The Amino Acids

"The Amino Acids NEW CD "Destroy The Warming Sun" is the ass-rippingest thrash-surf instru-Mental music heard since Dick Dale suffered that head-on with The Wipe-Outers!" -
Rev. Ivan Stang, Church of the Subgenius - Rev.Ivan Stang/Church of the Subgenius

True believer, their live show is a wonder to behold, a non-stop extraterrestrial takeover that’ll blow yer’ mind!!
The Amino Acids "Destroy The Warming Sun"... is a fun disc full of fun music, quick (most songs under two minutes) and snappy surf punk instrumentals with lots of tremolo and UFO Theremin effects. There are lots of ‘50s sci-fi film dialogue and narration interspersed with the music.This is good night-time highway music.-Jam Rag Press - Jam Rag Press/Detroit

The NotA award for weirdest band in Detroit goes to (drum roll) The Amino Acids. C’mon, was there ever any doubt in your precious little brain? Here’s some back-story on the Acids: They crash-landed on earth in 1965 — stay with me, folks — then they hibernated (naturally) until 1998. And just like all aliens, their next move is to find human host bodies and play an aggressive, instrumental, Theremin-fronted brand of surf-rock in jumpsuits, masks and … well, just look at the goddamn pictures: They’re fucking weirdos. They sound like the Dead Kennedys, if the DK’s traded East Bay Ray and Jello Biafra for Dick Dale and a Theremin.

The Theremin- and sample-playing lead Amino (aka Viking Ambassador Chuck ”The Conquerer” Bronson) likes to run around the crowd, push people, put them in headlocks and basically pick fights with anyone who looks like they’re too scared to be witnessing the whole affair. It’s a damn fun, beer-swilling good time. Them aliens sure like the Pabst. And us punks sure love them aliens.

“The Amino Acids will change your life forever!” Bronson assured me via email. |
by Brian Keene
Real Detroit Weekly
http://www.realdetroitweekly.com/article_1118.shtml


- Brian Keene-Real Detroit Weekly

CD Review:
The Amino Acids -
...Destroy The Warming Sun!
Wally Bangs

The Amino Acids say they are influenced by Black Sabbath and Dick Dale. Their music has sometimes been described as surf-gore and they are part of that wacky bunch The Church Of The SubGenius. They also claim to have been sent from outer space. Hey, it worked for Sun Ra. The most likely band they will be compared to is Man Or Astroman? due to the surf/space convergence except there is less concentration on B-movie samples and more reliance on fuzztone on their album, ...Destroy The Warming Sun! out on Bowlophonic Records.

"Super Sonic 4-Dimensional Transistorized Sound" will grace your ears and be a fine source of the Slack revered by the followers of J.R. "Bob" Dobbs. Frazzed out, fuzzed out, and blown out surfer boy riffs await from the start on "Dunked In The Think Tank" and there's no let up for the next half hour as songs careen by with light speed before entering a freakout zone on the final and title track. Best title: "Return Of The Attack Of The Curse Of The Son Of The Astro Squid Part XIV Chapter Six". Favorite track: "Gas The Verig Man" which starts out sounding like it was recorded through some vegatable can telephone network put together by 5 year olds before the producer wakes up and hits the right button on the mixing board. There's also plenty of use of the theremin (the original "look ma, no hands" instrument) throughout.

This is outer space surf punk for the industrial era. It's broken down, junky, and analog like a lunar lander. Surf purists will probably hate it because it's mainly riffs without fancy arrangements. But who needs fancy arrangements when the objective is to ...Destroy The Warming Sun!. Take some Amino Acids today and soon you can be bowling in Roswell too.
Wally Bangs
www.BlogCritics.org
- www.blogcritics.com

Review by Hal Horowitz
Combining aspects of Devo, Dick Dale and Los Straitjackets, this masked, predominantly instrumental quartet charges through 15 nitroburning punkabilly surf rockers in less than 25 minutes. With the reverb and volume cranked to maximum, these guys—we think they're guys—rev up and churn out tunes that barely give you time to inhale before the next one comes barging in. Truthfully though, at a whopping 11 seconds and 46 seconds respectively, it's a stretch to call pieces such as "Destruct" and "Mars Needs Women" songs. They are more like hyperactive power riffs in search of a larger context that the band decided wasn't worth pursuing. Occasional spoken word introductions along with song titles such as "Return of the Attack of the Curse of the Son of the Astrosquid Part XIV Chapter Six" (all 55 seconds of it) and Theramin bring out the trashy, 50's-60's sci-fi aesthetic, as do the inside graphics. But the meaty guitars and frantic rhythms combine the best of 70s punk with the reverb drenched guitar of acts such as The Mermen, the Aqua Velvets and the primal power of Link Wray. Quentin Tarantino would probably approve. When things finally relax for a comparatively languid "Fear the Future," the group's spaghetti western roots get a chance to come up for air. Those moments are few and far between though on this frenetic disc that whips you around like a roller coaster run amuck. The album's abbreviated length only adds to the intensity. Take a deep breath, strap in, hang on and enjoy the ride. - www.allmusic.com

What is it that makes America so attractive to aliens? And what sort of
alien, map of the cosmos in hand, chooses Detroit as a destination?


Judging by their music, these four self-proclaimed extraterrestrials broke
down in Detroit on their way from Laguna Beach to Akron and never left.
Disguised as a local instrumental rock combo called the Amino Acids, their
Dick Dale-meets-Devo sensibilities have proven well-suited to the brutal
amplification indigenous to this area.


The result is like incidental music for spaghetti sci-fi slasher films,
which people in these parts can never get enough of. One wishes that a band
cool enough to employ the no-need-to-touch-it electronic instrument known as
the theremin would make better use of it, though the semi-scratching on
"Mars Needs Women" suggests new territory: theremin scratch, a sound sure to
bring Earth girls a-runnin'.

By Ben Edmonds

- Detroit Free Press

The Amino Acids -
...Destroy The Warming Sun (released 2005)
Bowlophonic Recordings
The four-piece from Detroit offer a space-aged rock meets surf vibe sound that is both creepy and very cool. I am a big fan of surf music, and I really love listening to the guitars of great surf rock, but The Amino Acids are a bit different that your standard Dick Dale or ventures. The Amino Acids are part of the new wave of surf rock, along the lines of Estrume'n'tal and The Supertones, but the Acids take it a bit further by injecting an instrument that I actually had to look on Google to find: a Theremin. This is the instrument that the Beach Boys wanted for their "Pet Sounds" album, perhaps that is how it got involved in the surf rock of today. Anyway the Theremin is a forerunner of the Moog, was the first "electronic" instrument and is 'played' without actually touching it. You'll have to look it up and see for yourself how this thing works... The Amino Acids take full advantage of the Theremin's spooky sound to give their tunes a boost of universal or space aged feeling. As the guitars wail, the Theremin will sneak in and amplify the side solos throughout each track. True to surf music, the Amino Acids play instrumental surf rock. "Destroy The Warming Sun" is a very good album, that makes me want to rush away to a undiscovered planet of monster waves and white sandy beaches for the remainder of my humanoid existence. One note on some of the song prefaces, the band has a some intros from seemingly old reels about space. Some are amusing, some are wierd, but one stands out as a line from Douglas Adams' series "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy". I guess that puts into perspective, the band's choice of humor. -MG
- www.hussieskunk.com

05.01.2006
Here are some tales from the road:
Masked Detroit surf-punkers the Amino Acids had been looking forward to playing the South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas — which is arguably the key festival for up-and-coming rock bands — earlier this year. But when they calculated that it would cost $700 in fuel alone to make it to Texas, and then couldn't book enough shows on the way to cover the cost of gas, they had to decline the invitation. - MTV.COM

The Amino Acids
Destroy the Warming Sun!
Bowl-o-phonic/Self-release
from Ann Arbor Paper Oct 2005
If hyperactivity were communicated in sound wave, the result would be The Amino Acids’ sophomore release, Destroy the Warming Sun! Classified as both “surf punk” and “space rock” this follow up to 2002’s Man…in the Universe? could share the same curious genetic code as a love child from Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh and an alien. A hip, punk alien.
This album is a satirical, retrospective nod to 1960’s B movies with UFOs floating via visible fishing wire. In fact, it sounds like the short one-liners woven through the intros were actually extracted from a cheesy, sock-hop, date movie: “Hey, doll. Is this guy boring you? Why don’t you come and talk to me? I’m from another planet.” The lameness of such hokey pick-up lines adds to the atmosphere of the music. It’s funny because it’s intentional and it’s interesting because it’s accompanied by good music.
Through his mastering of the theremin (an instrument that is played without being touched that is very tricky to learn), “Ambassador” Chuck Bronson contributes all of the eerie, intergalactic sound effects with precision and drives the album from weird for the sake of weird to addicting. The first track, “Dunked in the Think Tank,” serves as the preview of the intensity, instrumental arrangement, and flavor that permeates the entire album. “Like Sheep to the Moon” could serve as the theme song for a punk James Bond on speed. The track could be the soundtrack to any chase sequence, in any Hollywood spoof.
The songs are similar, but the music is fascinating enough that you won’t mind not noticing when one song ends and the other begins. And even though the entire album totals less than 25 minutes, it’s worth your money. The target demographic won’t have an attention span much longer— it’s marketing genius on the part of the Amino Acids to release something absorbable, even if you skip your Adderall.—Lisabeth Posthuma - Lisabeth Posthuma/Ann Arbor Paper

Weirdly quirky and cool, the Amino Acids place a definitive stamp on what can only be their very own sound -- sort of like Devo meets surf rock, with a little Misfits tint to it. Amino Acids use no vocals, only twangy, jerky guitars, tape loops and samples; and fall in the catchy-to-nearly-infectious category and probably are unlike anything you've ever heard before. Their sound ranges from upbeat and aggressive, to spacey and subdued. Fancying themselves space-rockers from the Planet Krayon 4, they play with pantyhose covering their heads and wear coveralls. Meanwhile, they play atop a stage littered with televisions flickering with black-and-white sci-fi movies. Self-described as "instru-mental, surf-styled punk rock," an Amino Acids show is a welcomed assault on the senses.
John Horn @ cityguide.aol.com - John Horn @ cityguide.aol.com