On February 26, SST Records releases Life is Too Short to Not Hold a Grudge, the debut album from Good For You, featuring Greg Ginn and ‘Mike V’ Vallely.
Unappreciated and unknown, they create usually short, sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant rock’n’roll which veers from driving punk to drunken country blues.
The off-kilter jazz with solid backbeat directly recalls Universal Congress Of’s melodic sensibilities. Better yet, Greg Ginn doesn’t make an appearance.
The key members of Mission of Burma and Squirrel Bait turned their backs on the heavy noise they stirred up in favor of quieter, more painterly explorations.
Roger Miller had a very good reason for shirking the oblique cacophony he minted as guitarist and main songwriter for Mission of Burma – it was making him deaf.
SST used to be one of the few labels to put out this kind of adventuresome art-punk-jazz-rock music, and Kiss Me Twice I’m Schizo lives up to the old standard.