SWING DING AMIGOS: The Mongolita Chronicles

Swing Ding Amigos

The Mongolita Chronicles

© 2004 Swing Ding Amigos (616892591429)

CD IN STOCK. ORDER NOW. Will ship immediately.

Ripping fast Tucson punk rock with eccentric lo-fi garage racket and stoner rock riffage filtered through a bilingual hardcore machine.

notes

Review By Left Off The Dial

Tucson, Arizona seems to be a sun burnt hotbed for fierce, snot-nosed rock 'n' roll these days - with bands such as the Supersuckers growing up there and youngens the Knockout Pills staggering through the heat. Now, unearthed, come the Swing Ding Amigos offering up a piece of their own blistering past.
At first I was extremely excited to hear a new band with newly recorded material sound so fresh and energetic; it seems a bit rare today. I remembered noticing ads for a new CD/LP in some of my geek mags, so I went back to consult the short, concise press sheet. Sure enough, to my chagrin, it's explained this was actually recorded three or four years ago - so why so long coming? This album was released this past year on Rock N Roll Purgatory, and their newest is out on Recess Records (Kings of Culo); I will be tracking down a copy for myself. On the first spin, I'm hooked and leaning into my stereo. This is sweltering amphetamine-soaked rock. By the time the third track rolls around and I look up to the display, I haven't even noticed that we've already left two tracks far behind in the dust. One track just rear-ends the next at breakneck, speed splintering into clouds of spittin' and fightin'. The Swing Ding Amigos have managed to find and record a sound as fast and forceful as an early hardcore album, but maintain a more rock structure (more fretboard flyin' than three chord madness). I can honestly say I have not reviewed such a youthful, energetic album in a long while. The Mongolita Chronicles is a beautiful hybrid of punk, garage and 80s hardcore spirit. Focusing on plain, dirty fun with a smart-ass attitude, these three hotheaded Arizonians leave behind over-indulgent rock soloing, arty stop and start pauses and pretentious lyrics and present to us straight to the point, gut-driven, gone for the throat rock fury. Clocking in twenty-two tracks at a speed of twenty-three minutes and fifty-one seconds, the album hauls to a finish as quickly as it started, leaving me rattled and smiling. This is punk rock for the attention-impaired, and I am a fan. - Chaz Martenstein



Review By Odyssey Zine

Don't let the weird name put you off (I was really worried that I'd start hearing some rockabilly or swing music whenI put this on). The disc is crammed with super wild, ultra-hyper guitar fury. It's fierce and fast, with nary a moment to take a breath. It seems like it takes five minutes before you get seven songs into this record. Its many charms vary wildly from song to song, but it's LOUD the whole way through. One second you're listening to spastic, unintelligible, static blasts of punk rock, and then you hear a little pop riff to screw with your head a bit. It's a schizophrenic good time. Even the songs that you don't like at first will usually win you over by the end. I don't get sick of hearing "Tik-Tok," a jerky, frantic punk song that sounds like the lyrics could be in French but they probably aren't. Give this one a chance for sure.



Review By Zookeeper Online WZSU

Straight up, neck-breaking, hold-no-prisoners PUNK ROCK'N'ROLL. Super-fast, slushy, electrifying, balls-out! Love the guitar/vocal melodies. This is 100% unadulterated, no cream, no sugar rawk. Fuel your rockets; put the pedal to the metal. - Elias (Dr Furious)


Review By Punk Information Directory

These guys are from down Tucson way. 22 songs in 23 minutes in all that range from garage to poppy punk. Most are garage punk tunes and would sound right at home on Rip Off Records. Then out of the blue comes a pop sounding song like the "0-2-80" or "Gargamel", although the speed and energy level aren't in line with your normal pop tune. Only 3 songs clock in over 1:30 and two of those are 1:32. Mostly these guys hit you over the head with some pile driving rock n roll. Many of the songs have a Spanish theme to theme but I'm not quite sure where they're coming from with that. I found the CD quite enjoyable and I would recommend it to my garage loving friends. -Willy Aadnoy


Review By Time 2 Rock N'Roll

Swing Ding Amigos are a three piece fronted by the guitarist / singer of the Shark Pants. Wow! They are fuckin' cool. Unconventional, nonsensical, illogical sounds that make me think back to the Dead Kennedys. The Vox have a real cool metallic tone that seems to accidentuate the needly creepy micro-energy pulses that the music delivers into your senses. I love to seizure!!!
MG


Review By Razorcake Magazine

I first saw the Swing Ding Amigos in my living room about four years ago. Somehow close to a hundred people had flocked to our pre-July Fourth party. Fireworks were going off inside the house. Jug wine was being spilled everywhere. The walls were dripping and waves of people were going nuts. I somehow lost my sock, but not my shoe, during their set. The Swing Ding Amigos fit the scene perfectly. Spastic, fast, and so tightly wound--they have that sound that seems incapable of coming out of anywhere except Tucson. On the CD there are more melodies than I remember, and the songs have an addictiveness to them that had me listening to this album only for four days straight. I think my Spanish professor summed them up perfectly. I had to ask her to translate the two songs in Spanish for me. After the first line she looked up at me shocked and said, "Megan, this is very bad. This is very dirty. And they spelled this word wrong." I couldn't agree more. (Megan)


Review By Neufutur.com

Mixing up the rock sounds of Corrosion of Conformity and Fu Manchu with some of the earlier rock of the seventies (think UFO and Kansas), Swing Ding Amigos are a weird creature, to say the least. The double-vocals of a track like "Nyquil" are so off-key and spoken instead of sung, which essentially means that through some weird combination, they are actually catchy. Using different filters (the echo chamber of "Hey Genie") provides for a myriad of different emotions on the disc. "Hey Genie" is more psychedelic, while the straight-forward "0-2-60" will whip listeners into a mosh pitting frenzy. "Tik-tok" uses some of the same figures of song that made "Shout", from Animal House such a memorable hit - different scaling up and down in tempos and the like. Jumping pretty much on a track by track basis between punk and experimental music, the Swing Ding Amigos try to pander to two very distinct groups of individuals with "The Mongolita Chronicles". The material will turn practically everyone off from the CD excepting the most experimental and hardcore fans. This is sad, as the Amigos are beyond impressive in their instrumentation and arrangements on their decidedly non-traditional songs.

Most exciting for me on "The Mongolita Chronicles" is the bi-lingual "Mochate Momia", which jumps back and forth from Spanish to English, only the second track on the disc to do so (besides Tik-Tok). So many bands shuck any heritage or culture they may have for the language of the most affluent market - which often means Americanized English with a "proper" accent, destroying any flair the band may have had in their native tongue. The Amigos are too spastic to stay for more than a minute in any one given genre or song - the 21 tracks seem almost as if they are played by a number of bands instead of the Amigos. The Amigos are the perfect example of a band that means everything to everyone (yes, like the Everclear song) and yet does not dilute their sound for greater success. Equally proficient in everything they do, the energy of the Amigos will win more people as fans than any track that they could commit to disc. There is nary a moment to breathe during "The Mongolita Chronicles", and the average listener will be as exhausted after this disc as the Amigos have to be after finishing up their thirty-minute orgasm on stage.

Top Tracks: Mochata Momia, Beautiful Things
Rating: 6.3/10



Review By Panache Magazine

You know I really like the cover of this album, the colors, the girl, it runs close to a 60's Herb Albert type cover. Anyways, this was recorded a few years ago and finally is seeing the light of day. This album is rock'n'roll dance hard, and tight while making a mark in your eardrum. If I had to break it down it would be a punk rock lo-fi garage while shaking hands with MC5 and doing speed. About half the songs clock in at less than a minute, and only a few break the 2 minute mark, and still every song on this is excellent. Notables on this are "Gargamel," "Ech Pecho," and "Hey Genie." Look for another release soon on Recess Records (DP)



Review By Sleazegrinder

Buncha scruffy garage rawk banditos here, straight outta Tucson, which explains the weirdo spaghetti western flourishes (they DO have cowboys in Tucson, right?) and the 13th Floor psychedelia that winds through these savage little gut-punchers like a groovy virus. The hi-speed Dead Boys riffs and the stoner-punk stuff are less geographically sound, but fit into the master plan just fine. Well, as much as these ADD-stricken fuckers can muster a master plan. Apparently, this album was originally recorded three years ago, and is only now seeing the light of day, because the band finally stopped rockin' enuff to release it. You know the type. These manic swing dingers have so many ideas rolling around in their blistered brains that most of these songs average out at a measly 60 seconds per song, with nary a breath between, before they rip into the next number. There's like, 22 tracks here, and it's still over before you've even properly settled into their dirty-ass fuzz-punk grooves. That's not gonna stop me from declaring the head shakin' psyche-rawk "Pink Chiffon" as the slinkiest, sleaziest track on deck, but then, I'm a professional. Anyway, even if it is as choppy as an old super 8 porn loop, "Mongolita" is like a big ball of piss and fire and tumbleweeds and cartoon bikers, all rolling right into yr lap at 85 miles per hour. And then splitting, just as quickly. And that, you gotta admit, is still pretty fuckin' cool.



Review By The Neus Subjex

It has finally happened, just when I thought that the world of music has gone to complete shit along comes The Swing Ding Amigos. There is a GOD!!!! This has got to be the best thing to happen to real punk rock in years. Every FUCKING song is fantastic. I have had this CD in my player ever since receiving it. No five minute songs to bore the piss out of you, just straight forward, fast as hell rock'n'roll that makes everything else in my collection collect dust. When I first put in this disc I was thinking of THE COWS but they mellowed out and I don't listen to them anymore. I took it upon myself to see if there was anything else out there by these guys and EUREKA! e-mail is a great tool to have when writing reviews. In fact, there is more, and I'll be getting my copy for free suckers! Take it from me, 'The Mongolita Chronicles' is a must have. 20+ songs that don't let up. Look for their new album coming out soon entitled"Kings of Culo" on Recess Records. Get it from your favorite record store, or get it from their label. Life is sweet again. (Dave Fishwick)



Review By Hussieskunk.com

So its said that this disc sat for almost three years before seeing the light of day... Was that a good thing to hide it? Absolutely not! SDA offer up some of the most bizzare punk, country, rock, garge fusion noise that I have ever heard! Twenty-two tracks of saucy, bi-lingual, stylistic racket, where not a single track exceeds two minutes. Dishing out fat and ferocious guitar rock and then blending in samples that only add to the intensity, SDA are truely a one of a kind act. It must be terribly hard to follow this band after one of their sets! I don't think Tucson, Arizona knows what to do with the SDA...they have got to stand out like a sore thumb at every club and venue, but I can only image that people are wrapped around the block to get in to see and feel their energy. I gotta say my favorite tracks are "Tik-Tok" it approaches punk rock the most, simple bu effective! Then there's "Gargamel" where the guitar work sounds strangely like a Dead Boys song, but with hauntingly sweet vocal harmonies over it. The band delves into instrumentals that are just as fast and furious as any other track on the album! Quite literally a bizzare sound is achieved by SDA, but it isn't bad, it's quite admirable. Whether its the garage rock, 70s power chords, or the punk rock that the band is playing, they consistantly make it their own and make it altogether their own sound! The disc is incredibly fast, but that gives you time to listen to it two or three times through. Trust me, the appreciation for what SDA are pushing out there will come through about halfway through the second listen. "The Mongolita Chronicals" is a strange sounding album to be sure, but once you're in the bands domain, you have nothing to do but concede that they are great! -MG



Review By TruePunk.com

Swing Ding Amigos play powerful and driving rock, in the vein of Rocket From the Crypt, Didjits, and the Supersuckers. Things are very loud, distorted, and come off sounding sloppy, although the musicians are competent. There's only so much of this kind of stuff that I can take, though, and the album wears very thin after the first few songs, which rocked my pants off. This doesn't suck, by any means, but it does become pretty boring by the end of the disc.



Review By Shredding Paper

Energetic blasts of noisy punk rock chaos from Tucson, in A.D.D. sized spurts (average song length: 1:05). The sound quality is nasty, but not low-fi or poorly recorded. It's just the band mastering its craft. The lyrics of the songs primarily concern trivial matters of the lowbrow nature: drinking, women, drinking, and raising hell, but they also make some strange, stream of drugged-consciousness mystical connections that will necessitate checking the lyric sheet ("Waiting for the sun to come to end the ghost fuck ride", or "your radiation's got me peeling like a viper in the sun"). The lyrics also belt out memorable lines such as "I want to see you motherfuckers do the smurf", and a lot of references to wanting to see girls "shake it". Listeners won't get bored with this disc, that's for sure. On the flipside, there's barely enough time to hook into songs because they're over in a flash. - Xtian

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