (Frightwig, Mudwimin, Gone to Ground, Mama Mia d’Bruzzi). The music snaps and riccochetes through genres, ranging from rollicking modern rock through haunting ambient moodquiver, rampaging on to revenge murder-ballad, and then playfully splashing through a saucy guitarcabaret fiasco.  This intriguing album delves into mature themes with a fearless grin and a knowing wink.  It’s a naughty pleasure, but not a guilty one-

Redd Kross have always been too good, too perfect, too true, to believe. Mythic. Could this tuneful hardcore punk EP really be the work of a brother band with the 15-year-old on vocals and guitar and the 11-year-old on bass? Did Redd Kross really open for Black Flag? Could Jeff and Steve really have been born and raised in the Beach Boys’ hometown of Hawthorne, California, and did Jeff really see the Beatles live in 1966? Did one of them, dressed in Gene Simmons makeup, really kill a Bruce Springsteen impersonator onstage? Is that really their hair? Could Researching the Blues, their first studio album in 15 years, be not just the hottest thing since Cher went solo but the best start-to-finish Redd Kross record ever?

Somehow, the answer to all the above is improbably, wonderfully, beautifully YES. Long have Redd Kross rocked, and long have critics, devoted fans, Rodney Bingenheimer and fellow musicians from Seattle (Nirvana) to New York (Sonic Youth) to Driftwood, Texas (Butthole Surfers) to Hollywood (everybody) bowed before the Kross and their self-aware pre-spandex Glam bubblegum garage psychedelic Cheap Trick/Kiss/Revolver post-Kim Fowley rock and roll. Degenerate, sweet: tongues in cheek, song-long winks.

Commercial success may never have been theirs (if time and space had been aligned correctly, they’d have been blitzing ballrooms in the early ’70s instead of opening for Stone Temple Pilots in the early ’90s), but Redd Kross have endured and endeared because they’ve always had the best possible attitude: smarts, smiles, and total commitment to live hair-spinning showmanship.

Like fellow legendary Great American John Waters, they’ve devoted their career to making subversive entertainment in a high pop celebrity style, reintroducing in their especially golden late ’80s/early-’90s period such forbidden classic-rock tropes as melodies, harmonies, ripping musicianship, and primary colors-stuff that had (largely) been ditched in the underground rock’s post-punk, No Wave, hardcore, and sensitive-egghead scenes. Redd Kross then spent the ’90s making one great misunderstood record after another until enough shit had caked the fan that in 1997 they pretty much called it quits.

But you never quit being brothers. And so here’s the next Redd Kross album-produced and mixed by younger brother Steve earlier this year after it was mostly written by older brother Jeff in 2007-08, and recorded in that same period with the band’s current lineup, who’ve re-engaged in live performance since being lured back into action by an excitable Spanish promoter.

They’re too nice to say so themselves, but attention must be paid to this band, to this great album, Researching the Blues, which, like a pair of great pants, is tight and the perfect length. By the time you’re two minutes and 51 seconds into the second song, “Stay Away From Downtown,” and the band is breaking into the sha-la-las, you will be running around the room with your hands in the air. As the fourth song, the Brian Wilsonian “Dracula’s Daughters,” ends and the dynamic mid-’60s Beatles jingle “Meet Frankenstein” launches into its first chorus, you will be mass-texting all of your friends with the good news. By the final four songs-”The Nu Temptations” (Stooges-worthy riffs! Cowsills counter-harmonies! And more!), the “Surrender”/Noel ‘n’ Liam rockers “Choose to Play” and “Winter Blues,” and the stunning summer psychedelic power pop that is the closing “Hazel Eyes”-you will know the truth. You tried the rest-but now you’ve had the best. The McDonalds were educated at Rock ‘n’ Roll High, and they’ve stayed true to their school. Here’s to their beautiful reunion! Redd Kross Forever!

Natural Energy Lab is a music licensing company, placing music in Film TV Ad's etc. 
Former music publishing exec & musician, Danny Benair champions musicians and songwriters nurturing their art.

Los Angeles based, bass and drum duo Sumo Princess is the brainchild of bassist/ vocalist Abby Travis (The Go-Go’s, Eagles of Death Metal, Masters of Reality, Farflung, The Bangles, Beck, KMFDM, Elastica) and drummer/cohort Gene Trautmann (Queens of the Stoneage, Eagles of Death Metal, The Miracle Workers, The Twilight Singers, Mark Lanegan, Drag News, Mojave Lords)

After working for 30+ years, as a gun for hire: Travis got sick of being appropriate and tasteful so she started creating a new, post political, music from her gut. Sumo Princess has the balls of teenage rebellion with the experience and chops of two alt rock music veterans. Travis and Trautmann have been friends since the 1980’s when she was in The Lovedolls and he played drums with paisley undergound stalwarts The Miracle Workers.  The sound they are creating draws heavily from their misspent youths with direct lines to the Residents, Butthole Surfers, Devo, Black Flag, acid during the Reagan administration and legendary LA punk rock clubhouse Rajis.

Improvisation and strange vocal stylings are main ingredients in Sumo Princess’ work. When singing, Travis seems to take on different characters in each narrative.  This is big departure from her earlier, more personal, solo work.  (Cutthroat Standards & Black Pop, Glittermouth, IV, The Abby Travis Foundation) Through filtering her bass guitar through a myriad of strange pedals, she creates a new sound she calls “Artcore”

Travis is surprised that such reactionary, non results oriented work is resonating so deeply with fans:  “I started this band to preserve my own sanity”, Travis says,  “My initial goal was just to play at my brother’s club. (Dave Travis/ Café Nela) I’m amazed at the audience response we are getting.”

Trautmann says:

“When Abby asked we to play in Sumo I was stoked because I knew her musicianship and drive would challenge me to better my own playing and to do things I wouldn’t normally do in the standard rock paradigm.  We’re really hitting marks across the spectrum of style and I like it like that.  Also I get to sing and play orchestral percussion, which is awesome.”

Look for the debut Sumo Princess release in ‘17.

It’s OK! is/are: Robert Hecker (chameleon-voiced guitar guru, Redd Kross), Ellen Rooney (five-octave chanteuse), Dennis McGarry (eight-string bass & three-piece suit), & Roy McDonald (transcendent percussion, The Muffs & Redd Kross). Individually, they can all stand as shred-lords, but collectively, they make a beautiful, hyper melodic (& harmonic) sound. 

It’s OK! have released four sixteen-song albums on Econoclast Recordings, each & every one of them a triumph of eclecticism. It’s OK! have been compared to Queen, Guided By Voices, Poi Dog Pondering, Velvet Underground, Leonard Cohen, the Ink Spots, the BellRays, & A Giant Dog, to mention just a few. “We like all different kinds & sorts of music, so we write all different kinds & sorts of songs.” The band have completed their fifth sixteen-song album, ‘Product Of California’, due to be released physically on 3/25/2025, & digitally on 4/1/2025: spotify:album:3z8uWPtjyrg6MdQVUiq2Du 

From the delirious guitar shred of the opening track (‘Hold My Tea’) to instant rock classics steeped in the ‘70s (‘Here She Comes Again’, “Be Strong’) to poignant power pop (‘Home’, ‘To Beg You’) to modern standards (‘Siren’s Lament’), ‘Product Of California’ covers all of the bases, & more, including a title track that would make Woody Guthrie proud. 

It's OK! have played AZ, CA, NM, NV, OK, OR, TX, & WA, and look to cover even more territory in 2025. Future Forward! 

Succumb to the Mystical Power! Freak On! We Love You! It’s OK! 


​​​​​​​​​​Booking / press / etcetera:
Message: facebook.com/itsoktheband

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