It’s Adjustable!

It’s Adjustable!
By Stacy Coronis

Still Flyin’, “Time Wrinkle” and “Za Cloud”
I’d be willing to bet that Still Flyin’ plays a lot of hackey sack and wear cords with patchwork stripes on the sides. This San Francisco based band is huge (too huge to name the individual members) and their album cover art is very psychedelic and cartoonish, both of which led me to believe the band was a bunch of hippies trying to bring back the good old days of Haight Ashbury. I was not interested. I think I popped it in as a joke one time at my boyfriend’s insistence, but we gave it only a cursory listen, a couple of seconds of each song.

Finally, though, I decided to listen to it for real. I was pleasantly surprised and not a little humbled by my music snobbery. Anyway, there are two discs, though I’m still unclear as to why. Both discs could have been combined into one, time-wise and listening to them back to back, I couldn’t detect any style differences between the two besides their covers. Both were pretty heavy on the reggae influences, specifically a King Tubby. I loved the horns throughout both albums and the harmonies are pretty tight on both discs. Even with these two things going for them, I think Still Flyin’ is too faux hippy for me. Though the horns are tight, too much else is loose and free form to make a really strong impression. Still Flyin’ would have benefited from some stronger editing – cutting out some songs and shortening some others to make a tighter sound and body of work.

Society’s Parasites, self-titled
Another good punk album from Hellcat Records. Society’s Parasites do a great job with their sound, even if it is a little derivative. They’re certainly not breaking new ground with their self-titled album, but its good, solid punk. The guitar work is hard and fast, the lead vocals are strong. They get straight to the point, too, keeping most songs under two minutes. A little bit more creativity would have been nice, but I definitely can’t complain about the album and I would go see them live any time.

Random musical notes
It was a good musical (and birthday) weekend. I went to see Pressure Cooker at Johnny D’s in Davis Square on Saturday night and the Stay At Home Ramblers at their monthly residency at the Abbey Sunday night. I thoroughly enjoyed both shows, though they were vastly different. I’ve also been listening to a lot of the band Lenny and the Piss Poor Boys, which I am pretty addicted to right now. If you have even the slightest interest in country, give it a listen.