"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and die like dogs. Theres also a negative side." Hunter S Thompson
Fuzzhead: LSD LP (Twisted Village)
...throughout the years Bill Weita and various gangs have been producing the very
exact sorta cassette-squee-welp youd want to hear. Hes gone through a variety of
phases and bandnames; this album doucments the first heavy-psych period of
Fuzzhead from 91. Their modus operandi is tough to peg real specifically, but
theres a stylistic gambit they utilize several times that sweeps my ass off its feet.
Against thrubby, virtual Neu-trance drumming and large out of sync guitar, a
womans voice rises from the fen, like the stoned ghost of Dorothy Moskowitz.
Then a mans voice starts slur-chanting words along with and/or against her singing
and the slunky holism of the sound bubbles along a dry creekbed until it reached the
lips of the eternal hole. Splush. A very fine and satisfying record which includes a
righteously long cover of Yoo Doo Right. One or so members has been busted for
selling sacramental comestibles since these recordings, so its unlikely well hear
anything exactly like this again too soon.
---Robert Bill Hennington, Forced Exposure
circa 1992
The eponymous debut from Fuzzhead is the latest tape by one of the cassette
subcultures true scunge scrouges---Bill Weita. His tapes with Col. Tom and The
Epstein Bros. are always weed-killing lunges into sonic blood pudding and
Fuzzhead does something similar. Grotty uber-skunk-guitar-fires blaze in the
gas-filled darkness while lizards dressed up like King Ubu recite the lyrics to
Beatles songs in a very threatening manner. Put this in your pipe. You know the
rest.
---Byron Coley, Spin
circa 1994
...featured guest vocalists and a flute player stopping by Weitas basement studio
to lay down tracks for a new sprawling piece - a cover of Sun Ras Its After The
End of the World, slated to fill an entire side of the upcoming album for Thurston
Moore. Virtually everything recorded by Fuzzhead has been done here, laid down
on Weitas battered four and eight-track tape recorders and meticulously worked
over. After the other musicians leave, Weita takes me for a look at the famed
basement. Walking down the stairs, ducking under a huge upside-down American
flag, we come into a network of small rooms. Power strips and vintage
microphones hang precariously from the ceiling. Its also very damp.
The humidity down here has had a big effect on our music, says Weita.
Weve got a lot of old tube amplifiers and this weird mildew seems to grow inside
them. It creates these strange hums and distorted tones we couldnt repeat outside
even if we wanted to. Last week it got so humid down here that my Fender amp
shorted out and started making this wild pulse. We built a whole song around it.
---Brett Sokol, Free Times
Fuzzhead: Mind Soup
Interesting and spirited fare from Ohio thats not typical Midwest indie rock.
From their historical discography I gleaned that Fuzzhead have recorded about 20
cassette and vinyl releases since 1989 and most likely know a hell of a lot more
about Miles Davis than Pavement do.
And Demorandum columnist Jim Santo knows a lot more about Fuzzhead than I
do. He called their More of the Same cassette no more than a bunch of stoned
soul jams. So how are Heavy Buzz and So Baked for stoned jams?
Fuzzheads bedroom studio of noise, thump, toke and scree is more than tolerable
because it reeeks of studies of their own process and signifiers, like Pauls
Boutique, Jimi Hendrizx, and Basehead. From the basement in a big way, with
slackerish eccentric lyrics, sax, organ and great female vocals on a few tracks, here
are eighteen self-conscious exercies for the weak of mind. It may very well be that
a best-of CD, ora cassette-only small-but-fiendish cult following would sit
Fuzzhead better than a lifelong relationship with David Geffen, or Jim Sanco.
---Cyndi Elliott, Alternative Press
circa 1996 (l-r: Neil Sherhag, Scott Hosner, Bill Weita, Bill Finsel, John Howitt)
Fuzzhead: Mind Soup
...in a tradition that goes back to Frank Zappa and emerges in the present in the
form of such bands as Sonic Youth, Mercury Rev, Trumans Water, Guided by
Voices and, most conspicuously, Pavement. Fuzzhead is more far-ranging than
Pavement, drawing more directly for rap, jazz and funk in creating fractured
fragments of music. While some of these bands exude an aura of naivete, whether
real or put on, Fuzzhead reeks of heady, confident sophistication: they know and
acknowledge their sources, incorporating them intelligently in to something of their
own.
---Anastasia Pantsios, Free Times
