Written by: Dave Cantrell

So, first, as is my wont lately, a bit of personal perspective as filtered through the Bar None Records promo sheet that accompanied this great release from Bob Bert that, as a consequence, drew me a shade or two closer to the source, so to speak. One, this biographical fact: “After seeing the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show as an eight-year-old…” which, as it happens, is exactly the age I was in 1964 and quite inescapably watched that same performance and while I’d like to claim that that moment changed my life or some such, the truth is, if so, it was subliminally – to be clear, however, that same sensationalized Mop Top moment has lived in memory right beside the moon landing five years later – and two, the fact that very sentence continues with “he took drum lessons for one year at age twelve…” which mirrors exactly my desire around that same age but was stymied by the fact that, seeing as there was already a clarinet in our house that had belonged to both my brother and sister, that would be my instrument take it or leave it¹, a dictate I’ve often cited as the one mistake made by my otherwise exemplary parents, so, yeah, parallels seldom present with such oddly synchronous clarity but when they do there are few drivers of one’s curiosity that draws one more toward a piece of work in any medium so, hey, I’m going to allow that unexpected current of connectivity to take its hold and see where it takes us.

Bob Bert is not a commonly recognized name in the overarching arc of all things ‘alternative’ but to those known for needing to know all the deets and in and outs of the records they love and those that make them, that oddly alliterative, somewhat percussive name is widely recognized for its presence on records and stages that range from Sonic Youth in their early years to Pussy Galore, Action Swingers, Knoxville Girls among a host of others not least including, more recently, Lydia Lunch Retrovirus and Jon Spencers HITmakers project. All that said, however, it’s still not quite enough so here’s a quick if deeper thumbnail sketch to provide a more essential skosh of context:

Cajoling his mom to switch him at an early grade from Catholic school to public school by threatening to drop out of the latter (a move, by the way, greeted by said school’s principal with a face-slap slating while – one assumes rhythmically – shouting in his face ‘Why would you ever want to go to public school?!” and certainly there has seldom in human history been a more self-answering question), Bert headed in to high school and the years beyond with, for a time, less-to-no emphasis on drumming as it was overshadowed by what NYC had to offer at the time, namely Pop Art   – Warhol, Glam in the form of the New York Dolls and (plenty of) others – before eventually, in 1975, wandering in to CBGB’s when, as it happened, none other than Television and Patti Smith were sharing the bill. Add to that his enrollment at SVA where he learned to silkscreen, in the process becoming a fine art printer which eventually led to him working with none other that Mr. Warhol until the latter’s death. Having moved to Manhattan in 1978, Bert was perfectly positioned to notice an ad in the Village Voice soliciting submissions for a punk rock art show and had one of his pieces accepted for a showing at the renowned Nonson Gallery where it hung alongside the likes of Joey Ramone’s “Bloody Gums” (a piece of punk pop art consisting of a red-painted toothbrush glued to the ceiling) while Daniel Rey’s Shrapnel provided the music and where he met the artist/painter/illustrator and future wife, the photographer/artist Linda Wolfe (RIP). From there it was but a short jump to Hoboken where the two landed in 1981 just as that locale – not least the now legendary Maxwell’s which just happened to be a block away – became the locus of the emerging post-postpunk/nascently raging indie scene that would come to pretty much define the expansive, ever-diverse ‘alt.music’ explosion that, for good and/or ill, is as well established as an all-encompassing genre as any other in our milieu as it currently stands. All that said, however, it was in that neighborhood where seven months later Bert noticed a flyer stating that Sonic Youth were looking for a new drummer and thus, as might well be guessed, Bert’s trajectory took a major turn that, ultimately, after stints in not only SY but Pussy Galore and a store of others, leads us straight to the Beach Bongo Bloodbath before us today, an album that takes the phrase ‘worth the wait’ and paints it in neon tints across one’s frontal lobe so, hey, whattaya say. I mean, all that background’s fine and useful and all, even necessary in its way, but howzabout we just say screw all that and move to the grit of the gist before us, shall we? We shall…

From the fluttery trance-inducing opener “Earth to Kitten” we’re led to the first of eight astutely chosen covers, in this case Pussy Galore’s “Fuck You, Man” that, due in no small part ot Bert’s, well, explosive drum presence grows out of the track’s drone-ish, Outer Limits-like beginning into a buzzing behemoth that despite – or due to? – it’s mere 34-second length could not be a better calling card to the set entire, right? Right, though the next-up take on David Peel & the Lower East Side’s “Oink Oink” may beg to differ as Bert pummels along with such force the word ‘authority’ barely covers it.

It’ll come as little surprise that that authority nonetheless resonates with a boom and flash throughout, from the splendidly controlled chaos of a certain Mr. Hell‘s “Love Comes in Spurts” through the intense hypnosis of the title track that plays out through its eighty-six seconds like a trance stuck on ‘stun’ through the spot-on hauntedness of “Pablo Picasso” that takes the nascent cheeky innocence of the legendary Jonathan Richman original and hurls it with a wholly respectful glee down into the basement; the playful jazzy unsettlingness that is “Cancel This!” that takes that murky snazz into the true outré margins where it proceeds to hypnotize without a word being spoken (and I dunno about anyone else but what I hear as a slight, knowing nod to Vince Guaraldi around the 1:50 mark is very cool indeed). And, as if that ain’t enough there’s this pressurized persistence that defines the brief but nonetheless startling take on PiL’s “Four Enclosed Walls/Banging the Door” that segues forthwith into a sneer-kissed take on the 1965 Barbarians‘ hit “Are You A Boy or Are You A Girl” that manages to be both laconic and biting but truly, the bestest of the best stylishly rough-cut gems may well be the closing track that takes the Velvets Underground’s classic “Foggy Notion,” adds a few rich-yet-minimalist touches (clave, anyone?) that in the end could not be a finer representation of the interpretive nous at work throughout, finding, as it does, Bert being both reverential to the original while claiming it as his own in no uncertain terms (and, really, given the guy’s background, what more appropriate note to go out on?).

What’s especially notable throughout Beach Bongo Bloodbath is the extent – and depth – of nuance that pertains even in the face of a not-infrequent gale force sonic maelstrom of a groove. As with your Velvets, your Hells and a healthy handful of others over the decades – Nirvana as a particular example (though one may persuasively argue the Grunge generation entire) – who premised their raison d’etre on exactly that core dichotomy whereupon something of an assaultive nature is at heart tempered by an inherent elegance and, as here, the resulting ‘rough gem’ aspect ultimately ends up representing – and quite astutely – that phrase’s intrinsic tension, providing in the process its lasting value as a true artifact of its time.

1 – For the, umm, record, I was proficient enough to be first row first chair in a summer school ensemble but that one key ingredient called ‘innate satisfaction’ was wholly absent.