PiL review here
Grass Widow review here
Harry Nilsson review here
Showing posts with label Minutemen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Minutemen. Show all posts
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Friday, July 8, 2011
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Spotlight on Scientist Rock: Minutemen's THE PUNCH LINE (SST 004)
By this late date, I’ve become so familiar with the music of the Minutemen that it's almost part of my DNA. I can still recall quite vividly the first time I played THE PUNCH LINE, dropping needle to vinyl in my basement bedroom and preparing to flail my flabby frame to whatever my modest speakers spat out. This was a common ritual in those anything-but-halcyon high school days; however this occasion culminated with a different result. By the end of side one, I wasn’t all sweaty and puffy but was rather standing completely still, inspecting the album jacket in my hands like it was a piece of Mayan pottery that I'd inexplicably found under my bed during an all too infrequent cleaning session. Instead of flipping the record over, I replayed the first side again, and then a third time. It was a memorable afternoon, to say the least. At that point, I'd heard maybe a dozen or so punk records and a handful of homemade comps from friends where the music of assorted bands basically blended all together like the ingredients in a well-prepared fruit salad. Yum. When something stuck out, I elected to investigate further. First, I scored a copy of the justifiably legendary THE BLASTING CONCEPT compilation LP (SST 13), the contents of which felt like the sonic equivalent of being wailed on by a bunch of thuggish rouges, only to then be helped up, dusted off, and sent home with a playful ass slap. This led me directly to THE PUNCH LINE. One quality that still excites me about the record is how goddamned up-to-the-moment it sounds, specifically because the band's music was so extremely personal and, dare I say it, original. The "Ohh" word is best avoided as a rule when writing/talking about music (because there will almost always be someone ready to pounce and decry claims of originality with scenarios of influence, sometimes overstated and occasionally IMO imagined, though I’m getting submerged in a whole other bucket of guppies), but in this instance I feel it's acceptable to let it slip, mostly due to how it connects with the example of bassist Mike Watt's professed love of Modernist writers like Joyce and Faulkner.
The whole broad scope of Modernism (and 20th Century art in general) was flat-out ass-kicked by old man Ezra's challenge to "Make it new", and the still utterly unique music of these Pedro proles confirms to my ears that they really understood how to pull off that difficult task. In a nutshell, the only way to really, effectively make it new is to soak up and learn from the whole vast avalanche of worthwhile antecedents, and then after appropriate consideration distilling it into a potent brew that can make the receiver feel drunk (but not too drunk) with the liberating possibilities afforded by the freshness of this particular path. History so often repeats itself because too many hambones haven’t done their homework.
If all this sounds somewhat hyperbolic and worshipful, please allow me clarify. Regarding worship; if the story of this band is unfamiliar to you, I'll state that they were not a not a group that were knelt down to, at least not in the bright light of day. They were modest, positive, encouraging guys who in no way attempted to elevate themselves over their fan base, and were in fact vocally uncomfortable with the idea of musician as deity. If any band can be said to have brought the true essence of the punk rock ideal hurling into the indie-rock era and beyond, it was Boon Watt and Hurley. A book about the whole indie-rock explosion was thoughtfully titled from one of Minutemen's blunt lyrics: "Our band could be your life", a direct, level-headed mantra that sits in sharp contrast with some of the "Mascis is God" (new new Claptonism) or "Sonic Youth are geniuses" (new new Beatleism) remarks that I heard in smoky dorm-rooms and during car rides, so I hope you absorb the point that my verbiage is less designed for pedestal placing and is intended instead like the enthusiastic kudos you'd give to family or close friends when you discover that they've managed some particularly righteous feat. As for hyperbolic, I'll surrender guilty as charged, since the success and appeal of Minutemen is intrinsically linked to a workmanlike, kinda ordinary, no-big deal anti-swagger. Get in the studio, get onto tape, get outta there and get heard, and get back to being dudes. Indeed a large friction does exist between the reality of this band and my attempts to give them their due within the context of art and history and the struggle of moving onward (forward!) in the intertwining lives we're handed (i.e. SHIT THAT MATTERS), but if you just (re)consider that basement bedroom remembrance and how it's still hanging on tight after over twenty years of existence (fuggin’ nostalgia, it’ll get you every time), I hope that friction isn't difficult to swallow.
In one sense, I’m a bit disappointed that THE PUNCH LINE is no longer available as a standalone work, being currently in print as part of POST MERSH VOL. 1, the first of three collections that do an important job of showcasing the majority of the band’s pre DOUBLE NICKELS ON THE DIME output (though the greatest Minutemen comp will probably always be the gargantuan MY FIRST BELLS cassette (SST 32), an exhaustive road-trip readymade that smartly pulled together nearly everything these guy’s recorded pre-NICKELS and that I somehow stupidly and sadly allowed to slip through my fingers. I blame it on the format: convenient enough to fit in yr shirt pocket, but far easier to lose. It’s probably under the passenger side seat of a grey Chevy Chevette in some skanky junkyard at this very moment. Blah). Minutemen’s original releases are very distinct. While their sound was in constant flux they were also strict and thoughtful documentarians of their music and no-nonsense operators in the studio, the result being LPs and EPs that when lined up and played in something resembling chronological sequence present a thread of artistic progress that’s the equal of any rock band ever. And if you think THAT is hyperbole I simply ask you to shine a light on their betters. That said I don’t want to carp too loudly over how digitization can distort the beauty of a band’s evolution. Who’s to say that my approach to their sound is any more worthy than a sixteen year old skate rat pumping the band on IPod shuffle, anyway? Still, my passion for historical clarity burns.
THE PUNCH LINE is very much a punk rock record, eighteen songs in roughly fifteen minutes spinning at 45 RPM, and the overall hefty brevity is comparable to other get-it-over-and-done-with punk slabs from the same time period such as Circle Jerks’ GROUP SEX and Angry Samoans’ BACK FROM SAMOA (all three from Cali, I’ll add). The weight and shape of the sonics are quite different, of course, since Minutemen were squeezing out compact shards of what’s essentially a brutal and hyper punk/funk that continues to stand apart due to its solid minimalist tendencies, its sheer urgency, and its ultimate lack of egoist flash. They didn’t sound like anybody else, then or now, but this feat was achieved, as detailed above, through the absorption and consideration of precedent and the inspiration of their contemporaries. For instance, the music’s hooky minimalism took cues from the UK art-punk of Wire and marched in solidarity into the 1980s alongside fellow Californians Urinals (who’s “Ack Ack Ack” was covered by the ‘men). Certainly urgency and the avoidance of show-off moves aren’t uncommon traits in punk rock, but on this LP these qualities combine with the stridently political lyrical focus to attain a rare power. Where the words of so many punk bands are their least admirable quality (particularly as the ‘80s marched on), they were integral to what Minutemen were doing. They could say more with one song title than some bands could with an entire lyrical arsenal. THE PUNCH LINE shows them plumbing into the Beat-style word-smithing that later came to dominate their sound (moving away from the tyranny of the rhyme, but not forgetting that they were writing lyrics for instance), but at this early point they were still quite happy to embrace an edgy and well-considered didacticism, and you can feel as the record roars that the trio were fiercely proud to be political (a quality they never lost, in fact). And the ingrained influence of countless hours of pre-punk hard-rock listening (Blue Oyster Cult being the example the band most often championed) provides the record with both an amazing instrumental dexterity (attained through constant practice) and an unfailing balance between tight and loose, which for my ears is crucial due to the funk angle of the music (I’ll confess that when funk gets too tight it almost always loses me). Yet the dominance of punk in the total stew insures that they never succumb to hard rock’s excesses.
The idiosyncratic (though never obscure) nature of the Minutemen sound has gained them a strong following in the long term, but back in the ‘80s it caused many to hold the band at arm’s length: I often heard it spoken that they weren’t appropriately “punk” or “heavy” enough. I thought that sorta talk was crazy (natch), and I’m glad that hearing it has become less frequent than sightings of DRI muscle shirts. Faux Pas! The second hand vinyl of THE PUNCH LINE can’t be too hard to find or expensive when found, so if I’ve stirred yr interest, please don’t hesitate. It’s a very specific part of the Minutemen picture, and I contend that grappling with it alone will bring a sweet reward.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
early '80's California punk and SST records: thoughts from someone who frankly wasn't there, man.
I'm in the process of slowly working through some of my old writings with the intention of eventually placing most of it under the happy banner of this here blog. I'm sometimes subtly/sometimes substantially tweaking these earlier pieces, knocking out a clunky turn of phrase or adapting the text to the open-ended free-for-all approach that defines this small blip in the cyber-realm. If you are one of the three people that were previously familiar with these new/old postings, I'm sorry for the redundancy. Continue to watch this space for fresh posts. 'kay?
1977 is a landmark year in the history of rock music, for it announced to the world at large the arrival of a striped-down approach to the form that had been brewing under the surface for a good while previous: inspired by The Stooges, '60's garage bands, and even rockabilly and Chuck Berry, it was a raw, fresh approach, a return to basic principles, a slap in the face to rock-star aesthetics and show-off technical proficiency. Obviously, I'm talking about punk rock. But flash forward to the dawn of the '80s, and a look at the punk "scene" finds it floundering in a variety of directions. Many of the great bands that defined the '70s punk rock sound had broken up, others had either watered down their sound to find commercial acceptance (the "new wave" phenomena) or moved into more complex or abstract territory (post-punk or experimental music), and some were playing in the same style with less interesting results. For a variety of reasons, pure punk rock never caught on commercially in the USA, and this fact had major impact on what was happening in numerous regional music scenes around the country. The effect this had on Southern California, one of the strongest locales in the history of early American punk, was huge. Some took the new wave route, with probably the most commercially successful example being The Go-Gos (yes, they were a punk band in the beginning, though there is sadly no recorded evidence of this, their early days existing as a part of Cali punk lore). Many bands broke up, in some cases with individuals simply disappearing into a mist of anonymity, others like Darby Crash and Black Randy dying young, and a few like X and the post-Dils band Rank and File adjusting and adapting with varying levels of success to a more traditional rock sound. By the start of the Reagan decade punk rock was in bad shape. Shunned by the major record labels, perceived by the public at large as yesterday's fad, and carried on by bands who were either inferior to the classic sounds of the initial impulse or were soldiering forward with diminishing levels of chutzpah, it was obvious that something needed to happen to reignite and refocus the whole shebang. And it did. For some it was the renewed energy and focus of what came to be known as hardcore. For others, it was the varied and less genre specific sounds that were later described as indie-rock. But interestingly, one "scene" can lay claim to being an essential influence on both of these developments. That's SST records.
The label's inaugural blast was released in 1978, the NERVOUS BREAKDOWN 7 inch, and compared to other examples of punk that were extant at the time, it's a major step beyond (sonically, only The Dils and The Middle Class come anywhere near the antagonistic blitz of SST's first release. I should add that Germs, at this point, were still more notable for being barely able to hold their sound together, and for the sheer spectacle of their live shows. 1979 saw the release of their GI album, which frankly does give NERVOUS BREAKDOWN a run for its money in the extreme sonic pandemonium sweepstakes, though the Flag still take the honors by a nose). 1980 saw the band continuing the template (the challenge?) they laid out on that first platter, and it was this year that saw them gathering momentum and documenting the harsh, angry, brutally direct sound that was so influential to so many kids all over the country, kids who were vital in developing the early hardcore scene. In fact, Black Flag were so important to the hardcore explosion that was ready to detonate that they are often themselves called a hardcore band. Personally, I think this a mistake, an example of inclusion due in this case to the wicked mania of their sound, a sound that was so distinct from the often goofy non-conformist fun of their predecessors, and also the band's image or presentation, which was notably subversive (owning a Black Flag record, even in the late '80s, had the same feel that owning Burroughs novels did. It felt dangerous and liberating for a young mind). No, I'll always consider Black Flag to be a punk band, though I'll add that their brand of punk in the FIRST FOUR YEARS-era is really the perfect example of the genre at its most extreme: get any more "out there" and suddenly you've become something else. And that something else is really what hardcore was in its earliest days. Still intrinsically tied to punk, hardcore was, at its beginnings, an undeniable step in a new direction. Fueled by youth, adrenalin, rage, and a helplessness inspired by the culture of the time, hardcore at its best was a music that could send the listener reeling with its intensity. This sound served for many as a clarion call, and for others it was like a line in the sand; it was like 1977 all over again, except this time many of these snotty-nosed instigators (those who were still around) were now on the receiving end of this take it or leave it hostility. It would have been easy for Black Flag to just get swept up in the tide, tailoring their sound to this new scene, and receiving the hosannas of these new hardcore brigades on tour after tour across the country. But Flag leader Greg Ginn, through his label, had other fish to fry. If hardcore is eternally indebted to the Flag, indie-rock is unimaginable without SST. Look no further that the labels early stable of bands: Minutemen, Husker Du, Meat Puppets, and to a lesser extent Flag themselves were all beacons in the decade long march of indie-rock to its eventual explosion into worldwide consciousness via the Pacific Northwest and all the sweet hell that ensued throughout the '90s (indie-rock Mk. II).
Considering that these four bands were there at the beginning, sticking out like sore thumbs in an increasing sea of mediocrity and generics, maturing and redefining their sounds, influencing and frustrating their fellow travelers, using the inspiration and friction of the closeness of the SST "family" to create such timeless art, it becomes easy to declare that SST Records was the most important label of the '80s. The Minutemen grew from their spastic, individualist punk beginnings into the best rock trio since The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Meat Puppets kept refining what they were until they arrived at a wonderfully approachable twist on psychedelia. Husker Du subtly adjusted the noisy assault of their early sound to influence a horde of bands, and the loud/soft dynamics of The Pixies and the underappreciated early achievements of indie long-runners Superchunk are intrinsically linked to Mould/Hart/Norton.
Black Flag continued to confound listeners and critics like the dysfunctional yet brilliant unit they were; there was no accepted line on this band. Many turned their backs on them and others would praise the band for a particular release only to be let down or perplexed by the next one. The all over the map, document everything tactic of Ginn easily lost them more fans than it gained, but this eclectic, dramatic evolution endeared them to a small but fervent few as the one American band to have come from the late '70s punk scene that not only retained their relevance, but actually increased it. And in addition, Saccharine Trust existed as an often ignored, yet defiant entity that sent countless fanzine scribes into spasms of purple prose that alternately attempted to get their readers to hippen the fuck up and to document for all time how clueless these readers were in comparison to these tireless writer/publishers.
Overkill and Wurm? They show just how unconcerned SST were with scene fashion and how invested they were with personal satisfaction, and regardless of how successful you or I feel those releases were, they exist as the fringe elements of a label that was nothing short of a goddamned juggernaut that ran rampant over the '80s and was as important to the history of rock music as Chess, Sun, Stax, or Dangerhouse. By the tail end of this decade, if you listened to hardcore, you probably thought that the majority of indie bands (who were still working without the comfortable catchall genre designation to lump them under) were, with a few possible exceptions, arty or pretentious. If you listened to Sonic Youth or Dinosaur Jr. or their confederates, you were quite likely to feel that the hardcore scene was nothing short of a near-total waste of time. I can just imagine Greg Ginn, one day around say 1987, after a grueling yet commonplace marathon practice session with his post-Flag group Gone, sitting down for a brief rest in the SST office. After lighting the fifth joint of the day, he looks over to his desk and sees two magazines. One is the latest issue of Maximum Rock 'N' Roll, where in the letters section Black Flag is dismissed by one of countless punk theorists as "sucking after 1981", and the other is the most recent Forced Exposure, which gives the critical smackdown to SST's new Das Damen LP. Greg smokes his joint in the silence save for the ringing in his ears and for a brief moment sits back and smiles with recognition at the sheer fucking catalyst he's been. Then he gets up, calls his dealer for another bag, places a full page ad for SWA in the next Option magazine, and "forgets" to send out past due royalty checks. Just a hypothetical snapshot of a moment in a day in the life of an unabashed weirdo punk.
Monday, February 9, 2009
The Week in Listening 1/19 - 1/25
1/19/09- Bon Iver- Blood Bank CDEP 2009
Versus- Hurrah CD 2000
Sebadoh- Bubble and Scrape CD 1993
1/20/09- Minutemen- Double Nickels on the Dime CD 1985
The King Khan and BBQ Show- self titled CD 2007
Souled American- Fe CD 1988
Souled American- Flubber 1989
Slovenly- Thinking of Empire LP 1986
1/21/09- Shoes This High- The Nose One/A Mess b/w Foot’s Dream/Not Weighting 7” EP 1981
This Kind of Punishment- self titled LP 1983
Big Black- Lungs EP 1982
Scritti Politti- Early CD 2005
1/22/09- The Feelies- Paint it Black 12” EP 1980
The Feelies- Only Life LP 1988
1/23/09- The Go-Betweens- Lee Remick b/w Karen 7” 1978
Crystal Stilts- Alight of Night CD 2008
Television Personalities- 14th Floor b/w Oxford Street W1 7” 1978
Television Personalities- Part Time Punks b/w Where’s Bill Grundy Now? 7” 1978
Jeff Simmons- Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up LP 1969
Bunky & Jake- L. A. M. F. LP 1969
The Druids of Stonehenge- Creation LP 1968
1/24/09- Yo La Tengo- And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out CD 2000
1/25/09- Magma- Kobaia 2LP 1970
Fontaine Toups of Versus playing live at The Black Cat, Washington DC
MONDAY 1/19- In the vast sea of indie bands that washed over the ‘90s, Versus was special. They were indisputably a guitar band, though they were far too melodic to be described as noisy, even if they would bear down and explode with a blast of distorted dynamics on occasion. The band tended toward a tuneful prettiness (though never preciousness) that endeared them to the legions of fans of the K/Teen Beat/Simple Machines/Slumberland/etc corner of the era’s scene, while possessing qualities that helped them to stick out: foremost was how they deftly avoided being consumed by their influences, two big ones being Sonic Youth and Mission of Burma. In the case of SY, Versus soaked up elements of that band’s unique melodic sensibility and then married it to brevity and occasional subtle loud soft tactics that were unlike just about anything that was really happening with their peers at the time. Burma always seemed more like an inspiration than a specific influence (giving the band their name), but there are moments where the connection is overt. The other factor that assisted Versus in standing apart relates to image, attitude and lyrical content. I’ve gathered the feeling that the band (or at least Richard Baluyut and Fontaine Toups, the two members who are the main engine of the songwriting and vocals) were never really comfortable or pleased with a fair amount of indie rock’s (or pop’s, more appropriately) tendencies during this period. Toups always seemed somewhat reluctant to be a spokesperson for the generation of empowered women that Riot Grrl lit a spark under (though because of this she sort of was anyway), and Richard often appeared to be battling to suppress a mild distaste with the trendy/herdy behavior which was sometimes prevalent in the indie scene at this time. He struck me as a snide misanthropist at points, and a bit of a lyrical provocateur. He would tackle sexual topics either as a wet-lipped lothario or as a bruised and pissed victim: either way, he was engaging in adult subject matter in the midst of many who were indulging and encouraging an embrace of things childlike (lunchboxes as purses, anyone?). By the time Hurrah appeared Versus had refined their sound to the point of near scientific bliss, upping the ante in the songwriting department and reveling in transcendent shifts in volume and intensity, while also providing a platform for some of Fontaine’s best vocals and words (playing, too). When many speak fondly of this band, they are specifically referring to the Teen Beat era, and while that was a lovely period, the Merge releases are just as stellar (so are the Caroline recs, for that matter). Maybe I’m a pushover, but I haven’t heard a bum note from these cats. Here’s hoping they turn up at this year’s Merge Records anniversary extravaganza. They opened for Burma last year, so it’s not an unreasonable expectation.
Sebadoh, like just about all the other major players in the American low-fi phenomenon, eventually grew their sound to the point where their fi was as high as anybody’s. The record where they took the big jump was III, which certainly feels like a normal release that could be purchased in a store with carpeting and those horrid plastic CD racks even if it sounds at times wonderfully fucked. But III did have a quality of offhandedness in its assemblage, as if the contents were almost randomly ordered except for its opening and closing tracks. Bubble and Scrape, however is as study in shrewd audio construction. It feels considered in a way that nothing that preceded it did, and it’s anchored by the essential placement of three songs. “Soul and Fire” couldn’t be anything other than an album opener, all numb and melancholy acceptance, while the music moves in a lethargic gait to almost approach something like rocking. I’ve met more than a few people who treat this song like a heart shaped amulet that rests snuggly between their cleavage, and it is indeed a major statement. But so is “Homemade”, which strategically starts the home stretch for this disc with some loose and slightly stunted hard-rock bombast, the drums reaching for a cathartic busyness (in the best sense), the guitars burning with a twisted directness, and when Lou rages his angst in that booming wounded “ex-hardcore and proud” voice that pours out of him like the spirit of a six-band all-ages matinee, it all comes together with stoned precision. And that voice gets an extended chord-shredding workout on the album’s closer, “Flood”, a song that’ll blow the collective doors and windows off of any trailer park you care to inhabit. This shouldn’t infer that the other tracks are something other than delicious and moving. No, this baby is chock full o’ goodness, with “Happily Divided” standing as an anthem of sorts. It’s just that the three above songs hit with such perfect gusto that they demand mention above the rest. Bubble and Scrape is simply a classic record, wisely rendered and proudly abnormal.
TUESDAY 1/20- Minutemen are one of the top tier bands of all time. And Double Nickels is possibly the greatest rock trio double LP ever recorded. The intuitive understanding that the three members share with each other, the stunning songwriting, the comfort and intensity that all three of these classic dudes apply to their instruments, the intense emotional statement that is the record’s cumulative effect, and the legacy that’s ensued mark this document as an unqualified masterpiece. It does have peers, but the only 2LP by a trio that nears its scope and beauty that immediately springs to mind is The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Electric Ladyland. It might seem like I’m nitpicking a bit with this trio business, but to me the essence of a three piece lineup presents a special, no-nonsense style of rock music that thrusts all the participants to a high level of interaction and also puts the music under a sharp spotlight due to the lack of room for the players to hide. And that’s the thing, in trios the members are almost always players, since rock music basically necessitates at least three instruments to cook up the fire and tension that’s inherent to the form. This means that the often frustrating presence of a non-instrument wielding vocalist is absent from the proceedings. To me, this is a good thing. I ultimately prefer the Experience and Cream to Led Zep because the first two lack the sometimes senseless (or tasteless) histrionics of Bob Plant (quit throwing stones at me). Trio rock and roll at its best possesses the directness that reaches back to the form’s earliest days, where grit and spit and shit turned into giddy, inspired mayhem. And Double Nickels is like a genius split between the classic ideas laid down in Sun studios and the more knowing (though not yet self-conscious) expansiveness that marked the genre as the “and roll” fell off it’s name. This is a huge deal, because this record (this BAND) always existed as a reminder of what three non-pretentious and severely determined proles could achieve. Even when these guys were at their most jazzy, there was (is) never a distancing factor, or put another way, it never felt for an instant like the music or personalities were above the ears and hearts of the listeners, existing in a tower where they were to be looked up to and idolized. Minutemen were ground level stuff, always interacting and respecting their scene’s participants as peers, and if the girl or guy who was talking with Boon or helping Watt or Hurley load out gear couldn’t play like them, it was clear as crystal that this was due to the reality that Minutemen LIVED as musicians, that music was inseparable from their daily lives, and when this is the case extensive practice and playing becomes not a method toward the goal of virtuosity, but is instead a constant ritual of understanding and life-affirmation (I think this is the sense in which they are most similar to the jazz musicians that influenced them). Treating Minutemen like a life-lesson might get on the nerves of some, but fuck it. Their music has CONSTANTLY lit a fire under my sometimes shiftless ass, and celebrating them as a beacon of inspiration that comes unattached with any bogus Hallmark bullshit seems perfectly natural.
King Khan and BBQ Show play a loud and loose celebration of various forms of basic rock and roll as junk as gold as the soundtrack to body flailing, sweating, making out, drinking, wrestling, fucking, and numerous other activities impulsive and gratifying. They can soak up with stumping simplicity elements of garage, punk, rockabilly and doo-wop, toss in a bunch of non-ironic hyphens, and then spew out a stream of party oomph that can please wizened fans of Hazil Adkins as well as youngsters hep to German experimental techno. The dent that this duo has made in the indie scene (along with stuff like Dirtbombs and Jay Raetard) seems to relate to their inclusive attitude (where everybody is welcome to let it all hang out) while concurrently remaining true to the root-forms that inspire their sound. Khan looks like a Bollywood Little Richard, wears dresses and silver wigs, and is extrovert personified, so being cliquishly aloof doesn’t really figure in the equation. Mark Sultan a.k.a. BBQ is the calmer of the two, but that doesn’t mean he’s any less encouraging of irresponsible behavior. He’s the rhythmic bedrock that simultaneously gives this stuff its shape and helps to launch it into the atmosphere. It’s the vocalizing of the pair that brings it all home. Many bands in this field seem to work best in the single format where they don’t have a chance to let generic tendencies get the better of them. These guys however can hold it together (and then some) over the course of a substantial full length, displaying admirable songwriting ability. I’m predicting that this one will go down as a reliable party standby.
WEDNESDAY 1/21- Big Black is rightly regarded as one of the heaviest and most confrontational bands of the original “indie” impulse, but it wasn’t always that way. Lungs is Steve Albini all by his lonesome, multi-tracking a short slab of chilly post-punkishness which gives pointers to the stone-faced attitude that later helped define Big Black as the leaders in love them or loathe them noise rock. Musically, it’s a much more palatable affair. It’s been said that Albini disdains this recording, and it’s not hard to see why, since part of Big Black’s success was always rooted in kicking up a storm of parent killing ruckus that matched the (sometimes regrettable) lyrical content. This made the provocative nature of the whole very hard to shrug off, and has directly led to their lasting relevance; listening to Big Black at age 37 is still worthwhile, though naturally a different experience than at age 17. Twenty years ago it felt truly subversive to blast this music. The subject matter was like reading a true crime tabloid while on some horrendously bad acid. Almost nobody else was venturing into this kind of muddy unease, and the fact that guitars didn’t sound quite this corrosive and drum rhythms didn’t pound with an inhuman aggression quite like this in anybody else’s hands simply intensified the experience. The secret weapon was always Dave Riley, who either laid down some of the most superbly heavy basic pulsing I’ve ever heard or would approach a menacing funkiness that ultimately influenced a score of lesser bands, many of them industrial and dance-like. No matter. The sound of Lungs lacks so much of what Big Black became, instead sounding like what it was, a bedroom recording project that holds a bunch of historical value and a fair amount of sonic interest, but only musical hints of what was to come. If you love Big Black and haven’t heard it, you need to. It is a good one. Just don’t expect Atomizer or even Headache. Like I said, it’s only a good one.
On the other hand, there’s Scritti Politti. One of countless examples where a band’s initial recordings stand head and shoulders above what they did later (from my perspective, anyway), they are also notable for the seismic shift in their sound. So large is the gulf between where they started and the place they ended up (or are now. It’s been an on again off again proposition) that they basically have two different sets of fans. And this isn’t a case of a later chart topping band starting out as an inspired and appealingly inept punk act. Scritti Politti are a cornerstone in the annals of intellectual post-punk, as well as being one of the trailblazing bands on the early Rough Trade roster. Any short list of my personal Brit post-punk’s high points will always include “Is and Ought the Western World”, which remains a masterpiece of creeping catchy complexity. The music released under the Scritti Politti name (it slowly ceased to operate as a band, becoming essentially a vehicle for principle member Green Gartside) slowly changed until it ceased to resonate with me at all. The knee jerk reaction would be to decry them as morphing into a haircut band, but that misses a big point. As Gartside’s tastes changed and became more refined, he adapted them to whatever his lyrical (often philosophical) interests were, letting the chips fall where they may, often on the pop charts. His musical vehicles include soul, reggae and hip hop. It’s a very post-modern affair, where ideas like refinement and progression of a defined personal sound are looked upon as being rather antiquated. It’s also a highly British sensibility that harkens back to Bowie. It’s not an approach that bugs me in the slightest, but in this specific case all but the earliest results (collected on the disc listed above) leave me wanting. I do dig “The Sweetest Girl” (Early’s final track), though. Just not a much as “Skank Bloc Bologna”.
THURSDAY 1/22- The Feelies are essentially a classicist proposition, so it’s sometimes difficult to convince others of why they happen to be such a big deal. A case can certainly be made for their examination of the Velvet’s template that, like Jon Richman before them and Galaxie 500 after, lacked even a pinch of poseurism. Not that I’m a raging poseur-phobe. Acting like a low rent New York ahht junkie is certainly less offensive than being a Republican. But I digress. My point is that The Feelies’ VU moves are so devoid of affectation that many don’t even really notice them as being from that source. I wanted just a small taste of the debut album before moving on to Only Life, and the above 12” was the perfect place to get it. The Stones’ cover is solid slab of cap-tipping from a group that was so unconcerned with sand drawn lines that they covered The Beatles as well. The flip side hits many of Crazy Rhythms’ sweet spots, my personal favorite being “Raised Eyebrows”, which is as sweet a mixture of ache and elation to have ever graced my ears, the aural equivalent of the conflicting emotions you’d possibly get while driving away from a well-loved place you’ll never see again en route to somewhere rife with new possibilities. It’s gnawing guitar-pop flawlessness. Only Life is probably considered by many to be the band’s apex, due to the profile it helped them achieve. That’s fine, because the album’s fine. The “single” from the record, “Away”, is a succinctly appropriate example of their essence, which was spirited, often hyperactive and always catchy riff worship that could send a crowd into spastic pogo frenzies. By the time the closing cover of “What Goes On” hits the needle, the case for The Feelies has been soundly made, the finale serving as a celebratory summation of these guys’ unfettered righteousness. It’s as natural and invigorating as a homemade milkshake and just as tasty.
FRIDAY 1/23- The Go-Betweens are lauded as one of the greatest of Aussie bands, but I’ll confess that until now I’ve had a hit and run relationship with them. What I’ve heard has always felt nice, but a convoluted pile-up of circumstances has prevented me from giving them their due. Well, it’s 2009. The neglect must cease. So, getting in on the ground floor seems wise. The “Lee Remick” single is a mildly cheeky bit of pop-culture tomfoolery that grows with familiarity. It has the surface complexion of no-big-dealness, but underneath there is a deft intelligence to the smart-alecky celebration of the cinema actress that played so well in Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder. If they’d never released another record, you can bet this baby would already be snugly programmed on some revered anthology of essential one-offs from the wide open post-punk (chronologically, not stylistically) period, where it would inspire countless celebrators of the obscure to champion it and stick it on their own personally compiled (and therefore superior) mixes of the songs the populace was too stupid to succumb to. But hey, The Go-Betweens were no one-off. And while I’m far from an expert on their legacy, I know enough to state bluntly that this single is in no way representative of why the band is so well loved. It is the sort of laudably minor youthful grasping that’s immortalized the garage as a locale for activities far more worthwhile than car storage (park that jalopy in the yard). That it’s also a building block for the cut of the jib of a legendary band is just bonus. And hey, the flip is hip as well. An ode to a gal-ish axiom, it saunters up like a well-read smoothy version of early Jon Richman. Dare I say that in a year I’ll be calling this 7” a classic?
If you liked the Crystal Stilts EMusic EP, it’s doubtful that the full length (on Slumberland. Nice comeback!) will leave you disappointed. The recording seems a bit larger without being more polished, and the opening track “The Dazzled” hits just the right balance of mope and clang. The Stilts main focus is geared toward perfecting a memorably specific sound (instead of versatility) and they achieve this rather well from the evidence here, summoning up waves of melodically claustrophobic echo with spicy touches (notably basic drumming, well shaken tambourines, keyboards that alternately swirl or buzz). Noise-pop is a wonderfully appropriate contradiction, and it applies here: the computer speakers are around 12 inches away from me, and the music is surrounding my headspace like custard. The parameters of pop form give it an appealing familiarity, and I’m starting to think this band has the potential for real staying power and longevity. I’d drive an hour to see them play live, particularly if the club was the size of a shoebox and smelled like clove cigarettes.
Television Personalities are well-loved by me, and the first couple singles show how quickly main TVPer Dan Tracey navigated into his particular corner of the UK’s eccentric brigade of post-punkers. While TVP are rightfully associated with the Rough Trade scene (the classic debut album being released on that label), it’s worth noting that the first two singles were released on two different imprints (assumedly distributed by Rough Trade, though), and that both hit the racks in 1978. Thirty years after these 7”s were recorded there exists tidy categories to put bands like TVP into, but at the time it all really fell under the banner of punk, which is sometimes a more appealing way of looking at the whole affair instead of breaking it down into a couple hundred sub categories, or calling anything that isn’t unabashedly 4/4 to the floor throttling ramalama “post-punk”. One of the qualities that was so gripping about the Wanna Buy a Bridge? comp (released by Rough Trade and including “Part Time Punks”) was the wide differences in sound between the bands. TVP were the progenitors of a style that eventually came to be known by some as twee-pop, but it’s interesting how unique Tracey’s work still sounds after hundreds of groups rode the wave of his impulse. A big reason why is due to the almost absurd Brit-centric nature of the whole thing. The music crash lands smack dab between shambolic and ornate, shuffling along amateurishly with a coy catchiness that’s often subverted smartly by disjointed and stilted vocalizing. “Part Time Punks” is a peerless classic that any fan of Calvin’s K empire needs to hear. The weird lope of its gait has only grown over time, and TVP are as worthy now as when I first dropped needle on Wanna 15 years ago. Good on ‘em.
The Television Personalities
The ‘60s coughed out so many goddamned albums that I’ll probably go to my grave without hearing all the good ones. You too. Deal with it.
Jeff Simmons is primarily known as a Zappa associate who managed to secrete a couple of solo slabs, Lucille being particularly Frank-influenced. Zappa produced the record and appears under the pseudonym La Marr Bruister. It’s certainly a period piece for fresh ears at this late date, though it shares the outré cajones that helped to define the Straight/Bizarre label as a playground for adventuresome listeners of its era. Ol’ Frank burns well on guitar, the songs are nicely off-center, with a curdled bombast marking considerable portions. The title track and the acerbic “I’m in the Music Business” are the stand outs for me, and I look forward to getting closer to this one.
It’s a mystery why Bunky & Jake aren’t better known. Hell, a year ago I knew NOTHING about ‘em. The duo of Alan “Jake” Jacobs and Ann Rochelle “Bunky” Skinner are shorthanded as a New York folk duo, and L.A.M.F. hits all kinds of pleasant spots. Moments recall Lovin’ Spoonful, NRBQ, Delaney and Bonnie, The Mamas and the Papas and even a short blast of polished Ike & Tina lunacy on “County Line”. It all goes down like mellow hooch with the assistance of steady studio hands like Buzz Linhart, Ray Berretto and Felix Pappalardi. There is certainly a smooth post-hootenanny/coffeehouse/city-slicker jug bandish feel to the proceedings, so if that bugs you, you know what to do. Me? I think I’ll play it at my next cookout.
The Druids of Stonehenge have a name that’s simultaneously horrible and terrific: terrific because it’s horrible and horrible because it’s horrible. The failure to avoid an embarrassing moniker often points to potential lapses in musical taste as well. Creation largely avoids this however. The biggest reference marker for this surprising LP would be The Animals (maybe a bit underutilized as an influence in this era), the vocalist being quite reminiscent of Eric Burdon. Much of this is rudely rendered non-bloated blues rock with occasional drug references and mild psyche touches, with only one real misstep: the self-righteous 10th grade misogyny of the lyrics to “Painted Woman”. Music’s fine though. The opener “Six Feet Down” is a red herring, giving the impression that the record’s headed into pseudo studio psyche head games ala Electric Prunes (I also had a brief Vanilla Fudge moment), but ah, ‘twas not to be. Creation is laced with covers (Jay Hawkins, Love, Dylan) and a few of the originals sound like covers, so hopefully this indicates what’s happening here. Not in the least bit earth shattering, but definitely worth the effort.
SATURDAY 1/24- And Then Nothing is probably my favorite non-jazz record of 2000. With its release Yo La Tengo leapt from the category of great band in terms of longevity, consistency, taste and talent to the rare legion of groups that had the wherewithal to assemble a truly defining and near exhausting document that in this case will be looked back upon as one of its decade’s most beautiful releases (Some will feel that I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One already did this, and yeah that’s a brilliant album, it’s just not as amazing as this one). The general thrust of the CD is that of casual, warm grooving and quiet, almost achy love-burners, with the welcome disruptive distorto-rocking of “Cherry Chapstick” exploding from the speakers at just the right moment to remind everyone that Ira Kaplan will never lose touch with his ability to abuse a guitar. This disc is just an embarrassment of riches, with my favorite track likely being the vamped-out cover of George McCrae’s “You Can Have it All”: the odd but infectious backing vox of Ira and James, the loping, cagily funky drumming, and Georgia’s perfect singing have sent shivers through me more than once. But the maddening prettiness of “Tears Are in Your Eyes”, the fragile testifying of “Our Way to Fall” or the ginchy keyboard junk of “Let’s Save Tony Orlando’s House” aren’t far behind. It’s certainly true that greatness is often initially appreciated more than it’s fully emotionally felt, with time and appreciation turning admiration into love (or not). This is a record I FUCKING ADORE without a milliseconds hesitation. I couldn’t imagine being without it.
SUNDAY 1/25- No genre other than possibly fusion jazz gets the dander of dandies up more than progressive rock. It’s true that post-Syd pre-yawn Floyd, Soft Machine, Crimson, The Nice, Henry Cow and a few other bands have slowly escaped the derision that gets heaped upon the genre to this day. It’s not as bad as it used to be, though. As the back to basics mantra of punk rock continues to recede, the prejudice against things proggy has allowed for reevaluation. Often this came through the back door of Krautrock. This is a nice development to me. It’s doubtful that I’ll ever be an apologist for ELP, but when a band as strange and complex as Magma populates the ranks of the genre, I want to become an advocate. This 2LP debut shows a legitimate influence from both jazz and classical and adapts it to a weirdly rocking extended sci-fi opera about people moving from a dying Earth to another planet. An artificial language is created to tell the story, though my download didn’t come with a key to sort out what’s happening. So I’m missing a big portion of what this is about, but what I did get was pretty damn worthy. Defiant nerve was a major trait of the prog groups, and that occasionally curdled into arrogance. Which is fine, but when the music sucked, it could make me (maybe you too) want to spit derision for hours. Take that Emerson. Magma lack arrogance or suckiness. I don’t know how the later records stand up and I’m not really confident expanding on this one very deeply as yet, but it’s definitely strong enough to make me want to investigate further. Much further.
Versus- Hurrah CD 2000
Sebadoh- Bubble and Scrape CD 1993
1/20/09- Minutemen- Double Nickels on the Dime CD 1985
The King Khan and BBQ Show- self titled CD 2007
Souled American- Fe CD 1988
Souled American- Flubber 1989
Slovenly- Thinking of Empire LP 1986
1/21/09- Shoes This High- The Nose One/A Mess b/w Foot’s Dream/Not Weighting 7” EP 1981
This Kind of Punishment- self titled LP 1983
Big Black- Lungs EP 1982
Scritti Politti- Early CD 2005
1/22/09- The Feelies- Paint it Black 12” EP 1980
The Feelies- Only Life LP 1988
1/23/09- The Go-Betweens- Lee Remick b/w Karen 7” 1978
Crystal Stilts- Alight of Night CD 2008
Television Personalities- 14th Floor b/w Oxford Street W1 7” 1978
Television Personalities- Part Time Punks b/w Where’s Bill Grundy Now? 7” 1978
Jeff Simmons- Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up LP 1969
Bunky & Jake- L. A. M. F. LP 1969
The Druids of Stonehenge- Creation LP 1968
1/24/09- Yo La Tengo- And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out CD 2000
1/25/09- Magma- Kobaia 2LP 1970
Fontaine Toups of Versus playing live at The Black Cat, Washington DC
MONDAY 1/19- In the vast sea of indie bands that washed over the ‘90s, Versus was special. They were indisputably a guitar band, though they were far too melodic to be described as noisy, even if they would bear down and explode with a blast of distorted dynamics on occasion. The band tended toward a tuneful prettiness (though never preciousness) that endeared them to the legions of fans of the K/Teen Beat/Simple Machines/Slumberland/etc corner of the era’s scene, while possessing qualities that helped them to stick out: foremost was how they deftly avoided being consumed by their influences, two big ones being Sonic Youth and Mission of Burma. In the case of SY, Versus soaked up elements of that band’s unique melodic sensibility and then married it to brevity and occasional subtle loud soft tactics that were unlike just about anything that was really happening with their peers at the time. Burma always seemed more like an inspiration than a specific influence (giving the band their name), but there are moments where the connection is overt. The other factor that assisted Versus in standing apart relates to image, attitude and lyrical content. I’ve gathered the feeling that the band (or at least Richard Baluyut and Fontaine Toups, the two members who are the main engine of the songwriting and vocals) were never really comfortable or pleased with a fair amount of indie rock’s (or pop’s, more appropriately) tendencies during this period. Toups always seemed somewhat reluctant to be a spokesperson for the generation of empowered women that Riot Grrl lit a spark under (though because of this she sort of was anyway), and Richard often appeared to be battling to suppress a mild distaste with the trendy/herdy behavior which was sometimes prevalent in the indie scene at this time. He struck me as a snide misanthropist at points, and a bit of a lyrical provocateur. He would tackle sexual topics either as a wet-lipped lothario or as a bruised and pissed victim: either way, he was engaging in adult subject matter in the midst of many who were indulging and encouraging an embrace of things childlike (lunchboxes as purses, anyone?). By the time Hurrah appeared Versus had refined their sound to the point of near scientific bliss, upping the ante in the songwriting department and reveling in transcendent shifts in volume and intensity, while also providing a platform for some of Fontaine’s best vocals and words (playing, too). When many speak fondly of this band, they are specifically referring to the Teen Beat era, and while that was a lovely period, the Merge releases are just as stellar (so are the Caroline recs, for that matter). Maybe I’m a pushover, but I haven’t heard a bum note from these cats. Here’s hoping they turn up at this year’s Merge Records anniversary extravaganza. They opened for Burma last year, so it’s not an unreasonable expectation.
Sebadoh, like just about all the other major players in the American low-fi phenomenon, eventually grew their sound to the point where their fi was as high as anybody’s. The record where they took the big jump was III, which certainly feels like a normal release that could be purchased in a store with carpeting and those horrid plastic CD racks even if it sounds at times wonderfully fucked. But III did have a quality of offhandedness in its assemblage, as if the contents were almost randomly ordered except for its opening and closing tracks. Bubble and Scrape, however is as study in shrewd audio construction. It feels considered in a way that nothing that preceded it did, and it’s anchored by the essential placement of three songs. “Soul and Fire” couldn’t be anything other than an album opener, all numb and melancholy acceptance, while the music moves in a lethargic gait to almost approach something like rocking. I’ve met more than a few people who treat this song like a heart shaped amulet that rests snuggly between their cleavage, and it is indeed a major statement. But so is “Homemade”, which strategically starts the home stretch for this disc with some loose and slightly stunted hard-rock bombast, the drums reaching for a cathartic busyness (in the best sense), the guitars burning with a twisted directness, and when Lou rages his angst in that booming wounded “ex-hardcore and proud” voice that pours out of him like the spirit of a six-band all-ages matinee, it all comes together with stoned precision. And that voice gets an extended chord-shredding workout on the album’s closer, “Flood”, a song that’ll blow the collective doors and windows off of any trailer park you care to inhabit. This shouldn’t infer that the other tracks are something other than delicious and moving. No, this baby is chock full o’ goodness, with “Happily Divided” standing as an anthem of sorts. It’s just that the three above songs hit with such perfect gusto that they demand mention above the rest. Bubble and Scrape is simply a classic record, wisely rendered and proudly abnormal.
TUESDAY 1/20- Minutemen are one of the top tier bands of all time. And Double Nickels is possibly the greatest rock trio double LP ever recorded. The intuitive understanding that the three members share with each other, the stunning songwriting, the comfort and intensity that all three of these classic dudes apply to their instruments, the intense emotional statement that is the record’s cumulative effect, and the legacy that’s ensued mark this document as an unqualified masterpiece. It does have peers, but the only 2LP by a trio that nears its scope and beauty that immediately springs to mind is The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Electric Ladyland. It might seem like I’m nitpicking a bit with this trio business, but to me the essence of a three piece lineup presents a special, no-nonsense style of rock music that thrusts all the participants to a high level of interaction and also puts the music under a sharp spotlight due to the lack of room for the players to hide. And that’s the thing, in trios the members are almost always players, since rock music basically necessitates at least three instruments to cook up the fire and tension that’s inherent to the form. This means that the often frustrating presence of a non-instrument wielding vocalist is absent from the proceedings. To me, this is a good thing. I ultimately prefer the Experience and Cream to Led Zep because the first two lack the sometimes senseless (or tasteless) histrionics of Bob Plant (quit throwing stones at me). Trio rock and roll at its best possesses the directness that reaches back to the form’s earliest days, where grit and spit and shit turned into giddy, inspired mayhem. And Double Nickels is like a genius split between the classic ideas laid down in Sun studios and the more knowing (though not yet self-conscious) expansiveness that marked the genre as the “and roll” fell off it’s name. This is a huge deal, because this record (this BAND) always existed as a reminder of what three non-pretentious and severely determined proles could achieve. Even when these guys were at their most jazzy, there was (is) never a distancing factor, or put another way, it never felt for an instant like the music or personalities were above the ears and hearts of the listeners, existing in a tower where they were to be looked up to and idolized. Minutemen were ground level stuff, always interacting and respecting their scene’s participants as peers, and if the girl or guy who was talking with Boon or helping Watt or Hurley load out gear couldn’t play like them, it was clear as crystal that this was due to the reality that Minutemen LIVED as musicians, that music was inseparable from their daily lives, and when this is the case extensive practice and playing becomes not a method toward the goal of virtuosity, but is instead a constant ritual of understanding and life-affirmation (I think this is the sense in which they are most similar to the jazz musicians that influenced them). Treating Minutemen like a life-lesson might get on the nerves of some, but fuck it. Their music has CONSTANTLY lit a fire under my sometimes shiftless ass, and celebrating them as a beacon of inspiration that comes unattached with any bogus Hallmark bullshit seems perfectly natural.
King Khan and BBQ Show play a loud and loose celebration of various forms of basic rock and roll as junk as gold as the soundtrack to body flailing, sweating, making out, drinking, wrestling, fucking, and numerous other activities impulsive and gratifying. They can soak up with stumping simplicity elements of garage, punk, rockabilly and doo-wop, toss in a bunch of non-ironic hyphens, and then spew out a stream of party oomph that can please wizened fans of Hazil Adkins as well as youngsters hep to German experimental techno. The dent that this duo has made in the indie scene (along with stuff like Dirtbombs and Jay Raetard) seems to relate to their inclusive attitude (where everybody is welcome to let it all hang out) while concurrently remaining true to the root-forms that inspire their sound. Khan looks like a Bollywood Little Richard, wears dresses and silver wigs, and is extrovert personified, so being cliquishly aloof doesn’t really figure in the equation. Mark Sultan a.k.a. BBQ is the calmer of the two, but that doesn’t mean he’s any less encouraging of irresponsible behavior. He’s the rhythmic bedrock that simultaneously gives this stuff its shape and helps to launch it into the atmosphere. It’s the vocalizing of the pair that brings it all home. Many bands in this field seem to work best in the single format where they don’t have a chance to let generic tendencies get the better of them. These guys however can hold it together (and then some) over the course of a substantial full length, displaying admirable songwriting ability. I’m predicting that this one will go down as a reliable party standby.
WEDNESDAY 1/21- Big Black is rightly regarded as one of the heaviest and most confrontational bands of the original “indie” impulse, but it wasn’t always that way. Lungs is Steve Albini all by his lonesome, multi-tracking a short slab of chilly post-punkishness which gives pointers to the stone-faced attitude that later helped define Big Black as the leaders in love them or loathe them noise rock. Musically, it’s a much more palatable affair. It’s been said that Albini disdains this recording, and it’s not hard to see why, since part of Big Black’s success was always rooted in kicking up a storm of parent killing ruckus that matched the (sometimes regrettable) lyrical content. This made the provocative nature of the whole very hard to shrug off, and has directly led to their lasting relevance; listening to Big Black at age 37 is still worthwhile, though naturally a different experience than at age 17. Twenty years ago it felt truly subversive to blast this music. The subject matter was like reading a true crime tabloid while on some horrendously bad acid. Almost nobody else was venturing into this kind of muddy unease, and the fact that guitars didn’t sound quite this corrosive and drum rhythms didn’t pound with an inhuman aggression quite like this in anybody else’s hands simply intensified the experience. The secret weapon was always Dave Riley, who either laid down some of the most superbly heavy basic pulsing I’ve ever heard or would approach a menacing funkiness that ultimately influenced a score of lesser bands, many of them industrial and dance-like. No matter. The sound of Lungs lacks so much of what Big Black became, instead sounding like what it was, a bedroom recording project that holds a bunch of historical value and a fair amount of sonic interest, but only musical hints of what was to come. If you love Big Black and haven’t heard it, you need to. It is a good one. Just don’t expect Atomizer or even Headache. Like I said, it’s only a good one.
On the other hand, there’s Scritti Politti. One of countless examples where a band’s initial recordings stand head and shoulders above what they did later (from my perspective, anyway), they are also notable for the seismic shift in their sound. So large is the gulf between where they started and the place they ended up (or are now. It’s been an on again off again proposition) that they basically have two different sets of fans. And this isn’t a case of a later chart topping band starting out as an inspired and appealingly inept punk act. Scritti Politti are a cornerstone in the annals of intellectual post-punk, as well as being one of the trailblazing bands on the early Rough Trade roster. Any short list of my personal Brit post-punk’s high points will always include “Is and Ought the Western World”, which remains a masterpiece of creeping catchy complexity. The music released under the Scritti Politti name (it slowly ceased to operate as a band, becoming essentially a vehicle for principle member Green Gartside) slowly changed until it ceased to resonate with me at all. The knee jerk reaction would be to decry them as morphing into a haircut band, but that misses a big point. As Gartside’s tastes changed and became more refined, he adapted them to whatever his lyrical (often philosophical) interests were, letting the chips fall where they may, often on the pop charts. His musical vehicles include soul, reggae and hip hop. It’s a very post-modern affair, where ideas like refinement and progression of a defined personal sound are looked upon as being rather antiquated. It’s also a highly British sensibility that harkens back to Bowie. It’s not an approach that bugs me in the slightest, but in this specific case all but the earliest results (collected on the disc listed above) leave me wanting. I do dig “The Sweetest Girl” (Early’s final track), though. Just not a much as “Skank Bloc Bologna”.
THURSDAY 1/22- The Feelies are essentially a classicist proposition, so it’s sometimes difficult to convince others of why they happen to be such a big deal. A case can certainly be made for their examination of the Velvet’s template that, like Jon Richman before them and Galaxie 500 after, lacked even a pinch of poseurism. Not that I’m a raging poseur-phobe. Acting like a low rent New York ahht junkie is certainly less offensive than being a Republican. But I digress. My point is that The Feelies’ VU moves are so devoid of affectation that many don’t even really notice them as being from that source. I wanted just a small taste of the debut album before moving on to Only Life, and the above 12” was the perfect place to get it. The Stones’ cover is solid slab of cap-tipping from a group that was so unconcerned with sand drawn lines that they covered The Beatles as well. The flip side hits many of Crazy Rhythms’ sweet spots, my personal favorite being “Raised Eyebrows”, which is as sweet a mixture of ache and elation to have ever graced my ears, the aural equivalent of the conflicting emotions you’d possibly get while driving away from a well-loved place you’ll never see again en route to somewhere rife with new possibilities. It’s gnawing guitar-pop flawlessness. Only Life is probably considered by many to be the band’s apex, due to the profile it helped them achieve. That’s fine, because the album’s fine. The “single” from the record, “Away”, is a succinctly appropriate example of their essence, which was spirited, often hyperactive and always catchy riff worship that could send a crowd into spastic pogo frenzies. By the time the closing cover of “What Goes On” hits the needle, the case for The Feelies has been soundly made, the finale serving as a celebratory summation of these guys’ unfettered righteousness. It’s as natural and invigorating as a homemade milkshake and just as tasty.
Can't believe I missed this show.....
FRIDAY 1/23- The Go-Betweens are lauded as one of the greatest of Aussie bands, but I’ll confess that until now I’ve had a hit and run relationship with them. What I’ve heard has always felt nice, but a convoluted pile-up of circumstances has prevented me from giving them their due. Well, it’s 2009. The neglect must cease. So, getting in on the ground floor seems wise. The “Lee Remick” single is a mildly cheeky bit of pop-culture tomfoolery that grows with familiarity. It has the surface complexion of no-big-dealness, but underneath there is a deft intelligence to the smart-alecky celebration of the cinema actress that played so well in Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder. If they’d never released another record, you can bet this baby would already be snugly programmed on some revered anthology of essential one-offs from the wide open post-punk (chronologically, not stylistically) period, where it would inspire countless celebrators of the obscure to champion it and stick it on their own personally compiled (and therefore superior) mixes of the songs the populace was too stupid to succumb to. But hey, The Go-Betweens were no one-off. And while I’m far from an expert on their legacy, I know enough to state bluntly that this single is in no way representative of why the band is so well loved. It is the sort of laudably minor youthful grasping that’s immortalized the garage as a locale for activities far more worthwhile than car storage (park that jalopy in the yard). That it’s also a building block for the cut of the jib of a legendary band is just bonus. And hey, the flip is hip as well. An ode to a gal-ish axiom, it saunters up like a well-read smoothy version of early Jon Richman. Dare I say that in a year I’ll be calling this 7” a classic?
If you liked the Crystal Stilts EMusic EP, it’s doubtful that the full length (on Slumberland. Nice comeback!) will leave you disappointed. The recording seems a bit larger without being more polished, and the opening track “The Dazzled” hits just the right balance of mope and clang. The Stilts main focus is geared toward perfecting a memorably specific sound (instead of versatility) and they achieve this rather well from the evidence here, summoning up waves of melodically claustrophobic echo with spicy touches (notably basic drumming, well shaken tambourines, keyboards that alternately swirl or buzz). Noise-pop is a wonderfully appropriate contradiction, and it applies here: the computer speakers are around 12 inches away from me, and the music is surrounding my headspace like custard. The parameters of pop form give it an appealing familiarity, and I’m starting to think this band has the potential for real staying power and longevity. I’d drive an hour to see them play live, particularly if the club was the size of a shoebox and smelled like clove cigarettes.
Television Personalities are well-loved by me, and the first couple singles show how quickly main TVPer Dan Tracey navigated into his particular corner of the UK’s eccentric brigade of post-punkers. While TVP are rightfully associated with the Rough Trade scene (the classic debut album being released on that label), it’s worth noting that the first two singles were released on two different imprints (assumedly distributed by Rough Trade, though), and that both hit the racks in 1978. Thirty years after these 7”s were recorded there exists tidy categories to put bands like TVP into, but at the time it all really fell under the banner of punk, which is sometimes a more appealing way of looking at the whole affair instead of breaking it down into a couple hundred sub categories, or calling anything that isn’t unabashedly 4/4 to the floor throttling ramalama “post-punk”. One of the qualities that was so gripping about the Wanna Buy a Bridge? comp (released by Rough Trade and including “Part Time Punks”) was the wide differences in sound between the bands. TVP were the progenitors of a style that eventually came to be known by some as twee-pop, but it’s interesting how unique Tracey’s work still sounds after hundreds of groups rode the wave of his impulse. A big reason why is due to the almost absurd Brit-centric nature of the whole thing. The music crash lands smack dab between shambolic and ornate, shuffling along amateurishly with a coy catchiness that’s often subverted smartly by disjointed and stilted vocalizing. “Part Time Punks” is a peerless classic that any fan of Calvin’s K empire needs to hear. The weird lope of its gait has only grown over time, and TVP are as worthy now as when I first dropped needle on Wanna 15 years ago. Good on ‘em.
The Television Personalities
The ‘60s coughed out so many goddamned albums that I’ll probably go to my grave without hearing all the good ones. You too. Deal with it.
Jeff Simmons is primarily known as a Zappa associate who managed to secrete a couple of solo slabs, Lucille being particularly Frank-influenced. Zappa produced the record and appears under the pseudonym La Marr Bruister. It’s certainly a period piece for fresh ears at this late date, though it shares the outré cajones that helped to define the Straight/Bizarre label as a playground for adventuresome listeners of its era. Ol’ Frank burns well on guitar, the songs are nicely off-center, with a curdled bombast marking considerable portions. The title track and the acerbic “I’m in the Music Business” are the stand outs for me, and I look forward to getting closer to this one.
It’s a mystery why Bunky & Jake aren’t better known. Hell, a year ago I knew NOTHING about ‘em. The duo of Alan “Jake” Jacobs and Ann Rochelle “Bunky” Skinner are shorthanded as a New York folk duo, and L.A.M.F. hits all kinds of pleasant spots. Moments recall Lovin’ Spoonful, NRBQ, Delaney and Bonnie, The Mamas and the Papas and even a short blast of polished Ike & Tina lunacy on “County Line”. It all goes down like mellow hooch with the assistance of steady studio hands like Buzz Linhart, Ray Berretto and Felix Pappalardi. There is certainly a smooth post-hootenanny/coffeehouse/city-slicker jug bandish feel to the proceedings, so if that bugs you, you know what to do. Me? I think I’ll play it at my next cookout.
The Druids of Stonehenge have a name that’s simultaneously horrible and terrific: terrific because it’s horrible and horrible because it’s horrible. The failure to avoid an embarrassing moniker often points to potential lapses in musical taste as well. Creation largely avoids this however. The biggest reference marker for this surprising LP would be The Animals (maybe a bit underutilized as an influence in this era), the vocalist being quite reminiscent of Eric Burdon. Much of this is rudely rendered non-bloated blues rock with occasional drug references and mild psyche touches, with only one real misstep: the self-righteous 10th grade misogyny of the lyrics to “Painted Woman”. Music’s fine though. The opener “Six Feet Down” is a red herring, giving the impression that the record’s headed into pseudo studio psyche head games ala Electric Prunes (I also had a brief Vanilla Fudge moment), but ah, ‘twas not to be. Creation is laced with covers (Jay Hawkins, Love, Dylan) and a few of the originals sound like covers, so hopefully this indicates what’s happening here. Not in the least bit earth shattering, but definitely worth the effort.
SATURDAY 1/24- And Then Nothing is probably my favorite non-jazz record of 2000. With its release Yo La Tengo leapt from the category of great band in terms of longevity, consistency, taste and talent to the rare legion of groups that had the wherewithal to assemble a truly defining and near exhausting document that in this case will be looked back upon as one of its decade’s most beautiful releases (Some will feel that I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One already did this, and yeah that’s a brilliant album, it’s just not as amazing as this one). The general thrust of the CD is that of casual, warm grooving and quiet, almost achy love-burners, with the welcome disruptive distorto-rocking of “Cherry Chapstick” exploding from the speakers at just the right moment to remind everyone that Ira Kaplan will never lose touch with his ability to abuse a guitar. This disc is just an embarrassment of riches, with my favorite track likely being the vamped-out cover of George McCrae’s “You Can Have it All”: the odd but infectious backing vox of Ira and James, the loping, cagily funky drumming, and Georgia’s perfect singing have sent shivers through me more than once. But the maddening prettiness of “Tears Are in Your Eyes”, the fragile testifying of “Our Way to Fall” or the ginchy keyboard junk of “Let’s Save Tony Orlando’s House” aren’t far behind. It’s certainly true that greatness is often initially appreciated more than it’s fully emotionally felt, with time and appreciation turning admiration into love (or not). This is a record I FUCKING ADORE without a milliseconds hesitation. I couldn’t imagine being without it.
SUNDAY 1/25- No genre other than possibly fusion jazz gets the dander of dandies up more than progressive rock. It’s true that post-Syd pre-yawn Floyd, Soft Machine, Crimson, The Nice, Henry Cow and a few other bands have slowly escaped the derision that gets heaped upon the genre to this day. It’s not as bad as it used to be, though. As the back to basics mantra of punk rock continues to recede, the prejudice against things proggy has allowed for reevaluation. Often this came through the back door of Krautrock. This is a nice development to me. It’s doubtful that I’ll ever be an apologist for ELP, but when a band as strange and complex as Magma populates the ranks of the genre, I want to become an advocate. This 2LP debut shows a legitimate influence from both jazz and classical and adapts it to a weirdly rocking extended sci-fi opera about people moving from a dying Earth to another planet. An artificial language is created to tell the story, though my download didn’t come with a key to sort out what’s happening. So I’m missing a big portion of what this is about, but what I did get was pretty damn worthy. Defiant nerve was a major trait of the prog groups, and that occasionally curdled into arrogance. Which is fine, but when the music sucked, it could make me (maybe you too) want to spit derision for hours. Take that Emerson. Magma lack arrogance or suckiness. I don’t know how the later records stand up and I’m not really confident expanding on this one very deeply as yet, but it’s definitely strong enough to make me want to investigate further. Much further.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
I remember nothing but the good times (the bad times plague my subconscious) I wonder if it's too late to buy more beer (can anybody even drive?)
This was typed up as part of my ongoing series of blog posts relating to the Piccadilly St Podcast. It's posted on the Podcast's MySpace blog, but the Cadillac version is here, chock full of photos purloined from the ol' internets.
Somebody (certainly not Steve Martin) said writing about music is like dancing about architecture. Which is an outstanding thing to consider. If more people spontaneously burst into the Mashed Potato after stumbling across a geodesic dome, the world would be in better shape. don'tcha think?
The double album once held a significance that I don’t think has ever been replaced. Think about it: The Mother’s “Freak Out”, Dylan’s “Blonde on Blonde”, The Beatles White Album, Hendrix’s “Electric Ladyland”, The Velvet’s “Live 69”, The Grateful Dead’s “Live Dead”, Beefheart’s “Trout Mask Replica”, Can’s “Tago Mago”, and such underappreciated underground choices as The Hampton Grease Band’s “Music To Eat” and Skip Spence’s “Oar”. Yeah, the double CD has been around for quite a while, but the best of these from my perspective have come from the experimental music and avant-garde jazz scenes (and often aren’t intended to be absorbed all at once), and I can’t really think of many double CDs of pop/rock offhand that have had any kind of lasting significance besides Wilco’s “Being There” and Godspeed You Black Emperor’s “Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven”. Of course, many 2LP reissues fit on one CD, and the extended length of the compact disc allowed many bands in the ‘90s to release long discs that probably are in some ways analogous to the double album, except that the basic uninterrupted movement from first track to last (unless of course you want to so easily skip over however many songs don’t really fit your mood right now) is sort of antithetical to the whole 2LP experience.
But the 2LP, at least to nerds like me, held a serious aura that was like ritual. Listening alone wasn’t essential, but allowing any old jamook to join in was not recommended. Discussion was welcome, but so was tight-lipped silence, which is why solitary listening in these cases has its own sort of circumstance, the “bigness” of the endeavor being much different than the vibe fostered by “party records” or “house-cleaning staples”. If this sounds kooky or completely foreign to your personal experience, then I’ll just add that I still have strong memory residue from very deliberate interactions with every single 2LP listed above, sometimes on first listen, other times after becoming very familiar with the recordings, and either alone or with friends, some of whom I remain close with to this day. And this experience is kind of finite, since double albums aren’t things that can just be conjured up out of thin air. There were a few in the ‘90s, like Mike Watt’s “Ballhog or Tugboat” (released simultaneously on CD, though I had the vinyl version), and outsider masterpieces like Royal Trux’s “Twin Infinitives” and Simon Wickham-Smith & Richard Youngs’ “Lake” release (both of which were initially LP only, making them scarcer and more rarified tastes), but as that decade moved forward, the pickings became quite slim indeed.
And that’s the situation now, and a particularly distorted one, when new 45 to 50 minute releases are given 180-gram pressings that are spread over two LPs with a code for the downloads stuck inside. These are beautiful objects, sure. I own some, and will buy more. But they shouldn’t be confused with REAL double albums. And I’ve noticed that very few non-compilation/reissue releases by bands these days are pushing very far beyond the 50 minute mark. This is sensible, since most super-long discs aren’t, as they say, all killer no filler. But when some band does get inspired and kicks out a lengthy compact disc, it just doesn’t hold the weight that two thin, mass manufactured slabs of vinyl in a gatefold sleeve does. I realize that if CDs are all you’ve purchased and if vinyl holds no appeal for you, then my argument possibly resonates like one of those weird screeds your great granddad makes at Thanksgiving dinner. But please bear with me (for I am sincere), and I’ll stress again that my rambling isn’t that of the Luddite, but is only simple reflection.
Well, it was Husker Du that got me thinking about this. Maybe I have too much time to think, but hey, it all started with my initial idea that it wasn’t really technology that killed the 2LP, it was the 1980s. I mean, what a fucked decade. Particularly from a musical perspective (though film and literature were in the doldrums as well), it was, as Dickens once wrote, the worst of times. Except that it wasn’t if you happened to be plugged into the right connections. And if you were, then you very likely knew that three of the epoch’s best bands, Husker Du, Minutemen, and Sonic Youth all released double albums. What’s more is that they all released GREAT double albums. This might not seem unusual on the face of it, but it stands out for me for a couple of reasons.
First, all three essentially came from punk rock, which is a scene that has always championed brevity. The Circle Jerks’ classic debut album “Group Sex” lasts all of fifteen minutes. Four years later Husker Du unveiled “Zen Arcade”. Now, the kind of punk that the Husker’s were pile-driving through was certainly an expansive, thoughtful strain that could appeal to well-adjusted college kids and Rolling Stone critic David Fricke, which meant that for every spiky haired miscreant who couldn’t fathom this record’s hugeness, there were others to take their place. And the response was a big deal. Part of the reason why punk and Hardcore was running out of gas was due to the standards being set so goddamned low. Naturally, their compatriots from Pedro saw it as a challenge, and came up with “Double Nickels on the Dime”. Of course, by this point Minutemen had eclipsed punk to become the best unhyphenated rock band on the planet, so a double album wasn’t such a stretch in retrospect. At the time it was simply a bold move. By the decade’s close, Sonic Youth had jumped ship from SST and released “Daydream Nation”. I’ve debated with myself and others until blue-faced countenances resulted over whether “Daydream” or “Double Nickels” is the best record of the decade, and after a while it’s pointless. Call it a tie, and be done with it. Sonic Youth really had the easiest path to double LP immortality, since portions of their fan base were flirting with free jazz and other experimental forms and any notions of punk rock purity were sensibly given a big wet raspberry from the whole enclave. But this leads to my second point in regards to why these records stand out.
All three of these bands were undeniably underground, and while they were all certainly on the radar screens of mainstream writers and played by college radio stations and MTV’s more adventurous programming (specifically the IRS records program “The Cutting Edge Happy Hour” and the Sunday morning video staple “120 Minutes”), the very idea of releasing double albums to an audience that hadn’t been spoon fed a large publicity campaign and were not being bombarded with constant mainstream radio and video play was simply a very risky thing to do. Particularly in the case of Husker Du, being the first to do it, and Minutemen, following quickly afterward. The whole deal could have been disastrous for the Huskers and SST if nobody had bought the record, and if this had been the case, I think it’s doubtful that “Double Nickels” would have been released as a double. Which somehow makes me think it’s unlikely that “Daydream” would have came out in the form it did. It all really rested on the shoulders of the Huskers. “Zen Arcade” quickly sold out the initial conservatively sized pressing before the band finished touring to support it, and the idea that something born from the cleansing and often fleeting impulses of punk rock could span four sides of vinyl was soundly solidified.
Now I’ll admit that of the three records discussed, “Zen Arcade” sits a bit below the others in overall personal esteem. This doesn’t necessarily mean that it gives me the least pleasure while listening, but does say something about its lasting effects and the kind of pleasure that it does give. As smart and unique as it is, “Zen” is still very much a punk experience. Sure, it’s twice the punk record in comparison to nearly all others in terms of album sides, and five or six times the punk record in terms of overall abrasive beauty, but it’s still clearly in the punk rock playground. When that’s the only music that can hit the proverbial spot, “Zen” does the job as well as just about any other release that springs to mind. And when you’re looking for a more diversified sonic stew, “Zen” does have its moments: the shambling acoustics of “Never Talking to You Again” (a sound that remains an indie-rock staple to this day), the Bo Diddley gone bonkers mania of “Hare Krishna”, and the rising and falling extendedness of the near fourteen minute album closer “Recurring Dreams”. But these are just moments that successfully punctuate the overall modus operandi the band was mastering at this point in their existence, which was dynamic, scorching, noisy, yet still melodic rock music that owed a considerable debt, but was in no way slavishly devoted to post ’77 developments in sonic architecture. “Zen Arcade” only suffers when compared to the diamond hard perfection of the Minutemen and the sheer expansive largeness of Sonic Youth.
But let the comparisons cease. What Husker Du achieved with this four sided beast of a document deserves placement with the greatest of 2LPs, for it never suffers from lapses of inspiration and its forays away from punk orthodoxy never feel self-indulgent or shallow. On the contrary, its sustained energy and ingenuity form a wild momentum that’s demanding and ultimately rewarding. Where the great majority of double albums have a wide, horizontal sensibility due to the numerous directions they head into, “Zen Arcade” instead feels vertical and narrow and three dimensional, the songs sprinting forward in a tight space one after the other and resulting in a fantastic pile-up of beautifully dense heaviness. Listening to it on vinyl does allow the listener three breaks for reflection, and in this instance I’m not quite sure if that’s preferable to having them all jammed up together into one big uninterrupted blitz on a compact disc. Never having experienced this release on CD, I can only wonder and shrug my shoulders at the cagy brilliance of the band. Of course, it wouldn’t be at all difficult for me to experience this record in the digital format. But frankly, the attraction of continuing to deal with the splendor of “Zen Arcade” the way it was originally released, as two albums, four sides, and twenty-three amazing songs overrides any temptation to diversify the way I receive it. If that means I risk being seen as a stubborn stick in the mud, so be it. I prefer to think of it as simply championing the album as it was first released, and holding on to the wild vibe it so smartly provides. I own the vinyl right? Why not ride that specific experience for as long as I can afford electricity. Dropping the needle on this baby provides four grand bursts of shrewd and manic rock music, and sitting on my couch soaking it up takes me back two decades to some of the best times that era offered. And since records like this one always helped to stomp down and level off the worst of times, listening today holds a touch of joyous celebration. Am I wrong to think that Dickens would’ve dug it?
Somebody (certainly not Steve Martin) said writing about music is like dancing about architecture. Which is an outstanding thing to consider. If more people spontaneously burst into the Mashed Potato after stumbling across a geodesic dome, the world would be in better shape. don'tcha think?
Double albums are one of the major facets of the rock music universe to suffer a near fatal blow from the advent of the compact disc. And now that CDs are slowly being shown the door (good fucking riddance, I say) and digital downloading is consistently rising as the dominant consumer standard, the significance of a musician or band collecting a large group of songs into a tangible, sometimes unwieldy, other times revelatory statement/package seems as far away as ever. And that’s okay. Times change, and the last thing I want to be is in cahoots with the kind of smelly curmudgeon that’s constantly barking over how multi-track recording ruined music, or that the shift away from analog in favor of digital technology somehow spelled the end of worthwhile contemporary recordings. Nah, that’s not me. I just downloaded a bunch of fine new music last night. Adapting to whatever technological (and ideological) changes that develop as time marches on seems to me a simple decision to make since the overall conditions and impulses that actually cause people to get together in a room and make music (and gather together to listen to it) are essentially the same. Commerce entered the picture well before the Great Depression, forever changing how music was received by the populace, and one constant theme since then has been the struggle between musicians and the people who wish to profit from their abilities. This is a big reason why digital downloading has been so largely embraced not only by listeners, but by musicians as well.
But sometimes it’s hard not be a bit, uh, nostalgic for certain things that have all but slipped away. And I want to put a fine point on this, making clear that it isn’t just a lament over the vinyl LP, for high quality records are still being made by current bands and plenty of important, classic recordings are getting fantastic reissues on wax. And if you throw the never ending stream of second-hand rescues from stores, yard sales, flea markets, antiques shops, etc it should be plain that the desire to simply enjoy music via the vinyl format is an easy one to quench. So no, my point here is a bigger one that has specifically to do with the 2LP.
The double album once held a significance that I don’t think has ever been replaced. Think about it: The Mother’s “Freak Out”, Dylan’s “Blonde on Blonde”, The Beatles White Album, Hendrix’s “Electric Ladyland”, The Velvet’s “Live 69”, The Grateful Dead’s “Live Dead”, Beefheart’s “Trout Mask Replica”, Can’s “Tago Mago”, and such underappreciated underground choices as The Hampton Grease Band’s “Music To Eat” and Skip Spence’s “Oar”. Yeah, the double CD has been around for quite a while, but the best of these from my perspective have come from the experimental music and avant-garde jazz scenes (and often aren’t intended to be absorbed all at once), and I can’t really think of many double CDs of pop/rock offhand that have had any kind of lasting significance besides Wilco’s “Being There” and Godspeed You Black Emperor’s “Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven”. Of course, many 2LP reissues fit on one CD, and the extended length of the compact disc allowed many bands in the ‘90s to release long discs that probably are in some ways analogous to the double album, except that the basic uninterrupted movement from first track to last (unless of course you want to so easily skip over however many songs don’t really fit your mood right now) is sort of antithetical to the whole 2LP experience.
This experience, if you’ve never had it, can be roughly like: Cue up side one. Sit (or lie) down. Listen. Talk with your friends, if you’re lucky enough to have any. Consider how track three is not all that great. Debate skipping over it. Oh, fuck it, it’s almost over. Marvel at the bass playing on track four. Wow. Side one is done. Rather sweet. You kind of want to jump right into side two, but maybe you’ll step outside to check out that full moon and digest that bass playing some more. Repeat variations of this experience three times. Chuck a 78 minute CD in the player and you’re done unless you want to program under half the tracks or quickly jump over two or three along the way. I’ve done it. You’ve done it. It’s easy, and often necessary.
But the 2LP, at least to nerds like me, held a serious aura that was like ritual. Listening alone wasn’t essential, but allowing any old jamook to join in was not recommended. Discussion was welcome, but so was tight-lipped silence, which is why solitary listening in these cases has its own sort of circumstance, the “bigness” of the endeavor being much different than the vibe fostered by “party records” or “house-cleaning staples”. If this sounds kooky or completely foreign to your personal experience, then I’ll just add that I still have strong memory residue from very deliberate interactions with every single 2LP listed above, sometimes on first listen, other times after becoming very familiar with the recordings, and either alone or with friends, some of whom I remain close with to this day. And this experience is kind of finite, since double albums aren’t things that can just be conjured up out of thin air. There were a few in the ‘90s, like Mike Watt’s “Ballhog or Tugboat” (released simultaneously on CD, though I had the vinyl version), and outsider masterpieces like Royal Trux’s “Twin Infinitives” and Simon Wickham-Smith & Richard Youngs’ “Lake” release (both of which were initially LP only, making them scarcer and more rarified tastes), but as that decade moved forward, the pickings became quite slim indeed.
And that’s the situation now, and a particularly distorted one, when new 45 to 50 minute releases are given 180-gram pressings that are spread over two LPs with a code for the downloads stuck inside. These are beautiful objects, sure. I own some, and will buy more. But they shouldn’t be confused with REAL double albums. And I’ve noticed that very few non-compilation/reissue releases by bands these days are pushing very far beyond the 50 minute mark. This is sensible, since most super-long discs aren’t, as they say, all killer no filler. But when some band does get inspired and kicks out a lengthy compact disc, it just doesn’t hold the weight that two thin, mass manufactured slabs of vinyl in a gatefold sleeve does. I realize that if CDs are all you’ve purchased and if vinyl holds no appeal for you, then my argument possibly resonates like one of those weird screeds your great granddad makes at Thanksgiving dinner. But please bear with me (for I am sincere), and I’ll stress again that my rambling isn’t that of the Luddite, but is only simple reflection.
Well, it was Husker Du that got me thinking about this. Maybe I have too much time to think, but hey, it all started with my initial idea that it wasn’t really technology that killed the 2LP, it was the 1980s. I mean, what a fucked decade. Particularly from a musical perspective (though film and literature were in the doldrums as well), it was, as Dickens once wrote, the worst of times. Except that it wasn’t if you happened to be plugged into the right connections. And if you were, then you very likely knew that three of the epoch’s best bands, Husker Du, Minutemen, and Sonic Youth all released double albums. What’s more is that they all released GREAT double albums. This might not seem unusual on the face of it, but it stands out for me for a couple of reasons.
First, all three essentially came from punk rock, which is a scene that has always championed brevity. The Circle Jerks’ classic debut album “Group Sex” lasts all of fifteen minutes. Four years later Husker Du unveiled “Zen Arcade”. Now, the kind of punk that the Husker’s were pile-driving through was certainly an expansive, thoughtful strain that could appeal to well-adjusted college kids and Rolling Stone critic David Fricke, which meant that for every spiky haired miscreant who couldn’t fathom this record’s hugeness, there were others to take their place. And the response was a big deal. Part of the reason why punk and Hardcore was running out of gas was due to the standards being set so goddamned low. Naturally, their compatriots from Pedro saw it as a challenge, and came up with “Double Nickels on the Dime”. Of course, by this point Minutemen had eclipsed punk to become the best unhyphenated rock band on the planet, so a double album wasn’t such a stretch in retrospect. At the time it was simply a bold move. By the decade’s close, Sonic Youth had jumped ship from SST and released “Daydream Nation”. I’ve debated with myself and others until blue-faced countenances resulted over whether “Daydream” or “Double Nickels” is the best record of the decade, and after a while it’s pointless. Call it a tie, and be done with it. Sonic Youth really had the easiest path to double LP immortality, since portions of their fan base were flirting with free jazz and other experimental forms and any notions of punk rock purity were sensibly given a big wet raspberry from the whole enclave. But this leads to my second point in regards to why these records stand out.
All three of these bands were undeniably underground, and while they were all certainly on the radar screens of mainstream writers and played by college radio stations and MTV’s more adventurous programming (specifically the IRS records program “The Cutting Edge Happy Hour” and the Sunday morning video staple “120 Minutes”), the very idea of releasing double albums to an audience that hadn’t been spoon fed a large publicity campaign and were not being bombarded with constant mainstream radio and video play was simply a very risky thing to do. Particularly in the case of Husker Du, being the first to do it, and Minutemen, following quickly afterward. The whole deal could have been disastrous for the Huskers and SST if nobody had bought the record, and if this had been the case, I think it’s doubtful that “Double Nickels” would have been released as a double. Which somehow makes me think it’s unlikely that “Daydream” would have came out in the form it did. It all really rested on the shoulders of the Huskers. “Zen Arcade” quickly sold out the initial conservatively sized pressing before the band finished touring to support it, and the idea that something born from the cleansing and often fleeting impulses of punk rock could span four sides of vinyl was soundly solidified.
Now I’ll admit that of the three records discussed, “Zen Arcade” sits a bit below the others in overall personal esteem. This doesn’t necessarily mean that it gives me the least pleasure while listening, but does say something about its lasting effects and the kind of pleasure that it does give. As smart and unique as it is, “Zen” is still very much a punk experience. Sure, it’s twice the punk record in comparison to nearly all others in terms of album sides, and five or six times the punk record in terms of overall abrasive beauty, but it’s still clearly in the punk rock playground. When that’s the only music that can hit the proverbial spot, “Zen” does the job as well as just about any other release that springs to mind. And when you’re looking for a more diversified sonic stew, “Zen” does have its moments: the shambling acoustics of “Never Talking to You Again” (a sound that remains an indie-rock staple to this day), the Bo Diddley gone bonkers mania of “Hare Krishna”, and the rising and falling extendedness of the near fourteen minute album closer “Recurring Dreams”. But these are just moments that successfully punctuate the overall modus operandi the band was mastering at this point in their existence, which was dynamic, scorching, noisy, yet still melodic rock music that owed a considerable debt, but was in no way slavishly devoted to post ’77 developments in sonic architecture. “Zen Arcade” only suffers when compared to the diamond hard perfection of the Minutemen and the sheer expansive largeness of Sonic Youth.
But let the comparisons cease. What Husker Du achieved with this four sided beast of a document deserves placement with the greatest of 2LPs, for it never suffers from lapses of inspiration and its forays away from punk orthodoxy never feel self-indulgent or shallow. On the contrary, its sustained energy and ingenuity form a wild momentum that’s demanding and ultimately rewarding. Where the great majority of double albums have a wide, horizontal sensibility due to the numerous directions they head into, “Zen Arcade” instead feels vertical and narrow and three dimensional, the songs sprinting forward in a tight space one after the other and resulting in a fantastic pile-up of beautifully dense heaviness. Listening to it on vinyl does allow the listener three breaks for reflection, and in this instance I’m not quite sure if that’s preferable to having them all jammed up together into one big uninterrupted blitz on a compact disc. Never having experienced this release on CD, I can only wonder and shrug my shoulders at the cagy brilliance of the band. Of course, it wouldn’t be at all difficult for me to experience this record in the digital format. But frankly, the attraction of continuing to deal with the splendor of “Zen Arcade” the way it was originally released, as two albums, four sides, and twenty-three amazing songs overrides any temptation to diversify the way I receive it. If that means I risk being seen as a stubborn stick in the mud, so be it. I prefer to think of it as simply championing the album as it was first released, and holding on to the wild vibe it so smartly provides. I own the vinyl right? Why not ride that specific experience for as long as I can afford electricity. Dropping the needle on this baby provides four grand bursts of shrewd and manic rock music, and sitting on my couch soaking it up takes me back two decades to some of the best times that era offered. And since records like this one always helped to stomp down and level off the worst of times, listening today holds a touch of joyous celebration. Am I wrong to think that Dickens would’ve dug it?
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