Abe Vigoda

No, not this guy, who’s apparently still alive despite this song’s insistence to tag his toe. The Abe Vigoda I’m referring to hail from Naughtyville, CA (aka Los Angeles), enjoy dressing up like Kraftwerk and, along with peers No Age, Mika Miko and the Silver Daggers, are part of a scene rising from their local venue and communal punk rock temple, the Smell. I’m not sure who exactly pigeonholed the band (No Age’s Randy Randall is a prime suspect), but they’re often described as "tropical pop punk.” Throw another subgenre onto the garbage heap, sure, but there’s a distinct fusion in their music that covers all of those varying elements with glowing harmony. Recent seven-inch "Animal Ghosts” lays bare their sunny disposition, with a raid of rhythms so buoyant there’s only one thing you can do, and that is the conga! Okay, it’s not quite as fruity or forceful as that sounds, but this band have a gift for knitting that irresistible shuffle with slightly off-key Caribbean guitar melodies and clamouring posse vocals into a warm scarf of no wave discordance that’s undeniably tuneful and comfortable.

Abe Vigoda "Animal Ghosts”

Click here to download Abe Vigoda’s "Dead City Waste Wilderness” from RCRD LBL (it’s free).