SINCOLA REVIEWED

Ray Gun

From the psychotronic heart of Austin Texas comes the devil-doll herky-jerk punk pop Sincola, fraught with sexually charged turbulence and more hooks than a Hellraiser flick... only twice as scary. Quirked-out , dangerous and infectiously giddy, the omnisexual quintet's full-length debut What Nothinghead Said, sounds like something unearthed from the Golden Age of New Wave, albeit revved-up and ironicized for modern ears.

'I've heard that before' guitarist Wendel (Greg) Stivers says, as the band sprawl around a Caroline Records conference table in New York City. "If you'd said that to me when I was in high school , I would've killed myself."

With influences ranging from Black Flag to the Go-Go's, pneumatic rhythms provided by bassist Chepo Pena and the drummer Terri Lord and the Pixiefield guitars of Stivers and Kris Patterson, Sincola turn the skewedskank of "1000 Miles" or the apathetic anthemic romp "Cement Shoes" into thoroughly singular Nineties Bubblepunk. Then of course there's singer Rebecca Cannon, whose girlie growl and Siouxsie snarl are the stuff that stars are made of. Cannon sees herself as a kind of actress, inhabiting the electroshocked Raggedy Ann character she portrays. "I just feel like, on stage , and whatever I do vocally, are like theatrical . It's more of a performance.

"She's off in her world, and we're a rock band." Stivers says. In their art as well as their life, the boys-and-girls-together world of Sincola is one of distinct sexual universality. Still, being in a co-ed band breed a different kind of tension. What's the dynamic like between the very diverse fivesome?

"For one thing, Kris and Terri are gay, so it's like we're brothers and sisters," Pena, who's been lying on the floor under the table says, "I like being in a band with girls because the guys in my other band are so butch. They're so boring. Here we can talk about so much stuff, 'cause they have years of experience.'

"We tell him what girls really like." grins Lord, the band's resident Doctor Love. "He shows us his dick all the time." Patterson says, and enough laughter ensues to confirm the fact.

The bandmates' convergent carnalities occupy Sincola's songs, making tracks like the pissed-off kiss-off "Bitch" positively gender ambivalent, especially seen through the locus of Cannon's possessed persona. "Since we all write lyrics," she says "there are song I sing about girlfriends and I sing about boyfriends or whatever. I'm singing for many voices. I'm singing Kris' voice , Terri's voice, Greg's voice. There're so many songs about Greg being pissed off at girls and I'm singing about this, I'm going 'that bitch!'" It does lead to an interesting sort of confusion," Stivers notes. "People come up and go 'why do you have so many lesbian songs?"

In their youthful fervor , Sincola often dive headlong into the profane, thematically and lyrically. The word "bitch" comes up enough times on the record that it seems a point is being made. Is it an empowering thing or shock effect or what? "It means something different when Rebecca says it than when Chepo and I say it." points out Stivers. "It doesn't seem a very threatening word to me." Cannon says. Yes, but words have power, some more than others. Yet if you say a word too many times, it's rendered meaningless. We also say 'cunt' Cannon declares proudly. "I like that word. I deeply like one word choruses, and 'bitch' is as good a word as any.'

Sexually revolutionary by their very existence, Sincola never approach Riot Girl realms of PC stridency. Their child's world momentum and cheerful goofiness make them more like a boy/girl Green Day in heat, a twist of cyanide and Spanish Fly in the indie pop soda. Suck 'em and see...

ALTERNATIVE PRESS

I've no idea what a "nothinghead" is, though I have my suspicions. It could very well be Sincola-speak for anyone clawing the scalp over Sincola's lyrics about jackrabbits and severed tongues. Heck, my scalp's rubbed raw, too, and not just over such obtuseness. Equally confusing are visual non sequiturs like the cockroaches scattered across the cover graphics of Sincola's debut LP, What The Nothinghead Said, or the photo still life of two jars of baby food and a packet of ramen adorning the CD booklet.

It's obscurist touches like these which have gained Austin's two year old scatterpop Nu-Wave combo their "art band" rep, not(as they suspect) their penchant for writing "songs with a million parts." Actually, Sincola are"art" only if Pink Flag-era Wire or Velvet Underground are "art" not in the "Yes" sense. There's nothing indirect or obscure about the punk-rock abandon with which they bash into those songs a million parts."The way they strip the pretension from vintage Pixies and pummel post-Joey Santiago riffs into oblivion is easily graspable. The oddball touches just make things interesting.

Then again, how arty could a band be when their bassist is a hyperactive trash-culture obsessive busily sewing a communicator into his USS Enterprise uniform as he's being interviewed? Or when one of the guitarists is more conversant with the Go-Go's than Sonic Youth?

Co-guitarists Greg "Wendel Stivers" Wilson and Kris Patterson hadn't played music since the late-80's demise of their old outfit, 100th Monkey. But hearing the Pixies sparked an urge to strum and compose again, albeit with less delicacy. Bassist Chepa Pena is the son of noted Southwestern artist Amado Pena,and was (and still is) holding down the bottom end for a post descendents, Kiss- and kitsch-addicted thrashpop band called Gomez when he successfully auditioned for Sincola. Vocalist Rebecca Cannon was allowed to sing one song when she played trumpet for Austin tradpunks Atretford; installed as Sincola's frontwoman, Cannon immediately began alternating between bug-eyed rage and shyness, quickly becoming one of the most original and startling stage presences in all of Austin. Nearly a year of drum-school instability followed before one of Austin's more explosive, seasoned, and inventive percussion veterans, Terri Lord, joined.

That settled, the band issued the Sincola EP on Rise, skillfully produced by ex-Reiver John Croslin and featuring original drummer Joan Weiss. Austin had already fallen for the band's wide dynamic range, Cannon's unnerving performance style, and Pena's increasingly unpredictable extra-musical antics. Never knowing whether he's; show up in a skirt or nude, or suddenly inflicting violence on his equipment or a foolish heckler, has made Pena's more sensible approach to sustance abuse notwithstanding. (Jokes' Wilson,'sometimes, when I look over and see what Chepo is wearing onstage, it's hard for me to maintain that calm, cool, angst-ridden composure.') The EP and a barnblowing appearance at SXSW'94 led to the debut Caroline LP, recorded last September at Arlyn with former Glass Eye member Brian Beattie at the controls.

But even before Sincola spend six months in a van enjoying each other's smells and bad habits, they're already thinking ahead to the next record, which they claim they wanna call either The Skin On Chepo's Dick or Let's Take Our Girlfriends On Tour With Us. They promise "less arty, more simplified" song structures next time. Meantime, content yourself with Nothinghead and the video for "Bitch," featuring cameos from half of Austin, Wilson and Pena in drag and the luscious spectacle of Chepo getting spanked. yow.