Jefferson Airplane - "Somebody to Love"/ "White Rabbit"

Jefferson Airplane – “Somebody to Love”/ “White Rabbit”

RCA Victor, 1967

Acquired: Love Garden, Used, 2005

Price: $1

 

This was no doubt purchased after a reviewing of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Funny that this should come up, because I’ve been thinking about Fear and Loathing a lot lately. When I was in high school, I bought my treasured paperback copy of the book at the Half Price Books on Metcalf, the store where I now work. I’ve been coming to the understanding that my childhood and the KC Metro Area are sewn together. If only I was working at the Olathe store. I remember when it opened, and my mom said, “You should go apply at Half Price Books.” Funny. Holy shit, I love being back in Kansas. I spent so many years hating living here and now I couldn’t be happier. It’s more than the fact that people here know how to drive and don’t frequently run red lights. It’s more than the fact that the people are openly friendly (although that’s part of it). I feel like a moth coming out of transformation. Went to a Minneapolis sized pupa and came back almost two years later a grown ass man. It’s all very strange. I hear myself actively being OK with potentially living a normal, suburban lifestyle (in Lawrence hopefully, but in a house with a good school district for the Baby Nugget. Haircuts on a regular basis, interior design with new furniture, holy shit). I rallied against all that shit so hard when I was 16-25 and the idea that you are going to live in the city and be an artist now seems to be a total Peter Pan-ish thing reserved for your early twenties. So anyway, “White Rabbit” takes me back to a time when Fear and Loathing was my post-punk rock jam. Honestly, Fear and Loathing sparked the tiny journalistic fuse in my brain and caused me to start blogging and ultimately, way down the line, writing little observation pieces for college radio. The book and this song are fused. The vinyl is in awesome shape, which seems like a miracle because these 45s from the 60s are almost always thrashed when I come across them at HPB. Even though “Somebody to Love” is probably THEE song most used to illustrated the trippy, free-love 60s, Grace Slick’s vocals are raw and vital and if you can pretend you’re hearing the song for the first time it’s pretty fucking great. “White Rabbit” is, of course, weird and spooky and spends its running time building upon itself until it boils over (and Johnny Depp throws the stereo into the bathtub Benicio Del Toro is sitting in).

"Somebody to Love"

The proper illustration of "White Rabbit"

Jawbreaker - "Busy" 7"

Jawbreaker – “Busy” 7”

Shredder, 1989

Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2012

Price: $4

 

There’s something noble about Jawbreaker. Something that brings people together over their love of the band that had the uncanny gift to churn out songs that were both emotionally devastating and badass at the same time. They’re a band I openly love. The big brother I never had. So coming across their very first release was pretty fucking exciting. Despite loving the hell out of this band, I’ve haven’t spent much time with their first album, Unfun, outside of “Busy” and “Want.” I always think the early stuff is gonna sound so much more raw than the later stuff, but honestly it’s just a little bit grittier than 24 Hour Revenge Therapy (the high gloss of Dear You is something else entirely). Blake Schwarzenbach hasn’t really cracked open his terrific pop sensibility at this point. At this point, Jawbreaker feel like the dudes equipped for a hardcore punk band with too much of a jones for true blue emo to be considered Punks. Besides, Schwarzenbach’s lyrics are way too good to bury under some rapid-fire punk rock babble. Jawbreaker made it so you could be sensitive without being a wuss, which I found greatly appealing when I was fifteen because I was a sensitive wuss. Jawbreaker is like permanent nostalgia: A band I love just as much as I did when I was a teenager and will love just as much when I’m fifty. There’s just too much debt. I owe Jawbreaker so much for making the violent world of punk rock accessible without selling out (does anyone even argue about Dear You being selling out anymore or has everyone come around and embraced it?). The b-side, “Equalized,” is raw is hell on every front but the band’s energy is undeniable. It's kind of ridiculous how much potential this band puts on display on their first release. A little bit of that is speaking through the lens of hindsight about one of my favorite bands of all time, but these songs are vital.

"Busy"/ "Equalized"

IQU - "Can't You Even Remember That?" Remixes 7"

IQU – “Can’t You Even Remember That?” Remixes 7”

K Records, 1998

Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2012

Price: $1

 

It’s kind of fun listening to remixes of a song you haven’t heard. It’s like hearing Jeff Buckley’s version of “Hallelujah” only to realize it’s a Leonard Cohen cover. You listen to the original and your entire impression of the song is a little distorted, because the versions are so different. It’s a worldview-distorting thing. Like realizing you’ve been mispronouncing some word for twenty years. It’s kind of fun. This 7” features two remixes of a song from Olympia based electro trio IQU from their 1998 album Chotto Matte a Moment! The remixes themselves are culled from an album of remixes of their track “Teenage Dream,” which for whatever reason has the remixes of “Can’t You Even Remember That?” tacked on the end. I hate remixes. I should just get that out of the way before going any further. I just plain don’t care. Any time a single has a remix on the b-side I consider it a sign of laziness because most remixes tend to be very whatever. But then again, I’m not a sound designer or a producer or a real musician and I’m probably not qualified to judge remixes, I just personally can’t care. The funny thing is that I can’t track down the original track on the internet and all I have are these two quite different remixes to give me an idea of what the original sounds like. K.O.’s (Q

The Sonic Boom remix.

Can't You Even Remember That (*sonic Mix) from IQU on Myspace.

The K.O. remix.

Can't You Even Remember That (Q>c Mix*) from IQU on Myspace.

Insides/The Glee Club - Split 7"

Insides/ The Glee Club

4AD, 1993

Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2013

Price: $1

 

I don’t think I’d ever heard the real 4AD until I listened to Cocteau Twins for the very first time earlier this year. Strange how certain things elude you. The world of music is a vast, vast, vast place. And the true world of 4AD is a dark, gothy place. And then it cracked itself open to reveal the Breeders, the Pixies, Red House Painters, Unrest, and TV on the Radio. Maybe Dead Can Dance are the only real gothy band, but Insides definitely have some of that forlorn gloom woven into their ambient, trip-hop influenced dream pop. Dream Pop! That’s the word I’m looking for! 4AD were purveyors of dream pop! And now dream pop is a genre tag that gets bandied about every which way and it’s like “No! Go listen to this 4AD stuff that sounds like it exists somewhere between the half awake world and dreams!” The Insides track “Walking in Straight Lines” is pure hypnosis. Kirsty Yates vocals recall Bjork, but that is more about her delivery (Bjork’s aptly titled solo debut Debut was released in 1993 too so maybe that ethereal thing was all the rage in the early nineties. Still, Bjork had been tearing it up with the Sugarcubes since 1986 so I’m gonna say Yates is a little Bjork-y and not the other way around) than her actual voice which is more pedestrian than the Icelandic diva’s (not a bad thing, not meant to be backhanded, it’s just you know, wait, how did this whole entry end up being about Bjork?). “Walking in Straight Lines” is very clearly carbon dated to the early 90s and I’m wondering when young bands are gonna start ripping off this sound. The Glee Club turn out a nice blend of dreamy pop and Breeders-esque indie rock and their contribution to this split—“Bad Child’s Dolly”—is easily my favorite side. The Irish group only made one full album, but based on the strength of this song I’m dying to hear it. Joanne Loughman’s vocals are absolutely towering. The verses are deceptively plain, more akin to Sarah Records twee pop than the wonderfully haughty dreamy ethereal shit 4AD was built on, but then the chorus kicks in and she just knocks you out with this really wonderful, throaty delivery that displays a surprising amount of range. Jenny asked if I was listening to Kate Bush, and that’s about as apt as a comparison as there is. It’s an interesting track. The verses feature a repetitive electric guitar line (and a saxophone later on that become more and more dissonant as the verses continue) but the choruses have this big, effects-addled acoustic guitar that pairs with Loughman’s delivery remarkably well. The track morphs into a cacophonous blend of everything that has been slowly added over the duration and I’m left sitting here very impressed. It snuck up on me. Some random 7”, purchased randomly, packing a song I’ve listened to ten times this morning and found something new to like about it each time.

Insides - "Walking in Straight Lines"


The Glee Club - "Bad Child's Dolly"

Icy Demons/Pit Er Pat - Split 7"

Icy Demons/ Pit Er Pat – Split 7”

Polyvinyl, 2005

Acquired: Love Garden, Used, 2008

Price: $.50

 

7”s seems sort of obsolete these days. What’s the point of paying $4 for two tracks when you can just buy the whole album for $15 (unless the songs on the 7” are exclusive, but even then it seems fiscally no thanks). But fifty cents or a dollar? Sign me up. When you can dig through the bargain bin at Love Garden and pick out four or five singles for four or five bucks (or less) based on a cool cover design or great band names, it restores some of the fun back to being a music consumer. The Internet helps to make most of your decisions for you and supplies you with ample information and MP3s of a band so you can pretty much eliminate any sense of risk. Instead of hearing the single and buying the album, you hear the single and buy the MP3 on iTunes for a buck fifty. I actually really like that model, but then again, I bought so many shitty CDs in the 90s because they had one song I liked. Thanks to the Internet, I never have to drop $15 on an album that may or may not let me down. Albums I buy (unless they’re $3 at work and it’s like why not) are thoroughly vetted before being added to my collection. And cheap 7”s is how I keep my music nerd flame lit. Despite having picked up this 7” five years ago, this is the first time I have actually listened to it. 2007-2009 was a great period for acquiring myriad pieces of cheap vinyl, and this whole blog exists to rectify the fact that I had hardly listened to any of the stuff on which I was dropping small amounts of dough. Both bands sound like that bread and butter “art rock” Polyvinyl was churning out at an alarming clip in the mid 00s. Icy Demons synthesized keyboards sound straight outta Deerhoof and even though the band is from Chicago, for some reason the singer sounds like he is singing in Japanese. It’s your usual spastic art pop with guitars that jut out and interesting drum patterns. It’s actually a nostalgic sound for me, something that takes me back to my early college years when bands like this played at the Jackpot Saloon all the damn time. Pit Er Pat also have a lot of that Deerhoof-y art rock thing going on. Mostly it's the way the synthesizers are tuned (tuned? That can't be right). Really, it wasn't just Deerhoof. This whole sound got pretty generic in the fallout of dance punk in the mid to late 00s, but at least it was weird and experimented with weird arrangements. Seems like these days you just pluck four random 20 year olds off the street in Brooklyn, give'em tight pants and drug problems and you've got a breakout hit on your hands. That was me doing my best Abe Simpson, expressing my outright fear and disappointment with the future I've aged into. 

Gut Feeling: Basia Bulat - Tall Tall Shadow

Basia Bulat – Tall Tall Shadow

Secret City, 2013

 

Even if Basia Bulat weren’t Canadian, I would have still made comparisons to Leonard Cohen in my head. Both artists dabble in a sort of elevated folk music, rooted in deceptive simplicity but packing the sort of punch that reaches right into your chest and wraps its hand around your heart. Or maybe I am just easily charmed. Either way, I always feels a little pang of jealousy when I realize that Canadians have a special talent that we Americans can’t even touch.

There’s something so pleasant about the little Rhodes piano bit that opens the record. It drew me in with an “ooh, this is nice” and then left me flat on the floor when Bulat unleashed her gorgeous vocals. There’s something earthy and raw in Bulat’s voice. A throwback to female folksingers past but with a more pronounced pop sensibility. Though the melodies straight-up kill, song after song, there’s a murkiness that lurks in Bulat’s songs. A little bit of that aforementioned Leonard Cohen-ness; something dark and tapping into the furthest reaches of the soul.

Bulat popped onto my radar when she covered Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days” for AV Club’s “Undercover” series. Her rendition of the song featured just a hammered harp and her lovely voice and it really satisfied this little spot I have in my heart for great female vocalists with an alt-country bent. Bulat seems to have a penchant for America instruments of bygone days, notably utilizing an autoharp on her early work. Here, the autoharp is sequestered to the album’s sparest track “It Can’t Be You.”

Tall Tall Shadow is clearly Basia Bulat’s big leap out of niche folk into of big, sweeping alt-country/folk. While that genre might not be reinventing the wheel, folk music is one of those things that just stays timeless and satisfying when done well. The standout “Wires” encapsulates everything Bulat does in a beautiful little nutshell. The arrangement is packed full of odd little instruments, but the song is carried by a lovely melody overrides everything and smoothes everything into an impenetrable little pop song. Whether she is backed by a full band of roots rockers or alone in a room with just some ancient instrument and her voice, Basia Bulat has the pipes, the talent, and the charm to melt your heart.

"Tall Tall Shadow"

"Wires" (as played on autoharp, really she could play it any which way and it'd still be wonderful)

"Glory Days"

Gut Feeling: Yuck - Glow & Behold

Yuck – Glow & Behold

Fat Possum, 2013

 

Out of nowhere, Yuck stole the top spot of my year end list in 2011 with their eponymous debut (and it was so damn good I wrote about it twice on this blog). The band’s knack for cribbing tones from the American alternative rock of the 90s that I love so much cut straight to my heart and their gift for taking those influences and spinning them into something that sounded new and fresh and timeless made it violently relistenable. I played it all the time. It’s still one of Jenny’s favorite albums and at least once a month I’ll catch her singing “Get Away.” It was a special sort of record, and to say I’d been waiting on pins and needles for the band’s follow up is probably an understatement. Finally, Glow & Behold dropped and after one listen I was baffled. This is not Yuck.

I listened a few more times before doing some digging. How could a band who totally knocked me on my ass the first time around churn out something so drab? Where Yuck was inspired by ratty indie rock, Glow & Behold seemed to be a guided tour of the 80s indie music of the British Isles minus turning the songs of Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine and Teenage Fanclub into something original and producing straight up rip offs instead. Somehow I missed the news that singer/guitarist Daniel Blumberg left the band and guitarist Max Bloom had taken over on vocals. Maybe the band didn’t know that there would be such a huge difference between Blumberg and Bloom, but I gotta think that if they had known what their sophomore LP would sound like, they would have at least had the courtesy to change their name.

Glow & Behold is easier to swallow now that I know Blumberg isn’t involved. It’s easy to think that it’s some band that coincidentally shares the same band name as Yuck. It’s not a bad album if I think of it that way, and I don’t have to feel that little dagger in my heart when a band I love and champion crashes and burns on their next album. There’s just something embarrassing about the fact that the title track sounds exactly like a mashup of the Teenage Fanclub songs "Guiding Star" and "December" and it’s like “come on guys, this is the TITLE TRACK.” It’s a good enough track, but so wholly derivative that it’s like why bother? It even totally works as a 6-plus minute track because the breakdowns have these nice horn and guitar bits, but still. There is no reason to listen to this when you can just put on Bandwagonesque.

I tried to hide my worry when I heard the album’s leadoff single “Rebirth.” The warped guitars are straight up Heaven or Las Vegas and Bloom’s falsettoed vocals are about the polar opposite of Elizabeth Fraser’s. It’s flat and lifeless. It’s heartbreaking. The strange thing is that the only song Bloom sang on Yuck’s debut was “Operation” which was one of my favorite songs on the record. That song encapsulates all the vibrancy, all of the raw energy that made Yuck more than the sum of their shoegaze steeped influences and something wholly worthwhile, admirable, and a total blast to listen to. The music on Glow & Behold is all superbly executed, and that’s part of the problem. This thing sounds slick and glossy. The last one (which was recorded in Bloom’s bedroom) sounded like a paper shredder. While it’s not fair to knock a band for taking advantage of newfound resources, it is fair to take the piss out of a band that very obviously isn’t the band you signed up for. Glow & Behold is nothing but false advertising.

"Glow & Behold"

Teenage Fanclub - "Guiding Star"

Teenage Fanclub - "December"

The Decemberists - "Sixteen Military Wives" 7"

The Decemberists – “Sixteen Military Wives” 7”

Rough Trade, 2005

Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2013

Price: $1.50

 

“Sixteen Military Wives” is the high water mark of the Decemberists fun factor. They were always fun, with Colin Meloy’s yarns about chimbley sweeps and their penchant for sea shanties and the more morbid aspects of the grimy past, but “Sixteen Military Wives” is just a hoot. And a holler! It’s jaunty and clever and a distillation of everything the Decemberists did best in their prime before Meloy got obsessed with making grandiose concept albums. Where The Crane Wife seems to be considered their masterpiece (is it?), the songs were never as good as they were on Picaresque. It’s not as interconnected as any of their albums, but it works out for the best. The B-side delivers a demo of “From My Own True Love” which along with “Eli, the Barrow Boy” shored up the gloomy sad side of that album and helped tracks like “Sixteen Military Wives” and “The Sporting Life” really pop by contrast. The Decemberists’ most recent LP—The King is Dead—found the group returning to a more song-oriented approach, which was great, but the whimsy had clearly dried up. Which is fine. Bands get older and get tired of doing the same shit album in and album out and while The King is Dead is a fine record, it really pales in comparison to Picaresque. Plus, that video for “Sixteen Military Wives” was just fantastic, wasn’t it?

Hot Toasters - "Fish and Doctor" 7"

Hot Toasters – “Fish and Doctor” 7”

Drag City, 1994

Acquired: Love Garden Shotgun Room, 2008

Price: $.25

Hot Toasters hail from Japan and they are very clearly insane. In the best way. Japan is a strange and fascinating place. How would you feel if your country lived in isolation from the rest of the world up until 200 some odd years ago? You would probably be weird too. Over the years, I have had Japanese music and culture ruined for me by some really insufferable Japanophiles and I have only recently opened up my borders for things Japanese (i.e. Sushi, Haruki Murakami, anime, Japanese Baseball (which is fascinating and way more grueling than the American Pastime by the way)). I’ve always loved the great Japanese filmmakers, but that was always the exception (and Guitar Wolf, but Guitar Wolf sort of transcend national heritage). Still, my intake of Japanese music is very very limited. The “Fish and Doctor” 7” was Hot Toasters’ sole release, and it’s really a crying shame that they didn’t do more because this 7” is drop dead awesome. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a band navigate multiple genres within the same song with such ease. “Fish and Doctor” mostly plays like a jaunty, almost folksy pop song that devolves into guttural, sludgy metal halfway through before returning to the sweet, jet setting pop and then blending the two together in a really fun way by the end. It’s fun, it’s silly, it’s great music. “YUKIWATARI” has a bit of a ska flavor to it provided by trumpet/saxophone/accordion, and while it’s more straightforward than “Fish and Doctor,” with more lighthearted pop verses and punky choruses until the whole fucking thing melts down at the end in a wash of guitars, bass and skronky saxophones and horse-like screams. Awesome. The other b-side, “Milk,” rolls out the metal chops once more and once more blends them with the various elements that comprise the 7”s other tracks. There’s a weird sax solo in the directly after a minute of pummeling metal chords before the song morphs into a big, catchy indie rock song. It’s unselfconscious genre bending, which is really the only kind of genre bending I can appreciate, and after listening to this 7” a few times I’m legitimately sad that this is all the Hot Toasters I’m ever gonna get.

"Yukiwatari"

The Hot Melts - "Shrink" 7"

The Hot Melts – “Shrink” 7”

Epitaph, 2009

Acquired: SXSW, New, 2009

Price: $0

 

You end up with a lot of free shit when you go to SXSW day parties. Usually grab bags full of stickers, compilations in cardboard sleeves you will never listen to, SWEET CADET HATS!, and the occasional 7” shrewdly cobbled together by a band that thinks they have a better shot at getting your attention if they give you a piece of vinyl. For the Hot Melts, it worked. Five years later, I’m finally listening to this 7”. It sounds dated, or maybe ageless I suppose. Though it was released on the ‘Taph, the Hot Melts play a brand of Weezer-esque power-pop that is both ubiquitous and better than anything Weezer has done since Pinkerton (Note: Epitaph will release just about anything these days, apparently*). “Shrink” has a throwback pop vibe. Like thrown way back to the 1950s. Like malt shop throwback. It’s absolutely nothing special, but it is absolutely pleasant. B-side “The Alcohole” time travels forward to the 1970s and delivers a Bowiesque song about getting drunk and incapable of falling in love and possessing “lecherous ways.” There’s a little farfisa running through the verses, and for some reason, farfisa means fun in my book. It’s fun. The group is from England, which now makes so much sense as the English tend to be much more forgiving of run-of-the-mill rock and roll music (see the skyrocketing success of Arctic Monkeys). Or at least it seems that way, considering every five seconds NME or whoever is heralding some young new band as the saviors of rock and roll music. Or maybe that’s just a caricature of English music consumers that for some reason resides in my brain.

"Shrink"

*I couldn't remember the band or the douchebag singer, so in order to find that Falling in Reverse video I just googled "Epitaph Records Douche." First hit: That Vice article that took the piss out of Ronnie Radke.