Corndolly – A Preview of Easter Fashions 7”
Mud, 1992
Acquired: Love Garden Shotgun Room, Used, 2008
Price: $.25
Four babes from Illinois making some really great, hooky indie pop. The guitars, oh how they jangle. The vocals, oh how they reek of non-singer charm, my favorite kind of singing! Is it sexist that I refer to them as babes? Because it’s kind of a fact, they’re pictured on the back and I can indeed confirm that they are babes. Awesome early 90s indie rock babes. Maybe it’s only sexist if I’m like “That’s the only reason this is good,” which isn’t the case. I think I do that sometimes, I know I did it recently via the Coathangers in which I said it was like, girl punk and that was a cool thing and have kind of come to regret it. And now I’m stumbling over my tongue. It’s complicated trying to stay PC and at the same time realizing that when everything is strictly PC it makes it a big pain in the ass to have an opinion about anything. Is it not sexist if I acknowledge that it might be sexist that I think an all-girl punk band is better because they’re girls even though their music is the same sort of by-the-books punk house punk rock that scads and scads of all-dude bands are putting out? Or do they get the edge via years and years of oppression by men and it naturally sounds refreshing to hear all girl bands. I don’t even know anymore. Usually when confronted with my inadvertent sexism I just throw my hands up and say “My wife is a hardcore feminist bisexual that has to earn me some points right?! RIGHT?!” I just have no idea what it’s like to be a woman.
Corndolly are great though. I tend to prefer female vocals with my indie pop, so of course they are a natural winner. Big easy, sloppy bass lines. Guitar chords that have been distorted and reverbed out of their minds. Surprisingly deft drum beats for the style and husky, non-singer vocals. I’m game. Jangles a million. Tuneful jams about you know, relationships and stuff. The usual indie pop fodder. Corndolly don’t have lofty intentions of pushing the boundaries of art. That’s really the beauty of indie pop or indie rock or whatever kind of music that involves two to six people getting together and having a great time making some music. It doesn’t have to be Radiohead or whatever. As long as it’s catchy and it sounds like the band is having fun, it’s almost always worth listening to. That sort of everyman/everywoman thing really appealed to me at a certain point midway through college, and when I started playing in bands that was the ethic I brought with me. I love little forgotten songs like “Come Out” and “Sex Kitten,” featured here on radiant pink vinyl. Great little tunes only a handful of people have ever heard. Indie pop is kind of like a quilt. Upclose it all kind of looks the same, sounds the same, has the same elements coming together to churn out a similar result, but as a whole it’s a beautiful an inspiring thing. It was an affront to the exclusivity of punk. While the tweefolk were wearing cardigans and acting as polar opposites to the spiked Mohawk, studded leather jacket wearing don’t-give-a-fucks, a middle ground opened for normal people. College town people. People who were now in a position to say “Fuck it, we don’t have to abide by any set of rules and it’s easy enough to record some songs and put them on a record and this is ours and it’s out there.” I love that. A majority of the 7”s in my collection is from bands like that. Bands that just sort of exist for a handful of songs and then branch out into other stuff and then into obscurity or whatever. It’s kind of like how reality isn’t what you see on TV. It’s not what you see in real life either, because there are too many variables. Too many weirdos (especially in Minnesota, dear lord especially in Minnesota) that throw off your opinion of the collective majority of humanity (note: the numbers get skewed when you work in retail and the only people you remember are the psychos who do not really exist in the collective reality). It is on records like this that reality really shines through. There’s something pure here. Pure and honest and good and real and joyful. And it doesn’t matter that it’s made by ladies, and though that changes the overall effect of the songs, and the songs are coming from a female perspective, it’s all past that and I think that’s the thing I’m trying to get at. It really doesn’t matter what my opinion is because this stuff exists and it exists objectively set apart from any sort of assumptions or second-guessing about political correctness and it’s there to be enjoyed. And man oh man I listened to this 45 like 7 times on each side and I didn’t get sick of it so hey, a small victory on a Friday night. I’m ok with that.
Acquired: Love Garden Shotgun Room, Used, 2008
Price: $.25
Four babes from Illinois making some really great, hooky indie pop. The guitars, oh how they jangle. The vocals, oh how they reek of non-singer charm, my favorite kind of singing! Is it sexist that I refer to them as babes? Because it’s kind of a fact, they’re pictured on the back and I can indeed confirm that they are babes. Awesome early 90s indie rock babes. Maybe it’s only sexist if I’m like “That’s the only reason this is good,” which isn’t the case. I think I do that sometimes, I know I did it recently via the Coathangers in which I said it was like, girl punk and that was a cool thing and have kind of come to regret it. And now I’m stumbling over my tongue. It’s complicated trying to stay PC and at the same time realizing that when everything is strictly PC it makes it a big pain in the ass to have an opinion about anything. Is it not sexist if I acknowledge that it might be sexist that I think an all-girl punk band is better because they’re girls even though their music is the same sort of by-the-books punk house punk rock that scads and scads of all-dude bands are putting out? Or do they get the edge via years and years of oppression by men and it naturally sounds refreshing to hear all girl bands. I don’t even know anymore. Usually when confronted with my inadvertent sexism I just throw my hands up and say “My wife is a hardcore feminist bisexual that has to earn me some points right?! RIGHT?!” I just have no idea what it’s like to be a woman.
Corndolly are great though. I tend to prefer female vocals with my indie pop, so of course they are a natural winner. Big easy, sloppy bass lines. Guitar chords that have been distorted and reverbed out of their minds. Surprisingly deft drum beats for the style and husky, non-singer vocals. I’m game. Jangles a million. Tuneful jams about you know, relationships and stuff. The usual indie pop fodder. Corndolly don’t have lofty intentions of pushing the boundaries of art. That’s really the beauty of indie pop or indie rock or whatever kind of music that involves two to six people getting together and having a great time making some music. It doesn’t have to be Radiohead or whatever. As long as it’s catchy and it sounds like the band is having fun, it’s almost always worth listening to. That sort of everyman/everywoman thing really appealed to me at a certain point midway through college, and when I started playing in bands that was the ethic I brought with me. I love little forgotten songs like “Come Out” and “Sex Kitten,” featured here on radiant pink vinyl. Great little tunes only a handful of people have ever heard. Indie pop is kind of like a quilt. Upclose it all kind of looks the same, sounds the same, has the same elements coming together to churn out a similar result, but as a whole it’s a beautiful an inspiring thing. It was an affront to the exclusivity of punk. While the tweefolk were wearing cardigans and acting as polar opposites to the spiked Mohawk, studded leather jacket wearing don’t-give-a-fucks, a middle ground opened for normal people. College town people. People who were now in a position to say “Fuck it, we don’t have to abide by any set of rules and it’s easy enough to record some songs and put them on a record and this is ours and it’s out there.” I love that. A majority of the 7”s in my collection is from bands like that. Bands that just sort of exist for a handful of songs and then branch out into other stuff and then into obscurity or whatever. It’s kind of like how reality isn’t what you see on TV. It’s not what you see in real life either, because there are too many variables. Too many weirdos (especially in Minnesota, dear lord especially in Minnesota) that throw off your opinion of the collective majority of humanity (note: the numbers get skewed when you work in retail and the only people you remember are the psychos who do not really exist in the collective reality). It is on records like this that reality really shines through. There’s something pure here. Pure and honest and good and real and joyful. And it doesn’t matter that it’s made by ladies, and though that changes the overall effect of the songs, and the songs are coming from a female perspective, it’s all past that and I think that’s the thing I’m trying to get at. It really doesn’t matter what my opinion is because this stuff exists and it exists objectively set apart from any sort of assumptions or second-guessing about political correctness and it’s there to be enjoyed. And man oh man I listened to this 45 like 7 times on each side and I didn’t get sick of it so hey, a small victory on a Friday night. I’m ok with that.
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