Ghost Frog

From their self-released debut album Laser Tag out just this past June, Portland’s space-punk/psych rockers Ghost Frog premiere the band’s first music video for the album’s lead single “Minimum Wage.”

Opening with a sci-fi laser beam synth squeal, the track jumps straight into a psyched out punk rock scorcher. Sonically, “Minimum Wage” boasts blown out drums, distorted and phase shifting guitars, a powerful bass line that rears it’s head most notably during only the last :30, a simple yet catchy and socialistically inclined vocal delivery, and occasional overlays of the aforementioned laser beam.

Shot on what appears to be VHS, the lo-fi video matches the sound and message of the song pretty clearly. A minimum wage earning, pizza delivering space man going about his job and loosing his mind feeding decrepit punk rock grannies, alcoholic hillbillies, and psychedelic cross-dressing aliens.

Catch Ghost frog Tuesday September 15 at the Liquor Store, for the cassette release show of local lo-fi psych/dream pop babes El Comé Homé. - Noise and Color PDX

Ghost Frog are from Portland, OR, so I need to make sure that my friend Roger Neville-Neil is aware of this one as he’s in turn kept me up to date and aware of some great bands from the area previously, some of whom I’ve reviewed on the blog in the past. This is their first digital ‘single’ – an A-side without an accompanying B-side unfortunately – though they’re working on an EP for release in the future. “Our main aesthetic vision for the band is to combine elements of psychedelic spacerock and/or shoegaze with the more abrasive and aggressive tendencies of punk rock and grunge,” they tell me.

Nice starting point they’ve posted here, though. Some laconic sounds interspersed with some a little more robust, perhaps trying to cover too many of their ideas in one hit but a good mix of restraint and attack with a great bit of messy fuzz and some real verve. Look forward to hearing the EP in due course! - Space Rock Reviews

Very little information about local “space punk” outfit Ghost Frog has been documented on the internet since their initial descent from outer space, although one aspect of their mission seems clear: they came here to share their “space drugs” with Portland scenesters and relieve us of our intact eardrums. For all appearances, it seems they come in peace and the subsequent loss in hearing can be seen as a necessary oblation to the many-headed grungy space-psychgaze hybrid creatures that make up Ghost Frog. To describe “Made in Mars,” the band’s only song on bandcamp, imagine Tame Impala’s airy, other-worldly sound with the steady, driving rhythm cut out. Instead, the song seeps forward like liquid through fabric until it explodes into a fuzzy wall of feakout.

Come to Habesha Lounge (801 NE Broadway St, Portland, Oregon 97232) this Sunday, August 24 to point and stare at these plenipotentiaries from Pluto as they rock out alongside Dedere--whose genre tag “lit rock” and following Sylvia Plath reference in their album title should give you an idea of what they’re about--and Ghetto Hexes, whose loopy synth pop and dispassionate (yet garnished) boy-girl vocal stylings are evocative of The xx. - The Deli Magazine Portland