Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Nothing Painted Blue - The Bellyspeak EP

Nothing Painted Blue – The Bellyspeak EP
Jupa Records, 1990
Acquired: Love Garden, Used, 2010
Price: $1

This Nothing Painted Blue 7” is totally different than the other one I owned, which I wrote up just a few days ago. It’s amazing what can happen to a band in three years. On this, the group’s first single, the band spends the majority of their time sounding like fellow Southern Californians the Descendents. Maybe it’s the big bass lines that reign supreme, or maybe it’s the playfulness, but either way they sound like a punk rock band on the A Side. “K for Karnival” and “Let’s Kiss” are wonderful fun (notably, “K for Karnival” which asks the question/pays tribute to a certain record label with the repeated line “Who put the shield around the K?”). Bruno’s lyrics are as clever and quirky as ever (“I don’t know what your tarot deck says/ About this battle of the sexes”), but it’s the b-side “Foundation Slips” that steals the show. It might be my new favorite Nothing Painted Blue track. The guitars jangle the same way they do on the NPB albums I know and love, but there’s something about this one that sounds like the platonic ideal of all that jangly 90s college rock that I adore.

"K for Karnival"
"Foundation Slips"

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