Solid Attitude

Solid Attitude is a garage punk band from Iowa City. Starting in early 2010 as a side project to the band Viking Fuck, the band now consists of Matt Fenner on guitar, Mickey Shaw on vocals, Walker Neudorff on drums, and Brendan Wells on bass. As far as the band's influences ago, bands that stand out to me would have to be Black Flag and the Stooges and I'm sure some garage bands that I don't know that names of.

Solid Attitude originally formed as an alternative to Matt, Mickey, and Walker's synthpunk band Viking Fuck as a way to alleviate stress from that band's frequent show schedule. Matt dropped the keyboard and picked up the guitar, Walker added a floor tom to his stand up drumming style, and Mickey, well, still does vocals but with more of a strapping approach. A set consisting of 3 punk rippers was written and the trio started playing shows, completely frantic right off the bat: their first show was played with Yuppies at Public Space One in Iowa City and involved a 5 minute set ending in couch cushions being thrown at the crowd.

Soon enough, after playing a few shows and warming up to the new sound, Brendan Wells, of the band These Needles and NERV, was added to the band as the bass player after he approached the band about the idea. After playing some shows with this freak on bass (including opening for Skeletonwitch... god, I miss the Warehouse), Kyle from the band Cacaw (among many, many others) from Chicago asked the band to record an EP to be put out on cassette on his label, Rotted Tooth Recordings. Six tracks were recorded at the Viking Fuck House onto 4 track by Mickey, and Kyle liked the CDr so much he decided to put the songs out on 7" titled Prison Water. All the art was done and screen printed by Mister City Press. [...]

So, Solid Attitude's LP on Rotted Tooth came out on schedule and they went on tour to promote it. Even though Maximum Rocknroll bagged the final artwork for the record as "shitgaze bullshit" (or something similar, stay in California forever and get mugged by a junkie in Oakland please), the art done by Justin Thye of Goldendust and Wet Hair is actually fantastic and it was definitely my favorite record cover art from last year. The record itself, finally ending up being called BB Gun Picnic, is one of my favorites of last year, too. Noisy and very, very catchy frantic punk rock with the stream of consciousness vocal thoughts of a mad man on top of it all. It's poppy, but it's not pop punk. Slight hints of snotty hardcore pokes it head through every so often. It rules. The last track, Smoking Sheets, is the best ender for a record I've heard in awhile. [Iowa Hardcore]