Guaranteed Ugly - The Ugly Ones

(Sympathy For The Record Industry, 1995)

The Guaranteed Ugly – featuring Natty “Mr. Ugly” Brooker – is the most obscure and least likely of all Spacemen 3 spinoffs, a garage-stomp nastyparty that careens in a way that few English “rock” bands are able to manage, enamored with posturing over sound as our Brit-buddies typically are. Cuz instead of focusing on haircuts and press, the Guaranteed Ugly is all shouty, anonymous, fuzzfuck in-the-red-isms that manage to sound effortlessly and legitimately like mid-’60s USA teen freakout, minus any cheap winks and condescension. Amazing throat-shred vocals, hot guitars, pounding toms, crackling organ, brief runtimes, Billy Childish production… it’s all here, DUM as you want it to be and FUN as it needs to be. Perfect shitpop. Tastemakers should push these guys HARD and gain ’em the attention they deserve, a decade after the fact or not. And note ye well that A-side “The Ugly Ones” is far dirtier and screwed on this 7” than it is on the otherwise crackin’ It’s an Ugly! Ugly! World CD. Blown OUT! Yum – hotcha!

So anyway.

Yeah. Today I am sick. I slept on a friend’s couch last night, and I suspect that his cat, Charlie, trod upon my prone being as I snoozed, shedding his fur all over me. So I’ve spent the morning and afternoon sneezing, coughing, and rubbing my swollen eyes, experiencing ever-increasing discomfort in all of my face-holes. Why can’t all cats simply devote themselves to hilarity the way Garfield has?? Seriously, guys: Cut it out with the allergen nonsense and focus instead on joking about your species-wide hatred of Mondays. And lasagna? Hey, I love it too! There’s a compromise to be had, maybe.