Liz Tooley and Lance Barresi run two record stores in Chicago and L.A., both called Permanent Records. They frequently host inexpensive, all-ages in-store shows—during their early goings in Chicago, artists like Kurt Vile, Thee Oh Sees, Times New Viking, Vivian Girls, and others would perform there before playing the Empty Bottle later on. With their label, they release music from the fringes—psychedelic, beefy, muddy, weird, loud—by bands with names like Rectal Hygienics and King Blood. Every Monday, they thoughtfully curate picks for their record store's weekly newsletter. They named cats after Betty Davis and Zaireeka. These are the sort of people you root for. They're two-thirds of the L.A.-based garage punk trio Endless Bummer.
Quality isn't ever a guarantee for a new band, but consider: These people are first-rate curators who have run a consistently great label for almost a decade. Lance is a former member of the overlooked Chicago band Heavy Times. The third member is Greg T., a guitarist whose credits include work with the coldwave outfit MERX (whose two albums were released by Permanent) and the skate punk heroes the Spits. And right as the band got started, they packaged themselves with some well-tread rock'n'roll traditions. All three adopted the surname "Bummer" (a la Ramone, Davila, Partridge) and a uniform (all black, sunglasses, scowls). In the video for their debut single "Such a Drag", they got doused with blood. These are the sorts of rock'n'roll tropes that border on gimmickry, but in this case, their "we're the Bummers" narrative helps keep the focus on their angry (and often violent) music. Endless Bummer aren't simply "co-owners of a record store plus another guy who's been in some bands." They're the angry voices repeating the words "it's time to say goodbye" and "I don't like you."
They recorded Vol. 1 with their friend (and sometimes employee) Ty Segall at his short-lived home studio "the Sweat Lodge." That guy's reputation practically guaranteed that the guitars on the record would sound awesome—his backyard set-up produced successful sessions for White Fence, Wand, and Meatbodies, after all. Within seconds, those few opening strums of "Gray" portent the entire album's tone: This is brazen, blown-out, fuzz-caked, and dour rock'n'roll.
The Endless Bummer approach becomes quickly apparent. They're not the band to deliver the unhinged, wild-eyed screams you get from rock'n'roll's magnetic icons. Liz's drumming is more skeletal than flashy; Lance and Greg's vocals hover in the middle space between "scream" and "monotone." (The vocals on "Speed Queen" lean a little Lemmy, actually.) But this is a band that puts a premium on the numbers game. The vocals become vicious and beefy when barked by two dudes in unison; the onslaught of power chords doesn't relent. Their attack is emboldened by their hooks, which make a few stylistic shifts over the album's 28 minutes. Regardless of whether they're tapping into surf, blues, or punk influences, it all comes out in the wash sounding like Endless Bummer. It's churning, trashy rock music.
Vol. 1's lyrics are arguably most instrumental in defining the band's sullen, furious tone. They've got three songs about the beach ("High Tide", "Rip Tide", "Nuclear Beach") which are the inverse of Frankie & Annette's white-bread beach blanket fantasies. These are the beaches of exploitation films—kids drinking out of paper bags, nude old guys shooting up in the shade, people getting swallowed by the riptide. Over the stilted minor chord churn of "B Movie", they blurt a concise, satisfying kiss-off: "I don't need you, you don't need me/ That's the way it's always gonna be." Their mentality seems most clear on "Bad News": "I'll crash your car, trash your home, hang around when you're alone." The people wearing all black are sending a clear message here: they've been hurt one too many times, and now it's time to destroy something and/or someone.
