Category: Reviews

PDX ROOTS MUSIC – Boo Frog in Willamette Week this week (2011)

[PDX ROOTS MUSIC] Boo Frog is the Portland band that best pays tribute to both the Fuggs’ whimsical, poetic 60s humor and Ween’s psychedelic mid-’90s silliness. Drenched in reverb-strewn low-fi credibility, Boo Frog eschews songwriting convention and puts its songs first. With members who’ve shared the stage with every punk band that mattered from Portland’s 1980s music scene, co-founder Chris Newman is perhaps better known for his work in Napalm Beach, Boo Frog knows the music is all that matters. Always independent, the band just released Better Than the Rest on vinyl in July of this year, followed shortly thereafter by the Undead at Satyricon live cassette. So if you want to see some real-deal musical history that the cool kids were into when you were just a pup, check Boo Frog out. JOHN ISAACSON, Willamette Week 15 September 2011 9:30 pm, Saturday September 17 | $6 Tonic Lounge, 3100 NE Sandy Blvd.

The Stranger on Snow Bud – 10 February 2011

Snow Bud and the Flower People, Remedios the Beauty, Green Handshake, Keith Cook

(Funhouse) You’ve gotta have old-fashioned, Monster Squad–style Wolfman ‘nads to name a song “Bong Hit,” especially if you go the full distance by starting the song with a bubbling sound effect and ensuring the lyrics are entirely about doing hits from a bong (“Bong hit/It’s the shit”) without even making the most perfunctory gestures toward a high-minded metaphor or two. But Snow Bud and the Flower People have ‘nads to spare; they’re as subtle as a Cheech and Chong movie, but they back up all the weed talk by being a super-solid garage-rock psychedelic band. They’re like Reverend Horton Heat’s younger stoner brother, barreling out of the garage to bring weed and hot licks to the people. PAUL CONSTANT

Boo Frog Review : Garage Band Revisited (France)

BOO FROG : s/t CD  ( Skullman rds. )
From the dust of the Untouchables / Napalm Beach  & various local bands …. the gatherin ‘
of  Chris / Erika /  Paul …. BOO FROG ‘s born . Voodoo / Garage punk zone emerge from this band from Portland area . Just imagine their faves bands ‘re the Seeds / Gun Glub / Cramps. Personnaly , Y ‘can dig B ‘ Frog music’spirit if u ‘re into Dead Moon  / 13th Floor Elevators music trend . Listen , “crushed ” / ” in the beginnin ‘ ” among 11 more tracks & u ‘d understood what BOO FROG ‘s able to dig . Better than  ever ( the rest ) …here’s BOO FROG ….. ! A must!

Garage Band revisited ‘zine / Radio 103.1 / soubielle / february 2011 / France

Song of the Day 128 – Boo Frog – Everett True

Music critic Everett True writes on Collapse Board about our debut album

BOO FROGThe music is raw and timeless, psychedelic and trippy: all fuzzed guitars and mean gruff male vocals and Dead Moon-flecked female. One suspects there’s only a minimum of musicians playing, because Boo Frog clearly understand the way silence and the space between the silences can unsettle. There’s no bass. Why would there be? Why would there be? Reverb, as ever, is their queen and castle and legacy and floating jetsam pushing aside the barges of woe.

…This seems like everything The Racounteurs could be, but are not in any shape or form. I kept expecting ‘Crushed’ to break into 13th Floor Elevators’ ‘You’re Gonna Miss Me’. Boo Frog are hard. Boo Frog are heavy. Boo Frog crush.

Read the entire review (with links) here: Collapse Board: Song of the day – 128: Boo Frog

Boo Frog – Better Than The Rest – Jeff Larson

by Jeffrey Larson of Sonic Recollections.

Okay, so the Cramps made their greatest records with no dang bass player – they didn’t need one! Boo Frog operates on a similar premise, I think. There’s so much great guitar here it takes awhile before the listener even notices there’s a rhythm instrument that’s usually there that ain’t. I haven’t even said a word about the songs – if these were JUST Chris Newman songs, it’d be a great album. But add Erika Meyer’s songwriting, guitar playing & singing into the equation – AND Paul Vega’s drumming (and great carny/Suicide/Jim-Carroll-esque vox on “Mind Bender”), and we’ve got a truly excellent album here. Erika’s “Anabasis” could be a riot grrrl outtake from 1994 (I hope the band doesn’t edit THIS part of the review out – I mean it as a compliment!), and then “Jake the Alligator Man”, complete with theremin from engineer deluxe Mike Lastra, is a psychedelic masterpiece that would fit in between the Seeds & the Lollipop Shoppe on a 60s mixtape. Seems like Erika sings a lot about dead people… and hey! Do I know “Bad Pam?” Newman has been making music for Portland & beyond for the last 30 years now, and will hopefully continue for 30 more – this record proves that his best work isn’t behind him yet. He’s been on a writing/recording/playing-live rampage the last 4 or 5 years, and this newest band of his, Boo Frog, raises the ante further. Glad to know you guys, and glad to keep seeing you live.

There’s a video from the session this album came from at Smegma that’s pretty cool – more contributions from renaissance man Mike Lastra – check it out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_s_KhvgmCQ

Boo Frog/Better Than the Rest, Skullman Records CD 84502-40389-3, 2010.re