Johnny Ill sings it how it is — and how it can be — real weird, sometimes. Whether he’s living in a garage or living in the future, cursing faulty washing machines or practicing good posture to attract more babes, he’s painting everyday portraits — mostly autobiographical — with a crooked view. This local quintet’s songs have the hooky mechanics of pop — it gleams with jangly struts, but Doctors is dented here and there: atonal riffs, floods of feedback and sing-speak rants. It’d be easy to wave this off as absurdist non-sequitur music if it weren’t the dude’s actual life.
This article appears in Dec 7-13, 2011.
