Hunters & Collectors - Hunters & Collectors

I'd never even heard of Hunters & Collectors until about ten years ago. I was browsing through one of my old reliable music books, the Trouser Press Record Guide, and happened to come across their name. I can't remember what most of the article about this band said; the main thing I recall was that the TPRG mentioned that the band's sound was similar to that of England's The Fall.

Being a HUGE Fall fan, that was all I needed to hear. I instantly became more interested in what this band was about.

Hunters & Collectors was formed in Melbourne, Australia in 1981 by a bunch of local college students. They named themselves from a track on an album by Can. The band lived up to its naming source by creating a post-punk sound heavily influenced by 1970s German experimental groups like Faust, Tangerine Dream and, of course, Can, filtered through an Australian rock sensibility (Mark E. Smith's love of Krautrock was a primary early influence to The Fall's music as well; hence the comparison between The Fall and Hunters & Collectors in TPRG). The band's lead singer and principal lyricist was a guy named Mark Seymour, whose younger brother Nick later became bassist for Crowded House.

Hunters & Collectors were quickly signed to a subsidiary of Mushroom Records, and their first release, a 3-song EP called World Of Stone, was released in January 1982. Their debut album, Hunters & Collectors, was released by the label the following July, and reached #21 on the Australian charts. Another EP, Payload, was released on Mushroom in November of that year. In early 1983, the band began a six-month tour of the UK and signed to Virgin Records, who combined the band's LP and the Payload EP into a UK LP rerelease of Hunters & Collectors. Another album, The Fireman's Curse (recorded in Germany and helmed by renowned Krautrock producer Conny Plank), was released on Virgin in September 1983. But a multialbum deal with Virgin fell apart after the band publicly insulted the manhood of the managing executive of the label. By November, Hunters & Collectors had disbanded.

But by early 1984 the members had returned to Australia and reformed, at the same time revising their sound, moving away from post-punk and arty German rock pretensions towards a fuller, 'pub rock'-ier, bass-&-horn-driven attack that brought them nationwide fame. Hunters & Collectors' breakthrough album was 1986's Human Frailty, featuring their most popular song, "Throw Your Arms Around Me". The album was their first Australian Top Ten LP, and from then on, the band was one of Australia's top live draws, a 'bloke's' band that recorded several other popular songs, such as "Back On The Breadline", "When The River Runs Dry", and "Where Do You Go", before finally calling it quits in 1998.

Hunters & Collectors didn't do diddley-squat in America, but it's not for lack of trying. In 1986, they signed a parallel record deal with I.R.S. Records to release their albums in the States, but found little mainstream success ("Back On The Breadline" did make the Top Ten Modern Rock charts here, however). They were the support band for Midnight Oil's 1990 U.S. tour (The Oil's were touring on their American breakthrough record, Diesel & Dust), but failed to make any headway. I think that I.R.S. considered the band to be "too Australian" (whatever the heck that means), and as such, didn't know how to properly market the band in the U.S.

[Of course, that rationale makes absolutely no sense - Midnight Oil was a hell of a lot more "Australian" than H&C, and so it stands to reason that Diesel & Dust, a song cycle dealing almost exclusively with the plight of the country's aboriginal population, should have tanked here - instead, it was the album that made them in the States. So go figure.]

It's too bad that H&C couldn't find a U.S. audience. It's also sort of a shame that they changed their sound after 1983. Their debut self-titled album is absolutely superb. The 'hit' off of this album was supposed to be "Talking To A Stranger". But my favorite song off of Hunters & Collectors is "Run Run Run", an absolutely mesmerizing song that starts off as a bass-and-nagging guitar motorik hybrid, before suddenly, in the middle of the song, changing into a hypnotic chug that modifies yet AGAIN near the end into a grinding guitar workout. A completely amazing work.

But don't take my word for it. Here's the album for you to judge for yourself. As always, let me know what you think:

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Pavement - Slanted & Enchanted: Luxe & Reduxe (RS500 - #134)

I got into Pavement sort of ass-backwards, but as it turned out, it was exactly the right way to understand the band.

I learned about the band during that six-month period back in 1993 that I mentioned in my earlier post on The Starlings, just before I left for New Zealand [in hindsight - damn, but there was a lot of good music floating around back then!]. I don't recall hearing them on the radio; I must have read something about them in one of the music magazines I regularly perused back then, like Spin or the NME. Or maybe there was something about them in the DC City Paper that I saw - I just don't recall. Back then, more than now, there were music critics and commentators whose judgment I trusted implicitly; if they said something was good, that was usually good enough for me. So I must've come to the band through something like that, because I purchased the first Pavement album I came across, Westing (By Musket & Sextant), before I'd ever heard a note of their music.

[or, at least I THINK I'd never heard one of their songs up to that point . . . I say this because back in October 1991, my friend Camob came out from California to visit the DC area, and we ended up doing the town a couple of nights, hitting the old college bars along M Street that used to cater to Georgetown students (all of them now long gone) and checking out our old music haunts. We spent a couple of hours in the old 9:30 Club on F Street one evening, listening to some no-name band play . . . and it was years later, after thinking about it, that I became pretty sure that, during their set, those guys played a version of Pavement's "Texas Never Whispers", a year before it came out on the Watery, Domestic EP. I could be wrong . . . but I don't think I am.]

As far as I knew, Westing was Pavement's first album. I listened to it constantly that spring and summer, at home in the DC area and at my new home in New Zealand. Several songs entered heavy rotation on my personal playlist, including "Box Elder" and "Forklift".

Christchurch, New Zealand is pretty well off the beaten path, as far as American acts are concerned; when a Stateside act arrives down that way, it's pretty big news (which explains why I inexplicably paid my hard-earned money to see Tina Turner, of all people, play at Lancaster Park during my first month there . . .). So I felt incredibly lucky when, browsing the local paper one day about two months into my Kiwi residency, I noticed a small ad announcing that Pavement was actually coming to play a show in town. I was so shocked, I stopped, went back and slowly scanned the ad again, just in case I had misread the name. But no, it turned out to be true - a decent indie band that I was just getting fully into was heading my way!

At about the same time I heard about the upcoming show, I discovered that Westing wasn't the band's first album - it was just a compilation of early singles and EPs. Their first official disc was Slanted & Enchanted, released by Matador Records in April 1992 (although copies had been distributed to selected DJs and music critics as early as the spring/summer of 1991 - which makes my conviction that I heard "Texas Never Whispers" a year before its official release not as far-fetched as it appears . . .). I found a copy of the album at Echo Records downtown and took it home to begin absorbing it.

As much as I loved Westing, Slanted & Enchanted COMPLETELY blew me away. EVERY song on the album was strong, and I quickly discovered several new Pavement favorites that began being played constantly around the house and in my car - "Perfume V", "Two States", "Summer Babe" (which sounds almost identical to the one on Westing), and especially "Here", in my opinion one of the three best songs Pavement ever did (along with "Shoot The Singer" and "Box Elder").

By the date of their show in town, I was fully conversant in their music.

However, I still didn't know much about the band, or the players themselves, outside of their names. So I went to the packed show, fought my way to a space near the front, and suffered through the opening band, some no-name Christchurch locals. The following band, who I assumed to be Pavement, came on and started playing. And all through the first part of their set I'm shouting out song names for them to play - "'Box Elder'!" "'Two States'!" The band is giving me dirty looks all the while, and it finally dawned on me that they weren't Pavement; they were Bailter Space, a rightly renowned Kiwi band that, at the time, I knew nothing about. I'd never been to a show that had two opening acts before the headliner, so I made an assumption - a poor one, as it turned out (hell, I didn't know - it's not like there were band pictures in the CD inserts!).

Pavement finally came on, and of course they were absolutely great. The crowd there was going wild - say what you will about the assumed provincialism of New Zealanders, but I gotta tell you: Kiwis KNOW their music. They played everything I hoped they'd play, and more. I left that show a rabid Pavement fan, and from then on was on a mission to track down all of their EPs and obscure 7"s. And to add to this embarrassment of Pavement riches, the band RETURNED to Christchurch less than a year later, for a show at the Caladonian Hall down the street from the Park Royal Hotel - another great show.

For me, this album was Pavement's peak. Their following releases - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, Wowee Zowee, Brighten The Corners - have all been critically acclaimed, but to me they all seem to lack the grit, spark and urgency of their earlier material. Others seem to think so as well - in 2002, Slanted & Enchanted was the first of Pavement's albums to get the Deluxe Edition treatment, adding a second disc of B-sides and live versions from that era to the original release. I'm frankly stunned that Rolling Stone would rank this album as high as it did - in my mind, it's more than deserving of this recognition, but I never thought the band's music was 'commercial' enough or accessible enough to warrant widespread recognition like this. Guess I was wrong again . . . and thankfully so this time.

Here it is - the Deluxe Edition, for your listening pleasure. As always, I appreciate your comments:

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Triple Gang - This Nation's Saving Grace (Cover Version)

In the summer of 2000, a short-lived pickup band composed of national and local recording artists residing in the Bay Area played two shows three weeks apart at small venues in San Francisco. Normally, events like this happen all the time in cities around the globe, and are little noticed nor long remembered, even by the participants and attendees. What made this particular pair of concerts so memorable was that the band, Triple Gang, decided that instead of playing a set full of hoary rock chestnuts, they would challenge themselves and their audience by mastering and covering, in its entirety, The Fall's 1988 magnum opus, This Nation's Saving Grace.

This Nation's Saving Grace is one of my favorite Fall albums, a release from the band's heady mid-80s period, when they could do no wrong (at least as far as their fans were concerned) and pumped out classic album after classic album: Hex Enduction Hour, The Wonderful & Frightening World Of The Fall, Bend Sinister. TNSG is the apex of the band's output during that time, but it's also one of their densest and most challenging recordings, sonically and lyrically. It's very much a product of Mark E. Smith, The Fall's founding member, lead singer and quasi-dictator, and as such, one would think that it would be pure hubris and/or insanity for any band other than The Fall to cover it.

And yet, that's just what Triple Gang set out to do.

Triple Gang was composed of: Matt Jervis, the ex-lead singer for local S.F. band Kingdom First; Billy Gould, the former bassist for Faith No More; Alex Newport, who used to play guitar for Fudge Tunnel; drummer Jon Weiss, formerly of Horsey; and keyboardist Miya Osaki. The two shows they played that summer were at Kimo's that July 14th and at the Covered Wagon on August 3rd (both venues still exist, and still showcase local music almost nightly).

I can't remember how I heard about these shows. I was living in Texas at the time, and as such had no chance of getting out to San Francisco to see these events - would have loved to have attended, though. I probably got wind of them through the Fallnet message boards active back then.

The SF Weekly ran a long article about Triple Gang and this project in an issue released prior to the first show - here's the link, in case you're interested.

These two shows were the only performances ever conducted by this band lineup. Immediately afterwards, Triple Gang broke up, and the band members moved on to over things. Jervis currently lives in Berkeley, doing illustrations and producing the occasional concert poster. Weiss and Gould are currently collaborating with Jello Biafra on one of the latter's latest projects, Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine. Newport owns a recording studio in New York and is an in-demand producer, working with such names as Death Cab For Cutie and Japan's Polysics. And Osaki has worked with a number of small Bay Area and L.A. indie bands.

The Triple Gang shows were never officially recorded for release. But fortunately, someone had the foresight to tape one of these events for posterity (specifically, the first show, at Kimo's), and as fortune would have it, I obtained a copy of the bootleg. But for a bootleg, the sound quality is actually pretty good.

I suspect that the audience for this posting will be extremely limited to folks with knowledge of/nostalgia for the old Bay Area music scene, as well as hardcore Fall fans interested in a different take on a classic Fall album. If you count yourself a member of one of these groups, well, here you go - enjoy. As always, let me know what you think:

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Poll Results - "What is the worst rock song of all time?"

Well, hell . . . you guys scared me for a minute. Up until the day before the poll closed, "All That She Wants" and "We Built This City" were actually TRAILING in the "worst song" competition. Fortunately at the last minute, enough of you had the good bad taste to make the right choice. Here are the results:

- "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" - 1 vote
- "My Humps" - 1 vote
- "Kokomo" - 1 vote
- "I'm Too Sexy" - 1 vote
- "Live Is Life" - 2 votes
- "The Final Countdown" - 2 votes
- "Achy Breaky Heart" - 3 votes
- "All That She Wants" - 4 votes

And the champion, the consensus Worst Rock Song of All Time:

- "We Built This City" - 5 votes

I congratulate you all for participating. I'll put together another poll soon, when I think of a good topic.

The Who - Live At Leeds: Complete

I hesitate to mention this, for fear of committing rock blasphemy and losing my credibility with you musicophiles out there . . . but frankly, The Who have never done that much for me.

True, I like some of their songs, and I enjoyed seeing them play their abbreviated "greatest hits" set at the Super Bowl last year. But I've never had any interest in delving that deeply into their individual albums, searching for that obscure gem buried on, say, Side Two of The Who Sell Out or The Who By Numbers. I'm happy just listening to my copy of the hits collection Who's Better, Who's Best, and leaving the rest unplayed. To me, their concept albums, like Tommy and Quadrophenia, just seem a bit over the top. IMHO, in the late 60s, there were better bands than The Who putting out more superior concept albums addressing the state of the world and life in Britain (um, The Kinks, and The Village Green Preservation Society (for starters), anyone?).

And over the years, the whole hagiography of the band, and Keith Moon in particular, has seemed a bit overblown to me. Yes, I was sad when John Entwhistle died (I give him props, though, for going out like a true rock star - in bed in a Vegas hotel, a naked hooker to his left and a pile of blow to his right), but it wasn't as affecting to me as it was to a lot of other, bigger Who fans. I have a lot of bands that I'm really into and have made the time and effort to know more about - The Who are not one of those bands. They're a classic rock band, and rank right up there near the top . . . but so do Led Zeppelin and Cream, and those bands don't get half the quasireligious worship that The Who seems to engender.

My buddy Ed is a HUGE Who fan, though, and knows the band's music and history back and forth. He can tell you which one of the numbered guitars Pete Townshend played at which point during the Woodstock and Isle of Wight festivals, and exactly how much gunpowder was loaded into Keith Moon's drumset during the infamous Smothers Brothers show explosion in 1967 (BTW, if you've never seen it, it's an instant classic:)

Ed's all-time favorite album is Live At Leeds. Many years ago, he began hearing rumors that what was released on Live At Leeds was not the band's complete set recorded at Leeds University on February 14th, 1970. He assumed that with the release of the expanded Live At Leeds: Deluxe Edition in 2001, he would finally be hearing the full show. But even that release had issues, specifically in that it wasn't fully 'live', but "augmented" in some places in the studio to either expand the sound or hide some of the flubbed notes and sloppy riffs. Ed was still itching to get his hands on the complete, unadulterated set, complete with errors and extended stage banter. I told him I'd help him track it down. A friend of mine in the Rockies had a copy, a bootleg released on Midas Touch Records a few years ago, and at my request he immediately sent one to me.

The two-disc Live At Leeds: Complete was all that Ed had asked for, and more - the complete set from that fateful day in 1970, from start to finish. The song sequencing is different from the earlier releases of this album, and the length of the individual tracks varies according to how much studio wizardry and elimination of stage chatter was done to the originals. There's also an infamous static hum through some of the songs, a noise that was eliminated on the earlier releases, but a sound that told Ed that he was getting the original, unadulterated goods. He was completely flabbergasted and fascinated with some of the obvious (to him) changes evident on Complete, compared to the originals. He tried to point out some of them to me, but I was oblivious - shit all sounded the same to me. Still, I know he spent hours listening and relistening to each track . . . as many others have done. There are literally entire websites set up that meticulously analyze every song on this one album and track the modifications. That's getting a little too nitpicky for me, but more power to guys who are into stuff like that.

If you're one of those types of Who fans, then I guess this posting will be right up your alley. Have a listen, enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think:

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The B-52's - Bouncing Off The Satellites

[Well, I'm back . . . sort of. I'm cheating a little, by backdating this one. I originally started it early in October, but never finished it in time for the anniversary I was trying to commemorate. Sorry for being away from this thing for so long. I had a lot of ideas that I wanted to post, but a combination of more pressing matters, time spent away, and simply my own general sloth kept me from creating actual words from my thoughts. No promises on how active I'll be in the next few days/weeks - I made that mistake last month! But, for now, here you go - enjoy:]

If you read my earlier posts, you know that I absolutely love The B-52's. I've been a fan of theirs for over thirty years (God, have they been around that long (and a more pertinent question - am I THAT old?)?), and have attended a countless number of their live shows (has to be somewhere around 12-15 now). I know this band back and forth, and can speak knowledgeably about band minutiae such as the name of Kate Pierson's pre-B-52's hippie band (The Sun Donuts), and as the relative quality of their opening acts over the years (The Bongos were pretty good, Royal Crescent Mob sucked). I briefly lived in Athens, GA, the band's hometown, and while I was there I used to go to Allen's for a beer (no longer 25 cents though (and this was before "Deadbeat Club" was even recorded, so gimme a break)), and on the way into school every day, I drove by the house at the far end of Milledge Avenue where the band played their legendary first concert, out on the back porch.

Probably my favorite of all the B-52's shows I've seen was the one they played Providence in March 1982, in support of their latest album Mesopotamia (I think it was called the "Meso-Americans Tour"). At the time, I was living and going to school in Newport, RI, and I had recently turned one of my new buddies there (we'll call him "Camob") onto the band. Camob came to Rhode Island straight out of the San Fernando Valley of suburban Los Angeles, and though he did his best to hide it, his unconscious mannerisms and vocal inflections pegged him as a straight-up early '80s "Valley Boy". He was like a bigger, beefier, less aggro Billy Zabka - only if Zabka had brown hair, no karate skills and a more normal, formative childhood. Camob was also smart as hell, although he was doing his level best to murder his cerebral cortex every weekend by liberally dousing it with as much ethanol as he could procure (the man had a stinging, insatiable yen for stinkwater that was truly remarkable for someone of his tender years, and positively hair-raising for a teetotaling geek like myself back then). Couple all of that with his Devo fandom, and it's no wonder we quickly became fast friends.

Anyway, after his first taste of their music, Camob dug the Bee-Fives pretty much from the get-go, and as such, he and I decided to go to the Providence concert. He talked one of our classmates into going with us as well - not that we were particular buddies with the guy, but mainly because he had a car we could use for the trip (well, that HE could use - I still couldn't drive just yet). The evening of the show, Camob and the other guy loaded up the car with brown-bagged "supplies" (I didn't bother to ask what they were), and we all headed across the Newport Bridge, en route to the state capital.

The sold-out show was at the Providence Performing Arts Center, a beautiful old opera house-type venue with red velvet seating and a huge balcony hanging over a third of the floor seating. We got to Providence early enough to find good parking close to the theater. But instead of running right in to claim our seats and settle in for the opening act, the other two guys with me insisted on breaking into their bags of "supplies", which basically consisted of several cans of semi-cold Busch beer and a contraption consisting of a long flexible plastic tube about an inch in diameter, with a funnel at one end. Being a nondrinker, I had no idea what the thing was for - looked like some sort of mouth douche to me. But I soon found out what the deal was, as the guys plugged up one end and began pouring can after can of brewski into this contraption, which they called a "beer bong". I watched in amazement as Camob held the bong high, raised the nonfunnel end to his lips, and in a flash emptied the equivalent of four cans of beer straight into his belly, without losing a drop (my boy was very proud of his ability to "open his throat" to make that happen . . . and we'll just leave that line alone . . .).

Needless to say, by the time the show started, Camob was roaring drunk. Our driving buddy, who didn't partake as liberally as Camob did, seemed to be holding his own; of course, I hadn't had a drop. I had more than a bit of concern regarding how we were going to be able to drive back to Newport later that night, but my worries were momentarily forgotten as the curtain came up. Like I mentioned earlier, the opening band, The Bongos, were pretty good. I'd never heard of them before that show, but a lot of their songs stuck with me, including "Number With Wings".

But of course, the main reason I was there was for the headliner, and they did not disappoint. The place was going apeshit as the B-52's played classic song after classic song. Outside of "Mesopotamia", I don't recall them playing anything else off of their latest album. The set was concentrated on the big hits from their first two discs: "Private Idaho", "52 Girls", "Rock Lobster", "Dance This Mess Around". People were out of their seats the entire time, dancing in the aisles and causing such a ruckus in the PPAC balcony that Fred Schneider paused the show momentarily to implore the people up there not to bounce around so much, lest they cause the balcony to collapse on the rest of the audience! Just a great, great show.

(And as for our return trip, Camob's friend had danced and sweated off enough booze to become sober enough to get us back to Newport. I rode shotgun, still petrified, ready to grab the wheel at the first sign of the guy slipping into a sudden alcohol coma, while Camob lay prone in the backseat, mumbling to himself in a profound liquor stupor - another TKO victory recorded by the infamous beer bong. Thank God he made it back there without booting - that would have made a bad ride THAT much worse.)

I've been there and back again with this band, long before their mainstream popularity, so the death of Ricky Wilson back in 1985 was particularly affecting. The guy was a guitar genius, and while Keith Strickland has definitely picked up where Ricky left off (and saved the band in the process), to this day the band is still missing the spirit that Ricky brought to their music. I'll always be a fan, though - as will Camob, who after all of the these years is still one of their #1 acolytes.

So on the 25th anniversary of his death, I offer you the last album recorded by all five original members, Bouncing Off The Satellites, released in September 1986 on Warner Brothers Records. This album doesn't quite have the loose, party-hearty feel of their earlier albums, but there is still enough in the way of goofy ideas and good music to make up for the overall stiffness and broader lack of imagination.

Enjoy:

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So much for my big plan . . .

to post a bunch of stuff at the end of September. Sorry, folks - circumstances conspired against me. More stuff to come this week and month, so don't give up on this blog yet!

Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians - 'So You Think You're In Love' EP

[Sorry that I've been kind of slow in posting stuff this month - it's been pretty busy here, which has sort of limited my time to put together the erudite, pithy writeups on this music that I know you all love so well (ha ha!) . . . I'm trying to make an end-of-month push here, and get a few more posted to at least meet my monthly average of 10-12 albums/EPs (you might have noticed that the number of posts has increased in the last week - or then again, maybe you haven't . . .). So on that note, here's another one:]

I should probably be a bigger fan of the music of Robyn Hitchcock than I am, but I simply have trouble fully getting into his music. He's just too quirky and inconsistent for me. I was never a fan of The Soft Boys, his first post-punk/psychedelic-punk group, so I have no nostalgia for his early work. And it seems that every time he puts out something that catches my interest, he follows up with something that I can't stand, putting me back to Square One with him once again.

For example, I loved the song "Balloon Man" (off of the great Globe Of Frogs album) when it came out in 1988, and figured the guy had finally found a sound that appealed to me. But his follow-up, 1989's Queen Elvis, was terrible, and I found the lead single off of that album, "Madonna Of The Wasps", to be weak and somewhat whiny. Once again, he lost what little goodwill he had with me.

With that being said, I paid little attention to his next release, 1990's acoustic solo outing Eye, and by the time he reunited with The Egyptians for his 1991 album on A&M Records, Perspex Island, I was all but completely ignoring his output. However, that perspective changed once I began hearing cuts from the new disc on the radio. I was living in the Washington, DC area at the time, and WHFS there put the lead single, "So You Think You're In Love", in heavy rotation. I thought to myself, "Pretty good song."

But it was another Robyn Hitchcock single from that time period played on 'HFS that really caught my attention and interest. They played it less frequently on the station, which was too bad, as it was a MUCH stronger song than "So You Think You're In Love". It was a gentle acoustic duet between Hitchcock and Michael Stipe of R.E.M., called "Dark Green Energy" (Stipe and other members of R.E.M. collaborated on other songs on Perspex Island).

 The song was just outstanding, so much so that I decided to become a Robyn Hitchcock fan once again, and went running full-bore to Tower Records to pick up the disc. But when I got to the record store, I found that the song I loved so much wasn't on the album track list.

I had to hunt around for a while to actually find the recorded tune; I finally tracked it down on an EP, So You Think You're In Love, offered at a small record store I used to go to in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Although the EP featured the title cut, the song that A&M was pushing to be the 'hit' off of this album, the EP was woefully obscure and hard to find, which made absolutely no sense to me at all - it stands to reason that if you want to sell something, it helps to have it readily available in large quantities.

And, of course, after drawing me back into the fold, Hitchcock drove me away again with his next release, Respect, which was his last with The Egyptians. Respect sucked so bad that even Hitchcock himself has been quoted as saying he himself didn't like the record. And there you go.

For me, Robyn Hitchcock hasn't put out anything as good as this EP in the last 20 years. He's still plugging away at it, though - God bless him, and I wish him all the luck and success in the world.

Here you are - enjoy, and let me know what you think:

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The Fall - A World Bewitched: Best of 1990-2000

I found this one in Chicago.

In the summer of 2001, I flew to the Chicago area for work, as part of a team looking at a portfolio the company was thinking of buying. We stayed about 15-20 miles outside of the city, in a village called Bolingbroke (don't let the term 'village' fool you into thinking there are milkmaids and farm wagons rolling around dusty streets - the 'villages' in Chicagoland are huger and more populous than some cities back East. 'Village' is just a affectation they never got rid out out there). We were put up in some sprawling old hotel/"resort" - the kind of place with its own golf course, conference rooms, swimming pools, etc., spread out over several acres. I guess at one time, back in the '60s and '70s, the joint was considered to be pretty swank. But the owners had done nothing to keep the place current with the times; the wallpaper and decor were still echoing some time around 1973. The main bar resembled something out of a bad "Kojak" episode, and the only thing that kept my room from looking like Greg, Peter and Bobby's bedroom was the absence of a bunk bed in the corner.

However, the place wasn't all bad. Out of boredom one evening, I began wandering the hotel, and found myself in the game room, which was full of old video arcade games I hadn't seen or played in decades: Hard Drivin', Pole Position, Spy Hunter, Xevious - you name it, it was in there. So I had a good time killing an hour of two there.

But after a couple of days, I was getting pretty stir-crazy, working all day on site, then coming back to the House of Mannix. So one night I rented a car and drove into Chicago.

Prior to that visit, I'd never spent much time in that city, so I knew nothing about what was going on there. But I must say that I found Chicago to be a fun, hip little town. Lots of stuff to do, great restaurants (the steakhouses can't be beat), good bars and clubs, nice chicks - they've got a good atmosphere there. I grabbed something to eat at one of those steak places (don't ask me which one - I can't recall), then started walking around and looking around. I found myself in front of the local Tower Records, and decided to pop in for a bit.

I don't know about you, but when I go to a music store, the first stacks I go to are the ones for my favorite bands, just to check and see if anything new had been released, or if one of their earlier releases had evaded my attention. Since I'm a completist when it comes to most of my faves, these searches are usually futile - I'd already have everything they had out. But that night in Chicago, I ran across this Fall compilation, A World Bewitched: Best of 1999-2000, released on Artful Records earlier that year.

The 1990s were an iffy period for The Fall, in my opinion. Brix had left Mark E. Smith and the band, and her presence and ear for pop-friendly hooks was sorely missed. Her absence did serve as the inspiration for one of the best Fall albums of that era, 1990's Extricate, where (despite denials to the contrary) Mark savagely vents his spleen regarding her (What? "Sing Harpy" and "Black Monk Theme Part I" ("You know I really, really, really, really HATE you, baby!") aren't directed towards Brix? Really, Mark?). From there, the albums began a gradual decade-long slide into mediocrity. There were some high spots here and there: Code: Selfish and The Infotainment Scan had many high moments. But other releases like Middle Class Revolt and Cerebral Caustic seemed to lack the imagination and fire of some of the band's best material from the 1980s. And, of course, the infamous onstage punchup in New York in 1998 that led to the departure of longstanding Fall stalwarts like Steve Hanley didn't help either. The Fall really didn't start to get its shit back together until 1999's The Marshall Suite.

With all that being said, you would think that Fall highlights during tha decade would be few and far between. That didn't stop the release of a series of "Best of '90s" Fall compilations of varying scope and quality - A Past Gone Mad: The Best of 1990-2000 and Listening In: Lost Singles Tracks 1990-1992 among them (A Past Gone Mad is actually pretty good, collecting some of the best Fall songs from that decade).

But of all of these releases, I found the two-disc A World Bewitched to be the best of them all. This compilation picks through the dross of the decade, pulling out the superior cuts from that time that were left off of A Past Gone Mad - tunes like "4 1/2 Inch" and "Glam Racket" - so it's a good retrospective of that time and a good starting point for new Fall fans who want to hear the highlights from that period without purchasing all the albums.

But what makes A World Bewitched REALLY worthwhile for true Fall fans is Disc 2, which collects all of the decade's hard-to-find rarities and one-off collaborations by the band (or just Mark E. Smith) with artists such as Elastica and Badly Drawn Boy. Featured on this disc are songs such as:

- the band's superb cover of Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich's 1960's hit "The Legend Of Xanadu", which before this album had only been available on a rare NME magazine compilation;
- the brilliant "Calendar", driven by Badly Drawn Boy's guitar, formerly available on a limited-edition "Masquerade" single; and
- "Seventies Night", a hilarious discofied workout between Mark and Edwyn Collins.

As mediocre as the Nineties seemed to be for The Fall, this compilation all but redeems the decade, and shows that, even when not at the top of their game, The Fall still crushes anyone else recording out there.

All in all, it turned out to be a valuable and productive trip to the city for me that night (I also picked up that night, on a whim, The Sea & Cake's Oui, which turned me into a fan of that band as well). We ended up not bidding on that portfolio we were there for. But I got cool new tunes out of the trip . . . so it was all good.

And here you are, for your listening pleasure. Enjoy:

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Trio - Trio & Error

[I guess with my recent couple of posts regarding disasters, I've been getting some folks down. A friend here on this blog recommended that I lighten up a bit . . . so I'll put the bad tales aside for a bit, starting now:]

I spent a good part of my second summer at the Academy at sea, sailing up and down the East Coast on a small yard patrol (YP) craft with about 15-16 other classmates and a couple of upperclassmen. We were part of a flotilla of three or four of these boats, doing training on maneuvers, navigation, etc. Initially, I was disappointed to be on a YP, rather than over in Europe or the Far East as others were, but it turned out to be great. We took those puny vessels everywhere, and made a lot of extended stops in great places like Boston and New York City (my first long visit there). It was during one of those early stops that I first noticed HER.

She was a fellow classmate, beautiful and cool and athletic, part of the crew of one of the other YP boats in our group (somehow, I had never noticed nor run across her during the entire first year of school, which was strange because the campus and student body was not very large). Anyway, I was instantly smitten. Since she was on a different boat and off doing other things with her friends on shore, my encounters with her that summer were brief and fleeting, and in all of them she was cool and aloof and mysterious, which only piqued my interest further. By the end of the summer, I had a major crush on her . . . and she, no doubt, had little, if any, idea or interest in who I was or what I was all about.

But the Gods of Random Probability like to have their little jokes every once in a while - our class was the first in several years to be "scrambled"; that is, moved to different companies at the end of plebe year. And as fate would have it, she and I ended up in the same one, living just a few doors away from one another. Not that that helped my cause; I was a goof, and initially she wanted nothing to do with me at all.

But as time passed, slowly and steadily, our 'relationship' (as it were) progressed. In her eyes, I think I moved from being an annoying pest to a tolerable distraction to an acceptable acquaintance, and in time we became friends. We found we had the same sense of humor, and would find hilarious ways to make fun of the people we knew. I used to challenge her at racquetball, and she responded by kicking my ass every time we played. But mostly, we bonded over music. I had a large and growing collection of cassette tapes back then, probably the best selection on the floor, and she would sometimes come over to borrow music or talk about bands. We were supposed go with a group of people to see Book Of Love in DC one weeknight during our junior year, a show that necessitated that we go "over the wall", that is, leave the Academy grounds without permission . . . in the end, I couldn't go, but she did; the entire group got busted coming back, and received days of restriction and heavy demerits. She got me a Fishbone T-shirt from another show she went to that I didn't attend; I treasured that shirt, and wore it for years, until it literally disintegrated.

But with all of that, we were still 'just' friends. And that was cool by me; by that time, the old crush had cooled considerably. I still liked her, but I figured if we were to be just friends, then so be it. She had a boyfriend or two at school, and we each went to the Ring Dance at the end of our junior year with someone else. She was as aloof and mysterious as ever, but in a different way, now that we were closer. But I could still never 'read' her, or figure out what was on her mind.

So I was surprised when, on a Friday evening during the winter of our senior year, I found myself driving with her to my parent's house for the weekend, just the two of us. To this day, I still can't figure out how this came about; I don't really recall asking her. I might have mentioned that I go home on weekends from time to time, and she asked if she could join me - I simply don't recall. All I knew was, there I was, driving down a snowy Route 50 towards the Beltway and Virginia with the girl I'd liked for years sitting next to me.

The roads were bad and the going was slow, but I brought plenty of music along, which we played in my Subaru's tape deck. In addition to being the driver, I also served as the sort-of DJ, swapping cassettes out frequently, putting on stuff that she might not have heard before. One 'new' song really captured her interest, a simplistic melody called "Da Da Da" by a German band called Trio.

Trio (made up of Stephan Remmler on vocals, Gert Krawinkel on guitar, and Peter Behrens on drums) was formed in Grossenkheten, Germany in 1980. They were part of a strange but unorganized and unofficial hybrid of European new wave that appeared during that time, featuring simplistic melodies, songs with no more that three-chord progressions, and monotone vocals. Other practitioners of this sound back then included Young Marble Giants (previously covered in this blog) and The Flying Lizards from England. In many ways, Trio took that minimal sound even further than the other bands mentioned, utilizing only guitar and drums on their songs until late in their career. In a lot of ways, Trio was like the "new wave Kraftwerk" of their time.

But even with these limitations, the band still managed to put out some catchy, popular numbers, including the aforementioned "Da Da Da". This song was on their debut German-language album released in 1981, and eventually made it to #2 on the national charts there in April 1982. An English-language version of this song was released in England in the late spring of that year, and saw similar success, also reaching #2 there and selling over a million copies. The English version was also a hit in Canada later that year, making the Top 5 in that country.

With this international success, Polydor Records rerecorded Trio's debut, adding some English songs, and rereleased the album in the U.S. as Trio & Error in 1983 (the label retained the services of the band's long-time producer, the legendary musician, artist and Beatle friend Klaus Voorman). But the album and their international hit song did nothing here in this country; outside of a few college/alternative stations airing it, Trio's music went unheard by the majority of Americans. WHFS in Washington, DC used to play it once in a while, though; that's where I first heard it, and liked it enough to look for a cassette copy.

It was that cassette that was played over and over that weekend, as she and I rolled through DC. Even with the weather, we had a fun time. We went out to eat in the city, and hit a lot of the clubs, bars and dance places there (including the late, lamented new wave club Poseurs in Georgetown, at the foot of the Key Bridge - sadly, it's a bike shop now). My parents loved her, and made her feel completely welcome in their home. And she and I just laughed, and talked, and bonded. All in all, it was the best time I had all year; it was one of the best times I had during my entire time at school.

Trio released a final album, Bye Bye, in 1983, before breaking up the following year. Speaking of "bye-bye" . . . as for that girl and I, that trip was sort of the high-water mark for anything serious. We remained friends for the rest of school and after graduation, but she moved to one side on the country and I moved to the other, and we just sort of went on with our lives, contacting one another occasionally. In time, even the memory of that time I spent with her that snowy February began to fade.

In 1997, I was watching something on TV; I can't remember what. When it went to commercial, the first ad up was an ad for the Volkswagen Golf. The commercial was simplicity itself - just two guys riding around in the car, with music playing.



I instantly recognized the song - it was Trio's "Da Da Da"! Somehow, the music completely fit the visuals of the ad. And in a flash, it brought back to me every detail my own road trip ten years earlier with that fetching passenger at my side, where that same song featured prominently. I never asked her, but I hope that she saw that ad too, and it brought back some fond memories for her as well.

Due to the popularity of the commercial, Trio's album was rereleased in the U.S. that year as Da Da Da, and finally gave the band some long-overdue chart success here. I've always hated the retitling - seemed like pandering to me. I'll always refer to it as Trio & Error.

So, here you go - enjoy:

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The Rogers Sisters - Purely Evil

On the morning of Monday, September 10th, 2001, I drove from Rhode Island to New York City to attend a meeting with some investment bankers at their offices in lower Manhattan, about four blocks from the World Trade Center. I was supposed to meet my boss there at noon, but it appeared I was running slightly late, so I gave him a call as I travelled down I-278 in Queens. He asked me if I was close, and I remember saying to him, "Well, I can see the Trade Center, so I'm pretty close." The meeting took up the rest of the afternoon, and we left Manhattan just before rush hour. I drove him home to his place in Connecticut, then I stopped at Foxwoods to play poker for a couple of hours before getting home later that evening.

The next morning, I was back at work in Providence. It was going to be a pretty busy and important day for me. Some financiers from a Pennsylvania company called De Lage Landen were coming up for an all-day meeting, and I was looking forward to a call from California - I had recently been accepted to appear on a game show, and the producers were supposed to call me later that morning with the final flight details. Other than prepping for and anticipating those two events, it was just another Tuesday at work . . .

Then, of course, all hell broke loose that day. In a couple of hours, the buildings that I used as landmarks less than 24 hours earlier were reduced to rubble, and the place where I had my meeting, four blocks from the WTC, was inaccessible and coated with dust and debris. Back in Providence, the meeting with the Pennsylvania people broke up as events unfolded, and soon the entire town was engulfed in confusion and turmoil, as rumors began spreading about possible terrorists who missed the plane out of Logan being seen getting off of the Amtrak train at the Providence station and disappearing into the nearby mall. They closed all downtown businesses early that afternoon, and I drove home listening to the nonstop news coverage of that day. And, needless to say, I never received that phone call from California that day . . .

Fast-forward to November 2001. I was headed back to NYC for the first time since 9/11, going to see The Fall play at the Knitting Factory on Leonard Street in Lower Manhattan. It was weird being back in the city; there was a palpable sense in the air of something having changed. At that time, people were still being nice to one another in New York, a very welcome change. But that kindness was tinged with wariness and a bit of suspicion, especially if you didn't look quite 'right', if you know what I mean. The security at the show was extra-vigilant, I felt, compared to earlier shows I'd attended there. The patdowns and metal detections were done with determination and purpose, by unsmiling security officials there.

I hadn't seen The Fall in a while; they were touring on Are You Are Missing Winner, one of the weakest Fall albums in recent years. I was still looking forward to seeing them, though. The opening band was a local group I had never heard of, The Rogers Sisters out of Brooklyn. I paid little attention to them while they set up, but that changed once they began playing.

The Rogers Sisters were made up of, of course, two sisters, Laura and Jennifer Rogers, accompanied by Asian-American guitarist Miyuki Furtado. The sisters were formerly in Ruby Falls, an all-female indie rock group formed in 1992 that released a couple of obscure EPs and singles before falling apart in 2000. After the breakup of Ruby Falls, the girls quickly recruited Furtado and began playing a modified sound from their earlier band, incorporating a more garagy/guitar-based punk attack that provided them with some success.

Their gig with the Fall was one of their biggest since forming, and their sound immediately tickled my eardrums. In my experience, it's rare that The Fall have decent lead-in bands; The Rogers Sisters were the exception, so much so that I made a mental note to look for any of their releases in the near future (at that time, they had yet to be signed to a label). The Fall also played an excellent set that evening; Mark E. Smith was in fine form, not too curmudgeonly, and they didn't play too many songs from their recent album, which was a blessing. From start to finish, it was a great show.

After the concert ended, at around 12:30-1:00 am, I decided to try to make my way down to the WTC site, just to see things for myself. I walked for blocks in the dark, along deserted New York streets, some still thinly coated with the dust of that horrible day two months earlier. I made my way around cordoned-off streets and roadblocks, and finally got as close as I could to the highly illuminated site. The work was going on there nonstop, around the clock, and I was close enough to hear the growl of jackhammers and clank of cranes moving pieces of the destroyed buildings. I sat on a barricade along the main street where they were taking stuff away from the area, and I watched for hours as trucks and flatbeds moved past me in what seemed to be an unending wave, all loaded with metal and debris. I remember one flatbed carried an entire fire engine, smashed to half its height and coated with dirt and dust. But there were plenty of other sights and pieces of the tragedy that I saw that night that made the entire event really hit home to me. Seeing the operation on TV was one thing; actually BEING there, and watching the operation, and seeing the dust and smoke rise through the klieg lights . . . well, that was something else, and something I'll always remember.

The Rogers Sisters' debut album, Purely Evil, was released on Troubleman Unlimited Records early in 2002. The disc contained almost all of the songs I heard and enjoyed the year before. The band released two more albums, Three Fingers in 2004 and The Invisible Deck in 2006, before breaking up in late November 2006, almost five years to the day of their Knitting Factory show.

I still enjoy their debut album, but every time I listen to it, I'm transported back in time, and think about that long, cold night I spent sitting on a block of concrete in lower Manhattan, watching the cleanup and trucks going by and trying, like many other Americans, to make sense of it all. This music has nothing to do with or say regarding 9/11, but to me, it will always be part of that time and place.

Anyway, here's the album:

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Various Artists - Christchurch: The Music

In the wake of the disaster in Christchurch (despite the magnitude of the earthquake and the widespread damage, it looks like there are no deaths and very few injuries, thank God), I'd like to post a tribute of sorts, the compilation Christchurch: The Music, released by EMI in 2005. This double-disc set is a overview of songs by bands that originated from the Christchurch area, from the 1960s to the present day. Of the 45 songs on this set, spanning every genre from early rock to electronica, there are several by bands you may be familiar with (such as Ray Columbus & The Invaders, The Dance Exponents and The Bats), but most of them will probably be unfamiliar to you. Still, every song is great and/or interesting.

Have a listen - I hope you like it. While you're listening, keep the folks of that great city and region in mind; it's going to be a while before things are back to normal down there.

Thanks, and enjoy.

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Latest Poll Results

Well, the rssults of the "Most important/influential band of the past 25 years" poll were surprising, to say the least. I sort of half-expected The Pixies to rank fairly high; The Jesus and Mary Chain's strength was shocking. Frankly, I haven't seen the influence of J&M Chain resonate through the years; in my opinion, there haven't been a lot of bands that followed in their wake that have successfully coopted and/or improved on their sound. They're a great band, mind you - I just feel that they were too unique to be imitated.

My personal pick for this poll would be The Smiths. I feel that, despite the brevity of their union, the influence of Morrissey, Marr & Co. has resonated throughout popular music for the past 25 years. Their rise clearly marks the end of the New Romantic, synth-pop era of the early 1980s, and the rise of British guitar pop beginning in the late 1980s. After they disbanded, other acclaimed bands like The Wedding Present and The Stone Roses immediately picked up the Smiths' banner and sound. And it's hard to imagine that bands like Oasis, Cast, Sloan, Suede, and all of those other one-syllable-name English bands of the 90s would have existed without The Smiths ever happening.

But, you're welcome to disagree, and I invite your comments regarding this. For everyone who voted, thanks for participating. A new poll will be posted soon, just as soon as I think of a good topic.

Thanks . . .

. . . to everyone for their good words and kind wishes in the wake of the earthquake in Christchurch. No, I'm not there now, but I've spent most of the past nine hours trying to contact all of my friends down there, to make sure that all and everyone is well. The damage is pretty bad in some areas, especially around the Cashel Mall area. I've been looking at the news photos; I know a lot of the buildings there that are now cracked and broken - it's really weird to see stuff like that. But fortunately, there were no deaths reported so far, and very few serious injuries. So thank goodness for all of that.

As for me - I'm fine, just worried for everyone. Thanks for asking, though. More music to come . . .

Touch & Go - Would You . . . ? EP

In 2000, I almost got a job with Hewlett-Packard. The company I worked for in Texas had suddenly and unexpectedly been acquired by Citigroup, and as a member of the corporate staff, I knew that my ass, like the asses of many of my compatriots, was going to be grass once the merger was complete. I started trolling around for a new position, and very quickly heard from H-P. They seemed pretty eager to speak with me, so much so that they very quickly sent me a plane ticket to Silicon Valley, California and $150 in cash for any "incidental expenses" I might encounter during my morning-to-evening visit there. I was pretty psyched.

I took an early-morning plane out of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, and by 9 a.m. local time, I was at the airport in San Jose, picking up my rental car (again, reserved for me by H-P) for the drive down to Sunnyvale. The interview there went pretty well, although I was surprised that I was not the only person the company contacted for the position in question - there were a few of us there, from places as far afield as Chicago and Boston, invited to interview for the job. But H-P kept things moving on an assembly-line basis, and every one of us was in and out of there in less than three hours.

My plane back to Dallas didn't leave until six that evening, so I had several hours to kill before the flight. I decided to head into San Francisco for a couple of hours, grab a bite to eat and have a few laughs. However, one destination in that city was in the forefront of my mind - Amoeba Records on Haight Street.

I don't know how many of you are familiar with Amoeba . . . nowadays, there are a couple of branches of this store - the other ones I know of are in Berkeley and the most recent one that opened in L.A. about eight years ago. But the Haight Street location is the flagship. Now, being as crazy about music as I am, I've been to music stores and record shops all over the world, and seen some good ones and some not-so-good ones. I have to say, unequivically, that Amoeba Music San Francisco is THE best record store on the planet. Bar none. It's a huge open warehouse of a space, the main floor of which is covered with bins full of all sorts of CDS and records. One side of this barn is devoted to "new" albums; an equal amount of space on the other side is reserved for "used" records. In previous visits to Amoeba, I'd found things there I'd been searching for for literally YEARS - dirt cheap. For me, that place was and is the Capital of Music . . . and since at that point I hadn't been to San Francisco in a while, and had no idea when I might be back there again, I was eager to spend some time once again browsing those stacks.

I made the hour-long drive into San Francisco with the radio on, scanning the dial, listening for something interesting (great radio stations in San Fran, BTW). I can't remember what station there it was where I heard "Would You . . . ?" during my drive, but the song captured my ears instantly.

Touch & Go was formed in England in 1997 by David Lowe, the only official member of the group. Lowe's day job is as a music producer for British television shows and commercials (all of the music you hear on the BBC News since 1998 was composed by him). He formed Touch & Go as a creative outlet, away from the constraints of TV production. In addition to writing, arranging and producing most of the songs, Lowe plays the keyboards, drums and bass on every release, assisted by various guest musicians who provide vocals, guitar, brass, what have you.

Touch & Go's first release was the Would You . . . ? EP on V2 Records in October 1998. The song's mix of horn-driven Latin jazz, house and electronic elements backing a sexy female voice mouthing laconic come-on lines was a sensation in England, where it shot to Number 3 on the UK Pop charts. Touch & Go began a European tour in late 1998/early 1999, taking their sound to several locations in Eastern Europe, where the song proved equally popular there and in several other worldwide locations (Australia and New Zealand especially).

The song did nothing of any chart importance here in the U.S.; but like I said, it caught my attention during my drive into the city. After a nice lunch at a seafood restaurant on Fisherman's Wharf (great crabmeat sandwich), I made a beeline for Amoeba. There, I proceeded to blow EVERY PENNY of the $150 in "expense money" H-P gave me on music - I got some great stuff, including the Would You . . . ? EP. I made it back to the San Jose airport in time for my flight, with a big bag of CDs tucked under the seat in front of me. I didn't end up getting the job with H-P, but no worries - in my mind, it was still a productive journey (and anyway, inside of another two weeks, I found a better, more lucrative position in New England . . . so there you go)!

On the strength of that single, Touch & Go cut an album, I Find You Very Attractive, in 1999. After a couple of other lesser-received EPs in the early '00s, Touch & Go's star has sort of faded in Great Britain. However, the band remains popular in Eastern Europe, and still tours regularly there.

Here's the Would You . . . ? EP I purchased in San Francisco over ten years ago. This is the U.S. version of the EP (there are about nine versions overall internationally), containing five different iterations of the title song. I still think this tune is pretty cool - have a listen, and let me know what you think.

Enjoy:

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The Cure - Disintegration (RS500 - #326)

(We haven't done a Rolling Stone 500 album in a while, so let's do this one . . .)

I'll open this one with a bold statement: In my opinion, The Cure have been milking it for far too long.

I knew nothing about The Cure until I got to school in the early '80s, when my buddy Rich, a good ol' country boy from South Carolina, loaned me a mix tape he owned that had the band's "The Lovecats" on it. Now, that probably wasn't the best song to be introduced to The Cure, but I thought it was great. Another school friend of mine there, Pat, had most of the early Cure albums - Seventeen Seconds, Pornography, The Top - and that's when I really got into the band, so much so that by the time the band's career-spanning compilation Staring At The Sea: The Singles 1979-1985 (and its companion B-sides collection Standing On A Beach) was released in May 1986, it was one of the most highly anticipated musical highlights of that year for me.

Even moreso than The Head On The Door (released the previous August), Staring At The Sea/Standing On A Beach was really the album that broke The Cure into the American market. The album was their first Top 50 U.S. disc, sold over two million copies, and got rave reviews from nearly every American reviewer. And that's where the wheels started coming off . . .

What is it with the Double-Album Curse? More often than not, the release of a double-disc usually marks the band's high-water mark - from there it's all downhill. The list is long: Wheels Of Fire, Songs In The Key Of Life, Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness, The Downward Spiral, Double Nickels On The Dime - all of these albums marked the creative peaks of their respective bands (Cream, Stevie Wonder, The Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails and The Minutemen, for those of you keeping score). But few bands have the sense or foresight to recognize the top of the mountain - of the list above, only Cream made their double album their last. They just keep slogging away, putting out product after product as they trudge slowly downhill, away from their peak . . .

In my opinion, The Cure should have ended it right there - they had nothing left to prove. Frankly, this would have been the perfect place for the band to call it a day, after ten years of great music. Unfortunately, it appears they read those glowing reviews and let that heady American success go straight to their heads. When they were young and hungry and playing to a mostly English audience, The Cure didn't seem to give a damn about 'art' or 'expressing themselves' - they were making good music for themselves, not for the critics or their audience. But after Standing On A Beach, it seems that they abandoned that ethic, and started playing more to the crowd.

It started in 1987, with their first post-compilation studio album, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. Prior to 1986, The Cure were known for catchy, punchy, concise bursts of distilled New Wave gold. All of their most well-known songs from that period - "Let's Go To Bed", "The Caterpillar", "The Upstairs Room", "Primary", "Three Imaginary Boys" - clock in at no longer than 3-1/2 minutes. Heck, "Killing An Arab" and "Boys Don't Cry" are barely TWO and a half minutes long. But starting with Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, the songs began to get longer and more heavy-handed - but not because The Cure had anything weightier or more profound to say. The best songs on this album - "Catch", "Just Like Heaven", "Hot Hot Hot!!!" - were the shorter ones, coming in at around the 3:30 mark as usual. But Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me is full of long, meandering, ponderous shit - "The Kiss", "How Beautiful You Are", "The Snakepit" - that essentially say nothing and go nowhere, despite their length.

However, this album was also a huge success in the U.S., their first American Top 40 record, selling over a million copies and moving them into the mainstream over here. And all of that - the sales, the American acclaim, etc. - apparently told The Cure that that formula worked. Which all led to Disintegration in 1989 . . .

Frankly, this is a dreadful fucking record - full of pompous, drawn-out, self-indulgent crap. Only ONE song on this album, "Lovesong", clocks in at under four minutes. The other eleven songs just drone on and on and on for forever - the last four songs on Disintegration ("The Same Deep Water As You", the title cut, "Homesick" and "Untitled") take over 30 minutes to get through - longer than some the band's early ALBUMS. There are some interesting melodies and good ideas contained within these interminable dirges, but it takes so long to get through them, that you either forget about the good parts or get bored waiting to get to them. [By the way, guess which song was the only U.S. hit off of this album? That's right, the short one - "Lovesong" made it to #2.]

Disintegration was the beginning of the end of my Cure fandom. I bought the follow-up, Wish, in 1992, and even bought tickets to their show at DC's Capital Centre that May, no doubt taken in by what was widely billed as "The Cure's Farewell Tour". But I haven't paid much attention to the band since that time. Since 1992, the band has had a couple more "farewell tours", and yet show no signs of quitting anytime soon. The studio albums are fewer and farther between, but they still keep cranking them out - four more since Wish, with diminishing chart success. Marching downhill . . .

In the years that have passed, Disintegration continues to garner critical acclaim, with some calling it "The Cure's artistic peak" and "the culmination of the Cure sound", and inclusion on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time. I agree that it's a peak for them, all right - a commercial peak, but nowhere near an artistic peak. The Cure left their art behind, somewhere around 1986 - unless your definition of art is something leaden, turgid and directionless. I'll take the pre-1986 Cure for my 'art' any day.

And that's my two cents - you are more that welcome to disagree. In the meantime, here you go:

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Young Marble Giants - Salad Days

I found this one in, of all places, Nashville, Tennessee.

I was in Nashville for the very first time for a conference back in 2002, staying at the Opryland Hotel. Back then, I had no strong affinity for country music. I don't know if you've ever been to Nashville, but if you haven't, let me let you in on a little secret - practically the ENTIRE TOWN is devoted to country music. It's everywhere, especially where I was staying - banjo music is piped nonstop through the building, the lobby features exhibits from the Grand Old Opry (stuff like Minnie Pearl's hat), and that country theme is even embedded in the décor of the place. Needless to say, after a day or so there, I was starting to freak. A little of that kind of music goes a long way for me, so being immersed in it was getting to be a bit much.

On the second day of the conference, I fled the building, desperately trying to find anywhere, anyplace that had that whole country schtick toned down even a little bit. I found myself at, of all places, Opry Mills Mall nearby - maybe not the best choice, but all that I could get to at that moment. The place was fairly generic, as far as malls go, except for, once again, the hillbilly Muzak that was apparently ubiquitous with the region. However, I saw a store in the mall that appeared to offer some salvation - the local Virgin Megastore. I practically ran there, figuring that if there was any cool music being played in Nashville, it would be in there.

And sure enough, stepping through the door was like stepping through a bubble, shutting out the countrified outside world. Stereolab was being played over the store speakers, the cashiers all had visible tattoos and/or piercings - I felt like I was back in 'civilization' again, or what I considered to be civilization . . .

I killed some time by going through Virgin's stacks (guess what was the largest section in the store . . .). I wasn't really looking for anything, but as I ran through the "Y"s in the Rock section, I recalled that one of Kurt Cobain's favorite bands was a short-lived Welsh post-punk group called Young Marble Giants. Shockingly, the store had a single copy of one of the band's albums available, Salad Days. I really didn't know anything about them, but Cobain's word was good enough for me - I purchased it.

Young Marble Giants was formed in Cardiff, Wales in 1978, and was made up of brothers Stuart (on guitar and organ) and Philip Moxham (on bass) and singer Alison Stratton. Being from the comparative outback, as far as music was concerned, Young Marble Giants developed their own distinctive, stripped-down sound, far removed from anything coming out of London's post-punk scene at the time. They first appeared on a local compilation album, Is The War Over?, in October 1979, and from the strength of their contribution, were immediately signed to Rough Trade Records. Their only album on Rough Trade, Colossal Youth, was released the following February, followed by two EPs, the Final Day EP in June 1980 and the Testcard EP in March 1981. But by the time Testcard was released, Young Marble Giants had broken up.

The album Salad Days was released on obscure label Vinyl Japan (UK) Ltd. in 2000. The fifteen songs contained on this album are essentially demos and home recordings of songs that eventually ended up on the band's album and EPs. Salad Days is Young Marble Giants distilled down to their essence. The sound of these recordings are not as full as the final products would be, but their very primitive, lo-fi quality makes them more immediate and intimate. For example, of the two versions of "Brand New Life" I own on Colossal Youth and Salad Days, I prefer the latter version - the minimalism of the Salad Days version, in my opinion, strengthens the song. Usually a band's release of early demos is pretty useless, and of interest only to hard-core fans; this album is one of the few demo collections that stands toe-to-toe with the band's other recordings.

Since the breakup of Young Marble Giants in 1981, Stuart Moxham has continued making music in the indie genre, both solo and with other artists (most significantly with Barbara Manning in her 1993 release Barbara Manning Sings With The Original Artists). Alison Stratton and Philip Moxham recruited other musicians and quickly formed a jazz-influenced combo called Weekend, which released an acclaimed album, La Variete, in 1982. After Weekend disbanded in 1983, Philip Moxham moved into more mainstream alternative territory, playing bass for Everything But The Girl and The Communards.

However, in 2003, the trio reunited for a one-off radio special in Wales. Since then, they have appeared together as Young Marble Giants sporadically, most recently in 2009. There are rumors of a new album now and then, but nothing has come of that thus far.

Until that occurs, enjoy this copy of Salad Days. If you have Colossal Youth, compare the sound of the two. I believe that, like me, you'll come to appreciate and enjoy them both. Let me know what you think.

Enjoy:

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