Reviews
Vermont Times/Vox - Now Hear This
EEF, 3 Minute KingsIf Ed Wood returned from the crypt to make Mothra Meets Godzilla, this might be the soundtrack of choice. Don't ask me why, Eef - the name is like the timid utterance of a small, furry pet - scales the dynamic range from deceptively nonchalant to a racket that could scrub your pots and pans. And like other 20-something bands these days, they can be amusing about low self-esteem and slacker apathy. "Waste of Skin" is especially poignant. But this post-pop (no dancing), alt-punk (minimal spit) trio - Brad Searles, drums, Jedd Kettler, guitar, Mike Barrett, bass - is nothing if not surprising. Just when you think they might have fallen asleep at the controls, all heck breaks loose. It's reassuring. Cute home-made cover art, too...
ACOPFWAN
EEF- Three Mintue Kings - Tape -7 songs - Club Fub RecordsCross Platform Melodocore. A three piece effort by Brad (Billy G) Searles, Jedd Kettler, and Mike Barrett. The tape launches intoa vaguely familiar "Sick", a viceral guitar, punk assault, segueing into a codein/methadrine hotshot, with a side of liquid space called "Stable." "Waste of Skin" blows a pop influenced suicide theme with reminders of Mission O Burma's "Revolver." This mildly amusing cut is followed by an almost unstomachable song called "Spiral Steps." Taking my finger off the STOP button onthe box was a tune called "Full House," that proves that Jedd can fill the void of a good groove with an almost Cuddyesque style that you don't have to fall into a drum kit to achieve. A very good feel. I could go on about the other two tunes, but, oh hell, get this fucking tape, it's good!
Good Citizen
EEF - Three Minute KingsThe bands Hover, Snowplow and Eef have very little in common save the drumming of Burlington music scenester Brad Searles: while Hover was ethereal, dreamy, modern pop, and Snowplow was angst-ridden rock with a healthy layer of guitar noise, his latest project Eef comines elements of both and ends up sounding like neither. Featuring former members of Guppyboy, Mike Barrett and Zachary Ward sharing vocal duties with Burlington photographer/musician Jedd Kettler. Eef owes more to modern low-fi indie rockers like Pavement and Sebadoh than to any of Searles' previous projects. And where the charm of Guppyboy was often a collection of random noises that probably weren't as random as we think. Eef tends to offer more structure in their songs and thus creates a logical evolution. As much as they sometimes remind me of Guppyboy, they're definitely not Guppyboy.
The tape starts out with a Zach Ward song called "Panic Attack." Ward often brought a weird sort of atonal dissonance to Guppyboy songs: not necessarily off-key, but certainly alternative (check out the Eef song on Good Citizen Volume One,) his vocals sometimes strained and yelped like he was on the end of a leash. As he eases his way into "Panic Attack," Ward sounds like Hank Williams Sr. ona major bender, out of control and barely standing.
Mike Barrett was the drummer in Guppyboy, and he's switched to bass guitar for this project. "Maleman" showed up on Sounds Around Burlington as the first Eef song to hit the unsuspecting public and it's here in a higher-than-before-fi version. Barrett added alot of the twist to the Guppyboy legend and while Eef hasn't yet allowed for the incredible volume of his previous work, some of the edge shows through. And as Barrett has recently released his first solo recording "Brooklyn," one would suspect the more eccentric stuff will appear under monikers other than Eef.
Jedd Kettler's original compositions (Club Fub released his cassette of blues standards a few years back and he appears on the Guppyboy tribute tape Guppylove) tend to deal with topical subjects: on Sounds Around Burlington he sings a song called "Full House, Empty Head" and on this recording he contributes "Classified Section" and "Big Party." The crowd noise on the latter song sounds more like drunk painters night at the OP than a festive celebration, and Kettler doesn't allow you the fantasy that he's impressed with the big party in question for one second. He sounds pretty bitter about something.
The second side of the tape is a live recording from an April gig at Last Elm Cafe when the whole world was warm and fuzzy for a few brief moments and Eef stripped down to essentials for an acoustic based set. Two of the acoustic songs are covers: by Palace Brothers and Silver Jews, and a third is a Jedd Kettler song called "Greasy" that originally appeared on Sounds Around Burlington as recorded by Hover. If you were there, it was a great night and you'll want this tape for these songs alone. Buy this tape. And while you're at it, look for their first release, Three Minute Kings. It rocks, too.
Poo Poo Magazine
Eef, Three MInute Kings (Club Fub Records, cassette)This is a very interesting tape. It's fairly diverse, with such styles as punk, pop punk, alt. rock and other musical goodies. Parts are heavy, fast and crunchy, parts are smooth and jangly, and some parts are tight, choppy, yet technical. Hopefully everyone will enjoy this. I'm going to purchase one, since this is Pimp's copy.
New England Performer
Eef, Three Minute KingsClub Fub Records - 8-song demo - Healthy portions of punky pop and rock with a dash of thrash served up by Jedd Kettler, Mike Barrett and Brad Searles. Recorded at Eclipse Studio in S. Burlington, VT by Brad Searles, and released on Brad's Club Fub label (the guy is everywhere!) It 's an eclectic mix of moods with loads of slacker attitude. Three songs in, and i'm a big fan. Nice, colorful grass roots artwork. Is that you guys on the cover? :)
For Paper Airplane Pilots
Eef, Three Minute Kings (Club Fub)Like its sister label, Sudden Shame, Club Fub have determinedly been chronicling the progress of Vermont indie rock for at least a dozen releases. Eef have a big guitar sound that appeals to me right away. I like Eef because they bounce back and forth between full-tilt feedback and restraint, each one loaded with potential energy and likely to become the other at any point. What's more, Eef is multi-faceted and when you think you sort of have an idea of what they sound like, they come back with a bouncy pop song and throw you for a loop. I like saying Eef. --R
Durchsehen
Eef, Three Minute KingsA very eclectic sound to this band. I like how they are a mix of two similar styles (post punk and alt rock) but manage to do it with pizzazz and a style that is unique, but spectacular.
Sonically Speaking
Steve Lemcke
EefOkay, here's my Eef joke. Eef is not the sound of a Tribble (a cute small furry creature from Star Trek) would make. No disrespect to the band, but it sounds like a fart written in a French comic book. Anybody who took French and remembers The Adventures of Tin Tin kicking around your weird old high school French teacher's desk will get that. Anyways, with this band the name alone is enough to get you to say "What the---?" Once they've got your attention, Eef is gonna pull you in to their style of cool snarl-pop.
Eef's first release, Three Minute Kings, is a seven-song tape released last Fall that is available at your local record store. I suggest you go and pick it up. Even though, as a first release, the band's strengths are masked by the expected limitations of production values imposed on any band its first time out (according to drummer Brad Searles, it was done in about six hours), the strength of the songs pervades.
Once you hear the pop-pop-pop of the snare drum in the first song, "Sick," added with the angst-ridden frenzied and sarcastic pleading that "I'm sick of repeating myself," you think you're going to hear some good ol' garage rock.
But you're mistaken if you think you're going to be hearing a lot of noise. Well, expect a little when it suits the band, but "Stable" has a great groove in the verses that has a definite mellow feel, but is happily accentuated with the more modern use of power fuzz chords, crunching the point home. The song grows expansive and then reels you back into that same simple happy groove. "Waste of Skin" is a sarcastic jangly pop tune in Ramones style. "Spiral Steps" uses another cool mellow riff with some grist added over it to safely anchor it in the 90's. Great use of this band's vocal strengths. "Full House, Empty Head" has the cool sophistication of New Order or Echo and the Bunnymen with Eef's own edgier feel. "Shotgun" has a cool Pink Floyd feel to it then drops down at the end into the spooky art-core beginning of "Starling," when the band really rips it up sonically compared to their smoother styles. On the whole, the album is definitely worth checking out.
If you like your mellow riffs chopped up with some good snarl-pop fuzz and crunch, Eef's first tape Three Minute Kings is what you want.
Eef will be at Middlebury College March 11 with Super Hussy; at Metronome March 13 with Hiplock and Madelines; March 15 at TT the Bear's in Boston; at Purple Haze in Montreal March 17 with Madelines.
The Burlington Free Press
Eef: Whacked Songcraft from the dads of geek rock
Those Eef boys: Remember the kids in junior high who probably had attention-deficit disorder? They were smart kids, but a little too rambunctious and strangely mischevious for Mrs. Brown's math class. The type of kids who were always day-dreaming or drawing scenes of mass destruction in their notebooks; always giggling amongst themselves at who knows what. You gave them a wide berth for fear of something fiendishly clever happening to your locker.
It is inevitable that these kids age just like the rest of us, but somehow the hellion within never leaves them: The inner child is on Ritalin. While some go to college and become chemical engineers or join the army and become demolition experts, others form bands.
Enter Eef, the indie pop/alt/rock conglomeration made up of four of this town's young founding fathers of riot-geek culture, Zach Ward and Mike Barrett, formerly of the influential Guppyboy, drummer Brad Searles (Club Fub Records, Snowplow, Hover, this column) and guitarist Jedd Kettler have joined forces once again to release a new 10-song eponymous tape combining material recorded at Lo Tech Studios with live material from an acoustic show at The Last Elm Cafe.
The music found on this tape is an honest and unique expression of the band's belief that pop, stripped down to its bare essentials and a little sarcastic humor, goes a long way. Comparisons to Pavement will come to mind, especially in the less-than-operatic vocals and the songs warped simplicity, but it's apparent that comic book heroes, Bruce Lee, Mr. Spock and other pop-culture schlock had a hand in forming their strange world views. From the opener, "Panic Attack" to "Big Party," Eef gives the listener a fun, upbeat ride through the low-fi scene. From the surf-guitar riffs of "Maleman" to the mellower live versions of "Starling" and the bonus track, "Stable" - both of which appear on their last tape, "Three Minute Kings" - Eef hits you with quirky vocal styles, simple guitar riffs and lyrics that show them to be ill at ease with what other "cooler" people have decided is normal. While this album's decidedly low-tech sound might offend production snobs, Eef's "Eef" is honest and does not try to outdo itself, providing listeners with a good sampler of what this particular slice of the Burlington music pie has to offer.
- Steve Lemcke
VOX
Eef, Eef (Club Fub Records, cassette)Another eponymous recording - and with all those nice album titles just waiting for a good home! Well, the Burlington anti-power pop quartet called Eef at lest has a cute name, which of course is the last syllable of coffee backwards. Their latest is a 10-song collection, one side recorded at Low Tech and the other a live four-track recording from a mellow Last Elm gig in April. At moments this is a scary-animal soundtrack with sonic disturbances and deranged howling. But while Eef is capable of stirring up a noise tizzy a la Pavement, they're more indolent there than on last fall's Three Minute Kings. "For Erin" is a pretty ballad at Thorazine pace; "Panic Attack" insidiously skirts on the edge but never goes over. Only in "Maleman" and a few other inspired segments does the band kick some butt. The whole Last Elms side kicks back instead, and dogpaddles into poetic mournfulness with the tape's only covers - "Ohio Riverboat Song" by Palace Brothers and the Silver Jews' "Trains Across the Sea." Eef has a penchant for prosaic, off-beat songwriting - my favorite rhyme is "photocopy shop" with "security cop" in "Secret" - though the lyrics are mixed like an apology; mumbled. Drummer Brad Searles is steady, while Michael Barrett (bass), Jedd Kettler and Zachary Ward (guitarists) seems to favor this alternative fringe thing of playing and singing happily out of tune. Eef is dreamily laid-back - when it isn't pelting hairballs against a tin roof.
New England Performer
Eef - EefIn true Club Fub style (that's the record label), this is low-fi, hand-made, as-indie-as-they-come demo spares no expense when it comes to irreverent anti-commercialism. The music, as before, whittles away at pop, punk and garage rock with a splattering of creative flair. Actually I don't quite know how to explain this, but they're sort of jazzy in a slacker sort of way. Reminds me just a little of Dinosaur Jr. - One side recorded at Low Tech Studios, the other on "Brad's Tascam four-tracker." If you're into the irreverent, slacker rock niche, this band is for you. Like it or lump it.
Burlington Free Press
Makin' the Citizen 'zine sceneCall me a hard sell, but if a band can't get my attention in 20 minutes, they probably won't get it at all. Some did and some didn't at the Good Citizen CD release party Thursday at Club Toast. Good Citizen, the area's new arts and music quarterly, gathered the clans of Burlington's alternative music scene to celebrate the release of its 17-song compilation of local acts, called "Good Citizen: Soundtrack to the 'Zine, Vol. 1."
Eight bands were there to strut their stuff on the first night of a two-night party. Here's the Who's-Who of attendees:- Caffeine addict and music entrepreneur Andrew Smith, who is the Good Citizen editor and Chin Ho! frontman. "Everything's like, smooth," he said, his bald pate shining in the blue light. "I've been looking for problems, but I can't find any."
- Bobby Hackney, concert promoter and musician, looking dapper with dreads, dark suit, purple polka dot shirt and rainbow tie-died tie. "My tribute to Jerry," he said. (A different look from the early-80's boy next to him, with black hair hiding his eyes, cut-off army pants and checkerboard tattoo covering his calves; or the nearby boy of the '90s: a baby faced blonde with safety pin-pierced eyebrow.)
- Phish drummer Jon Fishman; Chris Ziter of Guppyboy and Lakeview Performing Arts, one of the area's fringier theatre groups; WIZN DJ Mike Luoma; an otherwise clean-cut looking girl who wore a T-Shirt with fun facts about marijuana and the paper industry, like "1.1 acres of marijuana - 4 acres of trees."
Eight band played 15 to 20 mintues each. Never Only Once played melodic hardcore, the kind of music that makes you rock your head back and forth while your teeth vibrate. Next up: Envy. Their REM-meets-thrash/grunge set inspired brief, brilliant moments in the most pit. Bassist Melanie Nunnick - with her long black hair, sheer leopard skin T-shirt, and sabre-tooth choker - has the rock star thing down.
Next up: Eef, a name that must mean either testosterone-induced primal scream or feedback. Eef wasn't very tight. In fact, Eef played downright messy. But it didn't seem to matter. Catharsis is catharsis. "I just got my taxes back and I'm (expletive) psyched," said gutiarist Zach Ward. "I'd give my life for my mailman." Nice lead-in to a 1960's surfer tune about postal workers. Then they played a beautiful ballad that built into a wave of ear-melting noise until Ward leaped into the air and landed in an explosion of crashing drums and feedback. "Look at me," he deadpanned. "I'm a guitar player."
He got my attention.- Susan Kelley
