Chief Prefab Pontificator (and creator of the animated video) Xerox Feinberg says this of the track and video, “’Outtayerhands’ is a warped prefab Zen meditation on the limits of directly affecting the wider world: the ‘stupid monkey’ behavior of the rich and powerful, the pointlessness of trying to effect change by ‘picking crumbs out of the carpet.’So much of what is going on is ‘outta yer hands’ — it can drive you crazy."
"Sonically, the song is a buzzing 21st Century ode to raging Kinksian garage-pop (maybe with a bit of wannabe Serge Gainsbourg thrown in?) In keeping with the whole theme of our Psychsploitation Today album, it *sounds* like what we feel."
"Finally, the animated video proudly wallows in mid-'60s Dadaist Anglophilia, featuring an alternative universe of senseless secret agent action.”
HERE'S WHAT FOLKS HAVE BEEN SAYING ABOUT THE PREFAB
MESSIAHS:
“Psychsploitation Today offers more garage goodies with tongues firmly planted in cheeks, fuzz boxes (and phasers) set on stun, and hooks aplenty hailing from all directions. Everything is played with gusto and gumption, ‘60s influences are proudly pinned to sleeves, but the Prefabs also inject their own ‘80s take on garage/psych that’ll have us digging our paisley shirts and Beatles boots out storage.” - Jeff Penczak, SHINDIG! MAGAZINE
“This outfit crawled from the basements and alleyways of Wormtown (Worcester, Mass. to the uninitiated) in 1981, died in 1983 and has been resurrected all these decades on to deliver a new and impressive gospel to a generation with its eyes open and tongues extended, excited about receiving a holy communion in which traces of the lysergic and psychedelic abound. These dudes have not traveled all this distance merely to know the place for the first time. They’ve come to own it.” - Jedd Beaudoin, POPMATTERS
“The Prefab Messiahs are a post-punk band with actual credibility, considering they formed in 1981 amid the peak of DIY basement guerrilla-style attacks on the status-quo of pop. Fast forward three decades later, with a little help from local heroes Burger Records, and this Boston-based four-piece is releasing an album of brand new material, saturated with years of experience as an “art-damaged psych-pop collective” eager to prove their worth. And they’re proving it pretty hard on their forthcoming album, Psychsploitation Today. Keep your ears on this band.” - Maya Eslami, WHAT YOUTH
“Are The Prefab Messiahs condemning psychsploitation or pursuing it? Both, maybe. Whatever the hell they’re up to, it’s a commendable hoot.” - JR Moores, RECORD COLLECTOR MAGAZINE
“Fake news? Alternative facts? Worcester rockers the Prefab Messiahs hold nothing back with their scathing indictment of President Donald Trump with ‘The Man Who Killed Reality,’ a bright bit of psychedelic rock bolstered by a satirical cartoon of the president on a rampage of mass destruction. Not subtle, no, but it’s a great bit of protest rock that captures the defiance of an earlier era and recasts it for a modern audience.” - Victor D. Infante, THE TELEGRAM
[9/10 ] “Joyous lyrics shared over some glorious `60s garage psychedelia.… had me happily drifting off almost to another dimension. Brilliant.” - Damian Sullivan, MAXIMUM VOLUME MUSIC
Click here for additional press quotes.
The Prefab Messiahs [photo: Plastic Mynd]
Timing is everything, they say. Of course, when you’re too far ahead of the curve musically-speaking, timing can also throw a wrench in the works. Give enough passage, however, and others eventually catch-up, understand... even emulate.
Such is the case for self-proclaimed micro-legendary weirdoz The Prefab Messiahs. Originally together from 1981-1983, they played basement and club shows fairly often. Armed with borrowed guitars, puny amps and a mission to confound the status quo, the Clark U. undergrads began a unique post-punk musical trajectory through the burgeoning-yet-insular Wormtown (Worcester, MA) underground. Aside from the 1983 cassette Flex Your Mind, though, no recorded material was available from them until 1998's Devolver CD-R - an anthology of their recordings from the early '80s. Several songs on the album were produced by their friend and outsider psychedelic singer-songwriter Bobb Trimble.
Fast-forward three decades later with the official remastered release of Devolver via Burger Records, followed by a well-received eight-song maxi-EP of new material entitled Keep Your Stupid Dreams Alive (2015), and it seems the stars have finally aligned for this art-damaged psych-pop collective. These two releases witnessed not only a new appreciation from a younger fanbase (not much older than the original one the band first started out with over 35 years ago), but also rave reviews from media, who traced the lineage from the Prefab Messiahs to many of today’s garage-psych scuzz-pups, such as Oh Sees, King Tuff, White Fence, Ty Segall, et al.
Now The Prefab Messiahs are set to release their latest full-length platter of new material, Psychsploitation Today. On it, the fuzzed-out foursome of Xerox Feinberg, Trip Thompson, Doc Michaud and Mattyboy Horn have cooked-up, arguably, their most far-out and fantastical effort to date. The new record continues the path of melding timely social commentary with equal measures of jangle, left-field garage-pop and hooks aplenty.
Prefabs' front dude Xerox Feinberg, a self-described "Lost Generation Wanna-be Spokesperson," describes the the band's approach on Psychsploitation Today thusly, “The new album is really a mental and sonic continuation of the things we were obsessed about from the beginning -- mashing up the sounds andattitudes of '60s garage-psychedelia with post-punk '80s stuff and dragging all that into whatever 'today' is -- while generally trying to poke people in the ribs and skewer some of the Big Shams behind all the Shiny Facades. We still don't do songs about girls' names or feeling good. We're still trying to toss everything into the mix including the kitchen sink. We're still bemused and shocked and disgusted with The State of Things -- and also in love with the noises in our heads and guitars. We like to think that The Prefab Messiahs' work is never done."
The Prefab Messiahs’ Psychsploitation Today will be available on cassette, CD, digital and streaming formats January 26th via Lolipop/Burger Records.
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FOR MORE INFO ON THE PREFAB MESSIAHS: website: https://theprefabmessiahs.bandcamp.com YouTube video channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/PrefabMessiahs Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5GYnYoovZYKHZwodZQ9leb?si=i-OliJy-ShShtTJ1RmyD0w
FOR MORE INFO ON LOLIPOP RECORDS: https://www.lolipoprecords.com
FOR MORE INFO ON BURGER RECORDS: http://burgerrecords.com
