PUSHER / THE PIPS – Split-Demo 2007 CD-R

PUSHER / THE PIPS
Split-Demo 2007 CD-R
(Knot Records)

A few weeks ago the recently revitalised Pusher (with guitarist Tholib back in the fold) went to Sri Gombak to record several songs for a split-release with Gasoline Grenade.

This is the studio where Carburetor Dung recorded our new album about a month ago. The new space is a remnant of the old Dreamwalk Studio (the outfit who recorded the Naked Butterfly’s debut and The Pilgrims 2nd album) but it’s very rundown and now only doing vocal recordings by nasyid groups and political speeches!

Anyway, a few days later the resulting recording was brought to The Ricecooker Shop for us to hear, and we found out that the recording is pretty good especially for a completely live set-up BUT, yeah, there’s a but… Pusher uses two guitarists and the problem was that the two guitarists used different tuners to tune their guitars.

Now remember this kids, if your band have two guitarists or two guitars, do tune up your guitars using the SAME tuner! Especially before recording! The Pusher guys didn’t and so one of the guitars turned out to be NOT in tune with the other.

So we sat and listened to the recording and the first thing that I heard was that guitar going out of sync with the rest and all the songs have that jarring annoyance. The actual recording as a whole is good but when your guitars don’t talk to each other proper, it’s bad, very bad.

Pusher decided to bin it, and now plans to record again, somewhere else. However, there are two songs from that session here on this 3-tracks CD-R release. One is a good, less melodic but respectful reworking of A.R.T. (Against Racism of Today) one and only proper recording, Stop The Madness.

It’s a nice reinterpretation imbued with Pusher’s own stylings; reggae-fied languid punk rock with bluesy solos that goes fast and intense at the last minute. The other track, Media Obligator, is Pusher showing it’s true promise; a mixture of the best of Rancid’s snotty feel meeting Op Ivy’s frantic speed. I like the fact that singer Alak has decided to drop the ol’ Tim Armstrong-influenced annoying “know-it-all” arrogant warble! I use to hate Pusher for it!

The first track on this CD-R is however a pleasant surprise. It’s a brand new band by the name of The Pips, basically Alak and partner and friends doing a tribute to now infamous Mongolian murder victim currently being dragged through a protracted court case. I don’t need to go through all the gory details lah. You know it, the tabloids are having a whale of a time with it, and conspiracy theories abounding with much sinister plots and twisting possibilities. I have no faith in the Malaysian judicial system, it’s corrupted, more like puppets on string, easy manipulated, easily swayed.

You can listen to the song here:

[audio:http://media.switchpod.com//users/ricecooker/pipsashes.mp3]
Ashes in the Wind by The Pips

The song is interesting, not something you would expect out of Alak, while the chorus can lodge itself in your head and plays on repeat. It’s pretty haunting. I constantly find the chorus in my head and that can get pretty weird considering the subject matter is a dead woman blown to bits.

The CD-R is available at The Ricecooker Shop for RM5.