Words by Lou Wright

New York City. Christmas, 2009. Recession-proof canned food roasting on an open fire…half-frozen bums nipping at your nose. A dead, unfriendly landscape. But meanwhile, in what I can only assume is the relative heat of an Austin, TX Yuletide, something pissy and hyperactive rattles its cage. It’s Xmas in Texas, and Gerard Cosloy wants you to meet his friends. Method of introduction: the brand-spankin’ new Casual Victim Pile comp, featuring Mr. Cosloy’s favorite cuts from the so-called Live Music Capital circa 2008-2010. Let’s take a look, shall we?

First out of the gate is Bad Sports (in reality hailing from Denton, but who cares) with “Can’t Remember Your Name”, an up-tempo boogie number with notes of power-pop past – shades of The Normals and Pointed Sticks abound. Next up is Dikes of Holland with “Little City Girl”, which once again looks backwards, though in a very different direction. One is reminded of California’s Lizerds and Urinals by the mixed-out-of-existence vocal track and monotonous, infectious undertow. The Distant Seconds come in third with “Akron Bureau”, the first foray on the compilation to feature a vocalist who would like people to understand what he’s saying, which is kind of cute. “Mommy’s Little Soldiers” from the brashly named Elvis is more High Priest of Hellfire than King of Rock n’ Roll, but the creepshow rasp and dirge-rock plod convinced us to let it slide. And that’s not even going into the mindfuck lyrics – I haven’t been more scared of a song since my dumb 15-year-old self discovered Geza X’s “Mean Mr. Mommy Man.” Moving on.

Flesh Lights lighten the mood with “Crush on You”, another boppin’, hoppin’ rocker replete with teenage-y repetitive chorus and Lux Interior – style nonsense chanting. To keep the party going, Follow That Bird!’s “The Ghosts That Wake You” encourages the listener to get up and groove – if, that is, the listener is a dead blues singer and the dance floor is in the basement of Jack White’s haunted mansion. Who doesn’t want to be at that party? A brief misstep – you gotta have a couple – comes in the form of The Golden Boys’ “Older Than You”, which is a confusing little number. It either needs to be better produced to bolster its ineffable catchiness, or it needs to rock harder to justify its nasty production. Someone crossed the wires. Fuck it, even the bad songs on this collection wouldn’t get thrown out of shuffle in my house. The perplexingly titled Harlem provide what might be the most sensitive snapshot of the litter: a jangly, heartfelt-meets-creeper love song called “Beautiful & Very Smart” that gets the job done and leaves quietly. Don’t get too comfortable, though. We got a long way to go and it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

Kingdom of Suicide Lovers name-drops Sonic Youth and plenty of New York/New Jersey landmarks in “Hoboken Snow”, which is confusing to an Empire State music critic who thought that that was Brooklyn’s job. Good enough cut, though, if a bit long. Kim Gordon’s real talent was making the damn songs short. Synthesizers rear their ugly heads for the first time on Lost Controls’ “Entirely Wired for Sound”, which could easily pass for a lost Los Reactors track that never got off the studio floor. (At this point an apology might be made for the over-abundance of band-to-band comparisons and the overwhelming presence of KBD punk in those comparisons, but it won’t be. Because fuck you, that’s why.) “First 48” from Love Collector is fun and functional without asking much of the listener. That shouldn’t be taken as an insult to the song, either. As Gore Vidal’s Wise Hack said, “Shit has its own integrity.” But whatever. The annoyingly named No No No Hopes rock and reel with the gravel-holler of “Nobody’s Fool”, and do a damn fine job with their simple message of impotent rage and simple four-on-the-floor orchestration. And with that, we enter the disc’s third and final act. Enter stage right: The Persimmons.

Someone bearing a striking vocal resemblance to the girl Buffalo Bill kept in the pit in Silence of the Lambs lashes out from behind a wall of fractious noise on “The Notice” while something that may have once been a Middle Eastern melody pokes its head in. Good times. The Stuffies take it back to basics with “No One’s Gonna Miss You” – pushing through with 1982 snarls and 1977 three-chord monoliths that three out of four housewives agree are still awesome. The Teeners sound just like what you’d expect from a band with a methamphetamine-fueled name on “Nazis on Film”. They’re hyperactive, they’re pissed off, and the only have one line in their chorus because, as Mark E. Smith said, “We dig repetition in the music.” Smart guy, he was. Slowing things down for something that might be construed as, ech, feelings, Tre Orsi go absurdist on “The Engineer” with impenetrable lyrics and an impenetrable mix with J. Mascis written all over it. That’s including the way the old master made things that made no sense nonetheless sound incredibly sad. We’re almost done, people. “Drink it Dry” from Wild America kicks off the disc’s home stretch with fever and poise that deserves respect, even if the lyrics sound cribbed from a depressed alternate-universe version of Saves the Day. Woven Bones make everything right on “Spirits Roam”. The cut pulls of a just-creepy-enough, just-catchy-enough vibe that latches onto a little, evil part of your brain and doesn’t let go. And finally, coming in from far away, The Young give us “Blister”, which is straightforward without being boring and rounds out the collection with a fitting screech.

So how do you feel? Winded? Confused? Like you just read and thought a lot of things that don’t make a lot of sense but somehow left you begging for more?

Me too (Matador, 2009).