The new record from Conway's Ginsu Wives is called Panic and comes complete with music, videos, photos, directions for proper dosage and a list of possible side effects (fever, sudden infancy, haunted blood cells, acute amusia ...).
Yeah. This is no ordinary album and the Ginsu Wives is no ordinary band.
Ginsu Wives
Opening acts: Vision Control, Jumbo Jet
9:30 p.m. Saturday, White Water Tavern, Seventh and Thayer streets, Little Rock
Admission: $7
(501) 375-8400
The group is celebrating Panic's release Saturday with a show at White Water Tavern in Little Rock. The album comes in a special pill bottle, much like the ones sitting in medicine cabinets, that includes a pill-shaped flashdrive containing not only the album's six tracks but also gleefully demented, band-produced, videos and photos, along with a handy-dandy warning label, a sticker and a pin from Thick Syrup, the Little Rock-based label releasing the album. Oh, and each bottle is accompanied by a CD for folks who want to crank the album in the car.
"It's basically a whole media package," says Tracy, the band's bassist and, along with keyboardist Chris, a founding member. The rest of the lineup includes keyboardist Derek and drummer Daniel. Members requested their last names be withheld to protect their day jobs.
Only 50 of the pill bottles, designed by Tracy, will be available ($15 each), says Thick Syrup owner Travis McElroy.
"We've always wanted to create this weird world that we can take people to," Chris says.
Mission accomplished.
Panic, which takes its title from the excellent track "Tent Revival," was written mostly by Tracy and Chris and produced and mixed by Tracy. It is a decadent, trippy journey of electronica and sinewy, blissful dance beats not unlike MGMT crossed with the Flaming Lips and Tomahawk somewhere in an Ozarks trailer park. And we mean all of that as the highest of compliments.
"We've never had a set style," Tracy says. "We want to create electronic and dance music and rock all blended together ... but if people say we're just an electronic band or a dance band, we're not doing our jobs."
Ginsu Wives began in 2006 as a side project from Chris and Tracy's band Sleep Today, and it was obvious early on they didn't mind taking the road less traveled, releasing music -- full albums, singles and split singles with other bands -- at a fairly prolific pace, often for free online or in odd formats like 3-inch CDs and cassettes, and posting videos on YouTube.
Tracy and Chris bonded over films just as much as music. Both geek out over low budget horror films, documentaries and directors like David Lynch, Werner Herzog, John Waters, Herschell Gordon Lewis and Martin Scorsese so it was natural that videos became an integral part of the Ginsu Wives' aesthetic.
"I'm a gigantic film fan," Chris says, "and a big part of our relationship is discussing films. The videos give an extra dimension to our songs."
The videos that accompany each song on Panic are a head-spinning mix of chopped-up, madly spliced footage of diseased bodies, butchery, bondage imagery and cheesy horror films (topless women, chainsaws, people walking around in hooded robes, etc.). They also give the viewer/listener two distinct versions of the album in that listening to the music on its own is a completely different experience from hearing the tracks while watching the videos, which flow seamlessly from song to song and are mesmerizing, disturbing and funny, sometimes all at once. A collection of the group's earlier videos is also included.
The band is a well-honed live presence, has toured nationally and regionally and was part of the house party scene in Little Rock and Conway, playing in living rooms and garages and reveling in the indie community spirit.
"Even though they don't have guitar, just keyboards, bass and drums, they are really heavy live," McElroy says. "They are definitely fun to watch."
Opening for the Ginsus on Saturday will be Vision Control, featuring John Pugh XI, former Arkie and ex member of !!!, among other outfits. Vision Control is currently working on a pair of singles to be released later this year, both on Little Rock's Max Recordings and Fast Weapons, the label owned by Gossip's Nathan Howdeshell. Jumbo Jet, the other opening act, is the solo folk project of Ezra Lbs' Daniel Craig.
Style on 06/10/2014