Drake Equation - Tubring > Reviews > One for Bungle Lovers in the Bath

Author's product rating:   

Originality
Lyrics
Quality and consistency of tracks
How does it compare to the artist's other releases
Value for Money

Advantages:	A step closer to California levels of genius
Disadvantages:	At times still a hop, skip and jump away plus don't be expecting Mike Patton levels of vocal talent .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Tubring are another band I stumbled across whilst blundering my way around mp3.com. But not only do Tub Ring have a slightly Mr Bungle touch to their music but their most recent album (That’s this one fact fans) was produced by Mr Bungle/Secret Chiefs 3 guitarist Trey Spruance! With credentials like that how could I not check the band out?

The Drake Equation is in many ways to Tub Ring what California was to Mr Bungle – they’re bothering less about being self consciously weird and more about pumping out a quantity of good tunes. Moving on from previous Tub Ring albums such as 1995’s “…And The Mashed Potato Mountain Etiquette” and 1997’s “Super Sci-Fi Samurai Rockstar Ultra Turbo II (ver. 3.6)”, The Drake Equation sees Tub Ring continue to mix the sounds of Frank Zappa, Mr Bungle, Punk and I quote “philosophically challenging sci-fi poetry”. It takes a band with a song called “God Hates Astronauts” to make that last bit even slightly believable.

Tub Ring are not a band for a pop or rock fan – you have to be into ‘strange’ music to really like Tub Ring, but open your ears and give them a chance, after all. One of my top 10 songs of all time is on this CD!

* Where’s The Robot *

Mixing circus organs, manic drums, death metal growls and guitars and even a few surf doo wop style guitar moments, Where’s The Robot is what you would get if you took all the Mr Bungle (Apart from maybe Desert Search for Techno Allah) songs and merged them into one minute and 12 seconds. Pure madness but a pretty entertaining way to start the album.

* Bite the Wax Tadpole *

Have I mentioned that Tub Ring are capable of producing some quality lyrical moments yet? No, ok, Tub Ring are capable of producing some quality lyrical moments. A couple of good ones from this song are “Last week I was working in my kitchen, when oddly I discovered Cold Fusion so I wrote down the process on the back off my hand” and “Last night I awoke with all the answers then quickly I grabbed hold of pen and paper so in the morning I wouldn’t forget. Next day I looked over what was written and oddly it was only one’s and zeros”. Tub Ring often give off the impression they’re not overly keen on computers. But anyway, the song – again Tub Ring mix in some circus organs this time with some sort of half disco sections, a few spoonfuls of Jazz and rock. An entertaining song that is pretty good in it’s own right but there are better on the album.

* Faster *

It’s like flight of the bumble bee, only the bee’s wearing a space suit and is on Mars – strange in case that didn’t make sense. Manic guitars start the track off then it’s onto rock-the-top circus organs and guitars again. Tub Ring chuck in a fuzzed funky bass section with quiet(er) vocals and stabs of rock guitar for a nice bit of contrast. While the quality of the quiet bass led sections is much higher than the shouty organ bits it’s still the best song on the album so far.

* Good Food: Happy Family *

This was the first Tub Ring song I ever heard. Fast paced synths, crashing guitars start the song off before heading into something approximating Arabian circus music before cranking the mood up a notch as the bass is fuzzed up and fights a rising battle with the synths before the mood is once again cranked by the addition of an organ. And it all happens so quickly I didn’t have time to put any full stops in that sentence! A great song that really seems shorter than the four minutes it really is!

* Bernard’s Three Awakenings *

Tub Ring go all American Punk on this track for a while before hell brakes loose and it descends into verging on just being noise and then moves onto hillbilly banjo tunes. Two minutes of moving through the above styles. Sorry no, not that great.

* Numbers *

The best song on the album by far and one of the best songs ever recorded in my opinion. Lilting doo-wopish guitars and pianos wonder around in an unhurried manner while the vocals are chopped in two – half normal, half sounding like they are coming down a phoneline. Crank up the lilt so much those two annoying old ladies wouldn’t know what to do, add “ooooooh ahhhhhh” backing vocals and some strings and you create Numbers chorus – “I’m a number, you’re a number as you see. And my cells are all deviding. I’m a number, you’re a number as you see. And my race is multiplying”. For a rather manic middle section mixing the funk (calvi) and the circus (organ) Tub Ring go into full on ludite paranoia. They only give the human race another million years to go and then proceed to lay into pi. Anyone who can work pi to 6 figures into the lyric and not have sound completely daft has to be at least verging on genius. But then, just when you’re not expecting it, just when the level of madness has increased – the lilting section returns – and this time it has some sweeping organ in the background, just in case it wasn’t good enough first time round. It’s an incredible contrast, gets me every time I hear it! It’s at this point that Tub Ring surpass their ‘mentor’, Mr Bungle’s attempt at doing a song like this, Merry Go Bye Bye which surround death metal grunting, guitars and white noise with a slow doowop guitar. The contrast on the song is also very good, but Tub Ring have created a song where both sections are extremely listenable. High praise indeed from a huge Mr Bungle fan! I don’t know why I like this song so much, but I’ve loved it since the first time I heard it. It’s just one of those songs I hear and go “Damn, wish I’d done that”.

* Downloading Satan *

Anything was going to be a disappointment after Numbers but this really is a let down. For a start it opens with the sound of a modem dialling – I REALLY HATE THAT NOISE. Then it moves on into a sub bungle circus noise type thing. Thankfully it’s only short.

* In the Future *

Arabic backing noises, huge drums and immense guitar stabs give the song a Secret Chiefs 3 feel. The verse takes the elements from the intro and runs with them at a faster pace and it’s all really good. The chorus is a bit of a noisy let down though, although the strange “Other worlds watching us, the aeroplane, the telephone, the electric lightbulb” sample section is unique to say the least. Not content with what they’ve done so far, Tub Ring decided to take the genre of Jazz by the scruff of the neck and give a good thrashing towards the end of the song. Only good in parts unfortunately, more of a shame because the good bits are really good!

* No More Refills *

Tub Ring move closer to straightforward rock music with the intro to No More Refills but rapidly head off to some strange circus funk styled section before moving on once again into a quiet almost ambient sax led section. It’s varied, has some of the vocals sung in a very clever rhythm (Am I the only person in the world who always spells that word wrong?) and even a section that verges on guitar pop including a high pitched shout of “Good time!” that you just can’t help joining in. WARNING: Doing this in a car with another Tub Ring fan driving at 70mph can produce interesting results, or at least strange looks from people you pass.

* She’s the Pro *

Fuzzed up electric funky bass chucked in with some scary sounding rock-the-top guitars start the song off and the verses keep the strange funk feel going. The chorus though turns up the organ and brings in a crowd of thousands for a fairly chilling effect that contrasts nicely with the funk of the verse. Again there’s some quality lyrics as, yes, the song is about what you think it’s about “It’s nice being my own boss” muse Tub Ring at one point. Towards the end Tub Ring chuck everything in – well, that or the singer, Kevin Gibson grows a few extra heads to allow him to do the strange vocal effects. One of the three best songs on the album. With Numbers being one of the others and the final remaining space taken by…

* God Hates Astronauts *

This fast paced song starts off with a sample from some NASA radio chat before diving headlong into being a rock song – but it’s not a straight forward rock song, oh no. There are moments when the guitars and drums dive into bursts of chaos for the briefest of moments before immediately simplifying as the vocals calm down and then it moves onto a strange funky section that is reminiscent of the strange sci-fi disco moments found on “Living With Rene’s Head” on the previous album. It’s the way everything stop/starts in this section, the drums are particularly clever opening and closing up as they do – hard to put into words how clever this section of the song is really. Finally the song runs out of energy and winds down with a vibraphone lead quiet section featuring such lyrics as “Astronaut… Where are you now? You’re hiding in a room, where no one will assume you’re an astronaut”. Entertaining but there’s over a minute and a half of it and compared to the brilliance of the rest of the song it drags a bit.

And that ladies and gentlemen, is the Drake Equation. Highly recommended to any Mr Bungle fans and anyone with an interest in music should check out Numbers. One word of warning though, this album is very hard to get hold of outside the USA so intended to stick with my mp3’s until I head over there for a bit after my degree (At which time I will be taking extreme advantage of having an American postal address to get quite a few CD’s!).

* Links *

Tub Ring on MP3.COM, a fairly random assortment of tracks - http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/110/tub_ring.html

Tub Ring’s official site - http://www.tubring.com/