50 Foot Wave Debut Second Track 'God's Not A Dick' from Upcoming EP

By: May. 04, 2016
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This LA-based power trio formed in 2003 by Kristin Hersh and Bernard Georges of Throwing Muses (with Rob Ahlers on drums), was named after the lowest note audible to human ears. The band was intended as an outlet for the noise/math rock pieces that didn't fit the aesthetic of Throwing Muses or Kristin Hersh's solo work. They are known for pioneering the name-your-own-price movement.

The band works with Creative Commons licensing to allow filmmakers and other artists to use their songs without incurring costs or copyright infringement. Though their records are available for purchase on CD and vinyl, 50FootWave gives away its music free for download and encourages all forms of music sharing. As their records state: "SHARE THIS MUSIC - burn it for friends, burn it for enemies - USE IT" All those involved with the band donate their time to make this possible.

Their most successful and influential release, 2009's Power + Light, is thirty minutes of non-stop music, a barrage of free-form sound that found the band challenging its own complex song structure. Drowned in Sound wrote, "Kristin Hersh has flared back to ravenous, inferno intensity with the excoriating Power + Light, which feels neither self-indulgent nor like many tracks cobbled together, but bruisingly visceral."

This year's Bath White is their sixth release. Again, they've chosen to work with Los Angeles producer Mudrock, best known for his work with Godsmack. As Mudrock states, "These are the best musicians I've ever worked with, easily the most facile...they're pros and they're good people. 50FootWave is why I do what I do."

Kristin Hersh on the track "God's Not A Dick"
"Only cash, we got electricity!" the lady yelled when I opened the liquor store door. She was built entirely of load-bearing tattoos that seemed to barely support her long, burnt hair. No body, no face. "Oh, it's you. You live up the block? Pay me later."

I let the door shut behind me. "You have electricity?"

"Everywhere!" she threw up her hands, "except where it should be. Everything shocks you. Buy whatever you want, but don't touch nuthin'."

While I tried to figure out how to do this, the bell on the door behind me dinged and a tourist couple walked in. A few raindrops followed them. The cashier glanced over her shoulder and slammed the register shut. "Only cash!" she told them and they nodded. "And don't touch nuthin'." They nodded again, scared. "It's for your own good," she explained. "Everything shocks you." This fact did seem to shock them, actually.

Tattoos and burnt hair animated themselves enough to grab a stepladder and look up, as rain began to drum on the metal roof. You could see her face now, as she gazed into the fluorescent lights on the ceiling: suspicious, tired but afraid to let down her guard. She maybe ran hot and then went cold and now it could go either way. "No barbecue, today, neither," she sighed, disgusted. She began emptying the contents of the refrigerator into a cooler on the floor.

I grabbed a carton of milk. It did not shock me. "I'm taking this," I told her and moved toward the door. The rain was getting crazy. In New Orleans, it comes down sudden. Just know that as long as it's coming down and not sideways, you're cool. "'kay, good," she muttered without looking up. The tourists huddled together, moving carefully down an aisle and whispering, for some reason. The red headed woman's tattoos continued to move perishables into the cooler. "This blows," she spat, and climbed down the stepladder to light a cigarette.

"It's kinda cool," I said, opening the door to watch heavy raindrops splash under the awning. A few cars drove by, their headlights making the torrent glow. I love the rushing sound of cars in rain. "It's...science," I said.

The cashier squinted at me through the cigarette smoke obscuring her face. "Science is a dick," she announced flatly.

Smiling, I waved goodbye with my quart of milk, stepped outside and shut the door carefully, blinking in the wet. The sidewalk ran, the gutters were rivers, and enormous flowers, big as your head, cranked it all up...underwater blue and on wicked fire.



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