Wolfmanhattan Project “Blue Gene Stew” 2019. In The Red Records. No wave garage-noise rock by the alt-super-group that includes Bob Bert (Sonic Youth, Pussy Galore, Chrome Cranks, Jon Spencer’s Hit Makers) on drums, Mick Collins (Gories, Dirtbombs) on guitar and vocals, and Kid Congo Powers aka Brian Tristan (The Gun Club, Knoxville Girls) also on guitar and vocals. Lo-fi, swampy and often catchy as hell, Bob Bert smashes the shit out the rhythm section (his preferred drumsticks? Hammers!) and the guitars are garage-jangly mixed with hard power chords. Long-time Bert collaborator Lydia Lunch even makes a guest appearance on the track “Jar in the Staircase.” My top tracks include the garage-blues ass-shaker “Smells Like You” which Wolfmanhattan Project released as a single in 2015, and “Now Now Now” plus “Silver Sun” (both totally danceable, too). There’s some weird shit on the album as well, like the VERY no-wave track “Toynbee Tile Blues” which is long and filled with lots of crazy beat, spacey noise, distorted “vocals” (spoken word, mostly name-checking various cities, planets and Stanley Kubrick).

Last week I got a copy of Bob Bert’s kinda-autobiography I’m Just the Drummer, sent and signed to me by Bert himself. It’s a delightful read, a little bit about the man: his background, musical influences and collaborations, and art – one of his works is featured as Blue Gene Stew’s cover – but mostly it’s short interviews and photographs of the multitude of other artists he’s worked with over the years. Some of those interviews are pulled from Bert’s zine BB Gun from the early 2000′s.