Order here: ETT - 075 - Patti - Good Big LP
Debut LP from this band out of Oakland now based in New York, though I'd forgive you for thinking they’re from Minneapolis as they sound strikingly similar to Uranium Club.
Like society as a whole, punk rock seems to go through eras of conservatism and progressivism, and despite (or maybe because of?) the fact that the right-wingers seem to be ascendant in the United States’ and Europes' wilder culture, we seem to be experiencing a moment in the punk scene when nothing is cooler than letting your freak flag fly.
Rhythmically, Patti have more of a Minutemen / Suburban Lawns-type white funk swing to them, but the deadpan vocals and Krautrock-ish way of riding simple, repetitive riffs will do any Uranium Club fan right. The bass lines, guitar lines, and vocal patterns are uniformly interesting, but one place Patti excel is in writing cool bridge parts.
Most of the songs on Good Big have a middle section about 3/4 of the way through where the song goes to some strange, unexpected place. The transitions are fluid, so you find yourself thinking, “wait, is this the same song?” until they drop back into one of the familiar parts from earlier in the song. Having that sense of movement and development to the song takes what would have been an interesting collection of riffs and makes them into something more than that, a set of musical stories that unfold in front of you.
This is top-notch egg punk, so even if you only mess with the hits like Uranium Club and Coneheads this is worth checking out.
