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Thursday, December 13, 2012

Very Great Underage: Go See Health Problems Right Now

Posted by Brittnie Fuller on Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 3:48 PM

GARRETT KELLY

Health Problems are Seattle's newest abrasive noisemakers, making an effortlessly perverse, boundary-pushing clangor. I am still reeling from their set at the Black Lodge weeks ago, which was a barrage of uninhibited punk ferocity unlike anything I've heard in Seattle lately. Vocalist Ian Kurtis Crist channels demonic frontmen like David Yow and Iggy Pop, howling and contorting, climbing on monitors, simulating sexual intercourse with the stage, undressing himself, and pretend-crying in corners. The band's drug-tinged, stumbling abandon is also very tight in the way that a band like the Jesus Lizard balance their intoxicating noise stupor with rhythmic concrete. Incarnated at a punk house in the U-District in March, Health Problems started as Crist, bassist Dan Shaw, and drummer Zachary Grey. At their first practice, they decided they sounded "like beer," using the last two words of the surgeon general warning for their name. Current drummer David Dempsey replaced Grey in August, and after releasing only one split cassette/CD with the band Pores (of which Crist and Dempsey are also members) under their original lineup, the trio plan on recording soon and releasing a full-length in early 2013.

Health Problems play the Josephine tonight.