Are you into poppy garagepunk like Outtacontroller, Mean Jeans, Mind Spiders and Jacuzzi Boys? If so, you may want to take note of Serials, a solo project by SF East Bay area based Dennis Stimac. He wrote the 16 songs off his new LP Mediocrity in a four month period (nov 2020 – mar 2021) at his tiny home recording studio. Stimac plays (or has played) in a variety of bands that are more hardcorepunk oriented, and with Serials he records music that is “a little more mellow and not bound by any specific genre. Although its definitely punk rooted.”
Also, his recording ritual is quite unusual: “I have a TV in my studio and I leave it on the Investigation Discovery channel while I write and record 24/7. Its true crime, murder type shows. Weirdly, It helps me write. I even leave it on while recording, I just turn the volume down.” This may explain some of the dark undertones in the music of Serials (“Mercury is about a super realistic dream where I got shot and killed in a 7-11 convenience store. The last thing i saw before everything turned black was laying on the ground staring up at the mercury flourescent lights flickering.”), but most of the songs on Mediocrity sound rather upbeat. Take a sample of some of my favorites off the album: Bed Bugs (a song “about a girl withdrawing from drugs”), Stick Figures Gone Wild, Sleeping Pills And Antifreeze, and1994.
Mediocre is out now digitally, with an extensive backcatalogue of Serials to dive into at Bandcamp. Stimac also run a YouTube channel with local punk music and skateboarding videos from his hometown, Concord, Ca.
Add to wantlist: Bandcamp