Yikes

Collage by Ida No from Glass Candy And The Shattered Theatre.

One of the worst things about the shitty new garage rock scene is how happy-go-lucky and howdy doody the bands always are.

I’ll PUKE if I see another bunch of retro-blues-rocking cocks from America called something like The Detroit Von Bondie Brothers who say their main influences are Sly & The Family Stone and the MC5 when in reality they’re just a retarded version of The Jon Spencer Fucking Blues Explosion. I hate those fucking guys and their good time retro rock bullshit. It’s so fake. Are these cunts really that happy with everything? If they are I don’t want them to be. I want them to be miserable and fucking depressed all the time like I am.

That’s why I’m digging Portland, Oregon’s Glass Candy And The Shattered Theatre. They make this totally unsettling, freaky rockabilly noise, like David Bowie and Strawberry Switchblade with some weird intergalactic amputee sex shit going on there as well. It sounds like how you feel in the middle of the night when you’re full of horrible drugs, gripped by the fear and convinced that somebody is trying to break into your house. Like “What’s that fucking noise? Oh no. I’m never going to get to sleep ever again. Shit. Ouch. Brrr.”

As well as sounding like a wet nightmare, Glass Candy are fucking difficult to deal with. When VICE tried to get a photo of them they flat-up refused and told us we had to settle with a specially made collage (pictured) instead. S’alright though isn’t it? I mean it doesn’t kill me, but it’ll do.

VICE: You’re weird. Why are you so weird?
Ida No (singer): 40 hours a week we hang out at work. It’s a grocery store. We eat raw almonds and drink water.

Your names sound like Strawberry Shortcake dolls. Ida No, Ginger Peach, Johnny Jewel…
 I changed my name to Ida No because I thought it would be funny to say ‘I dunno’ when people asked what my name is.

OK. Have you got a boyfriend?
Johnny has a girlfriend. She thinks we suck.

What else?
The sky is made of plastic. Ummm, I love my giraffe nurse Halloween costumer.

JEFF SOMETHING
Glass Candy And The Shattered Theatre’s debut album Love Love Love is out in May on Troubleman Unlimited.