No Age - "Eraser" 7"

No Age – “Eraser” 7”

Sub Pop, 2008

Acquired: Love Garden, New, 2008

Price: $4

I can’t think of another band from the back half of the 00s who had more fun just tearing shit up for the hell of it. No Age take great pleasure in deconstructing punk, fusing it with noise rock, blending the results, and somehow churning out tracks that are occasionally infectious. Not all of their songs are as catchy and just balls-out ass-kicking as “Eraser,” but with a song this good who needs other songs? The album from which this track was culled—2008’s Nouns—is a fine record but every other song rotates around this one. The build-up and release is pure noisy bliss. Covers of songs by Nate Denver’s Neck, The Urinals, and the Nerves populate the b-side. It was the No Age cover of the Nerves’ “When You Find Out” that led me to seek out their magnificent and tragically brief self-titled four-song EP from 1976, which I promptly played on repeat and on KJHK for months. It’s funny, because No Age’s cover of “When You Find Out” isn’t a cover at all; it’s an instrumental sound collage. Which is heartbreaking because you just know No Age would have tore that song up.

"Eraser" - Still one of my favorite music videos ever!