The Pitch’s Infinite Playlist Round 38: Austin Woods

Illustration by Enrique

Welcome to The Pitch’s Infinite Playlist, a forever-growing playlist of songs picked by people in KC. View/follow the full playlist on Spotify, and you can always go back and check out the full run of articles. Throw the playlist on shuffle and enjoy away!

Playlist Guest #38: Austin Woods

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Austin Woods, and I’m a music writer. It’s an absurd way to live. 

I’m also currently an intern for The Pitch, as well as an avid reader, a guitarist, and a lover of black coffee. I fry my nervous system to oblivion with caffeine whenever I can.

Where can we support/follow your work?

Follow me on Twitter @austinwds64. 

“Trash” by the New York Dolls

“Trash” is like a ‘60s girl group song flooded with religious emotion. The Dolls find God in garbage heaps, pocket knives, and dingy alleyways. This track reminds me a lot of Last Exit to Brooklyn in that regard. As usual, Robert Christgau put it best—“The Dolls were dead-end kids in transcendence mode.”  

“Steal Softly Through Snow” by Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band

The Magic Band is the Great American Band. Don Van Vliet was a genius, no doubt, but his backing musicians deserve all the credit they can get. And besides, the Captain’s ego was often too big for his own good—like on the Trout Mask Replica version of this song, where his meandering vocals nearly swallow up the music entirely. Hence, my decision to include the instrumental demo from the Grow Fins box set. 

This track is bursting with melody. It’s a Cubist’s approach to rock ‘n roll—exploding a single piece of music into multiple angles at once, and achieving a totally new sense of space in the process. I feel like I could step right inside it and never leave. 

“Slaughterhouse” by Chat Pile 

I’ve seen others describe “Slaughterhouse” as an exposé of the meat industry, but that strikes me as a very surface-level reading. To me, this track offers a frightening portrait of modern life, where chronic brain fog is the norm (“Everyone’s head rings here”), and human beings are prodded along from institution to institution like cattle (“There is no escape/There’s no motherfucking exit”). Maybe I’m projecting my own neuroses a bit. 

Chat Pile is my favorite band of the 2020s. They sound like the bastard spawn of Big Black, the Butthole Surfers, and early Sonic Youth, but with Korn basslines. A pigfuck band for our times. 

“The Spectacular Commodity” by Glenn Branca

Invigorating. At times, downright terrifying. In a word, sublime. Just hit play and let it wash over you.

“That Black Snake Moan” by Blind Lemon Jefferson

If I could play guitar like Blind Lemon Jefferson, the whole world could kiss my ass. His licks, phrasing, and, most of all, crooked sense of timing remain unmatched. It’s criminal that you never find him on those “greatest guitarists of all time” lists—unsurprising, but still criminal. I wish I could travel back in time to give him an electric guitar and a fuzz pedal—Just imagine this song noised-up. And no, I haven’t seen that stupid Samuel L. Jackson movie.