Fun Times With Shitty People, the latest release from Brooklyn trio EndAnd, sounds like the sort of music Beavis and Butthead might listen to. You know, they're sitting on the same old couch, eating cheesy puffs, fingers bent into a permanent sign of the horns and all the while their heads are bobbing inanely to the gloriously—named "I Used To Eat Shit But Now I Pick It Up".
This isn't a bad thing, you understand. Far from it. In fact, it's a telling comparison because the Beavis & Butthead cartoons were always that little bit cleverer than they sounded, and the same could be said for EndAnd. This band are goofily irreverent, self—consciously stoner, but all the time with their tongues planted firmly in their cheeks. Figuratively speaking, EndAnd is the musical equivalent of somebody who really should know better leaping off a bus stop with their pants down and breaking both legs. And therein lies its charm.
Formed in Brooklyn in 2011 by Daniel Fern (vocals/guitar) and Michael Morales (drums), EndAnd fired out two LPs as a duo before being joined by bassist Dan Fogarty and consummating their union with the brand—new release Fun Times With Shitty People. Influenced by bands such as Pissed Jeans, Propaghandi and White Lung, EndAnd tracked the entire thing in one single seven—hour session, and the resultant wired energy positively leaps out of the record player. It's a noisy, orgiastic rant, simultaneously thrilling and disturbing. It is, if you will, puke 'n' roll.
I'd quote some of the lyrics but most of them are largely incomprehensible and, in any case, I think this is part of the joke. But the sound is tight, the bass is nice and throaty, the drums have plenty of body, the guitar sound is like being fired at in the face by an automatic machine gun and the vocals are satisfyingly guttural.
In short, EndAnd certainly aren't for everyone — but that may be the secret to their appeal.