Covered in Bees

Covered in Bees
24 Hour Album
The Entertainment Experiment

Click to hear: “Futon Sun Car”

Anyone who’s ever played around with a tape recorder as a kid will recognize the atmosphere on Covered in Bees’ 24 Hour Album. This project, which provides the first 19 tracks of this 32-track  CD, involved the guys writing, recording and mixing a full album more-or-less within the titular time. The result: a mix of half-improvised comedy bits, joke songs and one-offs not unlike the material you and your sister made in the basement, only much, much more rockin’. 

Produced by a lesser band, such an album wouldn’t be worth a second listen, but CIB is arguably the most talented punk/metal hybrid ever created in this state, and they’ve got a spot-on sense of humor, to boot. 

Example A: a song about snobby old rockers on the scene who should hang it up, entitled, “Please Stop Thinking About Tomorrow.” 

Example B: “AC (lightening bolt) IB,” which imagines (and demonstrates) “what it might sound like if CIB was AC/DC.” Guitarist Doug Porter opens with the obligatory high-neck intro figure while the fellas oy! in the background. Frontman Boo then proceeds to toss out super-lame sexual double entendres: “I would like to invite you over for a fondue / I’m gonna invest in a high-yield mutual fund.” Toward the end, he does a spot-on Brian Johnson blown-throat croak. Hilarious, and presciently appropriate, since AC/DC’s now no cooler than The Eagles with their Wal-Mart-only album; the Highway to Hell has frozen over, folks.       

Another gem is “Futon Sun Car” (an almost-anagram of Porter’s other band’s name, Confusatron). Brother Ed Porter lays down a bass line a step shy of Kim Deal’s on “Tame,” but what follows is the tamest and catchiest tune the Bees have ever done, a nonsense pop song with a kick. Dig Porter saying “gorp” in his Cookie Monster death-metal voice right after Boo sings the word. That’s what I mean by funny. 

Several of the musical numbers would have fit on the comp Ed Porter put together last year, Short Songs From Long Fellows: a collection of minute-long songs by many of the area’s best heavy bands. “Mo’ Honey Mo’ Problems” could have been on either of the Bees’ previous two studio albums; the unpredictable tantrum “Spite Fence” has no precedent, but it’s also a killer.        

The next 10 songs are collectively known as “The Black Grimace Demos.” There’s another comedy skit and two more comic takes on “Swampman,” the franchise begun on CIB’s 2005 debut, Portland Death Punk Vol. 1 (“New Wave Swampman” and “Swampboy” join a live version of “Bride of Swampman,” from last year’s Vol. 2, on this disc). “I Quit” and “Whoopie Pie” are tight burst of fast punk pulled off with impeccable chops (drummer Tristan Gallagher earns another medal for Valor in the Face of Extreme Rockin’-ness). 

The most interesting demos are those on which the Bees explore other sonic territory. Though inspired by the concept of the goofy McDonald’s character’s evil twin, “The Black Grimace” has a darker tone than most CIB material, a palpable menace even. A rock-punch section notwithstanding, the mostly instrumental second half of the song is serious business. This dark vibe surfaces again on the sludgey and punishing “God Damn the Queen,” one of three live songs tacked onto the end.

“I Reject the Ill Conceived Notion that Symmetry Equals Beauty” has a title undoubtedly inspired by Pigboat lyricist Mark Belanger, but sounds as close to Stone Temple Pilots as any self-respecting band dare these days.             

The Bees are on an extended hiatus while Boo finishes his accounting degree (in these dire economic times, it’s only fitting to hire a death-punk frontman to handle the numbers), so their Nov. 8 CD release show is your last chance to see them for a while. These 32 tracks should hold you over till next summer. 

—Chris Busby