In every practice space across the world truly awful bands are rehearsing their shitty music, but that will NEVER be us; we don’t rehearse.
From Houston Texas.
2002 to present.
Reeking havoc…
FREAK PRIDE AND OTHER NEW MUSIC HERE
GIRLGANG RECORDING ARTISTS INDIAN JEWELRY
IMPOSSIBLISTS/CONTRARIANS
COXCOMBS…
NO GENRE, NO HELP, NO RULES
SUFI HEADBANGER.
A BENZENE LOTION RASH.
THE PERPETUAL WAR PARTY BAND…
BIOGRAPHICAL…
On Music and Table Manners
Indian Jewelry’s voice covers a wide range, from a wheezy giggle of delight to a loud “light tenor” call, or “demoniacal” scream; but attempts to claim it for anything approximating to a language have so far scarcely been justified.
For years the writer has been associated with Indian Jewelry. Shortly after their arrival, they were the chief guest of a luncheon party. They conducted themselves, until the arrival of the dessert, with the greatest propriety, touching no food with their hands, using table utensils and drinking out of a glass. When, however, at the end of the meal a large bowl of cherries appeared, Indian Jewelry could no longer contain themselves, and giving up their party manners for those of the wild, screamed with pleasure and plunged both hands into the fruit. The humans present laughed. But Indian Jewelry, who up to that moment had participated in the general merriment, did not join them. Instead they covered their faces with one hand, painfully embarassed by a sense of having committed a “social error.” This behavior on the part of Indian Jewelry refutes the assertions of those who believe a sense of shame is limited to humans.
REEKERS OF HAVOC.
HAVERS OF REEK.
RIPE FRIENDS.
FIT AND TAN FIENDS.
ABOUT WHOM IT HAS BEEN SAID…
“The state of Texas has sure given us some interesting and innovative
musical figures over the years, including the likes of Roky Erickson,
Gibby Haynes and Randy Turner. Erika Thrasher and Brandon Davis are
certainly sound pioneers in their own right, and whether performing
under the name of Indian Jewelry or one of their myriad other monikers
(including the hilariously ghoulish Corpses of Waco), this is one act
that doesn’t sit comfortably as a noise band, post-punk outfit, no-wave
project, psychedelic rock collective or experimental shoegaze freakout.
At the same time, there are elements of all that and more in the
group’s mind-bending performances. With song titles that suggest more
than a passing familiarity with esoteric knowledge and mysticism,
Indian Jewelry will mesmerize you with far more than clever rhetoric.”
Tom Murphy, Denver Westword, 2008
“Indian Jewelry … seem to permanently inhabit a sensual, raw netherworld where curls of smoke drift before your eyes. While not exactly goth, their sound is dark and sort of organically industrial, a soft, ritualistic dronecore conjured from yawning electronic noise, tumbleweed guitar, and disco beats. It’s a growling, prowling, synthetic powwow stomp, glamorous in every sense of the word, but you won’t need a sage or a sigil to figure it out. This is tantric, orgasmic, blood-warming, bone-rattling music, and I’d give my firstborn to join their cult.”
Liz Armstrong, Chicago Reader, 2006
“Like a shambolic coed mix-up of the Grateful Dead and Black Flag, they tour too much …”
Jules Driscoll, Muncie Free Press, 2010
“To be perfectly honest, I am not quite sure what in the hell this is, and it kind of freaks me out a little bit (and not just the paganistic, blood- splattered cover art). There are synths, piled on in dense layers, pulsing, groaning and grinding, a swooping noise used as rhythm, drums that sound like they are coming from next door, and what I can only guess is a horrendously distorted guitar being hit with something. It all gets stirred together into loping, lurching groove, and up pops the broken tape-recorder vocals. You get an album full of tunes played through thick layers of nasty haze, kind of like how the Swell Maps used to do it, but much more threatening. If you like being unsettled, definitely check this out.”
david christensen, fake jazz, 2003.
“Here, time is cellular… just a dream, underground, waiting to be found by starving shepherds and taken to jaded hunters. Who will fall on their bionic knees.”
Don Allred, Village Voice, 2004.
“Indian Jewelry have invented their own sonic language through which to pump all their endless paranoia, panache and aplomb. Must be scary to be the competition.”
Tiny Mix Tapes, 2008
“Unbearable hipster trash…”
Tod Wallers, Houston Post, 2005
“Indian Jewelry stand at a kind of musical crossroads where the gloriously dark moments of rock n’roll’s past hang side by side with clunky rave synths and a droned-out attitude. The stuff of Indian Jewelry is that primal, dark rock n’roll. The sixties as apocalyptic nightmare, as Altamont; the seventies as lawless New York where proto-punks Suicide endure pain to convey their message, filtered through an old Polaroid of the near ethereal, a fading glamour emerges, an almost holy release. Do they see their music as dark? “Any music lighter than ours is only fit for playing in elevators or energy drink commercials.” states Erika who claims she ultimately wants to reach “the Mexico of the mind”. This, coupled with a large, revolving line-up leads me to believe Indian Jewelry could make a pretty nifty cult: “We’d sell your sister to your mother, but we’d only rent your brother to your uncle.”
Paul Hanford, Dazed and Confused, 2008.
“Indian Jewelry do not make dark music to trip to; they make dark music to pack with you on spirit quests. Taking the bad acid freak-out aesthetic of fellow Texans the Butthole Surfers, and cutting it in with the droning electronic menace of Suicide, Indian Jewelry are the new robot shamans, projecting nano-bot visions on expansive wastelands and conjuring snippets of digitized desolation… “
Stylus Magazine, 2006.
Urban tribalists Indian Jewelry come on like a fever dream with leathery, swaggering riffs and strobe lights, leaving you wet on the floor. Last year’s Totaled LP was just another piece falling into place in the epic Indian Jewelry story. Recommended if you like confusion, paranoia and noise. Craig Hlavaty, Houston Press, 2010
