Cut of the Day: The Harvey Girls, "Red Plastic Chairs"

 It's been interesting and exciting to hear the Harvey Girls evolve from Hiram Lucke's bedroom experimental pop project into this full-fledged power trio. The music is still warped and untethered to any marketable genre, but now with a steady drive to the low end via bassist Shawn Hampton and drummer Austin Giles. 

The outfit's upcoming EP Holladay blares this out over the course of its six tracks, with tracks like "Tacoma Method" and "Green Candles" giving you a taste of what Mission of Burma would have sounded like if tape loop/engineer Martin Swope wrote all the band's songs. The Girls' finest achievement on this new collection, though, is "Red Plastic Chairs." This strange little number has the unholy swirl of a vintage Beefheart or Pere Ubu track but topped off with a processed vocal from Lucke that tells the apparently true childhood memory of sitting in a red rocking chair and poking himself in the eye with a rubber knife. Yeowch. 

WWeek 2015

Willamette Week’s reporting has concrete impacts that change laws, force action from civic leaders, and drive compromised politicians from public office. Support WW's journalism today.