These New Acts Are Big On MySpace, Big In Japan, And Even Bigger In The Monastery

ZEBRAHEAD These Orange County ska-core prep-punk mosh-core twits somehow managed to sneak their tune “Mental Health” onto the Japanese Hot 100 at No. 100 last week–quite an accomplishment, considering that most competition on said chart consists of titles like “Amenohiniwa amenonakawo Kazenohiniwa kazenonakawo” by Hitomi Shimatani (No. 31) and “Bokuranokonosubarashikisekai” by Begin (No. 68). And an even bigger feat seeing how it’s been a decade since any Zebreahead song hit the Modern Rock chart at home in the States. The “Mental Health” video has snake-handling girls in nurses’ outfits, faux-hawked boys attempting to rap despite straightjackets, and absolutely nothing to suggest why Japanese fans might care. Zebrahead did cover the Spice Girls at least once, though. One charming line: “I really really really wanna fuck your mom.”

SUPERCHICK The most curious thing about this co-ed, biracial Chicago band is that they once had a hit Christian song called “BarlowGirl,” which may well have made the abstinence-before-marriage-committed Christian pop trio BarlowGirl the only group in the history of the universe’s music charts who actually had a song about their group on the charts before they had a hit of their own. Confused? Don’t worry; their fans are, too. Here’s a YouTube comment from zomgahwow: “waitttt wait wait. superchick and barlowgirls are the same girls????” (Wrong. Maybe these lyrics will help: “We met these sisters, Barlow’s their last name/Ordinary girls they don’t live in the fast lane/They don’t rate with the guys that score/Cause they don’t flaunt what the boys want more… All the boys in the band want a valentine from a Barlow Girl/Boys think they’re the bomb/Cause they remind them of their mom.” Gulp. Perhaps Zebrahead could relate.) Superchick also used to put the k at the end of their name in brackets and call themselves Superchic[k], which was befuddling. But they’ve been known to cover Pat Benatar, which earns them automatic coolness points, and their Rock What You Got checked into the Billboard 200 at No. 65 and the Christian album chart at No. 2 last week; a week later, it’s at No. 184 on the secular chart and No. 7 on the Christian one. The quasi-gothic melodrama of songs like “Hold” and “Crawl (Carry Me Through)” currently posted on the band’s MySpace page suggests they’ve got Evanescence/Flyleaf crossover dollars in their eyes. And the metal chords, hushed decadent voices, hockey-glam shouts, and stuff about being too “crazy” to sell out in “Hey Hey” go even further, blatantly (if not blasphemously) entering “Beautiful People” territory, which could almost count as subversive if any atheistic adolescents still bought Marilyn Manson CDs. “We Live,” meanwhile, is fake reggae about how people often die younger than expected, so watch out. Personally I think I might have preferred the band’s earlier, less dreary, more Go-Gos-style stuff – but hey hey, these are hard times.

THE CISTERCIAN MONKS OF STIFT HEILIGENKREUZ And now for some real Gothic melodrama. Not to be confused with the Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo (Spaniards whose album Chant went No. 3 in 1994), much less Enigma (Romanians whose album MCMXC a.D. went No. 6 in 1991), much less the Monks (proto-Kraut-rock U.S. servicemen in Germany who never charted), these latest Gregorian-chanting ex-altar boys hail from Vienna, and this week their otherworldly Chant: Music For The Soul high-masses its way into the Billboard 200 at No. 183. It’s already topped of the Classical Albums chart for two weeks, and it went top 10 in the U.K. “Earlier this year Universal UK placed ads in various religious publications encouraging monks and sacred singers to submit demos for consideration of a major recording contract. Word reached the monks of the Cistercian Abbey Stift Heiligenkreuz in Vienna, who applied via a clip they had posted on YouTube,” explains their MySpace page. “With their rich and evocative sound The Monks were the easy favorites. It helped that Pope Benedict XVI has declared this to be one of his favorite monasteries.” Probably also didn’t hurt that their video fits squarely in the Catholic-icon tradition of the Pet Shop Boys’ “It’s A Sin.” I wish the monks wore hoods, but I still think those saints’ statues could make for profitable merch.

SUPASTAAR FEATURING DORROUGH MUSIC Supastaar really really really likes Halle Berry a lot! Apparently because “she’s so classy, she’s so jazzy,” because she’s “thick in the hips,” because “she ain’t nothin’ but a tease,” because she “make a nigga wanna paint a Mona Lisa,” and other reasons that I’m pretty sure have something to do with peanut butter and jelly–maybe she’s got her own secret sandwich recipe! Thanks to all that, “Halle Berry” flittered onto the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart at No. 97 last week. SupaSTAAR (note capital letters) comes from Texas, he’s 19 years old, and his electro-beats sound like horn charts, but live, he does an a capella version of them while wearing a snazzy Hawaiian shirt. On his MySpace page, he also refers to himself as “Mr. Halle Berry.” I hope she knows!

THE ROAD HAMMERS Long beloved by lonely truck drivers throughout Alberta, these conceptual Canadians–who almost exclusively sing about being behind the wheel–entered the Heatseekers chart at No. 39 and the Country albums chart at No. 50 last week. This week, they convoy right off the former and downshift to No. 67 on the latter as their horny three-years-old-up-north talking blues “Girl On The Billboard” enters Hot Country Songs at No. 60. “I wanted to put together a thematic band that kinda played on all the musical roots that I love,” singer Jason McCoy explains. “It’s so diverse, from Southern rock to the country stuff.” Wow, what a stretch–nobody had ever thought of that hybrid before! McCoy sings almost as stiff as Steve Earle, but the Hammers’ riffs know how to pound a nail. Their best songs always seem to be cover versions, though–of old Little Feat and Dave Dudley and Jerry Reed classics, say. (The Smokey And the Bandit theme “East Bound and Down” in the latter case.) Last week on their MySpace page, 4th of July wishes outnumbered Canada Day (as in July 1) greetings by an appropriate score of 10-4, good buddy.

WATERMELON SLIM AND THE WORKERS Man, do these Oklahomans have the most minstrel-show-worthy name ever for a white band on Billboard’s blues chart–where No Paid Holiday slips to No. 15 this week after debuting at No. 10 last week–or what? “You have took all my possessions, but it just weren’t my day to drown,” bad-grammars the first song on Slim’s MySpace, followed by complaints about how “the pols in Washington don’t care about us poor boys down here.” Commendably class-conscious, too–second title is “Hard Times,” and they do plenty of numbers named for blue-collar occupations like bridge builders, whalers, trashmen, etc. (I was gonna say “scalemasters,” but that’s apparently that’s some kind of “portable, digital take-off tool” instead.) Plus: healthy side guitar parts. And the droned rhythms in “Bridge Builder” sound like Africa.

THE WOMBATS These Liverpudlians’ album A Guide To Love, Loss and Desperation entered the Heatseekers chart at No. 20 last week, and this week it’s at No. 50. They do weedy, wordy, nerdy, chummy, jangly Britpop songs with some modicum of forward motion; the lyrics deal with situations such as moving to New York to cure insomnia (not as much fun as when the Butthole Surfers moved to Florida), upper-class kids taking middle-class drugs in the woods (see also: “One For The Cutters” on the new Hold Steady album) and how everything is going swimmingly on their date until the girl slaps them. As Brits go, almost not boring! Also, they are named for a super-cuddly-looking, woodchuck-like Australian marsupial. My main complaint about their name is that a much more vigorous garage-punk band from Cleveland claimed the same moniker in the late ’70s, and supposedly they still do gigs sometimes. If they are forced to change their name to “The American Wombats” or “The Wombats Jr,” from now on, I will be totally pissed off.