Hospital Ships - Carry On 7"

Hospital Ships – "Carry On" 7”
Graveface, 2010
Acquired: Love Garden, New, 2010
Price: $6

Jordan Geiger is probably the best songwriter in this town, and the time he's been spending with Shearwater is probably only making him better. Hospital Ships, his on the sly side project from Minus Story, debut Oh, Ramona was a pretty wonderful record and “Carry On” is a gem that ranks right up there with the best songs off of that album. And it's on pink vinyl! Beautiful pink vinyl! And it does exactly what a 7” between albums should do: Make you fall down fucking excited for the follow-up. In Lawrence, I feel like there's a sort of fighting spirit that folks have in regards to local bands, in that was all want the people we're friends with and groups we see on a regular basis to make it big because well, they're just so fucking talented that everyone in the world should be just as gaga as we are. It's not even any sort of vain attempt to put Lawrence on the map or legitimize our scene, but just to share the wonderful jams coming from a select group of songwriters in this town. These songs sound like they're from the most intimate little bedroom on planet earth, and they're absolutely fantastic. This 7” is limited edition, so BUY A COPY RIGHT NOW. At Love Garden I think the first five people get little personalized cassette tapes. I got one with a weird looking dead face on the cover. I don't know why I picked it, and then I started thinking that maybe the covers represent the tone of the music and I might be right because my tape sounds like graveyard pop. Something from a warped VHS of some forgotten horror movie from the 70s with this weird drum machine. The B-side sounds like a lo-fi Jon Brion film score, if Jon Brion was actually Daniel Johnston. The first song sounds like it's going ot fall apart at any moment but manages to just barely hold itself together through its duration in a way that makes it kind of magnificent. It's a beautiful little outtake! Then there's a weird alternate universe version of “The Shots I Drank.” And then some weird thing that sounds like music from a short wave radio transmission. Yeah!