Hawaii

It's Christmas. I hate Christmas music. I'm not even particularly a fan of the holiday. I'm probably working it again this year. I don't celebrate and I like Holiday pay. Everybody wins.

That said, this is what I'm going to do for you this day. I'm going to make not one, but two punches in your Fifty States of music with a pair of singles from the magical state of Hawaii.

Hawaii, you say. But that's that tropical place filled with fat guys playing Judy Garland songs on ukuleles and lots and lots of fucking lame reggae. I won't argue that point with you. My wife is from Hawaii. I have a number of ukuleles as well. It's pretty mellow, brah.

It like everywhere else had its own weird music scene which produced these two little wonders.

No ukuleles in either.

 Swiss Cheese Back (1980)

I really don't know what to make of this one. It's loud. There's a metric ton of fuzz and distortion and noise. But at the same time there's a manic glee to it that suggests that they weren't really trying to be "punk" rock as much as mocking it but by the same token making something much more actually punk rock than they intended. Howard Nishioka is the guitar player here. He's also known for making an lp of psychedelic weirdness in 1979 called "Street Songs" that is somewhere on the radar of shit that people are going to start namechecking at some point. There's more than a little bit of psychedelic noodling that occurs in this but it's buried under so much distortion that you really can't tell what the fuck is going on except that it's fucking brilliant. 

the Squids (1981)

This is NOS vinyl in a new sleeve. Apparently one of the band members had a number of leftover records after the initial run (with silk screened sleeves). They made new sleeves for them and a "30th Anniversary" edition was born. I don't care. I got it cheap. I  also probably would have bought a reissue copy. It's New Wave to the fucking max. My wife also informs me that squid is also a slang term in Hawaii for a nerd which makes the cover make even more sense.

The money shot is on the second side with "Tourist Riot". It's a snazzy little toe tapper about tourists burning the city when their vacations go south. It makes my day every time I listen to it.

 Let it make yours too.