Cassette Review: Crayon "Brick Factory" (Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records)

[$5 // Edition of 100 // http://hhbtm.com/item.php?item_id=444&category_id=6]

Before I listened to this cassette, I made an effort to figure out why I thought there was once a band on HHBTM called Crayon but it wasn't this band for whatever reason.   I remember there being a soft cover CD in a plastic sleeve but I couldn't place the name.   Thanks to Discogs (because going through my own collection would simply take more time) I found out that the band I was thinking of is called 63 Crayons, so perhaps I was only off by sixty two?   (For the Record: A "Where Are They Now?" feature on HHBTM bands would appeal to me greatly.  Whatever happened to The Gwens?  Visitations used to be my jam as well)

There are two sides to the music of Crayon and, no, I don't mean that in the way that a cassette has two sides but rather that it has two different traits that it can take on during any given song but it usually maintains one or the other for the course of the song.    The first is this sort of dirty, fast paced almost punk sound that can best be attributed to "Incesticide" era Nirvana music.    Of course saying that spawns ideas of Local H (Maybe a few songs off of "As Good As Dead", and then of course "Bag of Hammers" era) and the once lived Campground Effect.    This music is hard and raw and it hits you right in the mosh pit.

On the other hand, this music can sometimes take that turn into rock with a hint of garage, pop and maybe even that spills over into the twee-- I don't know-- but it sounds a lot like High Pop to me and, yeah, there are other bands that are probably more recognizable to make that comparison with but screw it because I love High Pop and don't listen to most of them.

At the end of Side A, there is this funny part that is seemingly live but I don't think any of the songs were recorded as such.   Anyway, they mention that one of their members wasn't at the show because he claimed to be sick but they thought he was really staying home to watch "Star Trek".   The random banter will only help you fall in love with this band.

My only concern is that this cassette is titled "Brick Factory" and that makes me think Lego, yet crayon and Lego don't really go together do they?   Do they make some sort of hybrid toy because if they do I want to know and if not someone better get on it.