Drunk Tank - Drunk Tank

Drunk Tank – Drunk Tank
Radial/Matador, 1991
Acquired: Love Garden Blowout Location, Used, 2009
Price: $1.25

Imagine a record where the vocals for every song sounded like a Henry Rollins breakdown. Or someone trying to sing like they were really angry at something. That's what the guy in Drunk Tank is doing and he sucks at it. This band, actually, sucks at music, and this is one of the worst records I've ever heard. But when you're buying records for a buck a piece, you're gonna find some stinkers. Fortunately, I've been pretty lucky with my choices, but this just blows. Lots of “angular riffz” and a kind of metal vibe coming off of this one, like stink lines over a pile of dogshit. For some reason, Matador distributed this one, but I think this was before Matador became THEE indie rock record label. It sounds like they're trying REALLY hard to be Big Black, but seriously, this gives noise rock a bad name. A very “any asshole with some instrument can play this shit” sort of thing. And wouldn't you know it, these guys are from Chicago and of course Steve Albini produced this record. Amazon says “like Big Black meets the Birthday Party—in hell,” which is a pretty accurate description. I still fucking hate this record, though. Maybe noise-rock aficionados eat this up but this is just painful. Mostly due to the dude's atonal voice barking over the tinny guitars and the nausea inducing bass lines. This music is the sonic equivalent of date rape.

I tried finding a video or a link so you could hear this, I found some MP3s, but all the links are dead, so I guess I didn't find any MP3s.

But I also found this video of two high school girls singing "Fairytale of New York" by the Pogues, which prominently features a drunk tank. The singer is clearly reading the lyrics off of the computer screen, which I find amusing. The guitar girl just stares into your soul.