The Hot List
WHO: Heat Dust
WHAT: three dudes kicking over speakers and blasting fuzzed-out punk
After a three-year stint in Austin, Texas, guitarist Jasper den Hartigh returned to New Orleans and assembled Clayton Hunt and Shawn Tabor for Heat Dust, which debuted in October 2011. The band's upcoming 10-inch record, a collection of barreling three-minute gut punchers (a la Dinosaur Jr. and The Men), will be released on Texas Is Funny Recording Co. The band also is working on a full-length debut. "Writing a short, tight pop song is about the hardest thing you can do — writing pop songs that are really noisy with really depressing lyrics," den Hartigh says. "Making it into something really exaggerated and over the top, making 'being sad' seem ridiculous." (Check the chorus on the latest earworm "No Hands": "I'm driving no hands on the bridge / maybe now you'll hear about me.") — Woodward
