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Freeplay: Gin and the Tonics
By Megan Carneal
mcarneal@mscd.edu

God bless the juniper berry and everything it has spawned.

Gin and the Tonics are not only this writer’s poison of choice; they are also a three-piece female surf outfit that wears their kitschy-ness like a badge of courage.

They sound like the illegitimate love child of Dick Dale and Kim Deal. From their paternal side, they inherited smooth surf riffs and tremolo-manipulated chords heard on their instrumental tracks such as “Skirt Lyin’ in the Sun” and “Hurry Up and Wait.”

The vocals are so out of key it’s adorable – the same quality that earned Kim Deal her notoriety. Not only are the vocals familiar, but on tracks such as “Seven Day Wonder,” the bass lines also have the same happy-go-lucky air to them as The Pixies.

At points throughout the recording, it sounds as if Gin and the Tonics have had one too many gin and tonics themselves. The tempo either drags along too slow or the cuteness of the off-key vocals becomes painfully redundant. This is found most on tracks such as “Little Boy Best Not Be Up To No Good” and “Goin’ Bananas.”

No surf album would be complete without the beach-party track. The Tonics completed this tradition with “Metro Beach Party,” a more apt party for a generation that sees more pollution than Elvis types at their local beaches.

“Valley of 10,000 Smokes” is the most interesting and technical track on the recording. With an extended wah-wah-infused solo and drumming that sounds like tribal bongos at a voodoo ceremony, the track conjures up images of tiki torches and zombies – the rum cocktail, not the brain-eating undead.

According to the various posts on their page at http://archive.org, all three members of Gin and the Tonics were killed in a plane accident. This 17-track live recording is the only musical imprint the Tonics have left on this world and should be enjoyed by all juniper fanatics.