Customer Reviews

Bonsai Superstar

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Half of the customer reviews I have read for Brainiac called them the best band of the nineties, and it's easy to see why: they are. No one comes close to their detuned space funk punk intensity. I have listened to Bonsai probably more than any other album in my life, and I find something new in it every time. Brainiac takes massive chances, refusing to let bar cords be bar cords. Elements of John Spencer, Sonic Youth, and James Brown, yes, James Brown!, can be heard in the mix, but they don't "sound" like anyone. They are, in themselves, a new form of music, much like the Pixies were in the 80's.

I interviewed Brainiac in St. Louis for a college rock show about a month before the singer, Timmy Taylor, died in a car wreck. They were extremely nice guys, and I'll never forget the experience. People don't quite understand when I tell them I wouldn't have traded meeting Brainiac for ANY other rock band. "You'd want to meet some unknown Ohio band over Nivana or Metalicca? Why?" Listen to this album and you might understand.

Taylor's death is one of the biggest tragedies in rock history -- moreso than Cobain or Hendrix: Taylor died BEFORE his band had the chance to change the face of music. But the evidence lies in their brilliant albums, and maybe someday, people will start catching on.

Be sure to check out the guitarist's John Schmershal's solo debut. He uses the pseudonym John Stuart Mill. He takes accoustic folk style songs where Brainiac took rock.

If you're into bands like the Pixies & Jon Spencer, you'll like this right off the bat. If you're into Kid Rock or Limp Bizkit, don't even waste your time.

Tony Y.

Probably one of the most unfairly neglected bands of the 90's (up there with Built to Spill and The Dismemberment Plan), Brainiac proved they were light-years ahead of their time. Bonsai Superstar sounds like a macabre amalgamation of Devo, Nirvana, Funkadelic, and the Pixies. Timmy Taylor sounds scarier here than ever before. The beat-boxing that kicks off the incendiary "Sexual Frustration" is absolutely haunting. John Schmersal's addition really kicks in. Both the experiments and the rock tracks work wonderfully in this setting. However, Bonsai Superstar is not quite as easy to listen to as Hissing Prigs in Static Couture, but the rewards are numerous. My personal favorite track is the subtly funky "Status:Choke". Brainiac were definitely taken too soon, but fortunately we have Enon to fill their shoes. For newcomers to the band, start with Hissing Prigs and then move to this one. Peace

To the extent that I have any sort of generation, I'd like to hereby honor this disc with being the Voice of mine. It's as acerbic as any around, but a hundred times smarter. Just when you think it's about to kill you, it's urging you to take your vitamins. Just when you think it will save you, it grins from ear-hole to ear-hole and ZAAAAPS you with its death ray. From the most toppled-over riffs imaginable, Brainiac scavenge gleaming moments of pure electroshock bliss. This band seemed to understand right way what so few ever do: if you're going to follow your muse, follow her all the way over the top. Half-way measures only confuse.

This album out of all Brainiac albums, 7"s,EP's,etc. is the one to get. That is if you're into some very wacked out intense stuff that once you get a grip on it will have you tearing the roof off the place. They are their own thing and to me no one has touched them in this decade. This is not for the faint in heart but for those of you out there that are completely bored of music and need something unique to come into your life. They remind me of a combo of early Devo, James Chance and the Contortions and Sonic Youth. If you like these bands, you will love Brainiac.

Invention of a new sub-genre is no mean feat. Even some of the greatest bands of all time have proven themselves to be so by expertly exploiting the elements of an established genre. With Bonsai Superstar, the maniacal midwestern collective Brainiac singlehandedly defined junkyard electro-rock. The merits of this achievement are debatable, but the fact remains that this clanging mess is one heck of a killer album, and it could quite possibly be unlike anything you've ever heard.

At times, Brainiac's vision is baffling. Fugazi-style punk is fractured into bizarrely explosive shards and joined with so many incongruous musical elements that referring to the record as "eclectic" doesn't even make sense. Every riff is impossibly jagged and every vocal line is delivered either with heavy distortion or a bizarre castrato affectation. Vocalist Timmy Taylor whispers, moans, and wails while the guitars crunch and squeal, orchestrating oblivion into a focused catharsis. However, despite this unprecedented unconventionality, the defining characteristic of Brainiac is not their strangeness -- it is their soul and groove, their inexplicable space-freak sexiness. Bonsai Superstar will seduce you with it's quirky funk as it's rocking you with the potency of a thousand martian Nirvanas, and it's this uncanny ability that makes Brainiac the single most successfully innovative group of the '90s. Members of Brainiac may have moved on to respectable projects like Enon after Taylor's tragic death and continued to mine the sci-fi dance-punk ethic, but Bonsai Superstar is the towering magnum opus of this bizarre style,and essential for anyone who is looking for something that is, more than any other record in recent memory, entirely and genuinely new.

Half of the customer reviews I have read for Brainiac called them the best band of the nineties, and it's easy to see why: they are. No one comes close to their detuned space funk punk intensity. I have listened to Bonsai probably more than any other album in my life, and I find something new in it every time. Brainiac takes massive chances, refusing to let bar cords be bar cords. Elements of John Spencer, Sonic Youth, and James Brown, yes, James Brown!, can be heard in the mix, but they don't "sound" like anyone. They are, in themselves, a new form of music, much like the Pixies were in the 80's.

I interviewed Brainiac in St. Louis for a college rock show about a month before the singer, Timmy Taylor, died in a car wreck. They were extremely nice guys, and I'll never forget the experience. People don't quite understand when I tell them I wouldn't have traded meeting Brainiac for ANY other rock band. "You'd want to meet some unknown Ohio band over Nivana or Metalicca? Why?" Listen to this album and you might understand.

Taylor's death is one of the biggest tragedies in rock history -- moreso than Cobain or Hendrix: Taylor died BEFORE his band had the chance to change the face of music. But the evidence lies in their brilliant albums, and maybe someday, people will start catching on.

Be sure to check out the guitarist's John Schmershal's solo debut. He uses the pseudonym John Stuart Mill. He takes accoustic folk style songs where Brainiac took rock.

If you're into bands like the Pixies & Jon Spencer, you'll like this right off the bat. If you're into Kid Rock or Limp Bizkit, don't even waste your time.

Tony Y.

Just want to say that this (and Morella's Forest) makes me proud to be a Daytonian. I've driven a thousand times the spot where Timmy left us prematurely. A cryin' shame.

Brainiac was like no other band of the nineties. They were pretty clearly ahead of their time, in my opinion, and if the band hadn't been struck by tragedy, more people might know of their work. "Bonsai Superstar" in particular represents the perfection of their sound, which makes it all the more frustrating that this album is so hard to find. There isn't one wasted minute on the album, and its intensity is likely to leave you wishing you could travel back in time to see the band live.

The bassline and swaggering/neurotic vocals of "Sexual Frustration" are what hooked me; newcomers to the band's sound may find the menacing yet catchy "Flypaper" equally approachable. Give it a listen, it's well worth your time.

There are few albums so essential, so ahead of their time as Brainiac's Bonsai Superstar. At a time when most other bands were trying to figure out how to sound as much like Nirvana as possible Brainiac went on to pioneer a sound whose impact would not be fully realized until years later.

Songs like "Juicy (On A Cadillac)", with it's herky-jerky synth line, dance-anthem chorus, and heavily modulated vocals immediately bring to mind the work of more recent followers such as The Faint.

If you're a fan of the last two Blood Brothers albums you'll also find quite alot to listen to here as well. or any of the "angular no-wave" bands (Numbers, Liars, etc.) of the last four years, check out this album to see where the idea came from FIRST. The guitar line and tuning on "To The Baby Counter" reveals the Blood Brothers song "Hot Teens" as nothing more than a tribute to a band long gone.

Brainiac is worth your money, and Bonsai Superstar is definately worth your time.