Hutch Harris gets pissed off a lot. The Thermals front man lives life like a racing heart, as a panic attack in full bloom. He’s a seizure and a jet stream, forcing himself upon you like a big, sloppy wind gust, spanking your cheeks and turning them as rosy and red as his neck, where the thick veins are framing the sides of his face like a tug-o-war duel. Harris’ pissed off, is unlike most though. His pissed off is actually anchored by youthful, but informed punk rock and roll-fashioned testiness that comes off as tempestuous, but constructive criticism. The ideas that he and this brilliant band from Portland, Oregon, roast are highly political and incensed with the current landscape – that outside the band’s own windows and elsewhere. The manner with which Harris talks is one of extreme urgency, where a minute could very well be a month in proportion. The stakes are high and the living is compromised, utterly crippled by the defective Bush administration. The Body, The Blood, The Machine is the second record in-a-row where Harris has delved into the blackness that he finds in world leaders, an unjust war being fought with the fabricated consent of a Catholic God and that very God that the President of the United States of America supposedly speaks with so often. There are elements of Harris questioning organized religion, just as Tim Kasher did on last’s year’s Happy Hollow, which effectively calls out the hypocrisies that are taken for granted by far too many. The best example of this take is on “I Might Need You To Kill For Me,” a song that’s about blind followers, servants who take their hackneyed and obscene callings for absolute truth. There are songs about gasoline dependence, about the built-in human need to progress, to rape the land of everything that we need no matter the consequences (Harris sings about the precious, precious oil, “They’ll give us what we we’re asking for/Cause God is with us/And our God’s the richest/Our power doesn’t run on nothing/It runs on blood and blood is easy to attain when you have no shame.” Those lines packs the kind of heavy punches that Michael Spinks received from Tyson when he was still The Baddest Man on the Planet, not the Craziest. Fuckin’ A was the same way, giving power to the concerns of a man and a band that is the undisputed championista of tire skid marks all over your pretty rugs, throwing a room into complete disarray, just by blinking or scrunching an eyebrow. But they don’t take that easy route. They step into a room, slam the door as loud as they came, plug in and then bring to life the raw, scratchy fuzz bucket sound that is its own new form of punk rock. They constructively criticize all over the fucking place and maintain volume levels that are loud enough to wake the dead the next county over. And even with sensitive ears, even with a stupid little voice in the back of your head going, “Isn’t this detrimental to the well-being of our stapes and our ear drum?, there’s the louder voice, rising just high enough to make noise overtop The Thermals that tells you to bring those goddamn zombies on. Wake ‘em all up because you’re not turning this frantic, dramatic atomic bomb of a group down.

The Thermals’ bassist Kathy Foster’s favorite things of the past week:
1. Snow!
Today, I woke up, sleepily dragged myself to the bathroom, had a good long pee, stood up, glanced out the window and WHA!! I was wide awake (It’s morning). Everything was covered in almost two inches of snow! It’s a very rare treat in Portland. We’ve gotten snow maybe four out of the nine winters I’ve been here, and it only lasts for a day or two, but it just keeps coming down today. I love it! It’s beautiful and quiet and fun.

2.Talking to Hutch on the phone.
We talk on the phone everyday and have been the bestest friends for almost 10 years, and of course play in a band together. And we still have funny conversations and make each other
laugh, and encourage and support each other. It’s so good! I know, you thought
we were all tough and serious, but we’re really just fuzzy bunnies! (But we COULD kick your ass if we wanted to).

3. KM Fizzy!
That’s my DJ name. I hadn’t done it for a while, but now I’m getting back into it at a couple places. I work at a small bar, and we got some low budget turntables, so us and our friends have been DJing almost every night. Besides me, Kut Masta Fizzy (also my initials!), there’s DJ
Awkward Silence, DJ Bad Sneakers, DJ Copy, DJ Pretty Things, DJ Duckfat, DJ Valkyrie (spins classical!) and many others. I play anything with soul, which means I can feel it in my hoo-ha — hip hop, R&B, soul, funk, indie, experimental, dance, dub, whatever, just GOOD songs.

4.Outhud
One of my favorite bands to play while DJing. I love their mixture of dub, dance and noise. I’m not really into the typical house/techno shit, but this is music to my quirky/punk/lo fi/experimental/ass shakin’/noise lovin’ ears!

5.My cassette boombox
I got it in like 1990, but it’s still in good shiny shape! It’s a dual cassette model with a tiny mic built in. When I first started playing music and was in my first band, pistil, I recorded our practices and ideas on there. 16 years later, I’m doing the same thing! I’ve been recording bass line and song ideas with my acoustic guitar. It’s hilarious. Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding. Ha! It’s quick and easy – quicker than the 4-track, better quality than my microcassette recorder. Yes, folks, I have high standards.

6. And this collage I made

OK, I’m getting really distracted now by the activity outside. People are skiing by, sledding by, walking by, biking by. I gotta go get out in that snow. – Kathy Foster