This Sunday, Marley’s Doghouse in Huntington brings out four bands for an ear-splitting freakfest, featuring some of the strangest music to strut, stumble and maybe tumble off a stage.

Speaking over the phone from somewhere in Morgantown, Andrew — the de facto speaker for Cryptorchid Chipmunk — sounds disoriented, even bored. It’s hard to tell whether he’s deliberately trying to be evasive or if he’s just got a head full of cold medicine. It’s a negotiation just to get him to say where he is.

“Can’t we just say that I’m in bed?” He groans. “I’m sorry. I’m just not feeling that creative today.”

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Cryptorchid Chipmunk is best described as ...odd. It’s a Morgantown-based band made up of self-described musical misfits that play a black-label brand of ska that they call “chaos ska core.” It’s a more artistic, theatrical blend of punk. Stage shows include garish costumes or occasionally, just underwear.

“We hate holding still and we like back flips,” Andrew says — then adds of the flips: “None of us can do them except the trombone player.”

The six to eight-piece band is over-the-top wild and weird, but also anonymous. Last names are optional. On stage, everyone goes by a jolly pirate nickname like Vanilla Killa or Agent FMF.

The group’s music is as difficult to explain as its name — at least, in a paper that kids might read. Their sound is reminiscent of old punk bands like D.R.I., Fishbone and even a little Dead Kennedys.

“We play ska, I guess, technically,” he says. “I wanted a band where I could hear all the music that I liked in about thirty seconds. I don’t think we have any roots. We don’t listen to other music.”

Appearing at the same show, is Maximum Headlessness, also from Morgantown, a band described as “weird electro cartoon horror rock.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much us,” Jett Bailes, lead singer says, laughing. “We don’t take ourselves too seriously. We’ve only been together as a band for about six months, so we’re still working on our stage show.”
The band got together as a response to what they were hearing on the radio.

“I just can’t listen to that stuff any more,” he says. “I just can’t.”

Maximum Headlessness plays hard and loud. The group has an industrial metal sound riddled with grunge: driving guitars, vocals screamed through a microphone and hammered drumbeats. Influences include nine inch nails, Nirvana and the Dead Milkmen.

“Plus a whole bunch of bands nobody has ever heard of,” Bailes says.

The name Maximum Headlessness, Jett explains, was something of a fluke. “We took the name because we wanted something that would get people’s attention,” he says. “Turns out that the term ‘Headlessness’ is a medical term that means, like, ‘not thinking.’ So our name means the ‘most not-thinking.’ Oh well ...”

"....deranged electro metal misfits.."

"Maximum Headlessness, a newly formed weird-electro-cartoon-metal group from the Morgantown area has released a self titled CD. If you want to hear a few cheesy horror ballads as well as a track of a guy saying "I'm a Michael Bolton fan" over and over again for a couple minutes, then MH is for you. I'd describe the band as Ween teaming up with Skinny Puppy to do a soundtrack for a low budget B-grade slasher film about suicide...I haven't decided whether or not this is a meeting that should happen but if you're interested, check it out. I'm not taking any responsibility here."