The Embarrassment - “Celebrity Art Party”
American post-punk is full of nervous nerds. The New York no wave scene turned bleakness and anxiety into contorted, self-destructive anti-rock. Devo channeled an “Uncontrollable Urge” and traced the devolution of our species. The Talking Heads played the outsiders-looking-in and charted with “Psycho Killer” and “Life During Wartime”. The Feelies mused about “The Boy With The Perpetual Nervousness” and invented Weezer with their first album.
Fitting squarely within this tradition are the Embarrassment, the best Wichitan bar-band you’ve never heard of. The band once described their music as “blister pop”, and 1981’s “Celebrity Art Party” pops, blisters, and pops blisters. The volatile, angular guitars and trenchant lyrics leads one to suspect that the band are trying their damnedest to crash that artistic, narcissistic party. A nerd-rock coup d’état? Well, the Embos were certainly nerds.
My favorite tuneage post of the n < 10 that I’ve made.
