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november 2003
11.3.03
Okay. Back to the Mixtape: 1986 commentary. Got a little off track last week. |
11.3.03
Mixtape: 1986
Track 5
"Kundalini Express"
Express
Love & Rockets
The great thing about "alternative" music back in 1986 was that it really was alternative, a broad category that included pretty much anything that didn't fit into the neat little divisions like pop/rock, R+B, jazz, or country. The college charts, where most of the so-called alternative acts got their exposure in the US, would often see an amazingly diverse mix of artists sharing space together. In any given month, you could easily have relative unknowns like DIY country-blues artist Michelle Shocked, socialist-oriented English rockers Easterhouse, and southern pop masters Let's Active; more mainstream artists like Talking Heads, R.E.M., and Timbuk 3; and a mishmash of groups trying to re-integrate guitars into the slick production and synthetic electronica that was so prominent in the early 80s like my next three selections, Love & Rockets, Siousxie and the Banshees, and Shriekback.
Love & Rockets are one of the stranger entities to emerge during the latter half of the 80s. Despite being composed of three-fourths of the uber-goth group Bauhaus (the fourth, singer Peter Murphy, embarked on a reasonably successful solo career), they managed to sound almost nothing like their former band, instead exploring the dense, layered buzz of glam rock and Beatles-inspired psychedelia drenched in crystalline acoustic guitar washes. Express was their second effort, and it finds them much more focused than on their debut, Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven. Express got a lot of attention from college radio stations, which set the stage for a couple of minor hits on their next record (they would also have a hit in the grunge era, but by then the band had really begun to become musically disorganized).
"Kundalini Express" is probably the most representative track from Express, combining the oddball philosophical/spiritual messages that are sprinkled liberally throughout the record with the driving rhythms, chugging bass, and serpentine guitar lines that show the band wearing their glam fetish on their sleeves. But the band manages to sell it, making what could have been painfully awkward lyrics come off as sincere, thoughtful, and humorous. For the record (possible pun intended), the original album/casette release is a much stronger work, leaving out the moody, meandering songs "Angels and Devils" and "Holiday on the Moon", which are bonus tracks available only on the CD release and which inexplicably appear at the beginning and in the middle what had been a very well-sequenced record, instead of at the end where they belong. If you've only ever had access to a modern CD version of the record, try programming out those two tracks and see if it doesn't improve the flow. A second CD release tries to correct these problems by restoring the original order of the tracks and placing the b-sides last, but for some reason it also moves the "Ball of Confusion" cover to the end (on the original American release, it was track 5, and it seemed to fit very nicely there). |
11.4.03
Mixtape: 1986
Track 6
"Cities in Dust"
Tinderbox
Siouxsie and the Banshees
Siouxsie and the Banshees is one of those groups that, even if they were never successful, would still be notable for serving as a crossroads for so many other bands and projects. Fronted by Siouxsie Sioux, the only stable member of the band throughout its decades-long history, the group's former members were at one time or another also members of groups as diverse as the Sex Pistols (Sid Vicious), Adam and the Ants (Marco Perroni), the Cure (Robert Smith), the Glove (Robert Smith, Steve Severin), the Slits (Budgie), and the Creatures (Siouxsie, Budgie), just to name a few.
Tinderbox finds Siouxsie and company in a similar place in their career as Love & Rockets with Express: after years of success in their native UK and cult status in the US, this record finds them hitting a stride, making the move toward more mainstream success, and preparing for their next two records, both of which would score them hits in the Lollapalooza era. It's also pretty much the only Siouxsie record that I really love (besides the nearly-impossible-to-find-on-CD covers record Through the Looking Glass——their take on Iggy Pop's "The Passenger" is brilliant, and their versions of Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" and the Doors' "You're Lost Little Girl" are almost as good in their own ways as the originals); it finds that nice little niche between the teetering-on-the-edge-of-disaster guitar madness from Robert Smith's stint with the band on Hyaena and the technocentric sound of what would become their biggest sellers in the US, Peepshow and Superstition. And although the album makes a cohesive whole, if you had to pick a single, "Cities in Dust" would undoubtedly be it. Sure, it might have been more interesting to pick one of the darker, more punk-inspired tracks, but "Cities" is such a great song that it would be criminal to leave it off of any best-of list from 1986. |
11.5.03
Mixtape: 1986
Track 7
"Gunning for the Buddha"
Big Night Music
Shriekback
Shriekback is a tough band to figure out. For a while, their ecletic mix of jazz, funk, synthesizers, and that peculiar dark humor tinged with menace that only the British are capable of, led to a growing fan base that seemed to indicate they were on their way to becoming one of the most important bands of their time. Unfortunately, founding member and bassist Dave Allen left the band after Big Night Music, leading the remaining members to produce the epicly awful Go Bang! in a misguided attemtpt to become full-fledged pop stars (the record included a KC and the Sunshine Band cover). By the time the band reintegrated Allen and rebounded with Sacred City, grunge had taken over the airwaves and Shriekback's moment of opportunity had come and gone.
Big Night Music is easily their most successful record, both critically and commercially, although it lacks any apparent singles. It is a record whose dreamlike, reptillian slithers you can get lost in; late at night, with the lights turned low and the music turned loud, it can be almost hallucinatory. It's like being lost in a swamp where everything around you is alive and predatory, and you know you could be sucked under with one misstep, but you find it beautiful all the same.
It was really had to choose a song for this spot because, stylistically, Big Night Music is all over the map and it's a daunting task to pick one song to represent the whole work. "Black Light Trap", the album opener, is anchored by a sinister funk bass that is punctuated by the devil's own horn section for the choruses ("Running on the Rocks" is a sister track, employing many of the same devices); "The Shining Path" prowls like a panther in a moonlit jungle, adding a section of French lyrics at the end for that extra touch of ominousness; and "Pretty Little Things" is suspiciously cheerful, but fun nonetheless. And that's just the first half of the record: "The Reptiles and I", "Sticky Jazz", and "Cradle Song" continue to expand Big Night Music's sonic palette. This is one of those discs that, if Shriekback had never existed and it was released for the first time this year, would still sound ahead of its time; no one ever really tried to follow the trail that Shriekback blazed on this album, and it still sounds as innovative now as it did back in 1986.
"Gunning for the Buddha", a track I selected as much for how good it sounded after the Siouxsie track and its running time as anything else, is saturated with soothing island instruments riding the rolling wave of a laid-back bass line. The relaxing rhythms bely the somewhat disturbing content of the lyrics, which find two "philosophical assassins" on the trail of the buddha, who eludes them by hopping from body to body, including a beetle and, somewhat improbably, former president Jimmy Carter. I think it's supposed to be an anthem in support of passion and action as opposed to the passive acceptance that characterizes the buddhist philosophy, but whatever. The lyrics aren't any more or less abstract and obscure than most of Shriekback's work. They were just a weird band. But for this record, they were weird in a really good way. |
11.6.03
Mixtape: 1986
Track 8
"Give It Time"
Giant
The Woodentops
And now we come to the Woodentops' Giant, the best pop record from this era that no one in America has ever heard of. This is really the band's sophomore effort, but it is technically their debut——the first record was a collection of the increasingly successful singles that the band released in the years before Giant, and it was released only a few months before this record. However we want to label this album it is without question the group's best work. Their third (second?) and final studio album, Wooden Foot Cops on the Highway, was given a push by their American major label, but it just wasn't as good and the group disbanded a few years after its release without ever building on the moderate success they'd acheived in Japan and in their native England.
I really wish I had more to say about this band to help place them in context, but there's not much more I can give you. Trying to describe their music is difficult: lightly strummed acoustic guitars mingling with the shuffling backbeat of wire brushes on the drum kit; a rich, warm electric guitar to carry the melody; subtle enhancing touches by organs, harps, violins, trumpets, and other orchestral elements on almost every track; a deep, round bass for the bedrock; and floating above it all, singer Rolo McGinty's stammering tenor. I just can't give you a sense of the charming intimacy of the songs, which nonetheless are so deep that they could easily expand to every corner of an opera house with the fullness of their sound. The Woodentops existed for so short a time and without any real connection to any movements in British or American popular music that it's hard to say anything except that this is really an amazingly unique record. The best I can do is point out parallels to other quirky artists like Jonathan Richman, They Might Be Giants, and early Belle & Sebastian, but these still don't really do the band justice.
"Love Affair With Everyday Living" is personally my favorite track, but there are great songs with great lines all over this record. "Everyday Living" barely edges out "Good Thing" ("Sometimes you try harder for me than I try for myself"), "Everything Breaks" ("Everything I touch breaks in my hands"), "So Good Today" ("When we laugh, we laugh at the same time"), and this track, "Give It Time" ("You're never out of town/But you're never at home"). It was really hard not to put "Everyday Living" in this slot, but "Time" made a better transition between British oddballs Shriekback and American oddballs Timbuk 3. And it's a pretty great song in its own right. |
11.7.03
Mixtape: 1986
Track 9
"Friction"
Greetings from Timbuk 3
Timbuk 3
Most of you will remember Timbuk 3 from their 80s zeitgeist one-hit wonder single "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades", which will either annoy you or spark nostalgia in you depending on how recently you've heard it and in what context. But "Future", from their debut outing Greetings from Timbuk 3, is actually a pretty good song that has suffered from being overplayed, especially when it was on the charts back in 1986. Yeah, the chorus gets a little annoying sometimes, but the good things about the song reflect the strengths of what is an incredibly well-made record that has stood the test of time much longer than I ever thought it would. When I went back to listen to this record again while selecting tracks for this mix, I was surprised at how good it still sounded. I figured that the drum machines, twangy voices, and 80s production would render this all-but-lifeless after 15 years, but instead I was pleased to discover that the production was very rich and full. Combine this great sound with the witty (if sometimes a little preachy) lyrics and solid, catchy songwriting, and suddenly it wasn't so hard to figure out why I loved this album so much all those years ago.
In truth, I could have selected almost any song from this record for this mix——I was even briefly tempted to put "Future" on here——but "Friction" won out, as has often been the case, because it fit in well with the two songs that surrounded it (the lead guitar here has a tone and timbre that is the Texas cousing of the lead guitar in the Woodentops' "Give It Time"). It has quickly become one of my favorite tracks on this mix, and I have a feeling I'm going to be listening to Timbuk 3 a lot more often in the future. |
11.10.03
Mixtape: 1986
Track 10
"Radio Head"
True Stories
Talking Heads
By the time they released True Stories, the Talking Heads were already well-established at this point in their career, both politically and commercially, coming off successes with their live album/film Stop Making Sense (filmed by future Oscar-winner Jonathan Demme) and Little Creatures; the first record rejuventated the group and exposed the band's work to a wider audience, which in turned paved the way for Creatures, their first platinum-selling studio album.
True Stories mines the same pop vein as Little Creatures, but despite yielding a hit single, "Wild Wild Life", the record was generally panned by reviewers and didn't sell as well as Creatures. That may have been in large part because of its association with a film of the same name directed by Heads' frontman David Byrne, which was thrashed by critics as a vanity project. This wasn't the soundtrack to the film, although all the songs are featured in the film; rather, in a typically Byrnes-ian twist, it is the Talking Heads' versions of the songs that appear in the film (the true soundtrack features the songs as they are sung by the actors in the movie). True Stories actually stands up pretty well with Little Creatures, which has become a pop masterpiece, but Byrne's increasing quirkiness, the album's label of "concept album", and it's lack of a follow-up single to "Wild Wild Life" meant that a lot of fans who had just become acquainted with the band on their previous two releases never gave this one a chance. And that's a shame, because this record really does deserve a place in the canon of pop music (unlike its successor, Naked, which documented the conversion of the band into a David Byrne solo project and which is appropriately left off the list of essential Talking Heads works).
For some reason, I remember very distinctly the purchasing of this album. Actually, I remember having it purchased for me by my grandfather at a record store owned by a couple who were our next door neighbors at one point. The store had put up a big display at the front, so that when you walked in the door you were assaulted by the red, black, and white of the cover. I was hesitant about buying it even though it had been on the college charts for a couple of weeks already because at that point I was loathe to buy anything by any band that had ever gotten airplay on commercial radio stations. But I thought it was something the my granddad might not hate, and he was paying so I didn't lose anything if I didn't like it, so I went with it. I remember when he put the tape in the casette deck (I was still a year or so from the Great CD Conversion that all serious music fans had to deal with at some point in the late 80s) and the first song, "Love for Sale", came on, I was wincing, thinking, "It's so loud——he's going to make me stop playing it" (listening to the song now, I can't exactly remember why I thought it was so raucous——I mean, it's a big, bouncy rock song, but it's still pop that wouldn't have sounded at all out of place on the radio with it's album-mate "Wild Wild Life"). But he didn't make me turn it off, god bless him, just as he wouldn't make me turn it off any of the dozens of other times I would play music in his car when he was coming to take me out to dinner on a weeknight at NCSSM or picking me up for the weekend. He heard pretty much everything on this mixtape and then some for the two years I attended a boarding high school only half an hour from him, and though he would occasionally complain about it, he complains about a lot of stuff that doesn't really bother him that much. I'm not saying he liked it, but he understood that it was important to me, and was willing to tolerate it for my sake.
I wasn't at all tempted to put "Wild Wild Life" on this mix, even though that's the song people would most likely be familiar with. Though it's not really a bad song, it's competing with some of my favorite Talking Heads' tracks, and in the end, I couldn't resist "Radio Head", which, in addition to being one of the catchiest tunes on the album, also has the historical distinction of being the source of the name for Thom Yorke's Radiohead (one of the few bands of our time that can match the Talking Heads for innovation and weirdness). "Radio Head" is a song about a person who is so in tune with the person they're in love with that they can hear the other person's thoughts in their head. But not in a creepy, stalker way; rather, in a really goofy, lighthearted way. It's a fun little song, and it's nice to know that Radiohead, often seen as purveyors of arty gloom, have enough of a sense of humor to name their band after something as childishly gleeful as this song. |
11.11.03
Mixtape: 1986
Track 11
"Heartache"
The Blind Leading the Naked
Violent Femmes
It might seem a little weird to follow the Talking Heads with the Violent Femmes, but there's actually a pretty direct connection here. After two albums of pretty minimally produced songs, the Femmes brought on Jerry Harrison, keyboard player for the Talking Heads, to handle the production chores for The Blind Leading the Naked and bring a much slicker sound to their music. As a result, this record is overflowing with horn sections, drum machine-like percussion, and processed guitar and bass. They even take a stab at gospel in tracks like "Faith" and "Love & Me Make Three", which were likely advocated by singer Gordon Gano, who was moonlighting in a real gospel band called Mercy Seat.
It won't come a shock that this radical change to their sound, especially when paired with the suspicion that it was part of a bid for a larger mainstream audience, turned off a lot of their longtime fans, but it really shouldn't have: The Blind Leading the Naked is packed with all the biting humor, plaintive teen longing, sexual tension, and sly playfulness of the band's previous efforts. The Femmes used Harrison's procudtion to add a broader range of colors to their palette, but the artistry is the same. I don't think that anyone would argue that their debut, the eponymous Violent Femmes, is their masterwork, but The Blind Leading the Naked is tied for second with Hallowed Ground, their sophomore release.
And there are a ton of good songs on here: I don't know how you can call yourself a Femmes' fan if you don't consider "Old Mother Reagan", "Breaking Hearts", "Special", "Good Friend", and "Two People" to be among the best songs they have ever done, and I have a special place in my heart for "I Held Her in My Arms" (despite the sax, which seemed to irritate a lot of people). I don't know exactly why I settled on "Heartache" for this mix, but it's a good transition song that illustrates the difference between the classic Femmes and the more layered studio sound created by Harrison. The guitar is electric, the bass sounds a tad artificial, and the drums sound flat and electronic, but it works for this song about as well as the acoustic guitar, unornamented bass, and tight snare of their earlier sound would have. Plus, I don't know how many times I've been up late at night working on a project that's way overdue and that still won't ready for days no matter how hard I work when I've had the lines from the bridge run through my head: "I've been working 25 hours a day/I don't want to live this way." Preach it, brother Gordon. |
11.12.03
Mixtape: 1986
Track 12
"Beauty and the Beatitudes"
Hermitage
Waxing Poetics
Part of the reason I decided to do these year mixtapes was to expose people to music that they might not have previously heard, so that if you were someone who liked R.E.M. or Siouxsie and the Banshees during this period, you might get curious enough about lesser known bands like Love Tractor or Shriekback to give their music a try. Unfortunately, some of the bands I've chosen are just plain out of print at this point, meaning that even if what I've written piques your interest, you'll never be able to hear the song for yourself because it's just not available (I would be willing to bet that some of these bands are even hard to track down on peer to peer networks).
Waxing Poetics is, of course, one of these bands. Hermitage is their debut album, and it got some decent airplay on college radio and the video for "If You Knew Sushi" even made it onto 120 Minutes for a spell. They were based in Virginia, around Norfolk and Richmond, but they also had strong ties to Chapel Hill, where I first saw them play. Their sound, especially on Hermitage, was fairly unique. You could hear some of the Athens sound in their music (R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills was actually one of the producers on this record, along with North Carolina legend Mitch Easter), but Waxing Poetics were more pop-oriented without being derivative, occasionally sounding like the Connells, the Pressure Boys, and other local favorites from the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area. Their later albums didn't capitalize on the promise shown in Hermitage (they instead went for a darker, bluesier sound), but this record remains a classic of its time for those lucky enough to hear it. Five years later, Chapel Hill was inundated with a slew of bands trying to pick up where Hermitage left off, but none of them did it anywhere near as well as the Waxing Poetics, who by that time had released two other albums and all but vanished from the music scene.
I picked "Beauty and the Beatitudes", as usual, because it worked in between the two songs that surround it. Given different placement on the mix, I could have easily chosen "If You Knew Sushi", "Living Chairs (Going Through the Walls)", or "Walking on Thin Legs", each of which is a standout track. I really wish there was some way I could share this album with you; Hermitage remains one of my favorites from this era, and the fact that it's now out of print just only compounds the injustice of it not receiving the wider exposure it deserved when it was originally released. |
11.13.03
Mixtape: 1986
Track 13
"Groovy Tuesday"
Especially for You
The Smithereens
Believe it or not, in 1986 MTV actually used to play videos pretty much around the clock, as opposed to the three to four hours you get nowadays, most of which is just the same tired R+B/rap/formulaic pop that they've been playing for years and years and years. But it's not like the music they played back then was any better then than it is now; for the most part it was safe radio hits. Aside from 120 Minutes, a two hour (duh) show that featured alternative videos that aired at midnight on Sunday, you'd be hard pressed to find anything on the channel that wasn't in the Kasey Kasem's Top 40 that week as well.
But for a brief period in the summer of 1986, they gave Dweezil Zappa, son of Frank Zappa and brother of European Vacation star Moon Unit, his own show in the afternoon where he could play whatever he liked. And what he liked was the more guitar-driven stuff that was usually featured on 120 Minutes, so for once fans of alternative rock didn't have to wait until the wee hours on Sunday to see videos by their favorite artists. I remember tuning in and thinking the show was going to be a joke until I saw the first video he chose that afternoon: the Screaming Blue Messiahs' "Wild Blue Yonder" from their debut album Gun-Shy, one of my favorite records from that time (after I finish the commentary for the songs that did make the cut, I'll explain why it and a few of my other favorite records from 1986 aren't represented this mix). Right after "Wild Blue Yonder", Dweezil showed the Smithereens' "Blood and Roses" from their first record Especially for You. After that I was hooked; I knew the show couldn't last because it was just too far out in left field for the teen morons that have always made up MTV's core audience, but enjoyed it while it lasted.
Anyway. The Smithereens are a 60s throwback, a straighahead rock-pop outfit that borrows liberally from the Beatles, the Stones, the Byrds, etc. They're like R.E.M. without an agenda or any drive to innovate, with a little more appreciation for the late 50s tunes that are considered the beginning of rock and roll. The Smithereens often employ R.E.M.'s trademark jangle (which they in turn stole from the Byrds) but also incorporate layers of harmonies in the backing vocals and suffuse the whole thing with an air of optimistic innocence that is characteristic of the Beatles' early recordings. "Groovy Tuesday" isn't necessarily the best song on Especially for You, but then again it's really hard to rank the songs on this album because the songwriting is remarkably consistent throughout. It's really a shame that the Smithereens couldn't continue to build on the triumph of this first effort, but as their career progressed, they put out increasingly lackluster efforts that sounded more and more desperate to recapture the magic of this perfect gem of a record. Oh well. They're not the first band this has happened to, and they surely won't be the last. But at least we have some really great songs to remember them by. |
11.14.03
Best line from Chutes Too Narrow, the new record from the Shins (taken from "Those to Come"):
Eyeless in the morning sun you were
pale and mild, a modern girl
taken with thought still prone to care
making tea in your underwear
It sounds really awkward and wordy, but James Mercer can always make stuff like that work. Runner up, from "Turn a Square":
Just a glimpse of an ankle and I
react like it's 1805
Again, brilliant.
|
11.14.03
Mixtape: 1986
Track 14
"White Lines, Blue Sky, Black Top"
Land of Oppotunity
EIEIO
EIEIO is a band that I'm betting very few of you have ever heard of and even fewer have actually heard, but when I started to make this mixtape, I realized that their debut album, Land of Oppotunity, may well have been one of the most important releases this year. You see, by combining the twang of country music with the bluesy rock of the Rolling Stones, EIEIO became part of a quiet revolution that began in 1986 and bubbled over into a full-fledged movement when Uncle Tupelo released their seminal No Depression, an album that almost brought alt country into the mainstream. They weren't the only ones; 1986 also saw the release of Still Standing from Jason and the Scorchers, Lyle Lovett's self-titled debut, the Rainmakers' first album (also self-titled), records from the Golden Palominos and the BoDeans (who we'll discuss shortly), Dwight Yoakam's Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc., and Steve Earle's debut, the blistering Guitar Town. Each of these records helped turn a floundering country music industry back towards its roots in the raw sounds of Hank Williams Sr. and exposed a generation of young musicians to the power of country music when you took it out of the studio and let it stay up until 2 a.m. getting drunk at a Replacements show.
EIEIO may well have been the least known of this bunch, but they also may have been the best, at least on this album. They were hard to figure out: their songs were decidedly country-influenced, both lyrically and musically, but they pulled off the twin guitar attack of Keith Richards and Ron Wood (or Brian Jones, or Mick Taylor) better than anyone else in the genre, even modern day country rockers Drive-By Truckers. They had L.A. haircuts and jackets, but their jeans, boots, and bolo ties were all Nashville. You got the feeling that even their record label wasn't sure how to market them, and that's likely one of the reasons they were never able to get the recognition that many of their peers garnered in the mainstream music press. They broke up after releasing the disastrous That Love Thang, their sophomore effort, which gave yet another unnecessary demonstration of what can happen when an artist spends too much time in Hollywood and starts believing their own hype (Ryan Adams, I am gazing fixedly in your direction). Still, Land of Opportunity is a classic, and "White Lines, Blue Sky, Black Top" is a classic road song that shows the ease with which EIEIO straddled the boundaries between rock and country. |
11.17.03
Could there be a more appropriate title for Britney Spears' new single than "Me Against the Music"? But I'm guessing the irony is lost on her. |
11.17.03
Mixtape: 1986
Track 15
"Angels"
Blast of Silence
Golden Palominos
The Golden Palominos are a fascinating little band: a rotating cast of established stars like Bob Mould of Sugar and Hüsker Dü, Michael Stipe of R.E.M., John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of Public Image Limited and the Sex Pistols; up-and-comers like Syd Straw and Matthew Sweet; and a semi-stable group of four or five lesser known musicians anchored by drummer Anton Fier (who had brief stints with both the Feelies and Pere Ubu). Each song on their first few albums was contributed and sung by a guest star (sometimes a song would be contributed by one artist and sung by another), but the sound was remarkably coherent despite the wide range of vocal styles and songwriting approaches.
Blast of Silence (subtitled Axed My Baby for a Nickel) is probably the most consistent album releaed by the Palominos, although it lacks the star power of some of their other releases (Michael Stipe, their most famous contributor, is absent from this effort even though he contributed lyrics for two songs and vocals for three on the release prior to this, Visions of Excess). Syd Straw handles the vocal duties on many of the songs, including two compositions from Little Feat member Lowell George and a contribution from dB and honorary R.E.M. member Peter Holsapple (his dBs bandmate Chris Stamey played on both Visions of Excess and Blast of Silence). Despite the avant garde reputation of the Golden Palominos and the rock pedigrees of the contributors, this record has a strong undercurrent of country twang that runs through most of the songs, making them part of the mysterious explosion in country-rock releases that became precursors to the No Depression alt country movement that would blossom five years later.
I knew I wanted to include one of the songs Syd Straw sang on because she has a really great voice and she's unlikely to appear on any of the year mixtapes that I will do subsequent to this one. "Diamond", the song contributed by Peter Holsapple, was my initial choice, but I had already decided to use the BoDeans' "Angels" to follow-up whichever song I chose from the Palominos and I couldn't resist the urge to put two completely different songs that happen to share the name "Angels" back to back. And the Palominos' "Angels" was co-written by Straw and Fier with regular guitarist Peter Blevgrad, who were the core of the band for this album, so it's probably a more appropriate choice anyway. It also happens to be a damn good song. |
11.18.03
The new Death Cab for Cutie album, Transatlanticism, is a real letdown. A couple of songs wouldn't have sounded out of place on their last two masterful efforts, We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes and The Photo Album, but most of them would have been more appropriate as b-sides. And the lyrics...if you thought frontman Ben Gibbard was saving up all his good lyrics for Transatlanticism after the weak verses on his side project the Postal Service earlier this year, you are going to be bitterly disappointed. It turns out he used up his best lines on the Postal Service effort, and all he has left here are drunken late night scribblings that even an overly dramatic fifteen year old would have kept hidden from view.
Basically, Death Cab is doing their best impersonation of a mid-career Connells. And that's not a good thing. |
11.19.03
One of the best best-of releases ever put out by a band was the cassette version of the Cure's first career retrospective, Standing on a Beach, which is the first line from the first song on the album, "Killing an Arab" (the CD version has for some reason been renamed Staring at the Sea, which is the second line from the song and which was also originally used as the title for the VHS release that compiled all the videos for the singles). Not only was it a great collection of singles, but it also included all of the b-sides from those singles, which I grew to love as much as the A material (there are really only three bands whose b-sides are consistently worth listening to: the Pixies, Modest Mouse, and the Cure——although the Smashing Pumpkins have some good stuff, too).
Unfortunately, when the collection was released on CD, the b-sides vanished, and there was really no way to get them digitally (at least in this country). When Napster was in its open source heyday, I managed to download about half the tracks as MP3s, but those were destroyed when one of my hard drives failed (it was a backup drive, and the reason I kept my digital music files there was because I figured I could always re-rip or re-download the songs if they were ever lost).
So for years I've been waiting for some kind of release that would collect all those songs in one place again, and lo and behold, it looks like my patience is about be rewarded: in January, the Cure are releasing Join the Dots, a four disc box set that collects all their b-sides and several rarities, including all of the songs that were originally featured on the second half of the Standing on a Beach cassette. The last couple of discs in the set seem heavy with remixes, cover songs (including three versions of the Doors' "Hello I Love You"), and movie soundtrack contributions, but it's still worth it to get those early tracks. It's been too long since I've heard "Happy the Man". |
11.20.03
We are now entering the long dark tea time of new music releases. After October, most releases are of the high wattage Britney Spears variety, anticipating the increased consumerism of the holiday season. For the foreseeable future (meaning between now and the new year), the only new release I'm at all interested in is the domestic release of the Thrills' So Much for the City, which has already been out for months overseas. Almost no one releases records in January (although I do have the Cure box set Join the Dots to look forward to), and very few in February. I'm guessing that March is probably the next month when there will be more than one or two new CDs on the release schedule that I'll want to own. |
11.21.03
Okay, I admit it: I'm crazy for Outkast's "Hey Ya". Just like the rest of you. I have to own that song, somehow, some way, so if I listen to previews from the rest of the record and I don't like it, I think this might end up being my first iTunes purchase. |
11.24.03
Just picked up Rufus Wainwright's Poses for nine bucks, and man, "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" is an amazing song. There's some other really good stuff on this record, too, but there's a reason this song is on there twice. |
11.25.03
Rufus Wainwright sounds a lot like Thom Yorke. |
11.25.03
I wasn't sure if I was going to like the Thrills, and my first couple of listens to their new CD So Much for the City didn't do a lot for me. But I think that might have been due to the relatively crappy sound system in my car: since I loaded the songs onto my hard drive, I've been listening to it non-stop while working, and it has a real richness to it that just didn't come across over the car speakers. I've been listening to Poses in the car this week, but I think I'll give City another chance today. |
11.26.03
The Thrills' "Big Sur" from So Much for the City is a good song, but it's really the banjo that makes it great. |
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