Yikes were a short lived band that featured John Dwyer from Oh Sees, Mike Donovan from The Ropers/Sic Alps, and Eric Park who was featured on quite a few of the San Francsico noise records of the mid aughts, Load Records releases by The Hospitals etc. Dwyer was better known for Coachwhips at the time, but they were winding up (if not kaput), and Oh Sees existed in some form but was about to take off.
Oh Sees are friggin great, and I am excited by Dwyer’s Damaged Bug project. John Dwyer deserves to be one of the current figureheads of modern day diy weirdo rock n roll, but I’m probably one of the few people who prefers this 2000’s era output. Give me Pink & Brown on through Coachwhips, and Hospitals on through Yikes, ALL DAY!
This Yikes cut, entitled “Irresponsible”, is from their 2006 release Whoa Comas. It’s so gnarly sounding and noisy that I can only compare it to the most brutal sounding stuff from New York no wave bands like DNA. But its filtered through the all-levels-in-the-red, avant-noise, atonal garage punk of the mid-aughts.
