(album, In The Red, 2010)
What made 1976/77 so enthralling was the divide that appeared in your record collection almost overnight. Suddenly, it wasn’t OK for new records to be in the same pile as old records. There was a musty smell, the danger of contamination, the insatiable urge to purge the old ways from your stash without delay. I can still recall rocking up at Renton’s Records in Leamington Spa, sometime in 1977, with a bunch of Led Zep, Sabbath, Deep Purple, Quo and Rainbow LPs, leaving with Damned Damned Damned and Rattus Norvegicus . . . or something like that, I can’t recall the details, it really was a long time ago. So long, in fact, that I’d totally forgotten what it felt like. I’d forgotten how significant generational divides in music are once they open up. They’re like time/space interface power chasms. They suck new energy in to feed off and expel cynical attitudes that have been around too long, seen it all before, heard it all before, got the fucking t-shirt, and the 27-CD boxset and the limited edition tea towel collection. It’s a kind of cleansing process. Cultural cleansing? We used to call them boring old farts, or BOFs. I wonder what they call us now?
This record has been around a few months now. I’m not claiming to have discovered it. I was alerted to its unquestionable brilliance by those hep cats over at Terminal Boredom, my punk rock one-stop web interface of choice. A quality periodical. Their round up of 2010 had more than a couple of field notes on Tyvek. The pull was impossible to ignore – Gravitational, almost. In The Red is also a quality label, home to erstwhile trakMARX collaborators, Black Time, so any risk was minimal. Anyway, a quick shuftie through Soundcloud/MySpace/You Tube confirmed what I already expected: Tyvek punk rock!
So, it was with much anticipation that I patiently awaited the arrival of the postman (the post-modern equivalent of going to the record shop – is it as exciting? – answers on a cyber postcard). The record duly arrived, and the first spin blew me the fuck away. Back in the noughties, I was constantly advocating LPs of under 45-minutes duration, genuflecting against the CD-led trend of pointlessly expanding albums to meet the maximum material threshold (part of my future thesis: How The CD Format Destroyed Rock and Roll). The thing about this wave of young bands – B-Lines, White Lung, Homostupids (to name but three) – is that their records are over in under twenty minutes. How’s that for short attention span consideration? A wave that’s sensitive to the rapid rise in personality disorders! This is 2011; these kids are in a hurry – get the fuck on with it – or get off the stage!
Clocking in at a (comparatively) self-indulgent twenty-six minutes, ‘Nothing Fits’ holds twelve songs, mostly around the two-minute-mark. ‘Outer Limits’ is the longest, at a gargantuan 4:52; it’s almost Fucked Up worrying in its relative complexity! Relax – there are no concepts going down here. No mini-opera pretensions. This is paint-stripping punk rock of the punk fun variety. No political convictions, no Crass logos on the backs of their guitars, no Discharge or Heresy t-shirts moshing in the pit with Tyvek. No, this is artcore, dumbfuck, angulated, addiction in vinyl format. Just Google ‘4312’, and, if you dig that, buy the LP without delay. It’s easy, Amazon have it. No fucking around with import mail order, no postal charges that are more expensive than the record itself. One click. A couple of days wait, and you too can experience the total brilliance of Tyvek, live (kind of), in your own living room.
If you’ve read this far, you’re probably thinking: why doesn’t he just tell us they sound like the so-and-sos covering the what-cha-ma-call-it’s on speed/smack/ketamine (deletes as appropriate) and get the fuck over this shit, I’ve got a life to lead. Well, you lazy-arsed motherfuckers, this time it ain’t that easy. Put a bit of effort into the process yourselves, and go do a bit of research. Along with B-Lines and White Lung, Tyvek are ruling my world right now, and I didn’t zone in on them by wandering into WH Smiths, casually browsing Mojo, and then nipping into HMV before meeting the lads for a crafty latte at Starbucks. You want quality rock and roll that ticks all the right boxes without sucking all the wrong cocks? Then get up off your comfort blanket, take that fucking dummy out of your mouth, and fight the fuck back. Life moves fast. Sometimes you have to stand back and take a look around, or you may miss it. Take a leaf out of Ferris Bueller’s book: take a day off!
