I've seen the tired "you gotta see em' live" bit thrown some at the Fat Worm, but I think their scattershot post-Magik Markers bang-on-can spectacular bullshit is-what-it-is-- free, man-- whether on stage or on CD. Imagine deconstructed Essential Logic aerosol burns (stuff that barely hung together in the first place!) with kazoo instead of horns or Beefheart played by Nautical Almanac.
Mid-set with the aforementioned Nautical Almanac in 2005, a friend leaned over and said: "Too free for me, man." Live at No Fun, I had the same thought for Fat Worm: no forward momentum, not much to grab. Only when I turned and started doing something else (drinking? talking?) could I start to follow. Same with the record-- in the background, Pregnant Babies Pregnant With Pregnant Babies sounds its addled best, like on "Cicadas", light on the pointless snare work and heavy on feedback insect calls and crunchy leaves under foot. Front and center, odds are your roommates will start yelling at you: "Dude, what the fuck is that?" or "Yeah, I actually lived with one of those guys. Stuff is terrible."
Pregnant Babies spends most of its time in between songs, but when they deign to appear they're sticky third-eye narrative thrillers: "Red Melting Plastic Box", for instance, is a story about a picnic gone wrong, honey and ants everywhere; they take over a lunch box and live there. That transitions into "Laissez-Faire Is for the Birds", in which pigeons come in, ruin the party, kill the ants, eat all the bread, and ride nature's chaos (gurgles, bird chirps, chords and choruses, the odd harmony) into triumph over mankind.
"Brown" and "Hand of God" make some sense, too: The former basically is a class rant ("she's so sophisticated, get it?"), and the latter's your standard anti-Christ or whoever ("the skin of God is dry and flaking") song, set to pick and string drags.
Fat Worm of Error have a couple people who used to play in Deerhoof, and they've developed their own version of that band's unpredictability and kiddie-moan, except here set in Western Massachusetts and devoid of the presumption of an audience. Like kids, their alternate universe is addictive when you're in it. But mostly you're out of it, it's three-rows-back noise on a plane, and you can't sleep.
