The dreamy lo-fi pop of Linda Smith’s 1990 “Gorgeous
Weather” 7” gives way to a fuzzy, languid shoegazer vibe that jibes well with
her new label, Slumberland. “Till Another Time” sounds like it has a buzzsaw
running through it. It feels much akin to the recent crop of Slumberland
shoegaze-revival bands that resurged like mad at the end of the 00s. The
b-sides have a bit more jangle but on the whole were a lot quieter and I ended
up taking a nap somewhere in the middle of it all.
Somewhere in 2012-2013 I became fascinated with metal. It didn’t last, and barely any of it stuck outside of Liturgy, Mastodon, and Kyuss. I never was a stoner, but I find stoner rock and stoner metal deeply satisfying. Blues for the Red Sun just hit the spot on this lazy day off. The wife and child are off attending to a bridal shower and I’m home alone cleaning up the little loft-area of my in-laws’ house that I have marked as my territory while we are here. The chugging riffs are of the Black Sabbath variety that speak to my soul, and while the music is a little too attached to vintage heavy metal and the shadow of Metallica, there are some really nice psychedelic touches and doomy riffs that really make this something new and something a little off-center. It’s impossible to listen to this without the context of guitarist Josh Homme’s and bassist Nick Oliveri’s later band Queens of the Stone Age. That is also inherently chained to this mythical notion of desert metal. Of dudes loading up on drugs, driving out to the desert, hooking up a generator and offering up tasty riffs to the various cacti and fauna for nothing. Blues for the Red Sun is a bit amateurish (Jeff Garcia’s vocals are abrasive in that cheesy hard rock style that basically IS the 1990s), but there are moments of greatness in the jamming. I hate jamming, but somehow in the context of stoner rock it strikes a nerve. I can groove out a little. Turn my brain off a bit and just live in the dude world for a minute.
I never thought about being a father beyond the distant,
commonplace, “Sure I want kids” box one checks on their list of life goals.
Jenny and I never even made a conscious decision to have a kid. We had talked
about it, she really wanted one, and I rebuffed, and it went like that for a
little while. We were living in Minneapolis, 500 miles away from our families,
not making enough money, we just weren’t ready. I told myself we weren’t ready.
Couldn’t do it. And then one summer afternoon something in my caveman brain
took over and I said OK. OK we can roll the dice and see what happens. I don’t
know what came over me. I still don’t know, but I bet Jenny will tell you that
the spirit of our unborn daughter had something to do with it, and after
spending the last year and a half with Rosie I am inclined to agree. Something
unreal took over and we got a little miracle.
But
all kids are miracles, aren’t they? And your own kids are always the most
special ones. The meant-to-be ones. Couples tend to talk about kids in an
abstract way without ever being fully prepared for the amount of devastation
they will do to your life and worldview. Fathering is total annihilation in the
best way. I used to be a total asshole and now I can only be a little bit of an
asshole because I have to help this tiny person understand how to not be an
asshole. It’s a beautiful thing.
The
thing I wasn’t prepared for was how much I would like being a father. I remember coming home from the hospital with
Rosie and, after getting settled in, going to Target for some groceries/weird
post-pregnancy requests from Jenny. It was the first time I was apart from my
family and I kept thinking to myself, “I’m someone’s dad!” and beaming. I was
so proud of that, I still am. Every single day. It’s barely speakable how much
I love this little girl.
Mondays
are my day to watch Rosie while Jenny works her 9 to 5, and they’re the best
days. I wake up and make Rosie and Jenny breakfast. Jenny leaves for work and
Rosie and I play in the toy room upstairs and I listen to the latest episode of
the Indoor Kids podcast and drink my coffee. If it’s nice out we go outside and
look at the cows in the pasture next door. If it’s really nice out I’ll pull
out the wagon and haul Rosie up to the chicken coop and the barn to see Bart
the barn cat. Then I put her down for a nap. She refuses to sleep in the crib
so I’ll lay her down and usually take a nap with her. Then we have lunch, play
in the living room, watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or Doc McStuffins and she will
dance to all the songs. Then more toy room and then another nap if I’m lucky.
And then more toy room or living room activity until Jenny comes home and I
make dinner.
It’s totally exhausting and every
day I feel like Rosie and I come through a little bit closer, and that is worth
more to me than any paycheck or creative satisfaction. Being a dad is what does
it for me. I’ve spent my whole life trying to figure out what I wanted to do
and I’ve never had an answer until now.
I know the Like Young best from a terrific little EP they
released in the mid-00s called Six at
Midnight. They covered doo wop and soul songs from the 50s and 60s and by
golly if it wasn’t fantastic! Especially then, during my deep twee years. I
don’t remember if I ever heard any of their original music, but my affinity for
that covers EP was enough to take a flier on this 7”. It’s some wonderful,
synth-assisted indie pop with dual boy/girl vocals with a sound reminiscent of
the pure, unapologetic pop of Ozma or Wolfie. AND DAMNIT IF THE LIKE YOUNG ISN’T COMPRISED OF FORMER
MEMBERS OF WOLFIE!! I think I knew that, somewhere deep in the swamp of my
music knowledge. Wolfie was one of my favorite indie pop bands back in the day
and I loved them for the fierceness they brought to a genre often bogged down
by overbearing preciousness. The Like Young harness that same fiery energy and
while their music is sweet and a little adorable, there’s also a little edge.
Not a lot of edge, but a little to offset the tweeness. Like many married
couple bands, the Like Young dissolved along with Amanda and Joe Ziemba’s
marriage, which is a bummer because man they made some sweet, sweet music
together.
Jenny and I used to joke about my record collection being our
“Cancer Fund.” So when I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and the bills
started piling up, I started listing records on Discogs. I didn’t go crazy, I
just pulled out the ones I knew I didn’t really need. Unfortunately, since this
straddled both 2014 and 2015, I had two deductibles and out-of-pocket maximum’s
to meet, which weighted in at $4,000. I got the hospital to knock off a big
chunk of what I owed them because we don’t even make enough money to pay rent
anywhere, so that was cool, but the bills were still a headache. I did pretty
good! But of course, I’m useless and for some bizarre reason I created a
wantlist on discogs so I could counter all of my good hard work. I only bought
three records, and only when the prices were just too good to refuse. And I
bought them under the guise of “LIFE IS SHORT ENJOY YOURSELF.” Of course this
was one of the records I bought, which is weird because I don’t think I had
even listened to this album all the way through before it showed up on my
doorstep.
While I hadn’t listened to Here’s Where the Strings Come In, I bought it without thinking
because it contains one of my favorite Superchunk songs: “Detroit Has a
Skyline.” Jesus Christ, just put that song on in the car, roll the windows down
and try not to get in a wreck as you scream along at the top of your lungs and
bash the dash with improvised faux-drum fills. If I found a karaoke bar that
had that track on tap I’d never leave. It’s one of the great rock songs of our
era and I dare you not to let this song grab you by the throat and drag you
across the ground for three minutes.
Unsurprisingly Here’s
Where the Strings Come In is as solid as every other Superchunk record. I
can’t think of a band with a more stable discography. After the first couple of
primordial records from about On the
Mouth on the level of quality has never ever dipped (and you could probably
even make it from No Pocky for Kitty on
depending on how sentimental you are). There really isn’t a point where the
wave crests; it just keeps rolling along, perfectly surfable. Strings might be the point where
Superchunk showed no signs of letting up on the sweet-spot indie rock. It was
cancer money well spent. Now if only I can get Indoor Living for a sweetheart deal…
My experience with Harriet Records is limited, but that
doesn’t stop them from being one of my favorite bygone record labels. I’ve
always thought of them (and idolized them) as a sort of American Sarah Records.
When I hosted Pop Rocks!—an indie pop worship showcase on KJHK—Harriet artists
got a ton of play. The Magnetic Fields, Tullycraft, the Extra Glenns, and any
band featured on the label’s amazing compilation The Long Secret were A-OK in my book and got a ton of play. The
lo-fi production values of Linda Smith’s dreamy pop makes for an interesting
listen and reminds me why I am constantly looking for the little illustration
of Harriet the Spy on labels when I go record hunting.
This album crept into my life while I was hosting
Alternative Flashback at KJHK and came at me full force when I randomly found
it in the basement of Half Price Books St. Paul. Of all the HPB’s I worked for,
that one had the best records. I don’t know what it was. All that cool indie,
alt-rock stuff just seemed to flow there milk and honey style. When I went in
to interview for shift leader I found a copy of Billy Bragg’s Talking With the Taxman About Poetry and
knew it was meant to be. The hardest part was that my co-workers all had great
taste in music and it was often a fight for the best shit. Those were the days!
So this Feelies record is great. Their debut Crazy Rhythms gets the most attention but this is the one that
stuck with me. It’s a marvelous blend of jangly alt-pop and Velvet Underground
influenced rock n’ roll (an influence that is further driven home by the cover
of “What Goes On” that closes the record). Despite the major label, Only Life feels incredibly insulated
from mainstream influences of the outside world. It eschews all the bad habits
of the era and feels (only) timeless. It’s what we talk about when we talk
about College Rock.
“Division Day” provides stark contrast to the bleak,
depressive tracks on the “Needle in the Hay” single. After his eponymous second
album, Elliott Smith lightened up a bit. He embraced his pop sensibilities and
started turning out brighter, more upbeat fair like “Division Day.” That’s not
to say he all together abandoned the sad, low key stuff, but the balance of the
two styles on his third album, Either/Or,
makes that record his best. “Division Day” is the missing link between that
record and his major label debut XO,
and is a solid top-ten track from a discography so consistent and excellent
that compiling such a list would be akin to pulling teeth. B-Side “No Name #6”
is a throwback to his earlier records, but has enough skip in its step to keep
anyone from being bummed out. Overall this 7” is a delight.
The primary function of my year end lists is to create a
shopping list for future record shopping. If a record cracks my top ten, I’m
almost always gonna buy it if I can find it for less than $10 used. Laura Stevenson’s
Wheel got a tremendous amount of play
in 2013, so it’s nice to have this beauty in the collection. Stevenson has a
punk rock pedigree, which earns her my ear, and her untrained voice lends an
honesty to these songs that you’ll never find on the albums of the autotuned
darlings of the day. That untrained-ness doesn’t stop Stevenson from belting
out lines, to great emotional effect. Wheel
is a supremely beautiful record, one that I can apparently put on a year after
last hearing it and feel my body flooded with its power. It reminds me so
vividly of the last months we spent in Minneapolis, riding my bike everywhere,
enjoying the serenity of Minnesota in the springtime. I’ve gotta few albums
like that in my arsenal. My Minnesota albums. Ones that, if I listen to too
much I start missing that place to an unbearable degree. Someday soon, Laura Stevenson is going to kick everyone's ass and people will say, "She came out of nowhere! Such greatness!" and I'll be here over exaggeratedly pointing at this record and saying, "This came out like four years ago!"
"Runner" - Brilliant summer jam, highlighting Stevenson's pop-chops, which are excellent, as you can see.
"The Wheel" - But my favorite bits on this record are the quiet, soul-poking ones that serve as a gravitas delivery vehicle.
