Open Mike Knight Open Mike Knight 12″
Oakland’s OPEN MIKE KNIGHT kicked out some majorly scrambled art-scree over the span of about seven months in 2001, where they effectively served as dual Y2K spirit hosts for MARS and the SHAGGS (if only the SHAGGS had been a gang of West Coast girls playing basement no wave and writing songs with titles like “Fist Me” and “Crotch Rot” instead of “Who Are Parents”). A seven-song demo was left behind in the wreckage, and now joins recent Jabs excavations from similarly-minded ’90s/’00s agitators SCISSOR GIRLS and MODESSA in the transition from cassette-to-vinyl permanence. You can almost hear vocalist Nel’s eyes rolling as she shrieks, shouts, and generally verbally baits anyone within spitting distance, as the guitar hacks and scrapes at inside-out chords, drums tumble and clatter in a rhythmic freefall, and a steady bass pulse holds everything together (however precariously) as the primary stabilizing force for OPEN MIKE KNIGHT’s jagged stabs. Some of the wildest neo-no wave meltdown sounds this side of MELTDOWN!