Segall + Chippendale = Wasted Shirt

It took me many years to get into Ty Segall. I never really heard what everyone else did about the guy. I thought he was pretty prolific, and I gave him credit for being a good songwriter, but for the most part the fuzzed-up garage rock/noise pop trip he was on didn’t do it for me. Then he released Manipulator and my view of Segall changed. I heard the Bowie/T. Rex love, the funky drums, and the super tight production of that record and I was in. I turned the boat around and revisited those records that went in one ear and out the other and found love for those as well. I’m still not a Segall devotee, but I can dig him quite a lot more nowadays.

Lightning Bolt on the other hand, I’ve been heavy into that duo of sonic doom for years. Late night listening sessions with too many beers and not enough time, dropping the needle on wax like Wonderful Rainbow, Earthly Delights, and Fantasy Empire until the family screams “UNCLE!”, and just in general getting lost in their wall of noise. What starts out sounding like the heaviest band you’ve ever heard, actually becomes more like crazy cartoon music. An animated violence where no one gets hurt, but you have a blast as the anvil drops on your head anyways.

So when I read that Ty Segall and Lightning Bolt drummer/vocalist Brian Chippendale were getting together as Wasted Shirt and releasing a record my mind was kind of blown. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine these two working together, but I’ll be damned as soon as I heard about Wasted Shirt that combination seems like a perfect fit. Segall’s thick, sludgy guitar work, animated garage rock howl connecting with Chippendale’s virtuosic, frantic drumming(along with his own blistered howl through a telephone speaker) seem to be a match made in noise rock heaven(with some Tinnitus thrown in for good measure.)

Both of these guys carry with them a storied musical history, one that begins with guys like Zappa, Captain Beefheart, Sparks, Throbbing Gristle, New York noise bands and the DC punk/noise rock movement. Throw in plenty of feedback, freak show grandiosity, and visceral noise manipulation and you’ve got yourself a cocktail of epic proportions.

On February 28th, 2020 Segall and Chippendale release Wasted Shirt’s debut album called Fungus II. The nine-track album was recorded by Ty at Ty Segall’s home studio in the dead of a blistering California summer back in 2018. First single “Double The Dream” is a promise on the expectations these two create coming together. Loud, antagonistic, wonky, and with all the static weirdness we’ve come to expect from these two. Below, read what the mighty Henry Rollins has to say about Wasted Shirt, then listen to “Double The Dream”. After that, click the link and preorder this record from Famous Class ya dingus. Why wouldn’t you?

Ty’s 2019 album First Taste and the new Lighting Bolt album Sonic Citadel are easily some of the best material either entity has ever released so if these two happened to find themselves in the same recording studio, a fan just might entertain elevated expectation levels. In fact, some might actually show signs of enthusiasm, even excitement at the fact that from July 5th -13th 2018, in the air-conditioning free environs of Ty’s home studio, the duo, eventually calling themselves Wasted Shirt, wrecked the joint as thoroughly as you hoped they would.

Prepare To Be Stoked Dept.: The album is exploding euphoria from start to finish. A morphing day-glo rainbow that will bring a smile to your face like if you were on your way to Washington DC for the Million Puppy March. Upon first spin, all boxes are checked and any previously held doubts are completely obliterated. The more you play it, the better it kabongs you upside your head. Hectic doesn’t even begin to describe it. Brian and Ty, two mere particles in the grand scheme, collide at high speed, the technicians dive for cover, the reaction is recorded. Mutation is achieved. This is Freedom Rock. Turn up the volume. Hasten your emancipation. Sonic joy awaits.

It’s a great time for music. As major labels continue their agonizingly slow march to total irrelevance, these masters of mediocrity at least provide great contrast. That is to say, the time has never been better for experimentation, spontaneity and restraint free creativity in music, lest we endure a never ending post modern stasis of cynical emulation. What would happen if Ty Segall and Brian Chippendale went to the studio in the dead heat of July? There was only one way to find out. Life is short. More assaults on the mordantly predictable need to happen because when it works, like with Wasted Shirt, it really works.

Wasted Shirt will be available from Famous Class on February 28th 2020. Perfect weather for cartwheeling to the record store.
– Henry Rollins