The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Every Tuesday, the Sounding Board is a space for a short-ish review of a recent-ish release and conversations about new-to-you music. We’ll get things started with a write-up about a newer, likely under-heard album, and invite you to share your music musings in the comments.
It’d be easy to mistake Surfbort for a band long past its sell-by date.
When the group of scuzzy rockers first coalesced around vocalist Dani Miller in New York City in 2014, the memetic Beyoncè lyrics that give the band its name were still somewhat topical. Surfbort’s been around long enough to release a couple of albums and a handful of EPs, play big festivals, become an unexpected part of a high-fashion ad campaign, relocate to the West Coast, jump labels a few times, and let nearly five years pass between the band’s second album and its recently released third album, Reality Star.1 It’s an arc that makes the foursome’s continued existence impressive, but doesn’t instill much confidence that the band’s new music will sound fresh.
It turns out not to matter because on Reality Star, Surfbort proves its brand of agitated dirtbag rock takes a long, long time to go bad.
Aside from allusions to Nirvana and the B-52s, there’s little to place the gleefully bashed-out bursts of id, burnt-out spleen venting and adenoidal odes to alienation that comprise the album on a timeline. Reality Star sounds more like a LP from the alt-rock-dominated era that blessed the Butthole Surfers with a radio hit2 than a 2020s throat-clearing from punk revival also-rans with surprising longevity. For listeners with a soft spot for that frequently loud, crass and catchy epoch, Surfbort’s latest is an extremely enjoyable high-floor, limited-ceiling proposition.3
While Surfbort sound a lot like the fuzzed-out ’90s, their pace and modus operendi owes more to an older order of punk, and it’s telling that Surfbort have toured with Circle Jerks and Descendents.4 Surfbort rips through Reality Star‘s 14 songs in 30 minutes, with the LP’s short runtime divided among frantic hardcore flailing, grunged-up stompers and a couple of slightly more pensive tunes capable of inspiring glum headbanging. A song’s title almost always offers insight into the track’s tone, tempo, and chorus. “Hot Chicks Cold Beer” and “Hotdog,” for example, are both tongue-in-cheek paeans to their titular subjects. The former both skewers and nails the sort of blown-out and beach-bound substance-misuse rock peddled by bands like Fidlar. The latter is a pulsing groove with absurdist lyrics that scans as a Le Tigre homage, at least partially because it references an early ’60s hit single. “MK Ultra” incorporates psych rock elements, and its lyrics are a glib and cursory accounting of the infamous Central Intelligence Agency program’s legacy. “Rebel” is an aspirational declaration of war against existing power structures. “USA Cheese” and “Peaches and Cream” are more metaphorical, but simply knowing each song is figurative provides solid odds of guessing the topics being tackled. On Reality Star, whatever it says on the tin is almost always what you get.
That’s for the best. While it’s a joy to hear Surfbort buzzsaw through 120 seconds of bubble grunge innuendo delivered in Miller’s flat fry on “Peaches and Cream,” weak spots become more apparent when the band puts a finer point on its social commentary or stretches. Album-closer, “Jessica’s Changed,” the only track to exceed three minutes, is a quiet-to-loud crescendo with a sticky chorus that finds its second gear after its first relatively somber minute. While the increased runtime provides space for an enjoyable instrumental break, it’s a track that really needs one more trick — a blistering solo, another layer of strident noise, a key change, something — to feel like a grand finale. Also, on an album that includes a truly head-scratching reference to JonBenét Ramsey,5 “Jessica’s Changed” chorus, which includes the line “And I’m falling deep in love with the ghost of Kurt Cobain,” stands out as a lyrical low point despite its catchiness. It’s an odd shortcoming because there are some memorable turns of phrase — “I’m not on drugs, I’m on my phone / Wishful thinking brings me back to you” — to be found on the album, just not on the song that needs them most.
Still, it’s difficult to be too harsh to Reality Star for a lack of sagacity or paucity of good taste. It’s an album where obscuring the phrase, f— you with the letters FU counts as decorum and “democracy becomes a whore” is political insight.6 Reality Star has enough good things going on, that it’s feasible and worthwhile to pump the brakes on analysis. A contrived good time is still a good time, and Surfbort make it plain that scuzzy garage rock still sounds good played loud.
About the writer
Ben Hohenstatt
Ben Hohenstatt is an Alaska-based dog owner who moonlights as a music writer and photographer.
For more information, consult your local library or with parental permission visit his website.
Tags for this article
More articles by Ben Hohenstatt
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
The Kids In The Hall, Season Five, Episode Eight
“I’m hammered. And I want to talk to you.”
“That’s 555-Slut.”
“Coz I’m masturbating!”
“Well, that was the worst mall promotion I’ve ever seen!”
“Your life is – how do I put it – narrowing?”
“Old people hump like squirrels.”
“Or as they call it: Humpin’ Heaven Hotel.”
“Look at his pricky face.”
“Starve, you bastard, starve!”
“Bull is the international language, and you speak it quite fluently.”
“Let’s settle this like the step-class school professionals we are.”
Very obvious to give Scott big old lady tits.
“There are a hundred women and three men waiting to do a step class out there!”
Chuck just smiling when asked something is amusing.
“No, I was not doing cocaine!”
“Chuck wants an adventure in the gay zone.”
“My god, I’m as bad as he is!”
Seinfeld, S7, “The Maestro” – bit of a disjointed episode but solidly funny. Kramer’s fast-talking, exasperated lawyer was possibly the highlight, although George’s subplot about getting a chair for a security guard was also pretty good.
I’ve been AWOL, so I’ll prioritize here and just (briefly) catch up on all my not-yet-written-up Inside No. 9 viewing:
Inside No. 9, “Mr King,” “Nine Lives Kat,” “Kid/Nap,” “A Random Act of Kindness,” “Wise Owl,” and “The Bones of St Nicholas”
All but the last are from series 7, which does quite a bit of formal and stylistic stretching. “Mr King” is sunny folk horror, a bright and colorful descent to a viscerally alarming ending; some especially beautiful production design here. (And those masks!) “Nine Lives Kat” has some good disorientation that develops especially well in retrospect once you understand what the initial protagonist is actually going through, and the fundamental idea here is one I always like seeing explored. “Kid/Nap” has some fun split-screen use, but even more than that, it’s just a delight of a crime story with a very clever mid-episode development. Honestly, being good at comedy may be the best, most flexible skill-set any writer can have: it lends itself so well to engaging, escalation-filled plotting.
“A Random Act of Kindness” takes a rare science fictional swerve, using some time travel like a strong dash of salt to amp up the flavors of loss and bitterness in its tale of a difficult mother-son relationship: haunting last image. I don’t know what it says about me that I find Pemberton’s character’s verbal tic in this so oddly compelling (double d, double l) that it felt like there was a real chance I might adopt it myself. “Wise Owl” may be my favorite of the bunch, a dark and unsettling and ultimately very moving look at a man who’s grown up–to the extent that he even could–haunted by a particular cartoon PSA series his father once voiced, and for very good reason. Great horror, and then I get a little misty at the ending.
England’s tradition of ghost stories at Christmas has always appealed to me, so I was very pleased by “The Bones of St Nicholas,” a haunting Christmas episode that sees a few Christmas Eve “champers” (overnight church campers) whiling the night away in a stunning cathedral, sharing ghost stories, rubbing each other the wrong way, and possibly having some secret plans. Wonderful guest turn by Simon Callow, who brings exactly the right amount of kindly gravitas to the role. The little beat between Shearsmith and Shobna Gulati, poignantly recalibrating what we’ve understood about them to that point, is the kind of human writing the show does very well.
What did we listen to?
A bunch of Noel Coward songs, turns out he’s quite witty! And clearly the ur-text for a lot of wistful, silly, and queer comedy and/or pop music.
I am going through the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds discography, good example of a band getting better and better as it goes along, ditching some blues-cosplay trappings and finding more of a distinct identity. By Tender Prey we are fucking cooking, “Deanna” is the great love song for gothic literary sex maniacs.
Blank Check, The Cars That Ate Paris – Spoiler: the cars do not eat Paris. Best stick with Morrison’s Doom Patrol comic, “The Painting That Ate Paris.” Anyway, the long overdue Weir miniseries is here, though how much I watch along will be determined by what’s streamable and by my willingness to watch two movies with Mel Gibson and one with Depardieu. But any excuse for The Truman Show is a good one.
They’re doing Weir!? Sound the trumpets! The Year Of Living Dangerously is worth your time, and Linda Hunt is more of an eyebrow-raiser than Gibson is, I wonder how the discussion will go on that one. If you can (library?), definitely make time for The Mosquito Coast, a great and forgotten film that is probably the best Ford has ever been and certainly the most out there.
Work has been absolute chaos lately so my daytime listening habits are in disarray. Hopefully getting back into the 1001 Albums list next week though.
Bert Jansch – Avocet – recent discogs buy, this is an all-intrumental album of songs named after birds, my recent fascination with instrumental folk guitar stuff has zeroed in on this as a particularly good example, particularly the song “Kittiwake”.
Ladies Nite, “Multistorey” – one of the bands I saw at the weekend, I’ve been loving this classic synthpop banger.
Blank Check, The Cars that Ate Paris – solid episode to what should be a pretty interesting series. Peter Weir seems like a pretty perfect choice for the podcast, diverse range of films with some big swings. I’ve got quite a few blind spots to fill (including Last Wave which I’ve wanted to see for ages but is never available in the UK for some reason – may have to resort to Means) but have seen this one, which is an odd little film. Fun discussion!
Resort to Means! The Last Wave is great and would make a stellar double bill with Clearcut, movies about well-meaning white people who have no fucking clue.
The Practice, “Down the Hatch” – Eugene and Jimmy take a fraud suit against a brewery, filed by grieving parents whose son died from alcohol poisoning and who blame advertising making drinking seem cool to underaged drinkers. We learn that Eugene lost a brother to drinking and might want to make Big Alcohol pay. And pay they will, since the seemingly shaky case is a resounding win. I looked it up, and in fact there was a class action suit regarding underaged drinking and marketing just a few months after this, so it must have been in the wind. However, the court dismissed it, and to this date no one has ever sued the booze industry successfully since, unlike with tobacco, no one can lie about the dangers of drinking. Gregory Itzin makes his fourth appearance on the show as yet another lawyer. Meanwhile, Ellenor is trying to help a woman on death row, a woman who committed two murders while psychotic and is now on meds and a model citizen. The only way to avoid death? To have the woman stop taking the meds so she is insane and could get a stay. Which frankly sounds stupid, and we all know the woman off her meds is going to be dangerous. But the great Alfre Woodard is playing the woman and that is worth the price of admission (and of course she gets an Emmy for this). To be continued.
The Avengers, “Epic – For some reason, Emma is kidnapped to start in a movie being filmed by a Von Stroheim type in the ruins of his old studio. Some fun bits – at least Diana Rigg is having fun – and a suitably goofy performance by Peter Wyndgarde as a washed up actor in the director’s thrall, but generally a mess.
The Delines – The Setup
This sleepy, slightly jazzy album unspools across a series of writerly vignettes. It was interesting structurally but intentionally warm and somnolent in a way that would make wringing out a column tough.
Casefile
The gold-standard true crime podcast has returned from a long break, and it’s broken the silence with the first in a four-part series on BTK. Casefile is well-researched and unflinching without being sensationalist in its storytelling.
Casefile does really excellent, in-depth, empathetic work.
Year of the Month update!
This March, you can write about any of these movies, albums, books, TV, etc. from 1980.
TBD: Ruck Cohlchez: Underwater Moonlight
Mar. 16th: Tristan J Nankervis: 9 to 5
Mar. 19th: John Bruni: Gaucho
Mar. 23rd: Bridgett Taylor: Magnum PI
And next month, you can write about any of these movies, albums, books, etc. from 1949.
April. 9th: Cori Domschot: I Was a Male War Bride
Apr. 16th: Cori Domschot: On the Town
Butthole Surfers shoutout! “Sweet Loaf” indeed rules, why are the kids not listening to SATAN SATAN SATAN! But I have a huge soft spot for Electriclarryland (moreso than “Pepper” itself), a gateway album for me and as you note a relic of weirder times on the radio: https://www.the-solute.com/year-of-the-month-miller-on-electriclarryland/