The Bitchin’ Atomic Bitchwax

 

IMHO, one of the most overlooked, and super trippy bands out there making music these days, is Chris Kosnik’s little three-piece The Atomic Bitchwax.  I’m currently jamming  to their entire catalogue, thanks in part to Bandcamp.  

See, I came to TAB via my love for all things Monster Magnet, and former MM guitarist extraordinaire one Ed Mundell was a co-founding member of The Bitchwax way back in 1992 along with Kosnik and drummer Keith Ackerman.  However, I was a bit of a late-comer, not discovering the side-project for Mundell until 2008, nine years after the band’s debut release, 1999’s The Atomic Bitchwax 1, and several year’s after Mundell’s departure from the group.  I picked up 2008’s TAB/4, which introduced guitarist Finn Ryan, and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I went back and snagged a copy of 1 on vinyl before they became too outrageous in price a few years back, but have been unsuccessful in my bidding on copies of The Atomic Bitchwax 2 and the red vinyl versions of the Spit Blood EP.  

The third TAB album, simply titled 3, has only been issued on cd to date and then there’s the EP Boxriff, which features both a short cd and a dvd.

Since the release of TAB/4, I’ve followed the group religiously.  The 42 plus minute long instrumental single track album The Local Fuzz came next.  What a trip that record is.  Put it on, kick back and sink into your bean bag chair and let your cares melt away with an IPA, your favorite smokable, a fine cognac or whatever.  

The band, which has featured Monster Magnet drummer Bob Pantella since 2007 and TAB/4, has issued three consecutive dynamite releases with Gravitron (2015), Force Field (2017), and Scorpio (2020), all featuring outstanding musicianship and song craftsmanship.  However, Ryan departed after Scorpio and Pantella’s Monster Magnet alum Garrett Sweeney joined, bringing along his ax, to re-unite three fifth’s of the Monster Magnet line-up that recorded and toured the album Mindfucker in 2018 and 2019, as Kosnik himself took up bass and backing vocal duties for Dave Wyndorf’s outfit for about three years during that album cycle.  

If you’re not familiar with The Atomic Bitchwax I highly encourage you to check out every incarnation of the band, though I caution, obtaining physical copies of some of their earlier work can prove quite difficult, and often is also pricey, even on compact disc.

Tunes for beginners:

1

“Birth to the Earth,” “”Hey Alright,” “Hope You Die,” “Kiss the Sun,” “Shit Kicker.”

Right in the Nuts compilation: A Tribute to Aerosmith 

“Combination.”

2

“Solid,” “Liquor Queen.”

Spit Blood - EP

“Black Trans Am.”

3

“The Destroyer,” “Maybe I’m A Leo” Deep Purple cover), “If I Had A Gun,” “Half As Much.”

Boxriff - EP

“STD,” “So Come On.”

TAB/4

“Revival,” ”Sometimes Wednesday,” “Daisy Chain,”

“Wreck You.”

The Local Fuzz

“The Local Fuzz” (instrumental).

Gravitron

“Sexecutioner,” “No Way Man,” “War Claw,” “Coming In Hot,” “Down With the Swirl,” “Ice Age ‘Hey Baby’.”

Force Field

“Hippie Speedball,” “Alaskan Thunderfuck” (instrumental), “Shocker,” “Crazy,” “Houndstooth.”

Scorpio

“Hope You Die” (re-recorded), “Ninja” (instrumental), “Crash” (instrumental), “Super Sonic,” “You Got It.”

Weedsconsin strangest, most satisfying trip I've been on in a long time

I've experienced some pretty strange shit during trips to Wisconsin over the years, probably would have gone down a lot better if my travelling companions and I had been high and if we'd had some killer tunes such as the ones Bongzilla dropped on it's eager public on 4/20 in this, year two of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Fucking weird times, man, which lends itself to the creation of even weirder music; and Bongzilla, now composing itself as a super-tight three-piece with original members Spanky on guitar, Magma on drums and Muleboy moving over to bass and still handling the vox, certainly delivered the weird, spaced-out, psychedlic tunage with this new slab of wax.

Dropping the needle on the first side of Weedsconsin the listener is immeditately inundated with the heavy riffage of Sundae Driver and the "Cannabeast has awakened." Sundae Driver is one of the more dank tunes on the album, heavy as a neutron star, compact too at just 4:32 long, the second shortest track on the record. As first singles go, Driver was solid, but not necessarily representative of the body of work that is Weedsconsin. The remainder of the album is BY FAR more on the trippy side.

The second track, Free the Weed has the longest set of lyrics, three whole stanzas, an epic poem by Bongzilla standards... We must vote to smoke you see/Free my girl from the enemy/The time has come to rise like smoke/We must Free the Weed. It almost brings a tear to your eye. The 10:28 second triptacular Sace Rock follows and nearly closes out Side One. If you fired up before slipping this LP out of its jacket you should just be starting to get a good buzz going by the time you reach the more groove oriented Space Rock, and you'll settle in nicely. Weedeater, all thrirty-five seconds of it, peters out the side.

Side Two commences with the focal point of the album, the balls-out Earth Bong/Smoked/Mags Bags. I cannot say enough great things about this track. It did it all for me. You should be plenty stoned by this point, and if not, well that's your own damn fault, LOL. It's heavy, it's spaced-out, it's psychedlic, and I love the drum part at the end where Magma delivers a nice coda.

The instrumental track Gummies, complete with a laugh track, brings the album to a close and serves nicley as a come down after a killer trip to Weedsconsin. After eigh long years it is safe to safe Bongzilla made a triumphant return in this season of strangeness that has been 2020 and 2021, recording the album with the late John Hopkins in 2020 and dropping it on an unsuspecting stoner rock community in 2021. This record easily will find its way into my favorites list for 2021. I rate the album as a whole an Instant Classic, 97 out of 100 score.  

Watch This Space

Okay, it's been, what since well before the pandemic hit since I've actually updated this site. I'm presently working on my Favorite 21 Albums of 2021 feature that I'll try to get up in the next couple days between doctor appointments, and see if I can't resurrect this old site from the dead.