Naugahyde Dream Sequence
(Frumunda Musick)
Austin’s Naugahyde Dream Sequence was pieced together through various practice sessions over the span of about two years, and it definitely lives up to its peculiar name. The band, which features the late and sorely missed Randy “Biscuit” Turner on vocals, J.D. Fanning and Josh Chalmers of Oh, Beast! on guitar and bass, and Areola 51’s Max Brody on drums, has created a sound that’s fragmented and disjointed, low-end rumbling in your ear like the beginnings of a fever dream. Released on Brody’s Frumunda label, the disc’s nine songs deliver Turner’s sometimes frantic vocals, and it’s his humorous psychobabble on everything from food (“Snack Bar”) to hot rods (“Priming the Engine”) that’s an earmark of his usual quirky style. Even when he makes a list on the demented “Things That Got Lodged up My Nose” (“Nickels, dimes, all small change; Kleenex, spandex, all things strange”), his effects-laden voice quivering, it’s hard not to smile. Along the way, there are saxophone bleats, strange effects, distorted guitars, and Brody’s industrial-strength drumming, buoying the long, strange trip on a Naugahyde couch. And when Turner screams, “We’re gonna win this thing if it kills us!” on the opening song, take it to heart. And go start 10 bands.
This article appears in September 2 • 2005.