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| Third image, first best. |
Where’d I hear about On Drugs? No goddam idea, which is exactly the problem with moving fast. Then again, they committed to treading lightly onto the internet - and by choice - and it hardly helps their name gets buried under a bigger act like War on Drugs. On the plus side, I might finally know how Kurt Vile had that huge head start I missed…
As hinted at above, finding much of anything beyond bare-bones promotion is damn near impossible with On Drugs. You have to double-check every headline just to find the band members - Elias Avila, Derek Housh, Cameron Gates, and Steve Gartman, which I found on something like the third link I found (a San Diego Reader plug), and without any mention of who does what - so they really do live the brand. On the other hand, a whiff of novelty isn’t the worst selling point:
“From their experimental punk drone to their intentional lack of an internet presence, they're the band you may not have known existed until you saw them…”
Because they titled an album titled Uckhole Futah, I assumed On Drugs came out of Utah, but, nope, they started in Portland, Oregon. I have a loose sense they relocated to San Diego, California upon signing with Postmark Records - none of the entries on that site last real long - but, based on the venues they played on a 2019 tour, where they come from matters less than where they can play. (Something I mean in the best possible way, because that’s where I’ve found most of the bands - i.e., people who play off the beaten path, but not too far.)
For what it’s worth, I don’t think the “experimental punk drone” holds up because they have a decent range - included in the sampler - between something that fits that bill to circle-into-a-circle perfection like “Squish,” to a pure old-school punk number like “Tony Hawk,” to the dreamy lo-fi number “Scaredy Cat” (which gave me Modest Mouse with less distortion and gave my wife, “I don’t know, something 80s, but also boring”), to garage-rock tear/cover like “Tequila.” Even if those aren't the hardest genres, there’s some decent musicianship going on, basically, a band with the chops to build a live-set around a couple spins around the genre-wheel, only without using the internet for promotion.
As hinted at above, finding much of anything beyond bare-bones promotion is damn near impossible with On Drugs. You have to double-check every headline just to find the band members - Elias Avila, Derek Housh, Cameron Gates, and Steve Gartman, which I found on something like the third link I found (a San Diego Reader plug), and without any mention of who does what - so they really do live the brand. On the other hand, a whiff of novelty isn’t the worst selling point:
“From their experimental punk drone to their intentional lack of an internet presence, they're the band you may not have known existed until you saw them…”
Because they titled an album titled Uckhole Futah, I assumed On Drugs came out of Utah, but, nope, they started in Portland, Oregon. I have a loose sense they relocated to San Diego, California upon signing with Postmark Records - none of the entries on that site last real long - but, based on the venues they played on a 2019 tour, where they come from matters less than where they can play. (Something I mean in the best possible way, because that’s where I’ve found most of the bands - i.e., people who play off the beaten path, but not too far.)
For what it’s worth, I don’t think the “experimental punk drone” holds up because they have a decent range - included in the sampler - between something that fits that bill to circle-into-a-circle perfection like “Squish,” to a pure old-school punk number like “Tony Hawk,” to the dreamy lo-fi number “Scaredy Cat” (which gave me Modest Mouse with less distortion and gave my wife, “I don’t know, something 80s, but also boring”), to garage-rock tear/cover like “Tequila.” Even if those aren't the hardest genres, there’s some decent musicianship going on, basically, a band with the chops to build a live-set around a couple spins around the genre-wheel, only without using the internet for promotion.
