The Pooh Sticks - The Pure Styx EP

The Pooh Sticks – The Pure Styx EP

Sympathy for the Record Industry, 1989

Acquired: End of an Ear, Used, 2008

Price: $3

The legacy of the Pooh Sticks brands the Welsh group as indie rock tricksters. The group itself was the brainchild of producer/record label runner/songwriter Steve Gregory implemented by frontman Hue Williams and their MO was to subvert pop music while making some brain-meltingly catchy, jangly, sing-a-long pop music along the way. The cover of the group’s most famous album—1991’s The Great White Wonder—depicted the band an Archies-esque pop group while stealing melodies, song titles, and lyrics at will from various American musicians (Lou Reed, James Taylor, Ozark Mountain Daredevils, the list goes on and on). While “Teenage High,” the first track from The Pure Styx EP, could easily be confused with one of the more upbeat Sarah Records singles of the era (the band recruited twee-pop queen Amelia Fletcher on vocals a year later) the tracks are as much as a play on twee as they are pure pop bliss. After all, the b-side features a GG Allin cover, so how twee can this be? Regardless, I love this seven-inch so much I own two copies (one in opaque pink, one in translucent blue). The power pop embracing b-side “Soft Beds Hard Battles” features Williams on vocals and a couple of short, wailing guitar solos all buoyed by a propulsive rhythm section all crammed into a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it running time (it can’t be more than a minute long). The running time of this “EP” is probably just over five minutes and I could pretty much listen to it forever, evidenced by the fact that I just listened to it 8 times while writing this short review.

"Teenage High"

Fugazi - 3 Songs EP

Fugazi – 3 Songs EP

Dischord, 1989 (Reissue)

Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2014

Price: $1.50

1991 is often used as a touchstone for the birth of alternative rock out of the drum-machine and hair metal addled 80s. In 1989 DC’s Fugazi rose from the ashes of Minor Threat and released their first collection of tracks with the seminal 13 Songs compilation album, preceding the grunge explosion by two years and illustrating a clear evolution from the rapid fire hardcore punk to the more artful and post-punk influenced world of post-hardcore. These early Fugazi tracks have all the edge of blistering hardcore punk, but there’s more emotion, and there’s a whole hell of a lot more technical prowess. The 3 Songs EP was tacked onto the end of the band’s first proper LP Repeater, but serves as a bridge between their earlier 13 Songs material and shows absolutely no signs of letting up. In my world, Fugazi is just as important as the Beatles. I’d rather listen to Repeater than The White Album any day of the week. The stuff that resonates the most isn’t the emotion that comes through in these songs. It’s not surprising, since this band is effectively a mash-up of Rites of Spring and Embrace, two bands that immediately come up anytime anyone wants to talk about Emo (in the legit sense of the genre, not the weepy music made by tattooed wimps that took over the genre in the 00s). Guy Picciotto and Ian MacKaye sing with the passion of religious men. There is a sense of justification in Fugazi’s music that you don’t really hear too often. This is like the Beethoven of indie rock: something timeless that people will be calling real music in two-hundred years.

"Song Number One"

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"

High Risk Group - "Flag" 7"

High Risk Group – “Flag” 7”

Harriet Records, 1989

Acquired: Love Garden, Used, 2009
Price: $1

 

Through the 1990s, the Cambridge, Massachusetts based label released almost exactly half as many 7”s as Sarah Records. They brought us the Magnetic Fields, the Mountain Goats and the Extra Glenns, Tullycraft, Vehicle Flips, and Hulaboy. While Harriet’s releases were much more varied than the uniform, rainy day pop of Sarah, I still want to collect as many as I possibly can. It was pretty easy to find all of the Sarah Records releases on the internet, but the Harriet Records 7”s are near impossible to track down in digital form (or they were the last time I tried to find an MP3 version of that amazing Ampersands “Annabelle Bleach” 7” I own) which makes hunting down the vinyl all the more thrilling. Though I usually associate Harriet with indie pop, their first release—High Risk Group’s “Flag” 7”—is a hearty slice of DIY post-punk. The music is repetitive, bass-driven, and the band attempts to carve out interesting sonics with their guitar sound but it gets lost in the shoddy mixing (especially on the B side tracks “Tapped” and “Katrine”). Ultimately it’s the title track that feels like the best distillation of High Risk Group (go figure, huh). It’s a murky, serpentine and lulls you into that dark, post-punky sound with its cycling minute-and-a-half long intro that consumes half the song. Hilariously, I played this at 33 1/3 because I’d noticed side two was designated for that speed. What I got was borderline sludge metal and even when the vocals finally kicked in, I still couldn’t tell I was playing it wrong. That’s versatility right there!

"Flag"

Flag from Sue Metro on Myspace.