In an effort to become more of a musical elitist, I’ve started collecting cassettes.
Not just any cassettes, but obscure punk cassettes.
The most recent tape I got my hands on, “Aluminum-Free” by a band aptly named Deodorant, was release #4 of a collective known as Open Palm Tapes, a Chicago-based punk label and distro dedicated to “the sh–t that slaps.”
Open Palm Tapes has a cultivated image, with a strong DIY ethos evidenced by zine-style graphics and eggy illustrations. Deodorant — debuting with their 2018 LP “Smells Good” — is but one of many bands affiliated with the Open Palm.
Part of what attracted me to Deodorant — aside from the $3 price tag — was the eclectic artwork on the tape sleeve, which featured a collage of photographic images, illustrations and the beloved male leads from the 2019 film “The Lighthouse.”
A write-up by Ralph Rivera Jr. characterizes Deodorant thusly:
“…Deodorant: organic, time-tested, mother approved, Aluminum Free. Guaranteed to upwrench and unclench the stench of monotony from yer fetid pits, leaving only the Phunkiest of Pheromones behind.”
The “Phunk”
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I fed the tape into my cassette player, but the garage rock-infused freestyle rap of “Bunta Groovin’ / Boast Mk. II” certainly was not it.
It’s not uncommon for punk tracks to feature spoken word — Uranium Club, for instance, makes ample use of it — but Deodorant’s intentional rhyme scheme and old school flow was an unequivocal punk take on rap.
Laden with references to punk rock ethos (“smash the fash and them blue lives bastards now”) and subversions of opulence (“I’m slamming in some Gucci hand-me-downs”)
Conversely, track three (“Top”) followed the prototype of punk spoken word — rhyme and flow coming secondary to lyrical content, with instrumental backing serving as the figurative “spinal cord” — before devolving into genre-characteristic chaos.
The prior track, a viciously garagey guitar slant titled “King Samo,” kept up the EP’s frenetic energy.
Other tracks, like “Deodorant vs. Son of Baconator” and “Guitar Hero World Tour” smack of classic garage punk, ridden with distortion and maddening guitar riffs.
