Track Of The Day #1057: Eureka California – Slack Motherfucker (Superchunk cover)

Back before Superchunk were indie royalty when they were just another punk band kicking around the college rock scene, a young Mac McCaughan worked in a copy shop in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Frustrated by a fellow co-worker, he wrote a song called Slack Motherfucker that swiftly became a classic, tying an identifiable hook to a phrase that had somehow become a catchphrase for a generation: slacker. Since then the word’s been applied to a whole swathe of American music from that era, largely based on a certain lackadaisical delivery; a carefree shrug that demands to be accepted on its own terms, or else… or else… well, like, you know. Whatever.

Step forward 20 years and Athens, GA’s Eureka California almost sound like they’ve stepped right out of that period. You can see the parallels: disenfranchised 20-somethings foregoing their college education in favour of touring endlessly with a rock’n’roll band while playing explosively angular nuggets of shonk-pop brilliance with a penchant for smart lyrics that turn on a dime between dry wit and a subtly affecting sense of wistfulness. Oh yeah, and it helps that – if you squint – they almost sound like the ‘Chunk covering Guided By Voices. Or maybe the other way around. Or neither. Well, like, you know. Whatever.

So it makes perfect sense that Eureka California would cover the aforementioned Slack Motherfucker for their new Wigwam 7”. The same spirit unites both bands; similar talents too. Not that this is a straight-up cover, you understand. Here drummer Marie A. Uhler pounds her kit with a loose-limbed ferocity that the original can’t match, while Jake Ward’s withering howl invests a whole new snotty raggedness into what was always a fairly preppy approach to punk. It’s loose, it’s wild, it’s addictive. It’s garage rock doing what it’s always done best. It’s a cunning inversion of the ‘slacker’ tag, breathlessly compressed into a far shorter track length than the original could manage (and that was no slouch either). It’s the death of the 90s revival, declared via chutzpah and gusto and bundled up into a ball of blood and guts.