Bad Party

The only bands worth anything these days are the ones that kind of scare you. The ones who, if you go to their show, you're probably not going to leave the same person physically and/or mentally you were when you walked in. Yeah, yeah, same disclaimer over and over, all this extremely alienated sleep-deprived rotting youth shit is older than Moses's dandruff. And everyone says that, and then goes "But wait!" and usually whatever's served up next is bullshit too. So let's go one layer deeper, past the fascia to the muscle. Hi. Now meet Bad Party, these two guys from Detroit who've played in tons of bands like White Devil and Tamion 12 Inch, who really are like that. They sound meaner than a pan left frying on the stove with nothing in it, and they don't like to talk much but they answered a few questions for us anyway.
Vice: First of all, why're you so angry?
Nate S: That's a hard one to answer. Girls…the government taking too much control over personal freedom…I see the world around me disintegrating…
K Michael: Its more a sense of disappointment, in the state of things, then outright hostility.
What happened?
Nate S: I was born in Detroit. I was cursed at birth, been close to death many times.

What's it like there now?
Burned out buildings everywhere, Zombies walking around, breaking into houses. Gotta have a pit bull. Filth.

Yeah, it seems like the Midwest keeps getting creepier.
I think it's always been fucked up, but yeah it's getting creepier.
Sounds rough. Why stay?
K Michael: I choose not to leave for a multitude of reasons. I love and hate Detroit in equal measure; it's like no other place I've ever been, and its my home. There is a lot of freedom amidst the chaos and despite what you see and hear, it is not exactly like Night of the Living Dead (although a well placed shotgun could be comforting).
What do you do all day?
Same as most people, I suppose. Shop at the local farmer's market, ride bikes through the ghetto, drink insanely cheap beer and sing karaoke with crazy Vietnam vets and off duty cops. I work at a museum, as a preparator. I DJ a disco night, called Disco/Secret, at the Detroit Eagle, a 70s-style leather bar. I've painted, booked shows, acted, been a robot who gets destroyed by humanity, and I have also played in countless "one off" bands: Encroachment, Perfect Hooded Nun, VI VI VIking, Night Bird, Sex Problem, Orphans, Detroit Fire and Ice Boyz.
Yeah, for the last decade it seems all the same people in Detroit just keep forming new bands. Even you two, you were in Wiscun as just the two of you like eight years ago. Any fresh blood in your parts you wanna talk about?
Nate S: Most of the shit going on in Detroit sucks (a lot of hippie jam rock bands) that move in from the burbs. But I like Youu, Hobo Gangbang, PWB, Spaceband...
But I guess new isn’t always important. I still listen to that Tamion 12 Inch record allll the time.
K Michael: Thanks. I think the ten people that actually bought it all say the same thing.
Nate, I heard you have a lot of fake teeth. What?
Nate S: Yeah for real, I got a few. ‘Cause I've always been a smart ass and an asshole I guess. Fighting for what you believe is right isn't always a good idea if you are outnumbered, but I'm gonna take down as many as I can.
K. Michael: He has a big mouth.
So when you’re not losing your teeth and being Bad Party, what else do you do?
Nate S: I drink a lot, and other things. I’m working on opening an art gallery, got a few art shows. One's tomorrow at MOCAD in Detroit and another's at CPOP gallery next month. You know, tryin’ to keep busy cause there are no jobs in Detroit anymore. Michigan is working toward 100% unemployment in the next few years.
- Vice Magazine

Here's a debut that comes out swinging, full out and head on. Hailing from Detroit, this duo is kicking out some serious jamms for delinquents and misfits everywhere. I've had this record blasting in my apartment for the last week now. I don't know what it is, but I just keep flipping the record over and over again; it's just that good. Coming Out Slowly delivers eight sick tracks of nasty-goodness; a wicked record generating a beguiling brew of smut and filth that is catchy as hell while retaining an abrasive bite throughout. These guys have put together a solid collection of vocally-charged, prude-slaying anthems celebrating recklessness, depravity, and debauchery. Vocals are shouted and screamed over blown-out dance-beats and simple repetitive bass-lines buried in a muck of feedback and noise. It's amazing listening to the sheer wall of sound these guys create out of such a minimal setup. Everything is pushed passed the reds and careening outward creating a dense environment and thick layers of sound. This record is just more support for the truism that it's not a great party until someone gets hurt. All good parties are memorable because some kind of shit went down at some point; otherwise you forget all about it; so let's have another round and see what happens next... here's to Bad Party. Cheers! 8/10 -- Todd Brooks
- Foxy Digitalis

From the same label that brought us the minimal hypnotic pummel of Mammal, and the shrill doomic psych sludge of Cadaver In Drag, comes Bad Party, another hateful noise drenched sonic assault on the senses.
This duo though takes a whole 'nother angle, kicking up a serious din of shitty programmed drum machine, huge moaning buzzing bass, yowled snotty vocals and sheets of squealing feedback. Falling somewhere between Big Black, Suicide and the Brainbombs, these two spew stripped down mechanical garage jams, a fuzzed out lo-fi party ruining stomp, minimal and stripped down, but still noisy as fuck, the lyrics nasty and mean and pretty fucking funny, woven into the lurching grooves and the almost new wave bass lines.
Some tracks get extra murky and grungy, while others sound almost well produced, but even at their cleanest (which is not all that clean at all) the proceedings are still showered in shrieking high end, and that awesome fuck-you caterwaul, you can almost picture these guys shirtless in huge stiletto heels and furs, trashing the stage with just a bass and a crappy old synth, sunglasses, booze and coke, and a cadre of ill behaved hangers on. Bad party indeed. Trashy and noisy and fucked up and fun. As long as it's not your party. Recommended.
- Aquarius Records

Debut album from this Detroit synth-punk duo with some kinda historical connection to Wolf Eyes. Featuring K. Michael and Nate S., the group build from a base that would take the malevolent electro-threat of early Suicide and ply it with amphetamine-charged Cramps riffs, the kind of drum machine batteries most associated with Big Black and a claustrophobic, assaultive style that is somewhere between early Industrial rock and contemporary minimal synth stylings, with murky, convulsive songs that are somehow uniquely Detroit but that have tendons that stretch alla the way to both coasts, taking-in aspects of CBGBs-era NY scum and peroxide LA glam punk. A beauty.
David Keenan/Volcanic Tongue
- Volcanic Tongue/David Keenan

Bad Party reek of that same drift of the bag of cigarette butts sitting next to my lap top on the coffee table only with a more endearing sort of bite to it and a different sort of texture (no plastic). It sounds like they're absolute cunts, but that's cool, their nuclear silt has a gnarly snarl with a wacked humanistic streak (they h8 you though), faux-acid words by melting not wrinkled Fox news presenters. PRETTY AWESOME!


- Rose Quartz

Bad Party is the latest mysterious glue-wave act that drags danceable, machine-driven beats through an industrial nightmare and tops it off with fuzzed-out and indifferent vocals. With a sound that comes close to an updated Suicide, their live act can be nothing less than intense.



- Victim of Time

From the ashes of Detroit's TAMION 12 INCH and WHITE DEVIL comes the enfant terrible, BAD PARTY. BAD PARTY comes off almost like a techno version of San Francisco's legendary ICKY BOYFRIENDS, while deploying elements from drum machine pioneers, SUICIDE and BIG BLACK. They're loud, rude, punk and funny. These guys are taking the piss out of PUNK and ROCK with songs like "I Touched Her Twice" and "Strap On I'm a Man". HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!
- Reckless Records Chicago