400 Blows:

Let’s Smash Something Squishy

10.19.05

True story. I’m getting some work done in the back room of the house. There are some water-rotted boards that need to be ripped out and replaced. I’ve got a wrecking bar in one gloved hand and a claw hammer in the other, a dust mask over my face. I’ve set up a paint-spattered boom box in the corner, with 400 Blows’ latest CD, Angel’s Trumpets and Devil’s Trombones cued up and ready to play. I figure I’ll kill two birds with one stone, and see what this L.A. punk band has to offer. The fact that the CD’s title is a reference to “A Clockwork Orange” may be a hint.

I press “play” with the cold steel tip of the wrecking bar, and oh, mama— this is going to be good. The first cut, “The Beauty of Internal Darkness,” blasts out of the box with a left hook of a backbeat, and I rip into a bundle of rotten planks.

By the second cut, “The Secret Life,” I’ve put my finger on who I’m reminded of by vocalist Skot Alexander’s singing. Traces of Kurt Cobain, with shades of Gibby Haynes, Jello Biafra, and Jim Andreas of Trunk Federation fame. I’ve also discovered that there are more rotted boards than I anticipated.

By the third track, “Make A Wish,” I’m fully digging the heavy sound of Christian Wabschall’s oddly strung, open-tuned guitar, and the syncopated fury of Ferdinand Cudia’s drumming.

At the end of track seven, “No One Can Erase This,” I make a horrifying discovery.

I tear into a huge chunk of wet 2x6, and out spill a host of sleepy black carpenter ants. The intensity of my home improvement project just kicked up several notches. This is war.

Alexander’s voice is blaring from the speakers:

and ohhhhhhhhhhhhh

nobody in here is gonna get hurt

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh

this is the sound of us down in the dirt

I cast the heavy wrecking bar aside— it clatters on the concrete like it’s part of Cudia’s percussive attack— and grab the claw hammer. Oh, somebody’s going to hurt, all right.

I’m wailing away on the startled nestful of Camponotus pennsylvanicus like Robert DeNiro might, and track number eight comes on, “The World Was Yours.” I’m swinging that hammer in perfect unison with the pounding beat of the song— I realize this about 40 bugs into the battle— and I know now why railroad crews sang as they worked. Alexander’s voice is a narration of the carnage.

now you know you hit that low

the only way is up

let us start that refill now

and make this loving cup

My conclusions are twofold. First and foremost is that 400 Blows are a great band with a unique sound, terrific energy, and a killer new album. The second is that their music is the perfect soundtrack to an afternoon of ant hammering.

Angel’s Trumpets and Devil’s Trombones was produced by Alex Newport, who’s also produced At The Drive-In and Mars Volta, and he’s managed to keep the album sounding crisp for all of its exquisite distortion and raw, insistent vocals. Each cut leaps up and out and at you like a feral cat from a dumpster, claws raking the air.

Voted “L.A.’s Best Punk Band” by the L.A. Weekly, 400 Blows’ sound is one that some jaded listeners don’t want to like, but end up loving. The fact that the band is comprised of a guitarist, a singer, and a drummer playing a tiny drum set, all of them dressed in black and somewhat fascist-looking uniforms with black leather gloves, leaves some people puzzled. Let expectations be dashed. These fellows are smart, loud, and know how to construct catchy songs that could hurt your speakers if you’re not careful. Just your average, Scrabble®-playing Joes offstage, 400 Blows digs deep into the wounded psyche once the music starts, singer Skot offering a hopeful view of life’s awful ironies, and wry insights wrapped up in high-tension lyrical poetry that’s essentially romantic, and reveals a deep curiousity and intelligence.

From the opening track, “The Beauty of Internal Darkness”:

you can have a perfect world

you can have a perfect life

you can live there all the time

you can travel in your mind

this is the blackest forest

with vines that never end

but we will find our apple tree

and we will eat them secretly

if you want to rule this world

you must have a right hand man

you must trust him and be kind

let him slip inside your mind

Roll this image around in your head— an .mp3 of the 400 Blows song, “Sore Thumb” playing at full volume from a wireless iPod link into the 1,000-watt system of a custom Mini Cooper stuffed full of eleven of your best friends and a four-tier wedding cake. Make it a carrot cake. A furious mosh pit erupts. Cake and elbows. Frosting and laughter and a broken off turn signal lever, but screw it.

Life doesn’t get any better.

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