Didjits were an American punk rock band formed in Mattoon, Illinois in 1981, composed of Rick Sims on guitar/vocals, Doug Evans on bass, and Rick's brother Brad Sims, on drums. Didjits were known for the aggressive guitar playing and persona of Rick Sims, who often baited the audience between songs, and took plenty of abuse for it. Moreover, the band also added odd stunts and theatrical bits to some of their stage shows, particularly when playing in Chicago and Champaign.
28-496: They released their first album in 1986 on Bam Bam Records and disbanded in 1994, but briefly reunited in 2006. Brad Sims left the band in 1992. Former Scratch Acid drummer Rey Washam filled in for the Little Miss Carriage EP, and Todd Cole eventually took over as the drummer. Their song "Killboy Powerhead" was covered by The Offspring on their breakthrough 1994 album Smash . Fizzjob , their debut album,
56-458: A few years, Evans resided in the Austin, Texas area where he regularly performed with his band, Blöwer (now disbanded), built nitro dragsters, and raised his children Lola Evans and Dodge Evans. He died on December 28, 2016. Scratch Acid Scratch Acid was an American post-hardcore / noise rock band from Austin, Texas , formed in 1982. One of the pioneers of noise rock in the 1980s,
84-670: A great mid-tempo song on "Dad" ("you know I really hate it/when you hit me with that belt"), a tough guy song tinged with melancholy. Judester was the band's first album released on Touch & Go Records , and was subsequently released as a two-for-one CD with Fizzjob . The band's following solidified with the release of Hornet Pinata. The album was littered with memorable riffs and careening, pile-driving rhythms. It leads off with "Killboy Powerhead", later covered by The Offspring on their breakthrough album, Smash and includes covers of The MC5's "Call Me Animal" and Jimi Hendrix's "Foxy Lady", with bassist Doug Evans on lead vocals. The band shot
112-472: A template that numerous other groups followed. Other early noise rock bands were Big Black , Swans and the Jesus Lizard . Noise rock fuses rock to noise, usually with recognizable "rock" instrumentation, but with greater use of distortion and electronic effects, varying degrees of atonality , improvisation, and white noise . One notable band of this genre is Sonic Youth, who took inspiration from
140-624: A video for "Captain Ahab" which MTV refused to play due to drug references in the lyrics. Nevertheless, a clip of the video was shown on MTV's 120 Minutes show. The video for "Judge Hot Fudge" appeared in a season five episode of Beavis and Butt-head entitled "Choke"; the boys were not impressed. All of the original members of the band appeared at the Touch and Go 25th anniversary celebration in Chicago , Illinois on September 9, 2006. The next weekend,
168-533: Is like orgasm". He commented: "Anybody can play notes. There's no trick. What is a trick and a good one is to make a guitar do things that don't sound like a guitar at all. The point here is stretching the boundaries." He said that Ron Asheton of the Stooges "made squealy death noise feedback" on " Iggy 's monstruous songs". Albini also mentioned John McKay of Siouxsie and the Banshees , saying: " The Scream
196-482: Is notable for a couple of things: only now people are trying to copy it, and even now nobody understands how that guitar player got all that pointless noise to stick together as songs". Albini also said that Keith Levene of Public Image Ltd had this "ability to make an excruciating noise come out of his guitar". In an article about noise rock, Spin wrote that a US compilation album titled No New York , released in 1978 on an independent label called "Antilles",
224-698: The Cramps -like "Skull Baby", the lightning fast "Plate in My Head", sung from the point of view of a Vietnam vet, the heavy "Under the Christmas Fish", a frequent concert opener with its pounding bass and drum rhythm and Sims hooky lead guitar line, and the closer, a wobbly version of Little Richard 's "Lucille". Side two was nearly as good, with "Axhandle" sounding like a cross between AC/DC and Buzzcocks , "Joliet" encouraging singalongs, Doug Evans's bass dominating "King Carp", and Sims showing that he could pen
252-595: The free jazz of Ornette Coleman Reed stated that: "I thought, you put Hubert Selby with Burroughs or Ginsberg lyrics against some rock with these kind of harmonic [ideas] going in … wouldn't you have something?" Les Rallizes Denudés quickly adopted the noise elements developed by the Velvet Underground in White Light/White Heat and The Velvet Underground & Nico by creating long improvisational songs based on feedback and
280-411: The no wave composers Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham . Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore has stated: "Noise has taken the place of punk rock. People who play noise have no real aspirations to being part of the mainstream culture. Punk has been co-opted, and this subterranean noise music and the avant-garde folk scene have replaced it." While the music had been around for some time, the term "noise rock"
308-451: The 90s, especially in the UK, and grunge , the most commercially successful. Among them are Wisconsin 's Killdozer , Chicago 's Big Black , and most notably San Francisco 's Flipper , a band known for its slowed-down and murky "noise punk". The Butthole Surfers ' mix of punk , heavy metal and noise rock was a major influence, particularly on the early work of Soundgarden . Starting in
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#1732797751831336-593: The Big Boys , Ministry , Helios Creed , the Didjits , Lard , and Tad . In 1987, Sims and Washam joined Steve Albini in the band Rapeman , which disbanded just before Sims reunited with Yow in 1989 to form the Jesus Lizard . All of the original members of the band appeared at Emo's nightclub in Austin on September 2, 2006, and at the Touch and Go 25th anniversary celebration in Chicago , Illinois on September 9, 2006. They played their third and final show of
364-538: The US "and possibly in Europe". On August 31, David Yow released the complete list of tour dates on his Facebook page. Noise rock Noise rock (sometimes called noise punk ) is a noise -oriented style of experimental rock that spun off from punk rock in the 1980s. Drawing on movements such as minimalism , industrial music , and New York hardcore , artists indulge in extreme levels of distortion through
392-521: The band is best remembered as a stepping stone for its frontman David Yow , and bass player David Wm. Sims , both later of The Jesus Lizard . Scratch Acid was launched in Austin, Texas in 1982. When they first began, their lineup was Steve Anderson (vocals), David Wm. Sims (guitar), Brett Bradford (guitar), David Yow (bass), and Rey Washam (drums). Anderson was kicked out of the band before they ever recorded an album, prompting Yow to move to vocals and Sims to move to bass. Scratch Acid's first EP
420-622: The band played another reunion show in Champaign. In late 2016, preparations were also underway for another reunion in 2017. However, due to the death of Evans at the end of 2016, this reunion was canceled. Sims went on to work with the Lookingglass Theatre Company in Chicago and has his own business as a composer/sound designer. He is also the head sound designer at Niles West High School's Theatre department. For
448-570: The band's rawness, energy, and earnestness in a live setting: "...The band is unpretentious, fast, and forceful. They present no gimmicks, glamor, or elaborate stage show. After all, that's already been done so many times before. Scratch Acid simply walk on stage in their street clothes and begin to play. The quality of their music stands on its own." Brett Bradford went on to form Colorado punk band Great Caesar's Ghost, who disbanded in 1993. He also formed Sangre De Toro and played with Areola 51. Washam went on to perform with many other bands, including
476-523: The band, produced by Burgess again, was noticeably tighter and the production was accordingly beefed up. Furthermore, the Rick Didjit persona was truly crystallized, with sarcastic lyrics about bad asses, big cars, and fish dominating the proceedings. Considered by many fans to be the band's best album, the LP kicks off with the furious "Max Wedge" and segues directly into "Stingray". The first side also has
504-507: The brief reunion at Seattle's Showbox Theater on Saturday, September 16, playing 20 songs from their 28-song (recorded) oeuvre before leaving the stage. The band reunited for their first UK show since 1987 at the second British All Tomorrow's Parties music festival March 9 through 11, 2012, curated by Neutral Milk Hotel 's Jeff Mangum . David Wm. Sims also announced in his blog that the band will play some dates in November and December in
532-459: The early 1990s as a "leading noise rock band" in the American scene with their "willfully abrasive and atonal" style. Later notable bands of the noise scene were Liars , Season to Risk and Unsane . While noise rock has never had any mainstream popularity, the raw, distorted and feedback-intensive sound of some noise rock bands had an influence on shoegaze , which enjoyed some popularity in
560-409: The fact that they all had lived together and done well to just keep surviving. Eschewing pop sensibilities but instead pushing boundaries with noise, the band listed Sonic Youth , Big Black , and Butthole Surfers as their stylistic peers. The band's third and final release, an EP entitled Berserker , was released by Touch and Go Records . A posthumous compilation CD entitled The Greatest Gift
588-414: The fun and fury, the band displayed a real feel for classic rock forms from Jerry Lee Lewis (spoofed and honored in the opening cut "Jerry Lee") to Ramones to AC/DC and others. Highlights include the dynamic "Fix Some Food Bitch", the melodic "California Surf Queen", the dramatic "Mexican Death Horse" and the smart ass "Beast Le Brutale". Hey Judester , the follow-up album, was a big step forward, as
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#1732797751831616-430: The use of electric guitars and, less frequently, electronic instrumentation , either to provide percussive sounds or to contribute to the overall arrangement. Some groups are tied to song structures, such as Sonic Youth . Although they are not representative of the entire genre, they helped popularize noise rock among alternative rock audiences by incorporating melodies into their droning textures of sound, which set
644-558: The use of heavy distortion. The band moved toward an increasingly noise based sound in the 1970s, influencing a great number of artists in the Japanese noise and psychedelic rock scene. The 1960s groups Red Krayola , Cromagnon , and Nihilist Spasm Band are other bands that were later assessed by some music critics and journalists to be early pioneers of what would become noise rock. Guitarist Steve Albini of noise rock band Big Black stated in 1984 in an article that "good noise
672-427: Was coined in the 1980s to describe an offshoot of punk groups with an increasingly abrasive approach. An archetypal album is the Velvet Underground 's White Light/White Heat (1968). Treblezine ' s Joe Gross credits White Light/White Heat as the "cult classic" with being the first noise rock album, accordingly, "perhaps it's an obvious starting point, but it's also the starting point. Period." Influenced by
700-557: Was important as it documented the no wave New York scene. It featured several songs of Lydia Lunch 's first band Teenage Jesus and the Jerks along with material of other groups Mars , DNA and James Chance and the Contortions . In the 1980s, Big Black, Sonic Youth and Swans were the leading figures of noise rock. Sonic Youth were the first noise rock band to get signed by a major label in 1990. The Jesus Lizard emerged in
728-517: Was produced by Iain Burgess (who has worked with Naked Raygun , Effigies and Mega City Four , among others). Many of the songs on the album (and a couple subsequent releases) had appeared on self-released cassettes such as Whoop My Head and Signifies My Go-T . The album showcased the burgeoning songwriting talents of Rick Sims, along with his fast, stinging guitar leads. They played their souped up rock and roll with plenty of speed. Underneath
756-662: Was released by Touch and Go Records in 1991. The band was named by music journalist Will Lerner as "the American equivalent of the Birthday Party ." After developing a reputation as a crazy, noisy punk band, Scratch Acid disbanded in 1987. According to the liner notes of The Greatest Gift , the band members never received compensation from either Rabid Cat or Fundamental Records (who distributed their releases in Europe). Writing in Flipside magazine, Gary Davis emphasized
784-445: Was released in 1984, by Texas indie record label Rabid Cat and featured the song "Lay Screaming", a track which vocalist David Yow indicated was "inspired by Marquis de Sade , reading his shit." The band returned to Rabid Cat for their debut album, Just Keep Eating , released in 1986. When queried about the significance of the title in a February 1987 interview, the band called the title "kinda silly" and "an inside joke", related to
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