Lunar Mistake - 2024 - Lunar Mistake

(37:47; Lunar Mistake)

Somehow I came across the band Lunar Mistake and when I asked them for more information I was sent this, “Lunar Mistake is a prog/post-punk/new wave band from Oakland. It features long-time members of the Bay Area music scene, including Matt Lebofsky (Secret Chiefs 3, miRthkon, MoeTar) on keyboards, Steve Lew (New Zombies, Eskimo, Ebola Soup) on bass, David Shamrock (Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Free Salamander Exhibit, Slombis) on drums, Drew Wheeler (Free Salamander Exhibit, Young Has Beens) on guitar, and Jackie Wheeler on vocals and percussion. Points of reference may include: Devo, Thinking Plague, Danny Elfman, Rush.” The more observant of you may have seen a couple of musical genres listed which surely could only mean one thing, and you would be right, as here is a pronk band which Tim Smith would surely be proud of. I cannot believe I don’t see a mention of Cardiacs in their influences (is it really more than a quarter of a century since ‘Sing To God’?) as here is a band who have taken pronk and run with it to make something which is RIO, Avant, yet somehow commercial at the same time.

Jackie may not have a great deal of experience in bands but she is happy with everything the band is throwing at her, whether it is the Devo-style punk of “Infinite Loop” or the more comical “Fishies”. This is a load of fun which could have come from the stable of either Cardiacs or Poisoned Electrick head and is a blast of punk prog fun which is so very different indeed to what is in the current scene where prog often seems to be quite involved at gazing at one’s navel. What we have here is a band producing music which was underground thirty years, and now is even more so as they are so very different indeed, yet their jagged angular melodies and guitar riffs are literally music to my ears.

Kev Rowland, January 2025

Links:
https://www.facebook.com/lunarmistake