🗞️ Wallshine or Whineshine? (Dropout Rag, 1990)
Filed under Clippings & Snippings. Reprinted with annotation by L. Wren, 1997.
Some articles tried to kill a song before it ever had the chance to matter.
This one missed. Barely.
Wallshine wasn’t even officially out — just a dubbed cassette passed hand-to-hand with a Sharpie on the case.
And yet this piece somehow ended up on every coffee table and gear crate in Nayasa Bay.
Stix Rattlebore’s review made fun of the grammar, the imagery, the scene hype.
And still played the tape on repeat.
That’s how you know it hit.
If you were there, you remember people quoting this review ironically —
until one day they stopped being ironic.
📝 Original Article: Wallshine or Whineshine?
By Stix Rattlebore — Dropout Rag #28 (November 1990)
You can’t go two feet past The Spill’s bathroom door without tripping over a Wallshine flyer these days.
Must be nice to have a friend with a working Xerox.
So let’s talk about Downvent, Nayasa Bay’s latest hopefuls in the
“too loud for pop, too moody for punk” sweepstakes.
Their new demo, Wallshine, dropped last week like a freshly-kicked amp —
and half the scene’s already decided it’s the second coming of, I don’t know, early Soundgrit?
“Wallshine” (the song) is like a Beatles song disguised as punk rock,
matched by Dirk’s vocals that somehow are melodical in their atonality.
Dylan’s bass is locked-in but weirdly tense,
and Derek plays drums like he’s fighting off bees.
It’s raw. It’s annoyingly catchy. It’s… almost good.
But here’s my beef: it wants to be important.
You can hear it in the way the lyrics are stupidly catchy,
like Dirk doesn’t know a thing about grammar —
all those cryptic lines that talk about coat racks and hanging round.
What the hell are they talking about?
That makes Wallshine feel less like a rebellion and more like a pose.
A compelling one, sure — but still a pose.
Like they want to be seen cracking, not breaking.
Final verdict:
Wallshine is a promising bruise on an otherwise unremarkable arm.
But if Downvent wants to matter, they’ll need more than atmosphere and amp buzz.
Don’t prove me wrong too fast, kids.
I just got comfortable in my cynicism.
✉️ Fan Letter: “Whineshine? Please.”
Printed in Dropout Rag #29 — January 1991
By Carrie B. (yes, that Carrie)
Look, I get that Stix thinks it’s his job to roll his eyes
at everything louder than a whisper.
But calling Wallshine a “pose” is like calling a brick wall theatrical
just because your head bounced off it.I’ve seen Downvent live four times since October.
Every single time, that song shuts people up.
Not in a “polite applause” way —
in a “this might actually matter” way.I’m not saying they’re gods. I’m saying they’re real.
And if you can’t handle someone trying to mean something
without sounding like they’re apologizing for it,
maybe the problem isn’t the band.— Carrie B.
(yes I was the one who stapled flyers to your bike, sorry)
🔗 Related Clippings
- DJ Tirefire reviews Wallshine (bootleg)
- From Spill to Spark: Downvent’s Demo Lights a Fire
- Back to Clippings & Snippings
→ Read: “From Spill to Spark: Downvent’s Demo Lights a Fire” (Nayasa Weekly Beat, 1990)