1998: Sharks Keep Moving - Desert Strings and Drifters [EP]
In 1998, a Seattle band led by singer-guitarist Jake Snider released their debut EP. In 2001, another Seattle band led by singer-guitarist Jake Snider did the same. The second of those groups was Minus the Bear, who have gone on to tour internationally, released three albums (with a fourth on the way), and have been remixed by the likes Tyondai Braxton, Fog, and members of dälek. It’s not hard to understand why: at their best, Minus the Bear write terrific, punchy pop songs, enlivened by Snider’s relaxed lyrics and J. Robbins-esque everyman delivery. Yet the band we’re here to discuss are Minus the Bear’s predecessors, a group called Sharks Keep Moving, whose discography encompasses less than 20 songs and who made fascinating rock music out of unlikely elements.
The first notes of “Try to Sleep,” which opens their 1998 EP Desert Strings and Drifters, are languorous, more concerned with setting a mood than with a payoff of released tension. But that payoff does eventually come. The first words heard are “Rolled off to my side of the bed/ Slightly cold and only slightly tired.” It’s a malaise, but a different sort of malaise than many a post-collegiate post-punk anthem traded in -- one closer in tone to The Wrens’ The Meadowlands than Braid’s Frame and Canvas.
Applying the “post-rock” label to this EP isn’t entirely accurate, but like the jazz-influenced direction Karate was adopting at a similar time, Desert Strings and Drifters represents a way to channel the tensions of both punk and post-hardcore and push them in different directions. The looping “Arizona,” with its refrain of “Call this a landscape? Man, any other state” and Stephanie Goldade’s steady viola, takes things into Dirty Three territory. It is quiet resignation rendered across a wide screen, and when it does reach a conclusion, the listener is left exhausted, an emotional mirror of the trying times and draining conversations implied by these four songs.
Their history was brief: Desert Strings and Drifters followed a split 7-inch with the noise-punk band Kentucky Pistol. It, in turn, would be followed by a self-titled full-length and a final EP titled Pause and Clause. Meanwhile, Sharks Keep Moving, their only full-length, featured a subtle shift in songwriting, with four twisting instrumentals and four stark, moody rock songs. Indeed, each of the band’s releases has its own particular character, but Desert Strings and Drifters’ combination of lush textures, embittered ennui, and musical tensions continues to haunt a decade later.
1. Try to Sleep
2. Cashmere, Washington
3. All Out Of...
4. Arizona
1990: Plagal Grind - Plagal Grind [EP]
As listeners in the MP3 age, we crave an initial frame of reference. We pride ourselves on being in the know. The kaleidoscopic diffusion of information that typifies our modern world can indeed be an important and useful tool; paradoxically, though, it often serves as an inadvertent but powerful foil to our innate human desire for discovery and wonder. In terms of music, we are so used to having some sort of idea about what a band or an album should sound like that we forget how miraculous it is to stumble upon something new, something untarnished. Such discovery becomes a truly exciting, if disorienting, experience. In the case of the remarkable self-titled EP from New Zealand noise-rockers Plagal Grind, it is a wholly welcome one.
Plagal Grind is not new in a chronological sense, but it was new to me, and it's probably new to you. It was released as a limited 12-inch EP in 1990, and -- well, that's it. It was due only to happenstance (more specifically, a brief blog mention and a friend's subsequent insistence that I take a listen) that I first heard these tunes myself. I mention all this not to try to prove my indie mettle, but to provide some context for those interested; also, simply to marvel at how something so minor and obscure can be so damn good. Fronting this group of mad Kiwi scientists was Alastair Galbraith, a name you may be more familiar with if you run in certain noise and experimental circles -- Galbraith was a founding member of several groups, including this one, before embarking upon a prolific and well-documented solo career. However, having come across Plagal Grind with little-to-no knowledge of the guy's later work, I remain weirdly hesitant to give that stuff a go; I suppose I fear crushing disappointment when nothing stacks up to this monumental EP.
The first track, "Vincent," roars quickly to life like some kind of decrepit shoegazey anthem, and it's dark: with Galbraith's vaguely-accented voice cloaked in mumbles and buried in the mix, it's damn near impossible to tell what the hell he's is singing about, but one might reasonably suppose it's something odd and altogether untoward. The song is affecting on a strange level and over before you know it -- of the seven songs on Plagal Grind, only two (barely) cross over the four-minute mark. Its brevity both enhances its mystery and belies its greatness. "Midnight Blue Vision" finds the band changing gears completely -- instead of MBV-style wash, we get a This Heat-esque dirge, complete with warbling, reversed tape loops and lumbering, minimalist death march percussion. This time, Galbraith's lyrics are decipherable, but no less ambiguous: "Mirror expanding, midnight blue vision/ Fingers entwining, you made me shiver/ All I remember is falling," he intones, a bizarre nightmare -- or, perhaps, a wonderful dream -- given new and terrifying life in song.
That track proves anomalous to the rest of the album, though, and over the next five tracks, Plagal Grind lets it fucking rip. The songs sound thick and oozing, like they might contain 20 guitar tracks each, and perhaps they do. It's not quite heavy, but dense, reaching its greatest potential at maximum volume (don't most things?), at once caterwauling yet somehow perfectly harmonious. Like the album's opener, the brief, churning "Yes Jazz Cactus" shifts tempos and textures effortlessly; "Marquesite Lace," in turn, plods along drunkenly at a psychotic snail's pace. All this expansive clamor builds methodically to the album's brilliant, breathtaking closer. "Blackout" is a luxurious, sprawling instrumental in the vein of the title track from Eno's Here Come the Warm Jets. Not only does it call to mind the dreamy, looping catatonia of that song, it nearly improves upon it -- as grand finales go, I've always thought of "Jets" as among the best, but "Blackout" dominates.
Put bluntly, I urge any and everyone to seek out and soak up this music: Plagal Grind is a fine and lasting recording. For as much as its guitar-centric, bass-heavy sound superficially reflects its early-90s-era conception, it is equally and absolutely timeless. Like all the best records before and after it, this EP sounds like nothing and everything you know, like years and years of pop music precariously compressed together, blown all to bits, then reassembled again into one singular, seismic recording. It is stunning; it is its own.
1. Vincent
2. Midnight Blue Vision
3. Receivership
4. Yes Jazz Cactus
5. Marquesite Lace
6. Starless Road
7. Blackout
1966: Neil Diamond - The Feel of Neil Diamond
In the realm of pop music, “adult contemporary” is perhaps the only genre more damning than “dad rock.” And Neil Diamond, the man who claims to have given up his dream to cure cancer for the chance to earn $50 a week writing pop songs, is, for better or for worse, one of the most iconic adult contemporary artists in history. Moms love him. Muzak composers love him. The rest of us? Well, we mostly just blame him for The Monkees.
But then there’s the matter of his debut album, a little-known pop gem called The Feel of Neil Diamond. And for the love of all that is critically acclaimed, I must admit that if I could give an entire album five stars based on one song alone, I would award it to The Feel of Neil for opening track and debut single “Solitary Man,” one of the most perfectly anthemic and inspiring songs about being a loner ever written. Crooked Fingers covered it. Johnny Cash covered it. Those two know good songwriting and reclusive tendencies better than most I can recall. To quote Reading Rainbow: Don’t take my word for it.
Unfortunately, what happens after "Solitary Man" is a bit more hit-or-miss.
Songs like “Cherry, Cherry” and “New Orleans,” and a performance of The Cyrkle’s hit “Red Rubber Ball” are the kind of perfectly white-washed classic pop tunes that make Wes Anderson soundtracks so completely infectious. But the equally whitewashed version of “La Bamba” and the admittably “mom rock” strains of “Someday Baby”? Well, they give us the feel for the Neil Diamond that would haunt easy listening radio frequencies for decades to come: inoffensive and unfortunately generic, detracting from some otherwise compelling pop songwriting to an entirely unforgivable degree.
And therein lies the conundrum of The Feel of Neil Diamond. While Neil’s not, and probably has never been, cool, his debut had hints of pop songwriting chops that even the most die-hard cynics should have a hard time denying. But like so many debut albums before and after, it is, more often than not, how you choose to follow up that cements your legacy. And Neil went adult contemporary. Good for moms and muzak. Bad for the rest of us. But at least we’ll always have “Solitary Man.”
1. Solitary Man
2. Red Rubber Ball
3. La Bamba
4. Do It
5. Hanky Panky
6. Monday, Monday
7. New Orleans
8. Someday Baby
9. I Got The Feelin’, Oh No, No
10. I’ll Come Running
11. Love to Love
12. Cherry, Cherry
1996: Brainiac - Hissing Prigs in Static Couture
Hailing from the mythical land of Dayton, Ohio, Brainiac were produced by Kim Deal, Steve Albini, and Eli Janney (of Girls Against Boys) and opened for Beck, The Jesus Lizard, and The Breeders, among others. From 1992 to 1997, they spit vitriol into the vast ocean of post-grunge bile, creating a discography that stands eternally poised at the nexus of the 90s, both temporally and aesthetically. There was a lot of space to explore in the void between Nirvana and the new millennium, and Brainiac's body of work suggests a lateral detour that has yet to be pursued to its end. Hissing Prigs in Static Couture (a.k.a. H1551ng Pr1g5 in Stat1c Coutur3) was their final LP and penultimate release due to the unexpected death of lead singer Tim Taylor.
However embroiled the band may have been in their particular cultural climate, they never shared their generational aversion to unabashed flamboyance. After a blurry warm-up track, "Pu55yfoot1n'" cuts loose like a cartoon boogie band riffing on The Sonics' classic nugget "The Witch." Taylor's strutting, flippant falsetto doesn't belong to any frontman lineage known to this writer; Roger Rabbit's half-brained mania is the unlikely analogue that comes to mind. Other voices that possess Taylor on "Pu55yfootin" and throughout Hissing Prigs include a vaguely German guttural, a top-shelf grunge groan, and a rapey Reznor whisper. Irreverent, snide, insane? Yes to all. And before you can fish your monocle out of your martini -- incoming -- "Vincent Come on Down" swoops in like a misfiring altbot, the guitar, bass, drums, and moog in disciplined discord. The production is thoroughly post-grunge, but structurally and performance-wise, the song outdoes neo-garage bands like The Hives at their own game before they even thought they had invented it. Taylor's voices talk over, under, and around each other like a sonic CAT scan of a late 20th century schizoid man. And Hissing Prigs keeps this violent pace for 13 tracks and 35 minutes, slowing only for a few short experimental tracks that act as atmospheric stabilizers.
Album closer "1 Am a Crack3d Machine" is heavy enough for the stadium, a tune that starts low and only accelerates lower, forcing the willing listener face down into the muck to taste pure, absolving shit. By the time Taylor delivers the couplet "Muhowwwwowwohoh!/ The first time I forced myself to be real!" as if he were Kurt eyeing his collection of shotguns, the listener knows that the band is unequivocally a well-oiled, structurally sound rawk machine. Just what it is they are crack3d over about remains conspicuously unclear. It's to their credit that they subscribe to the Albini method of production -- guitar up, vox down -- because, when intelligible, the lyrics are largely inane. Here's the military chant that occurs two-thirds of the way through "V1ncent Com3 on Down": "Two four six eight/ Tell me who I'm supposed to hate/ Get with the two step/ Tell me it's a two-step process." Indeed, what are these post-collegiate midwesterners directing their anger at exactly? The Digital Age? Jocks? The System? The answer Hissing Prigs gives is that they're smart alecks, indiscriminately rebelling against whatever they want to, and doing it with intense rock ‘n’ roll precision. Score one for Brainiac. Still, a dialogue from the Simpsons Homerpalooza episode surfaces in my mind: "Are you being ironic?" "I don't even know anymore."
"K1ss Me U Jacked Up J3rk" is a litmus test for listeners who haven't a stomach for the sillier side of alternative. It finds Taylor exploring the inherent humor of the Spanish language, pronouncing "chihuahua-huahua-huahua" like Sancho Panza at Taco Bell. It's bothersome not because it's offensive, but because it's insipidness is so at odds with the musical messages being sent out. It's hard as a listener to give a record the proper love it needs when its makers feel that rock is but a joke. Yet, the band's talents are such that after a labyrinthine series of choruses and sub-choruses, you know the song is about more than a Zorro-themed porno, even if they say otherwise.
The early-to-mid-90s explosion in underground rock culture gave birth to countless forgettable acts, whose dull malaise was as often summed up by grainy black and white cover art of things that were inordinately hairy. Not this one. Everything about Brainiac is provocative -- from Taylor, to their synthetic blips and screeches, to their inventive spelling and bizarro imagination. However, the broadly facetious tone resounding throughout Hissing Prigs never fully congeals with its spirit of 95 sound. Their final release, the Electro-Shock for President EP, resolves this tension by abandoning guitars entirely for electronic instrumentation. Hissing Prigs, however, is the more endearing release, precisely because it is less consistent and frankly because it rocks. It would come as no great shock if the bands forming today with that gen-x guitar sound start finding something endearing and instructive in this strange, singular band.
1. 1nd1an Poker (Part 3)
2. Pu55yfoot1n'
3. V1nc3nt Come on Down
4. Th1s L1ttle P1ggy
5. Strun6
6. Hot 53at Can't 5it Down
7. Th3 Vul6ar Trad3
8. B33k33per's Maxim
9. K1ss Me, U Jacked Up J3rk
10. 70 K9 Man
11. 1nd1an Pok3r (Part 2)
12. Nothing 3v3r changes
13. 1 am a Cracked Machin3
1982: Talking Heads - The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads
This isn’t what I thought would happen. I thought I would listen to this 27-year-old live album and compare different eras of Talking Heads: the 1977-1979 version (disc one), the 1980-1981 version (disc two), and, based on their later material, what the band eventually became. To their credit, Talking Heads sound equally energetic, smart, and dedicated on both discs. (Knowing that this is the band that later made “And She Was” also makes for a compelling listen.)
The Name Of This Band originally came out with 13 fewer tracks than this 2004 reissue, and in the interim fans grew increasingly concerned that the album would never be released on CD. The reissue was met with enthusiasm, and rightly so: not only was it a long time coming, it’s a very good document of a band excited about what their discoveries. Stop Making Sense rightly gets recognized as a great Talking Heads live record, but this collection is just as mesmerizing.
Disc one includes performances by the band in its original four-piece lineup, while the second includes more musicians (including King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew) and a couple of backup singers. While each disc has its own feel, the songs are equally amazing from show to show (and year to year). The band's knack for arrangement is more evident in a live setting than on their albums, and it’s easy to see how their approach -- separate, seemingly dissimilar parts adding up to an airtight whole -- made such an impression on bands like Dirty Projectors and Vampire Weekend.
Despite Talking Heads’ ample musicianship, highlights here have more to do with the band’s incredible songwriting. “Don’t Worry About The Government” retains its sly absurdity, “Psycho Killer” its fervency, “Take Me To The River” its vague menace, “Heaven” its heartbreaking bluntness. It’s interesting to hear “Once In a Lifetime,” a swirl of abstraction in its album version, as the straight-up rock song it inherently is. The band stomps through these tracks as if slowing down would kill them; you can picture David Byrne, as always, twitching and jerking as if in the midst of a seizure.
While it seems ridiculous to say so, The Name Of This Band... is sometimes too much of a good thing: the album’s 33 tracks are a lot to take in at once, and sheer quantity sometimes works against the songs that should stand out more. But this is a minor complaint, especially if you take this great collection one disc (that is, era) at a time. It's a startling portrait of a band that, to cop a phrase from one of their songs, stayed hungry.
Disc 1 (1977-1979):
1. New Feeling
2. A Clean Break (Let’s Work)
3. Don’t Worry About The Government
4. Pulled Up
5. Psycho Killer
6. Who Is It?
7. The Book I Read
8. The Big Country
9. I’m Not In Love
10. The Girls Want To Be With The Girls
11. Electricity (Drugs)
12. Found A Job
13. Mind
14. Artists Only
15. Stay Hungry
16. Air
17. Love – Building On Fire
18. Memories (Can’t Wait)
19. Heaven
Disc 2 (1980-1981):
1. Psycho Killer
2. Warning Sign
3. Stay Hungry
4. Cities
5. I Zimbra
6. Drugs (Electricity)
7. Once In a Lifetime
8. Animals
9. Houses In Motion
10. Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)
11. Crosseyed and Painless
12. Life During Wartime
13. Take Me To The River
14. The Great Curve
1966: Timothy Leary - Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out
The times, they have a-changed. When this spoken word recording was released in 1966, it was seen as a collection of radical concepts that pushed culture in amazing, dynamic, and even scary new directions. It came at a time when people held a deep belief in unavoidable and necessary change, arguably running deeper than Obamania with its many slogans and t-shirts. In the years leading up to the great acid wave, a fantastic rift existed between the conservative, loyal, noble Greatest Generation and the consciousness-expanding, peace-loving Me Generation.
Tension between adults (middle-age plus) and youth came to a head. Everyone tripped over the gap between those who barely survived the Great Depression and World War II, and those who were collectively sparked to life after the assassination of President JFK, who would peak at Woodstock, vigorously protest Vietnam, usher in lasting women and civil rights movements, and fizzle out in a blaze of coke and disco after Watergate. Throughout the 60s, a new cultural footing was being established, a changing of the guard, as the youth walked away from the seemingly archaic ideals of their parents, refusing to fight their wars and follow their rules any longer. It was one of the most exciting periods in recorded history, with Western culture reaching maturity alongside the concept of a real global village.
A lot has happened since then. While Timothy Leary's Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out may have been relevant to many people in its era, it now plays like a time capsule, capturing the precise moment the acid wave began to crest, before an entire generation crumbled from pain killers and yuppiedome. The lifestyle Leary tried to will into existence -- and rub in the faces of the aged -- polarized the freewheeling movement in an unfortunate "you're either with us or you're with the terrorists" way. At once, he was a rallying cry for a vibrant youth culture being stifled by business-as-usual and a catalyst for the anti-drug movement (and the many draconian laws that passed because of it). Now that we've had 40-plus years to let the dust settle and gather our bearings, it's still hard to say if the world would be better off if Leary had never turned on.
I certainly find it odd that a record preaching the virtues of an open mind contains constant and blatant ageism throughout. In the intro, "A Message to Young People," Timothy says "If you are over the age of 40, I'm not sure that you should listen to this record." He then follows it up with a few weak reasons why no one over 40 can be trusted (they have guns and jails for people who make them mad) and why all young people are groovy.
Yet, being young is not an alternative to being old. Everyone begins young and ends up old, and that in itself has very little to do with who we are as people day to day. As Robert Solomon said, "We should never simply write ourselves off and see ourselves as the victim of various forces. It’s always our decision who we are."
People who are assholes at 40 were likely assholes at 15, just as cool people over 40 were probably cool all of their lives. Hell, Leary himself was 46 when Turn On saw the light of day in 1966. Surely, he must have thought he was hip enough to listen to it, yet he made it seem like no middle-aged opinion had any relevance or worth (except his own, obviously). Dr. Tim shot himself in the foot with that business.
It's a real bummer to hear someone blatantly fan the flames of prejudice while allegedly standing for peace and understanding. Like Tom Cruise hysterically preaching The Church of Scientology as the only religion that can help people, Leary claimed that he alone could tap into your "potentialities" and those of your parents (but not your grandparents because "grandmother is dead, and [he] can't turn her on"). In effect, he increased the divide between two classes of people who were already having a tough time seeing eye to eye. Of course, it's doubtful he would have recognized or admitted his own open bigotry.
Dr. Timothy Leary knew he was an amazingly brilliant man, that he was the only one who had it all figured out. On "My Problem," he announces a long-term goal to be "the holiest and wisest man of [his] generation," reasoning that there's about a one-in-ten chance of achieving the goal.
Compounding matters, Leary dictates Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out in an incredibly dull, hushed tone, as if the world may crumble under the full power of his voice and ideas. Strikingly similar to all of George W. Bush's speeches, Leary's pacing is dragged out in an attempt to squeeze every iota of importance from every syllable of every word, no matter how trivial or overinflated. In doing so, he comes off like an arrogant ass-hat with little solid information.
It's easy to imagine him as a public figure, though. He rambled on about drugs and rebellion against authority figures at a time when those themes were front-page stories, so he was an instant hit with evolving beatniks and the emerging Haight-Ashbury and college crowds. He was also a hypocritical egomaniac, so he turned off most everyone outside of his demographic. I know firsthand that acid can do amazing things, but even I don't want to do it after hearing this record.
Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out is a testament to the ego of a confused doctor who bought into his own bullshit far more than it is a document of the (arguable) benefits of the psychedelic experience. How relevant did Leary think this record would be 40 years later? Likely, he didn't care. He spoke to hear himself talk and to puff up his name, not to create lasting change. For all his efforts, he is remembered as a fallen prophet and a pop culture catchphrase, and little else.
1. Message To Young People
2. Castalia Foundation
3. There's a Red Chimney
4. An Ancient Trade Union
5. Not An Idle Fantasy
6. The Taking of LSD
7. Sensory Paradise
8. Why Is It?
9. Early in the Life of Every Mammal
10. My Problem
11. Elevation of Human Consciousness
12. The Oldest Law
13. Psychochemical Revolution
14. Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out
15. Within The Temple of Your Body
16. Our Present Adult Culture
17. The Aspect of Marijuana
18. Training and Sensitivity Required
19. Lesson Number One
20. Every Baby That Is Born
21. Every Time
22. One Final Word.
