1998: Soul Coughing - El Oso
I’ve been putting off writing this one. There’s just something unruly about the final Soul Coughing album, something rough-edged and unmanageable. Though it has some concise pop gems — “Circles” is one of most radio-friendly songs of the 90s — much of the record is rambling and relentlessly dark.
Fittingly, “Rolling” opens the album with a minor key drive. “I’m rolling,” lead singer M. Doughty repeats, making the phrase as much a warning as a declaration. “Misinformed” is next, followed by “Circles”: already the album is an odd mix of styles and tempos, even for the famously mix-happy Soul Coughing. This isn’t the coffeehouse jazz of “Chicago, Is Not Chicago,” or the pop sound collage of “Soundtrack to Mary,” this is, well, drum ‘n’ bass. This is the 90s needing a place to go, a way to die.
Not that El Oso is nothing but a slog. It can be great fun following the trio’s muses, from the hyperactive “Blame” to the mellow, tweaked-out “So Far I Have Not Found The Science.” The album excels most when Soul Coughing trusts their instincts to incorporate darker and lighter elements in one song, as in “Fully Retractable,” which layers a standard rock guitar phrase on top of a growling bassline, with a sprinkle of strings on top. It’s a big, fat, mid-tempo piece that somehow stays lighter than air, like a Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon.
El Oso hodge-podge feel is testament to its multiple producers. However, where Soul Coughing’s previous records were all about the kitchen-sink approach, El Oso has these different sounds partitioned off. There are the snare-heavy freakouts, the murky songs, and the few tracks that overlap the two.
I don’t remember much about hearing this album in 1998, other than putting “Circles” on repeat while driving around my hometown between years of college. I don’t think I listened to the rest of the album very often, and I don’t think I would have wanted to. Not because El Oso is bad, but because it’s a collection of confusion – it was end-of-the-century anxiety that I wasn’t quite ready for. By the time the final track “The Incumbent” comes along — “New York, New York, I won’t go back/ indelible reminder of the steel I lack/ I gave you seven years, what did you give me back/ a jaw-grind, disposition to a panic attack” — you have been through some shit.
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1993: Royal Trux - Cats and Dogs
Under the “About this record” section for Cats and Dogs on Drag City’s website is a statement that reads simply: “Do you remember the summer of ’93? Our brief stay in Camelot…”
That’s a joke on nostalgia, I’m guessing, but for music fans of a certain age and sensibility, it’s a bittersweet one. If 1991 was the year punk broke, 1993 might be considered the beginning of indie rock’s brief golden age, the year indie went from describing DIY-style labels and bands that were financially independent from major labels, to signifying a sound based in guitar-oriented rock groups that favored lots of distortion and quirky if not obtuse lyrics and album art. It was also the year Matador partnered with Atlantic Records for distribution.
1993 was the year between Slanted and Enchanted and Crooked Rain, the year of Bubble and Scrape, Painful, Vampire on Titus (though, truth be told, most of us wouldn’t know that until next year’s Bee Thousand), On the Mouth, Icky Mettle, and so on. Choose-your-own-indie-rock adventure. These are considered seminal albums now, and back then the bands responsible were starting to get wider distribution and even some radio and MTV play, thanks in no small part to corporate America trying to figure out what was and wasn’t “grunge.” And for some of the bands, the best was yet to come.
How does Cats and Dogs fit into all this? The answer, as with most things Truxish, is unconventionally. Despite having introduced Pavement to the world via their early singles and EPs, Drag City was never an indie rock label, à la Merge or Matador. It was home to sullen songwriters (Smog, Palace), conceptual groups steeped in art theory (Red Krayola, Gastr del Sol) a Popol Vuh-admiring psychedelic-folk artist — back when that wasn’t so commonplace (Flying Saucer Attack) — and whatever the hell Royal Trux was. Drag City’s flagship band, Neil Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema’s outfit made two albums of difficult, art-damaged rock, and a more accessible but still kinda weird untitled record before releasing 1993’s Cats and Dogs, a recording that was easier for indie rock fans to digest, and one that helped them get signed to Virgin records.
Cats and Dogs didn’t sound like indie rock so much as a comment on — or reflection of — indie rock, something that seems even more apparent 17 years on. Like Jean Luc Godard’s earlier films, Royal Trux albums often played like critiques of the genres they were operating in while remaining wholly enjoyable in their own right. You could groove on them whether or not you caught all the references, but once you did, your understanding and enjoyment changed, almost always for the better.
Cats and Dogs is littered with sounds that would be familiar to anyone listening to college radio at the time. The guitar tone and slow/fast tempo change of opening track “Teeth” borrows a style that was already a cliché for innumerable indie bands formed in the wake of Nirvana, and every band had at least one song that featured a similar languid coda that allowed for scorched earth guitar soloing; “The Flag” apes early Pavement’s love of unsynced doubled vocals and noisy scuzz placed over a pop song; “Friends” sounds like a Sonic Youth noise digression (though of course the spectre of SY loomed large over every rock band in the 90s); “Tight Pants” could be Sebadoh attempting math rock; and I’ve always heard the funky break beat and vocal breakdown near the end of “Skywood Greenback Mantra” as a send-up of Hagerty’s former bandmate Jon Spencer’s flirting with minstrel-like band Blues Explosion or a prediction of the coming of Beck’s shtick.
Of course there’s plenty of stuff here that has a more tangential relationship to then-current sounds. Side one ends with “Turn of the Century,” surely one of the great tracks in the Trux catalogue. Backed by a wistful piano figure, Hagerty’s multi-tracked guitar playing has rarely been as gorgeous, his duet with Herrema never as emotive. It’s comedown acid rock for clever kids, music as narcotic. Like the heroin dealer/user in the movie Rush said, “It’s like floating on a cloud of titties.”
The feeling gets a bit queasier with side two opener “Up the Sleeve,” a song about scoring/using drugs. It has a real menace to it, the guitars and analogue synth creeping along sleazily only to be interrupted by fuzz-peddle riffing near the end. If “Up the Sleeve” contains the first real hint on this album of the antisocial troublemakers who recorded Twin Infinitives, that druggy duo seems to have been resurrected in full for album closer “Driving in That Car.” It’s a lengthy dirge propelled by what sounds like handclaps and cowbell, a retro to the future synth that sounds like a spaceship landing, and chants about time and taking off your shirt.
Whether you accept this reading of Cats and Dogs as self-conscious indie rock or not, you have to admit that Royal Trux were one of the most referential bands of the era, with an astute critical sense. Not for nothing was the word deconstruction used repeatedly in Trux reviews and profiles of the time, and even if you didn’t fully understand what that word meant (I submit few of us truly did), you knew what these Cultural Studies-steeped writers were getting at.
Hagerty has famously claimed that Royal Trux’s three records for Virgin were a conceptual trilogy, representing rock music from the 60s, 70s, and 80s: Thank You (produced by Neil Young compadre David Briggs in 1995) was ostensibly their take on 60s rock, though the early 70s swagger of Stones/Faces/Mountain is equally present. Sweet Sixteen (1997) was their trip through 70s glam rock, the icing on the toilet bowl cover image mirroring the dirty riffs and guttural vocals sweetened with stadium-sized production and mixing, while Accelerator (1998) topped it off with a shrill-sounding take on 80s pop rock. But before this trilogy, they had already executed their take on the sound of the 90s with Cats and Dogs. I don’t mean to suggest they approached the album with the strict idea of “covering” that decade, that their intent and purpose was so thoroughly fleshed out as it would be, just that they were deliberately tweaking the sounds of their contemporaries. They were operating in an aesthetic they had yet to define, making it up as they went, reinventing their sound from album to album. Cats and Dogs is as different from the previous year’s Stonesian untitled (the “Skulls” album) as that album was from the broke-down futuristic nightmare of Twin Infinitives as that was from their rickety debut as Royal Trux were from Hagerty’s previous band Pussy Galore.
In addition to their abundance of ideas and self-reinvention, what most distinguishes Royal Trux from their peers of the 90s is Hagerty’s guitar playing. No one else seems to have his understanding of — and affection for — classic rock, using its tropes in a non-ironic way that explores the further edges and possibilities of hoary riffs and solos. While other bands would acknowledge classic rock with a wink and a smirk, as if those sounds were dumb fun they liked to revel in but were ultimately above, Hagerty seemed to embrace them precisely because they were dumb, almost awed they could be as powerful and musically malleable as they were.
So maybe the summer of 1993 was a too-brief stay in indie rock Camelot. The music got more predictable and codified as it got more popular, and the internet would soon show up and make everyone an instant expert, rearrange our idea of historical narratives by crushing all of pop culture history into one infinitely sided dice where every era touched every other one. Neil and Jennifer (surely a better Jack and Jackie than Ira and Georgia) wouldn’t continue into the new millennium as Royal Trux. They split up, breaking off into Hagerty’s prolific and often baffling project Howling Hex and Herrema’s somewhat confused take on Sunset Strip rock, RTX. The late-period Trux records are great (and absolutely perfect for road trips), and in many ways superior to what came before — certainly more listenable for most people. But Cats and Dogs stands as a perfect transition from their provocative experimentation to a more standard idea of a rock band. Never again would they turn their penchant for re-appropriation so inward, evaluating their own time while also transcending it.
I can’t believe this record was ever out of print.
[Drag City reissued Cats and Dogs last week.]
1982-1992: V/A - Monster Ballads
I have friends who snicker when they catch me listening to Monster Ballads. Why? Because the late-night advertisements for it showcase the most audacious personalities this side of 1985 — because they lack the requisite level of self-awareness to pull off high irony? Fuck that. Monster Ballads is awesome. That should be the only argument you need. At least, that’s the only argument the artists featured on this compilation are prepared to offer.
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Hair metal is so shallow that it genuinely aspires to nothing more than kicking ass and getting laid. In that way, the genre is enigmatic; never do its musicians attempt to consider originality, authenticity, or any other muddying, meaningless concept. They just don’t care. Essentially, the whole genre boils down to how strong your tunes are, and nothing else matters.
Now, I’m sure we’re all familiar with this collection. Among “serious” music patrons, Monster Ballads is mostly a joke. One listens to hair metal ironically while drinking with friends and scarcely touches the stuff when it’s time to bring out the headphones. But when its sounds are actually taken earnestly, their affective qualities feel unlike those of any other genre. As a collection, Monster Ballads is melancholy in the grandest sense of the term — not only are the choruses independently sentimental, but their utter transparency further intensifies the bummer. Each progression is just plain miserable; the music may be founded exclusively through cliché, but its superficial ubiquity only allows the sound to impress upon a wider range of emotion. And the shit comes easy. What’s humorous is that plenty of contemporary musicians are attempting to thoughtfully realize this brand of downheartedness when, as it happens, bummer tunes are as thoughtless as hairspray and cigarettes.
1996-2003: Carissa's Wierd - They’ll Only Miss You When You Leave: Songs 1996-2003
I came to Carissa’s Wierd from an odd angle. Before 2006, they were a name I saw in show listings or glimpsed in the margins of Seattle scene reports. Their name, with its odd spelling, always caught my eye, but never quite enough to listen to a song or give up $12 for an album. But after watching a pair of spot-on Band of Horses sets in the spring of 2006, I made the leap. At the time, Band of Horses’ lineup included a pair of Carissa’s Wierd alumni: Ben Bridwell and Mat Brooke. (Brooke would be gone by the next time I’d see the group.) Ebullient from the energy of the band I’d just seen, I made it my mission to seek out their predecessor, ordering copies of two of their albums. A week or so later, I unwrapped them, found myself drawn in, and immediately regretted that I’d missed seeing them alive and kicking. Four years later, I’m staring down at the spine of They’ll Only Miss You When You Leave, reading the title, unpacking what it means. I have the distinct feeling that, on the other side of the country, someone is ruefully laughing.
This collection serves as a prelude to Hardly Art’s autumnal re-release of the Carissa’s Wierd discography. Thankfully, it’s arranged out of chronological order, unfolding like an album rather than a more traditional retrospective. “Low Budget Slow Motion Soundtrack Song For The Leaving Scene” opens things in a hushed tone, the voices of Jenn Ghetto and Mat Brooke blending, one pained and one a whispered echo. From there, it’s on to “Die,” the contrasts starker, the emotions more bitter. You could call it “chamber pop,” and the piano and violin do soar, but there’s a savagery just below the surface.
One Carissa’s Wierd album has the title Ugly But Honest, a phrase that might well have served as the roots of a manifesto — not in how these songs are received, but in conveying emotions, no matter how messy they might be. Some of the titles here tell stories by themselves: “Brooke Daniels’ Tiny Broken Fingers,” “All Apologies And Smiles, Yours Truely, Ugly Valentine,” “Ignorant Piece Of Shit.” Elsewhere, “The Color That Your Eyes Changed With The Color Of Your Hair” ebbs and flows like a punk-rock Mojave 3, while the frayed, nervy “So You Wanna Be A Superhero” is perhaps the one song here that evokes the group’s Northwestern base and the period in which these songs were recorded.
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The groups and projects that arose from Carissa’s Wierd don’t sound much like their predecessor. The debut from Jenn Ghetto’s S, Sadstyle, could have been mistaken for Carissa’s Wierd demos, but it was recorded during the time when Carissa’s Wierd was still an active band (subsequent albums brought in programmed beats and a stark use of space). Brooke’s Grand Archives occupy a more laid-back, opulent region, alternating between anthems and subdued sketches of the outskirts of city life. Onetime drummer Sera Cahoone’s solo work has been solid alt-country; Ben Bridwell’s Band of Horses work has aimed for a more mountainous catharsis. (Although the chemistry between Bridwell and Brooke in the days before the latter left the band did suggest something of their previous unpredictable charm.) It’s cliché to say that Carissa’s Wierd defies classification, but they are indeed the kind of group for whom microscopic subgenres were created.
Unfold the booklet of the They’ll Only Miss You When You Leave reissue and a collage results. Tour photos and flyers; lyrics and set lists, handwritten and typed out; recording credits and press clippings. There’s a whole history here. If you missed out on it the first time, this collection isn’t a bad way to become acquainted with Carissa’s Wierd’s work, their music, and their lives.
1980-1986, 2001-2004: Icons of Filth
Anarcho punk, to many of its fans, is linked to a message of peace and disorder, defiance of authority through quiet riots and finger-pointing, raging against the establishment without rocking the boat. They’re punks who are actually hippies dressed in patch-covered black clothing.
Of course “hippies dressed in black” automatically conjures images of the almighty Crass, who for better or worse dictated not only the look but also the message and sound of fellow Brit-bands who were against everything — from violence to sing-along football chants — in great part because some of the best singles of the scene were produced by Crass’ own Penny Rimbaud and released through their self-named label. Yet bands like Amebix, Rudimentary Peni, and Zounds — as well as lesser-known outfits like Antisect, Lack of Knowledge, and The Cravats — escaped the tiny sounds of midrange-y guitars and martial snare drums to forge their own form of expression.
These bands are often overlooked within the anarcho scene because they don’t sound as “true” to the norm, therefore not actually part of the whole camp (yep, I’m connecting the dots between anarcho punk and black metal; no matter how opposite their politics, they are brothers in sonic orthodoxy), but you still find people who embrace bands that not only thought like Crass, but tried to sound as close to them while presenting their own personal flair. And that’s what makes Icons of Filth so damn peculiar and worthy of revision: they played the notes and sang of the themes like the premiere black-clad outfits (your Flux of Pink Indians, Dirts, and Subhumans), yet they performed with such ferocity and aggression that you want to start slamdancing around the room without a care of McDonald’s foreign policy. Not to mention they displayed some of the best artwork within the subgenre this side of Gee Vaucher and Nick Blinko.
Coming from the land of Prince Charles (of Lady Di fame), the countryside of Wales gave way to one of Brit-punk’s most intense frontmen in the form of Andrew “Stig” Sewell, who penned poetic lyrics that spat battery acid and farted soy oil in an oblique and passionate way hardly heard anywhere near the black flag proselytizing pack. He was supported by guitars puking out riffs that were desperate, heavy, and rooted in the Class of 77, which resulted in exciting music that did without the experimental fervor of Crass, yet wasn’t so atonal it resembled something entirely different. There’s a feeling of desperation that goes beyond simple anger that makes Icons of Filth seem vital and fresh; even though it’s obviously recorded on cheap gear from 30 years ago, you can feel that something is bothering the band, something much more personal than global politics and more contagious than the majority of loud protest music. Or perhaps it really was global politics that inspired the venomous vitriol that the Icons poured as fuel for their passion. But if so, then they took animal abuse and corporate greed as personally as a member of their family dying. It is music to scream to, to get excited about, and to listen to while cooking really angry vegan meals.
In their time, the Icons recorded a brilliantly-named demo (Not on Her Majesty’s Service), three 7-inch singles (one for Crass affiliate Corpus Christi, the others for Conflict-owned Mortarhate), and one amazing long-player, Onward Christian Soldiers, each one better than the last. The band has sadly vanished in punkdom obscurity, only briefly reuniting around 2001 when they were persuaded by Go-Kart Records to make a comeback album, Nostradamnedus, which they toured behind as if they had just starting to exchange xeroxed zines for sandwiches. Sadly, this new surge of activity ceased completely when Stig died after a gig in a squat.
Let us remember Icons of Filth and their frontman, the roar they committed to tape, and the proof that great, scorching, and heartfelt bands have roamed among the washed masses. You get two videos: the studio version of the song “Brain Dead” and another from the reunion, showing that even if they seemed tamer than what they used to be, they could still sound like rabid dogs, creatures for which they surely played tons of benefit gigs.
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1974: Robert Wyatt: "Little Red Robin Hood Hit the Road"
Stepping out into the world with headphones on can be a strange experience, like deciding to swim under water for a couple of strokes — especially if you’re listening to the weirdo strains of Robert Wyatt’s 70s masterpiece Rock Bottom. Maybe it’s alienating and irresponsible to disengage with the everyday even on the most quotidian stroll to the park or shop — there are probably many members of your community willing to chat, swap houseplants and stories; Grandmas needing help with their bags etc. Ah, Pa, people don’t care! Most ordinary days involve more humbug than hobnob. The underwater world of Rock Bottom is thus a most suitable companion for a walk to the park on a dry hot day, but also a weird one — a school-skipping dope carrying companion. The way in which the music deviates so gloriously, so shiftily, from the ordinary really kicks in on the final track “Little Red Robin Hood Hit the Road.”
There are two movements, the first of which is a dirge-heavy presentiment of the second, beginning with Robert Wyatt intoning “In the Garden of England” in true prog style, and ending with the most amazingly evil-sounding electric guitars, played by Mike Oldfield. The second opens with a wall of intensity: harmonium and viola descending like a heat haze. The harmonium belongs to Ivor Cutler, the Scottish eccentric — poet, humorist, and children’s author — who recites a nonsense poem over the music in a flat, hypnotic voice, his uncompromising Scots delivery at times bizarrely resembling a Jamaican accent. See, for instance, “I reflect on the life of the highwayman, Yum Yum Yum” and “I fight with the handle of my little brown broom.” The effect of these obscure ruminations — bordering on village idiocy — is to bind a homely, peaty darkness with a bloodshot menace, both of which are perfectly set off by Fred Frith’s scratchy viola. Cutler got three record deals on the back of this ‘little’ poem: probably the most amazing, unsettling finale to an album I’ve ever heard.
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