Kevin Rips: Brainworms - Cassette

"Here it is / What I miss / It's not a time / It's not a place / It's a mind and a heart"

The sadly now defunct, but eternally great Brainworms!

I managed to finally rip this tape, so I can show it to everyone, and not just the people who ride in my car. Now I've been stoked on this band for a long time. I heard their demo a long while ago, and I soon managed to track down everything else. It's pretty unique sounding stuff, somewhere amidst post-hardcore, post-punk and indie rock - it's all pretty hard to place exactly where they're coming from; the guitars blaze, but there's a sort of pop-punk/skate element going on there, as if they grew up on Dag Nasty or something, but it's all still pretty technical, but the drumming never needs to really get too crazy. And the whole thing is unique partucularly because of Brainworms' "singer" - which isn't exactly singing, but more like gruffly rambling out personal stories and anecdotes.

This tape collects all the 7" tracks from their splits with the Catalyst, Dynamite Arrows and, a favourite of mine, Tubers - a track from which has Brainworms killer cover of Rites of Spring's For Want Of. The tape also contains two other versions of tracks that don't appear anywhere else - Lottery Balls and Whatever, This is How You Get Famous - though, Lottery Balls got rerecorded on II. Confusing? Yeah, totally, but that 's why I'm here to be a nerd and get the knowledge for you. The demo and the live set (packaged together as Which is Worse) and their final album II: Swear to Me are all definitely worth tracking down. But I think this tape collects the best stuff. And I think the jam is probably the exclusive Whatever, This is How You Get Famous - though I'm certain Winnie Cooper has been on a fair number of mixtapes. Or maybe the brilliant use of Trashin' samples on Art Thou Bored. BAH! There's just too much good for one cassette to contain.. but it does!
~KS

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