In Pursuit Of Something Interesting: Scene Creamers (Weird War) "I Suck On That Emotion"

Another week and another deep dive into the Drag City Records vault for something interesting. While trying to pick the record for this week, I came to the conclusion that most of Drag City's catalog is either Ty Segall's massive collection of records or someones one-off release from the early 2000s. The Scene Creamers (now called Weird War) album I Suck On That Emotion is a little bit of both. Segall is not involved with the record or the band, but the 2003 release from the band sounds like a template for what Segall would be releasing eight to ten years later.

The Scene Creamers is an Ian Svenonius project started in the early 2000s as an anti-authoritarian collective. The collective did not turn out like they had hoped, but Svenonius did get a band out it.  For those not familiar with Svenonius, he was the frontman to a number of seminal punk bands in the 1980s and '90s with the most famous being The Nation of Ulysses. Since then, Svenonius has gone on to establish himself as the hipster messiah of people who use the prefix "anti-" in descriptors of themselves.

Now that you have a little backstory, here is the short review of I Suck On That Emotion. It exists. I mean, it's a record.

The record has some interesting psych rock cuts on it but that is where it ends. The instrumentation starts off pretty fiery with the first three tracks. The band quickly settles into a Stooges soundalike, yet that sound quickly goes away. By the fourth track "Candidate," Scene Creamers abandon their sound for more acoustic focused instrumentation. For reference, think of the song "Maggies Farm" by Bob Dylan then take away all of the good parts, and that's the acoustic tracks on I Suck On That Emotion. The band then continue sto flip flop on sonic ideas for the rest of the album.

Would I recommend that you should listen to this record? Not really. Is it a record forgotten by time that needs to come back? Nope. I'd suggest a few songs from it for your psych rock playlist but that's it. Svenonius and company tried a little to hard on this record. "Candidate" and "One Stone" are prime examples of this. The band references being tortured by the government into being the president and then being murdered. Both of these tracks sound like they're reciting lines from a protest movie. I Suck On That Emotion is just a 40-minute waste.