Before I get started and your inner fact-checker starts nagging, I know that Wild Flag is not a 90s band. But it seems largely appropriate that they should get a mention - nay, whole article - in this blog, because:
1. They're awesome.
2. The band is made up of notable artists from bands that were around in the 90s.
3. They sound like they're from the 90s.
4. As I've said before, they're awesome.
A new project featuring Mary Timony (formerly of Helium), Carrie Brownstein (formerly of Sleater-Kinney), Rebecca Cole (The Minders) and Janet Weiss (Sleater-Kinney), Wild Flag formed last year as a "let's see how this goes" experiment. And so far, it's gone great.
For those who haven't gotten it yet, Wild Flag's self-titled debut album is fantastic; a taut little 10-song set that is the most guitars you're likely to hear on any album this year, especially on what passes for rock or alternative these days. It's kind of like what Elastica's second album should have sounded like, or possibly would have, had they taken less than 5 years to release it. Not that I don't like The Menace, but it doesn't hold a candle to that first Elastica record.
Even their video looks like it was made in the 90s.
Once again, I made the trek to the legendary Troubadour on Thursday, November 3rd to see Wild Flag on their 2nd of two consecutive sold out shows. Given the fervor in the room and the buzz the band received upon its announcement, it's not hard to believe.
Before I get into it, know that Carrie Brownstein is adorable. Of course, you know this from watching Portlandia. But to see her play in person is something else. She's like a little ball of hellfire on her Gibson SG, which looks even more over-sized than it does on the diminutive Angus Young.
Speaking of guitars, they were on full display, with a good chunk of the show, especially the later part, made up of dueling noise jams from Brownstein and Mary Timony. It's not often you see bands with two female guitarists, but it's even better when they both have full mastery of their instruments. Like Veruca Salt. Or...um...Hole? No, one was a dude. Well, I'm sure there's others I'm forgetting.
SETLIST:
Electric Band
Romance
Future Crimes
Something Came Over Me
Short Version
Glass Tambourine
Winter Pair
Black Tiles
Nothing
Boom
Racehorse
She (Misfits cover)
See No Evil (Television cover)
But the best part of the night was seeing artists who made names for themselves in the 90s making some of the best music of the 10s. Teens? What is this decade, anyway? Yes, it's young, but Wild Flag is probably the second best album of the year behind The Whole Love by Wilco, another 90s band. Suck it, Foster the People. That's what you get for not being around 20 years ago.
As the alternative rock era continued on, the genre's diversity showed more than ever, as eels' "Novocaine For the Soul" took the top spot despite its bleak lyrics and odd, offbeat (literally) strings. The band's first single, it is the only eels song to date to top the chart, further demonstrating that even unsung heroes like eels could find success through talent and not just hype.
Elsewhere on the list, 311 continued their dominance with "Down", Sublime starts on the near-inexplicable continued popularity they would enjoy for the next 15 years and The Wallflowers get their first chart appearance before they blew up the next year.
Back on the diversity of the popular songs of the era, on this chart alone there are 2 songs that could be considered "adult alternative", one "rap-rock", one "industrial pop" and R.E.M.'s hauntingly beautiful "E-Bow the Letter," which featured Michael Stipe reading a rambling love letter over feedback and acoustic guitar and featuring Patti Smith on guest vocals. The song, 15 years later, remains as unusual and moving as the first time I heard it.
Back to taking a look at the charts of 20 years ago, and the alternative rock era has started to take shape, with the Red Hot Chili Peppers "Give It Away" at #3 and Nirvana already at 5th place only 3 weeks after the release of Nevermind. However, the only other band from this list that would make relevant music in the rest of the decade is Blur, whose "There's No Other Way" was fully representative of pre-Nirvana alternative music in the early 90s.
Robyn Hitchcock was in the #1 spot, with a song I have never heard before. The 90s: The Gift That Keeps on Giving.
It's a little bizarre to think that arbiters of cool and all things independent could release the ultimate in money-making schemes, a greatest hits record. But, true to their nature, they've put their own spin on it.
First released by Starbucks of all places, Hits Are For Squares will be re-released on October 31st (Halloween, by far the holiday Sonic Youth are most associated with for me), just in time for the busy Christmas shopping season. This will no doubt go into my just-planned gift ideas column.
As mentioned, this greatest hits compilation is unique, as it has been curated by other musicians, actors, various other cool people and Diablo Cody. No doubt her blurb consists of cutesy, Hello Kitty-in-leather-approved portmanteaus and various other bits of LOLspeak. For those who don't know what that means, it's Internetish for "talking like a blithering idiot."
Admittedly, I'm jealous of this woman, who was given an Oscar for writing "your eggo is preggo."
But that's neither here nor there. While I will always promote exploring a band's entire discography over a collection of only their most commercially successful songs, "The Empty Page" from 2003's Murray Street and "Incinerate" from 2006's Rather Ripped don't appear on this album despite being two of the biggest hits they've ever had. Take that, capitalism.
Here's the tracklist with curators:
Bull in the Heather (chosen by actress Catherine Keener)
100% (chosen by Beastie Boy Mike D)
Sugar Kane (chosen by Beck)
Kool Thing (chosen by Radiohead)
Disappearer (chosen by actress Portia de Rossi) side note: this is my 2nd favorite Sonic Youth song, behind "Teenage Riot"
Superstar (chosen by former stripper-turned-blogger-turned-Oscar Winner, Diablo Cody)
Stones (chosen by film director Allison Anders)
Tuff Gnarl (chosen by writer Dave Eggers and musican Mike Watt)
Teenage Riot (chosen by Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder) - little bit of trivia, "Teenage Riot" was the first song played on Self-Pollution Radio, a 3-hour radio program Pearl Jam put on in 1995
Shadow of a Doubt (chosen by actress Michelle Williams)
Rain on Tin (chosen by Red Hot Chili Pepper Flea)
Tom Violence (chosen by film director Gus Van Sant)
Mary-Christ (chosen by Tobias Funke himself, David Cross)
World Looks Red (chosen by actress Chloe Sevigny)
Expressway to yr Skull (chosen by The Flaming Lips)
Slow Revolution (chosen by Sonic Youth, since it's a new track)
And since it didn't make the cut, here's Sonic Youth's video for "Dirty Boots" from their 1990 album, Goo.
It's an amazing (not ironic) coincidence that there are only two albums that I consider to have truly changed my life, and they were both released on the same day 5 years apart.
In the previous entry, I looked back on Nevermind and it's influence on me in the earliest stages of my adolescence on the 20th anniversary of its release. Though it won't get nearly as much attention, just as seminal and important of a record was released 5 years later, Weezer's Pinkerton.
Like Nirvana and Nevermind, Pinkerton was Weezer's second album, though their stories could not be more disparate. Nevermind was a polished, relatively expensive production of a record, coming after their famously cheap ($600!) first album, Bleach. Weezer's first album, the note-perfect self-titled "blue" album, was slick, produced by a famous musician in the same studio that Jimi Hendrix recorded in, but Pinkerton was dissonant, cranky and self-produced. And despite this seeming reversal of fortune, these two bands are inextricably tied in my life and in history.
For all intents and purposes, Weezer and Nirvana never existed at the same time. Kurt Cobain took his life on April 5, 1994 and Weezer's debut album wasn't released until a month later. Kurt's death had what was probably the strongest affect any single event had on my life at that point. I was nearly 15 and Nirvana was the first "thing" to which I had belonged that I cared about. Like many people, I was a member of the church of Nirvana and when its messiah decided that he no longer wanted to be a part of this world, it left me with the first real feeling of loss I had experienced. So it was in this post-Kurt time that, in a desperate search for the remainder of Nirvana's music, that I first discovered Weezer on the DGC Rarities compilation record.
And what better music to fill that void? Incorporating all of the loud/quiet/loud dynamics with easier-to-decipher lyrics and even stronger pop melodies, Weezer was a band that seemed custom made for the next stage of my adolescence. For where Nirvana had succeeded in making me feel cool, Weezer had made it okay that I really wasn't. Here was a band singing about nerdy things like X-Men and Dungeons & Dragons and looking like a long-dead singer from the 1950's.
By the time Pinkerton was released, I was 17 and had made the full conversion from Nirvana to Weezer, hunting down every single and interview I could find, even purchasing the Angus soundtrack just to be able to listen to the two-minute long b-side, "You Gave Your Love To Me Softly." Unlike Nevermind, which crept up on me over a 6-month period, I was completely ready for Pinkerton and made the half-hour trek to buy it on the day it came out, the first time I had ever made such an effort to get new music that immediately. Yet as ready as I was to own Pinkerton, I was not at all ready to consume it.
Like I said, this was a cranky, dissonant album. From the feedback and noise that opens the record, it was easy to see that this was not the slick, highly-produced music that I had grown to love. In all actuality, this was more Nirvana's In Utero than Nevermind and I disliked it so much instantaneously that I nearly gave up on the band, like millions of others did. It was perhaps out of sheer stubbornness that I continued to listen to the album, determined to prove to myself that Weezer was my new favorite band and that I may even like them more than I ever did Nirvana. And it took until December of that year that I finally realized that I actually did. For if Nevermind was the soundtrack of how I wanted to feel, Pinkerton sounded like how I actually felt.
Famously recorded after Rivers spent a year at Harvard during 1995 and 1996, much of Pinkerton was derived from an abandoned project originally planned for Weezer's 2nd album, a rock opera called Songs From the Black Hole, a subject that deserves its own blog entry. Though not the rock opera that was envisioned, Pinkerton is still very much a concept album, uniting varied themes about love, lost love, unrequited love, sex without love and depression over lack of love. And for someone experiencing their first real heartbreak, at an age when every bit of heartache and pain is the certain to be the worst you would ever feel in your life, here was a record that understood every bit of pain you felt and then some. This was an emotional album, and the songs were just as intense as the emotions I was feeling.
But what really made - and continues to make - Pinkerton special was its musical complexity. These were only at their most basic traditional alternative rock songs; with more atonal vocal harmonies and guitar lines that would often work as counter-melodies to each other while drifting far, far away from the main vocal melody, especially in later-written songs like "Pink Triangle" and "Falling For You". Though this comes across as spontaneous and off-the-cuff, this was a planned complexity, carefully orchestrated by Cuomo via the influence of Puccini's opera Madam Butterfly, which inspired the record musically, lyrically and gave the album its name. Part of that is owed to the production, as the band purposefully did not hire a producer in order to stay truer to their live sound.
Unfortunately, departing from the sound that had made them a platinum-selling act caused a huge backlash, and Pinkerton was labeled as a commercial and critical failure. Rolling Stone famously named it as one of the worst albums of 1996 (a labeling they would recant, giving the record a five-star review years later). Most fans of the band's hugely successful singles "Buddy Holly" and "Say It Ain't So" would migrate elsewhere, finding the more mainstream rock sound they had enjoyed in Everclear, Third Eye Blind and Semisonic. This perceived failure sent Rivers into a fit of depression and rejection of his own work and a near three-year hiatus after the tragic death of Weezer's oldest fans.
Once Weezer reformed and released new material, it never managed to capture the same intensity or naked, confessional honesty that espoused Pinkerton. Their second self-titled album in particular, commonly referred to as the "green album" overcompensates in trying to erase the entire Pinkerton era. The songs on that record are so middle-of-the-road, with such broad appeal, that every guitar solo on the album exactly mimics the main melody so as to keep the song as simple as possible and not alienate the listener. As a result, the entire record comes across as completely reactionary; as if Rivers was so dejected by the relative failure of Pinkerton's risky departure, he became obsessive with proving that he can write a simple pop song with the best of them. Once that album was successful it only fueled his fire and the trend continued, even on the band's most challenging post-Pinkerton album, their next record, Maladroit.
Because of this dedication to a more standard, over-produced pop sound, many of Weezer's core fans, even the most fervent who have stuck with them through thick and thin, have given up on the band. Yes, we were thrown a bone with the band's "Memories" tour, during which the band would play the "blue album" and Pinkerton in their entirety, but it has ended up being a formal commitment to that being "old Weezer" and the new, listener-friendly incarnation is here to stay. And who, outside of these fans, could blame them? All musicians want to make a living playing music, and if writing broad pop songs pays the bills and ensures their families will be taken care of, isn't that a more noble choice than satisfying a small, yet intense portion of your fan base? Fans may want the emotive, uncomfortable and daring Weezer back, but in doing so they're still asking a man to explore the darkest parts of his psyche when it's obvious that is the last thing he wants to do.
Whatever the present and future hold in store for the band, it's still a testament to the greatness of Pinkerton that fans want to hear more. While that will probably never come, there is still that perfect set of 10 songs to remind us of how desperate and sad we can be; an album that, even after 15 years, is still full of surprises upon every listen. And if you don't like the shitty music Weezer has been putting out since 2001, you'll always have Pinkerton.
The day that would alter the course of music history.
On Tuesday, September 24, 1991, DGC Records released for sale 46,521 copies of Nevermind, the second album from a relatively unknown three-piece group from Seattle. By Thanksgiving, only 9 weeks later, the album had gone platinum and by January had dethroned the biggest-selling artist of all time from the #1 spot on the Billboard Albums chart. Its story is one of the last great rock legends. It's legacy is that of an entire decade.
While much and more has been written about the importance and greatness of this album in the annals of rock history, it holds a special place in the hearts of anyone who was old - or young - enough to realize just how much it changed their life.
I was 12 years old when Nevermind was released. Admittedly, I had no interest in Nirvana during the first 6 months of their astronomical rise. I was a Guns N' Roses fan through and through and this band, with their non-sensical mush-mouthed lyrics, screamed choruses and complete lack of Slash had no interest to me. In fact, I was more of a fan of Weird Al's parody, "Smells Like Nirvana" than I was the band itself. But it was sometime in the summer of 1992, when I first heard Nevermind's 3rd single "Lithium, that I was able to appreciate their music. It was completely about timing, as the tough-guy cool that came along with listening to Gn'R was more associated with the juvenile attitudes of a child. But this, this song about retreating within yourself and being ugly and not feeling guilty over your raging hormones resonated like a tuning fork within my adolescent mind and I was hooked forever. I went from cheesy Lamborghini t-shirts and red athletic shorts to flannel and ripped jeans overnight. And while the fashion of the era, the "grunge" look, so easily exploited and parodied, has become symbolic of a near-laughable, bygone era, to wear these clothes in 1992 was a proud statement that Nirvana enabled us to make: "We don't give a fuck."
I bought Nevermind on tape within a week and played the shit out of it. And for so many of us, it was as if this album was a tolling bell, calling us to a new way of life, or as much of a way of life as you could get at 13. The anarchistic and socially malevolent attitudes that were a natural part of being a pubescent male were justified and encouraged by this band, this band that destroyed their cheap thrift store equipment after every show. Nirvana taught us what punk really meant, because prior to them it was dirty people with mohawks and spray paint. This band encouraged millions of young men - and women - to learn to play the guitar or bass or drums poorly and shout along with their easy-to-play riffs until we were all hoarse. And as cliched as it sounds, it was liberating. The only people who could play Guns N' Roses songs were the black-clad, long-haired snobs that listened to Metallica or one of the other bands on the Big Four tour, but these songs, these were easy to learn and play and to understand and that is what was so appealing. But most importantly, Nirvana taught us how to question authority and to challenge what we knew and that kind of attitude is completely gone from rock'n'roll, as every important group of the last 20 years has used this new-found liberty to shove their agendas down our throat instead of discovering them on our own.
Or, as Michael Azerrad wrote in Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana, “this was music by and for a whole new group of young people who had been overlooked, ignored or condescended to.” What was most important was that it was ours. Not the leftovers of a bygone era, not the music of our parents, but for the first time in our lives, something that we could rightfully and proudly claim as our own.
Now, 20 years later, their legacy virtually untarnished through the effect of being frozen in time due to Kurt Cobain's 1994 suicide, Nirvana and Nevermind remain the unwilling flagbearers of the 90's. And as short-sighted as it is to condense a decade's worth of music and social attitudes down to 12 songs, hell, even the 4 simple chords that open the album, is there a better symbol of the era than that naked baby swimming towards a dollar? As much as Kurt notoriously hated having the "voice of a generation" tag thrust upon him, was there anyone better to be the figurehead of a changing landscape? Of the coming-of-age of Generation X? Of millions of kids who needed a hero that didn't play a game professionally or blow up terrorists (or communists) in movies? Kurt was the last great rock star, the last whose every word held great importance for a legion of young people that needed assurance that they weren't weird or misfits or outcasts and that there were others out there just like them that could find solace and community in the music of a relatively unknown band from Seattle.
As I listen to this album again, 20 years after its release, I'm reminded of how special it is. Past the posthumously-attached meaning ("I swear that I don't have a gun" sings Kurt, perhaps ironically, in "Come As You Are"), past the hype and the worship and the pedestal placement, this is a collection of great songs. Songs that wore their influences on their sleeves, as obscure as they were then (and even now); songs with obtuse, disjointed lyrics; songs that perhaps were a little over-produced after all. And I as listen to "Lithium" again in this moment of reflection and nostalgia, I'm reminded of how important this record was to me, and how much it defined a period of my life and how I don't think I ever bought a brand new copy of it. Oh well.
Schleprock
"Suburbia" (America's) Dirty Little Secret
By the summer of 1996, the second (or third, or maybe even fourth) wave of punk bands had been scooped up by major record labels in the wake of the Great Green Day/Offspring Explosion of '94. Yes, that is an official term. Google it. It'll lead you back here.
Much like Seattle circa '92, by the summer of 1996 it was hard to find a band in the state of California that didn't have a record contract. But for every Face to Face and Pennywise, there were three 1000 Mona Lisas vying (and often stealing) listeners hard-earned money. And this was right at the precipice of the second (or 3rd) wave of ska bands, during which the Mighty Mighty Bosstones to Less Than Jake ratio was somewhere around 1000:1.
During this free-for-all, it was easy for labels to take any unpolished group with a singer who yelled most of their lyrics (this was before the nasally days), proclaim them the next Green Day and sit back while they sold enough copies to pay back their advance and then some. But despite this exploitation, there were still some quality groups and one of those was Los Angeles' Schleprock, who had a minor hit in that great Summer of 1996 with their fantastic single, "Suburbia."
Thanks to SPIKE TV for allowing embedding on this video. I promise I'll watch at least 2 hours of Ninja Warrior to make it up to you guys.
One of the things I loved most about rock music in the mid-90s was the diversity - you could turn on 120 Minutes or your local radio station at any time and hear Beck's piecemeal white boy hip-hop, followed by Tori Amos' plaintive wailing right before Oasis's acoustic juggernaut "Wonderwall" followed by any of the aforementioned punk bands. And none of it seemed out of place.
Back to Schleprock, it was an episode of 120 Minutes that first brought them to my attention, incidentally this week's episode 15 years ago, the 9/8/96 show hosted by Matt Pinfield with Special Guests No Doubt. I felt like Moses scribbling down the Ten Commandments anytime I watched this show, writing down the name of every band and song whose video made it to air. And one of the most memorable of the time was "Suburbia." With it's Clash (and to me, The Specials) inspired verses and big, loud anthemic chorus, this was a song after my 17-year-old heart.
Lyrically, the song deals displays the typical cynicism towards America's suburbs, painting them as a dystopian wasteland. While this is hardly new ground, the disaffected youth of America (and Canada, in Arcade Fire's case) will be singing about how much suburban life sucks until there are no more suburbs. So you can hardly blame Schleprock for succumbing to a basic tenant of rock music.
Unfortunately, Schleprock broke up after their next record and were relegated to obscurity. But one of many things you have to give punk fans credit for - they have a much longer and better memory than their pop or rock counterparts, and don't need a trendy nostalgia kick to remember a band whose music they liked at any point.
Also, I had hoped to put their really cool - and relevant to the song! - video above, but Warner Bros. Records has disallowed embedding on their videos. Because I'm making so much money off of this. Thank god the DIY/punk ethos won out on the internet.
After taking in 2 that dog. shows this past weekend, I was reminded of how I first discovered the band. Being from a small town in Florida, my options for buying music were limited to a K-Mart and the occasional trip taken (with my Mom, of course) to a Target, Wal-Mart. Best Buy and Circuit City had not yet opened a proximal store in 1994, so my choices were rather limited to whatever was popular enough to be sold in these stores (a selection of alternative music that is much greater than today, of course).
However, on occasion, we did make a trip to one of the nearby malls, which was only 45 minutes in a couple of directions. This was a necessary trip to buy concert tickets, as there was no such thing as e-commerce yet, so a Ticketmaster outlet was usually found in a chain record store like Spec's or Disc Jockey or Camelot Music or, confusingly, in a Dillard's department store.
It was on these trips that I would spend hours perusing the bins of one of these stores, looking for something affordable that I wanted to listen to, as CD's at any of these places were regularly priced at around $18. In 1994. And yet the music industry couldn't figure out why Napster was putting it out of business a few years later.
Since I really didn't want to shell out 2 weeks allowance for a Rollins Band album, I would spend most of my time rummaging through the cut-out or discount bins, trying to find some group I recognized that had released relevant material in the last few years. Sure, I could buy the self-titled Trixter album, but even I had some self-respect at 15.
It was during one of these treasure hunts in the summer of 1994 that I struck proverbial gold: a compilation album, featuring music from some bands I loved and some I had at least heard of, for less than half the price of a new album. Not about to let this one get away, I purchased my copy of DGC Rarities, Vol 1., had my Camelot Club Card stamped, and waited anxiously while my Mom and sister tried on clothes before I could go home and listen.
still waiting for Volume 2...
A collection of B-Sides, alternate versions and outtakes of bands on the "alternative" off-shoot of Geffen Records, the album featured tracks from Nirvana, Hole, Sonic Youth, Teenage Fanclub, Beck, Counting Crows, The Posies, the aforementioned (and unknown to me at the time) that dog, and a band I had only heard of weeks before, Weezer.
Though I wasn't super familiar with Teenage Fanclub at the time, I really dug their contribution, "Mad Dog 20/20", an outtake from their recent album Thirteen. The Nirvana track, listed as "Pay to Play", ended up being a bit of a disappointment, as I was expecting a previously-unheard song, but got a demo version of "Stay Away" with alternate lyrics instead. However, track 3 was one of those watershed moments that (CLICHE) changed everything. Weezer's "Jamie" was a 2-track demo recorded for a friend as a class project. The song was, and still is, pure gold, mixing the enormous guitar sound of Weezer's early work with an incredibly memorable melody. This song is just amazing, and still remains one of my 5 favorite Weezer tracks. However, despite seeing them NINE TIMES, I've never gotten a chance to hear the song live.
see?
Sonic Youth added a track fittingly titled "Compilation Blues", Beck contributed "Bogusflow", Hole covered Echo & The Bunnymen and that dog. put forth "Grunge Couple", a tribute to Sonic Youth and Spinal Tap. Having never heard the band before, I was instantly smitten with the raucous, fuzzed-out bass-driven satire of what the press - and the movie Singles - had taken so seriously just a couple years before.
Though the rest of the tracks are fairly decent despite being left off of whatever album they were recorded for, the real gem of the bunch was Counting Crows' "Einstein On the Beach (For an Eggman)", a song that was left off of their debut album August & Everything After for being too cheerful. You know, because it was the mid-90s and that sort of thing was frowned upon. Ironically, this cast-off song became one of the band's biggest hits, hitting #1 on the Billboard Modern Rock charts in the summer of 1994, knocking off Offspring's "Come Out and Play" and succeed by Green Day's "Basket Case", two songs that were more indicative of the taste of the day than a "happy" Counting Crows track.
Despite the relative success of this record, this remains the only volume. While there was certainly plenty of material to put together another album, especially with the success in subsequent years of DGC bands like Elastica, Veruca Salt, Jawbreaker and Girls Against Boys, the rare tracks of these bands had to be hunted down through imports and tape trading for the remainder of the decade, until digital downloads made it easy to complete collections of almost any artist.
Nowadays, b-sides and rarities are easier to find, often offered as bonus tracks on more expensive versions of albums, and older tracks saved for anniversary re-issues every 10 years. For instance, Nirvana's entire catalog was mined in 2004 for With the Lights Out, a 4-disc boxed set of every recorded song and half-finished idea the band, or Kurt, ever put to tape. Like many things, the internet killed the compilation album, save for the massively popular hits sets Now! That's What I Call Music, and even those suffered a mercifully quick death once the iTunes store opened.
And soon enough, Spotify will destroy music commerce as we know it, and young music fans will never know what it was like to stumble upon a gem like DGC Rarities, Vol. 1 (and only).
Well, don't I feel like a schmuck? After boldly announcing that Weezer would be the special surprise opening act for this evening's sold out that. dog reunion show (and thus experiencing a huge spike in readership), I will now have to eat my words, as Mime Crime and Princess were tonight's warm-up acts. Just like it says on the special commemorative poster. That'll teach me to ever trust a merch guy.
In my defense, all the pieces fit for a surprise Weezer set. They were known contemporaries and collaborators with that dog., the poster reads Princess & Mime Crime as the openers, which could easily be taken for a code name like Goat Punishment (the fictitious moniker Weezer used circa 2000 while playing out as a Nirvana and Oasis cover band), plus, as mentioned before, the merch guy told me that Weezer was strongly rumored to open and he should know, right?
But enough about the lack of Weezer. The aptly-named Mime Crime are a rock band made up of clowns who pantomime the motions of an exciting group. It was funny for one "song", when I thought it was a joke and Weezer was about to play. Then they played 4 or 5 more "songs" and it became the polar opposite of what I had hoped. Then came Princess, another aptly-named group, as it featured two female lead singers (one of whom was SNL-alum Maya Rudolph) doing a short set of Prince covers, including "Darling Nikki", "When You Were Mine" and "Controversy." Sadly, no "Batdance" but you can't get everything you want in life. Especially Weezer.
But I was there to see that dog. and after a few more minutes, they came on, once again introduced by Ali Rushfield. The set was mostly the same as Friday night's show, and there was less of a rabid energy this evening, but more of a respectful excitement. Perhaps because it was a Sunday evening and everyone was partied out, or perhaps these were the true fans, the ones that had stuck it out those oh-so-many years.
rachel haden, tony maxwell, anna waronker
The big difference in tonight's set was the inclusion (after so many shouted requests on Friday) of "Hawthorne" from Retreat From the Sun and probably my favorite that dog. song of all time. Fun fact about "Hawthorne": the song was written about Steve McDonald, bass player of Redd Kross and his hometown of Hawthorne, CA. Years later, he and Anna married and "Hawthorne" is their child's favorite song, though he changes the "trying to find your parents' house" line to "trying to find Grandma's house." Adorable!
Tonight's show had the band displaying the same gregarious energy as on Friday, but with a bit more confidence and polish, only to be expected after shaking off the cobwebs. Anna even had several guitar changes and I learned something new this weekend - almost none of their songs are in a standard guitar tuning. Which makes a lot of sense in retrospect.
anna and petra haden, my crush of 15 years
Here's the setlist for tonight. I'm trying to get it up on Setlist.fm, but the site isn't working for me, so feel free to post:
Old Timer
Jump
Ms. Wrong
Long Island
Being With You
Raina
Lip Gloss
She Looks At Me
Grunge Couple
Did You Ever
Retreat From the Sun
Silently
Zodiac
Minneapolis
Gagged and Tied
He's Kissing Christian
Michael Jordan
(1st encore)
Punk Rock Girl
Never Say Never
In the Back of My Mind
Hawthorne
Westside Angst
Angel
(2nd encore)
This Boy
That's the last 90s show for a while, though The Lemonheads are playing It's a Shame About Ray in it's entirety at the El Rey in October if anyone wants to spot me some cash.
For whatever reason, the music gods have deigned me worthy of receiving their divine attention, and have chosen to bestow it upon me in the form of the Troubadour's event calendar. In one amazing summer, I've gotten to see Buffalo Tom, Archers of Loaf, Smoking Popes and tonight, FINALLY:
that dog.
Lowercase T, lowercase d, period at the end.
For the uninitiated, that dog. was a Los Angeles-based alternative band that put out three great albums in the mid-90s before breaking up. Often described as the female version of Weezer, they were fronted by petite chanteuse Anna Waronker and featured the equally adorable Haden sisters, Rachel on bass and Petra on violin, and also adorable Tony Maxwell on drums.
that dog. then
I've gone into more depth about that dog's style and musicianship on this blog, so I'll just focus on tonight, and their sold-out show at (once again) the Troubadour in West Hollywood/Los Angeles.
Introduced by screenwriter Ali Rushfield, the band immediately launched into "Old Timer" their biggest single off of their first, self-titled album. The energy level was palpable immediately and remained this way throughout the evening, as a very diverse and enthused crowd kept yelling for more during the band's 90 minute set.
that dog. now
The band's musicianship was impressive - there were hardly any mistakes, save for a few forgotten lyrics - surprising for a band that hasn't played a show together in 14 years. This reunion attitude was pervasive throughout the evening, as the band joked about how some things never change and often shared glances (and, most importantly, encouraging smiles) in each others' direction - none of the animosity that plagued the band towards the end was present. It's amazing how much a decade-and-a-half can wash away.
This was the first of 2 sold-out shows the band is playing this weekend, and their attitude has been "see how these go, then we might do more." Judging by the turnout (Rachel's reaction upon learning that some fans traveled FAR to get to the show was a shocked "that is so rad!"), their performance and their reception tonight, you might be seeing them in your area soon.
Here's the setlist:
Old Timer
Jump
Ms. Wrong
Long Island
Being With You
Raina
Lip Gloss
She Looks At Me
Grunge Couple
Did You Ever
Retreat From the Sun
Silently
Zodiac
Minneapolis
Gagged and Tied
He's Kissing Christian
(1st encore)
Punk Rock Girl
Never Say Never
In the Back of My Mind
Michael Jordan
Angel
(2nd encore)
This Boy
Also important to note is they had a very special surprise opening act that I unfortunately missed: Tenacious D. Though I have it on good authority that there will be another opening act Sunday, one that is Wonderful, Excellent, Exceptional, Zippy, Exquisite, & Reknowned.
Though it's not the full Ben Folds Five reunion album that so many are desperately waiting for, the band did get back together to record three new songs for Ben Folds' upcoming compilation, The Best Imitation of Myself: A Retrospective.
The song, "House", which can be heard HERE, is reminiscent of Whatever and Ever Amen-period BF5, though the song feels more like a B-side from that era. Still, the Five had a special charm that was never quite recaptured in Folds' solo work, so it's nice to hear that familiar sound once more. So no looking in the mouth of this gifted horse.
This comes in advance of a Five reunion that Folds himself announced at the beginning of this month while on a press junket for his current gig as judge on The Sing-Off. Though no tour has been announced, one can only be expected should his indentured servitude to NBC/Universal/Comcast come to an end.
Now, for no reason other than sheer awesomeness, here's Ben Folds Five live with "Narcolepsy" off of their magnum opus The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner.
A very Happy 41st Birthday to Jeff Mangum, better known as singer and guitarist of Neutral Milk Hotel, whose much deserved recognition came well after the 90s had ended.
Here's Jeff and NMH featured in a makeshift video for the incredible "Holland 1945"
While discussing the best songs of the 90s, the conversation will inevitably include obvious choices like Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit", Radiohead's "Karma Police" and Oasis' "Wonderwall". Depending on where tastes lie, you may also hear Pulp's "Common People", R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" or even Pavement's "Gold Soundz" as Pitchfork chose.
However, to me, there was always one song that I considered one of the very best of the decade that never got its proper due: "Sorry Again" by DC's Velocity Girl.
Velocity Girl formed in Maryland in 1989, but were mainly known as a DC band because there was no such thing as a Baltimore music scene. Seriously, I can't even name another band from Maryland except for Good Charlotte, and let's face it - they hardly qualify as a band.
Back to Velocity Girl: while their first albums were more similar to Ride and My Bloody Valentine than the aggro Riot Grrl sound that Hole popularized, their 1994 record !Simpatico! found the band showing off a more power-pop side than they previously had. And in no song was this change more evident than the leadoff track, "Sorry Again".
To dismiss this as simple power-pop is a bit deceiving; the dual guitar work of Archie Moore and Brian Nelson consists almost exclusively of single-note riffs that work in counter-point and not in the power chords or lush open string sounds that so often make up this genre. Because of this, many of the song's hooks lie in the guitar work and creates a much more interesting sound when juxtaposed with the bright melody in Sarah Shannon's double-tracked vocals.
On top of all of this, the band's frenetic energy gives the song an upbeat, positive feel, despite the regretful, lost love lyrics. However, there are some notes in the aforementioned guitar lines that give this song a shade of melancholy and more musical depth than you are like to find in any Letters to Cleo song, to which Velocity Girl will draw frequent comparisons.
Unfortunately, the band only released one more album after !Simpatico!, 1996's Gilded Stars and Zealous Hearts, but their influence was great, despite a small (but loyal) fan base; without them, one would like to think that bands like Letters to Cleo, Veruca Salt, Magnapop, that dog., and Belly would not have found success as easily.
One of my most favorite memories from the 90s was staying up late on summer Sunday nights to watch 120 Minutes on MTV.
This, of course, was when MTV still showed music videos, but if you wanted to see the good stuff, you had to wait for Alternative Nation with Kennedy to come on. And if you wanted to see the REALLY good stuff, you had to watch 120 Minutes with Matt Pinfield.
The show enjoyed a long run (1986-2003), but couldn't find a home once the Internet shortened everyone's attention spans and teens only wanted to watch shitty reality shows. Plus, by that time, nearly all the visionary music video directors had moved on to feature films, and with the Napster craze, the music industry had little and less money to promote their product. And the first major casualty was the music video.
However, MTV has come to its senses and reinstated 120 Minutes, complete with host Matt Pinfield, which returns this Saturday, July 30 @ 1am EST/10pm PST on MTV...TWO?!?!! WTF?
Okay, make sure you have MTV2 now. Most cable providers probably carry it, and if yours doesn't, send them an email to tell them how much they suck. And if you're one of the hipsters like me who doesn't have cable...well, you're F-ed. Can someone tape this for me? I'll give you a blank VHS.
Of course, it wouldn't be adulthood without change. Here's what Matt Pinfield has to say about the new show:
"There will be differences: I am no longer sitting on those road cases, because my legs are too short and I can't touch the ground," Pinfield laughed. "I think that the way that people digest music and information now has changed quite a bit ... so the difference will be, we will still and I'm very proud to show full videos -- at least 12 a show -- but there will be a lot more guests and a lot more action and a lot more things will be happening a lot faster."
With the influx of 90's inspired bands - Yuck, Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Joy Formidable, Wye Oak - there will be plenty to show, plus they're going to show old videos. And let's face it, that's all we really want to see - stuff from our childhood.
In honor of the show's triumphant and glorious return, here are a couple links of note:
120 Minutes tumblr, maintained by Phillip Fibiger, an "aggregation of music videos (mostly youtube) that appeared on 120 Minutes during its heyday."
The 120 Minutes Archive, by Tyler C, with a listing of nearly every video that played on the show back in the day.
From that site, here are the videos played 15 years ago, on the July 28, 1996 episode:
Everclear - "You Make Me Feel Like a Whore"
Screaming Trees - "All I Know"
eels - "novocaine for the soul"
Happy Mondays - "Step On"
Butthole Surfers - "Pepper"
Reacharound - "Big Chair"
Sister Machine Gun - "Hole in the Ground"
Rocket From The Crypt - "On a Rope"
Dog Eat Dog - "ISMS"
Butthole Surfers - "Jingle of a Dog's Collar" (live 120 Minutes)
Better Than Ezra - "King of New Orleans"
Republica - "Ready to Go"
Lifter - "Headshot"
Local H - "Bound for the Floor"
Hole - "Gold Dust Woman"
Filter - "Jurassitol"
Patti Smith - "Summer Cannibals"
Imperial Teen - "You're The One"
Fiona Apple - "Shadowboxer"
Great songs, all.
I leave you with this, the best part of my week and the most exciting 24 seconds of the 90s (except for that one night, when Amber Hobbs' parents were away...)
All hail The Nearly-As-Great Summer! (Summer '95 being the Greatest)
When we last looked at the charts from the Summer of 1996, the Cranberries had the #1 spot with "Salvation" and Alanis Morisette had snuck into the Top 10 with her poignant drivel, "You Learn". Just a few weeks later an there was a complete change in the charts, with just one song remaining in the Top 10, Dishwalla's near ubiquitous "Counting Blue Cars."
While some might argue this turnaround is indicative of the fleeting nature of tastes and lack of longevity in mid-90s alternative, they would be wrong, as this is more of an testament to the overwhelming quality of the era's music. A new song came out, and EVERYONE loved it. If you examine the current rock charts, you will find extreme polarity in fans' opinions. Tastes were more unified in the 90s, and that was because everything was good.
The number one song was the Primitive Radio Gods' smash hit, "Something About a Phone Booth". While not at all rock, with it's mellow end-of-summer groove, chill vocals and BB King samples, the song was DEFINITELY alternative, especially when comparing it to the guitar-based groups that made up the rest of the chart.
Furthermore, could there be a Top 10 that is any more representative of what bands were popular in the 90s? Stone Temple Pilots, Smashing Pumpkins, Beck, No Doubt, Garbage, Oasis, even the Butthole Surfers all had songs here. It was a magical summer, and the music was amazing. The only thing that topped it was the release of Roland Emmerich's cinematic masterpiece Independence Day. I say that without a single trace of irony or sarcasm - it's a PERFECT movie.
Here's the Top 10:
1. Primitive Radio Gods - "Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hands"
2. Butthole Surfers - "Pepper"
3. Stone Temple Pilots - "Trippin' On a Hole In a Paper Heart"
4. Garbage - "Stupid Girl"
5. The Smashing Pumpkins - "Tonight, Tonight"
6. No Doubt - "Spiderwebs"
7. Beck - "Where It's At"
8. Porno For Pyros - "Tahitian Moon"
9. Dishwalla - "Counting Blue Cars"
10. Oasis - "Don't Look Back In Anger"
Looking back at the Billboard Modern Rock (now Alternative) charts of this week 20 years ago, we see that the music of that summer was still less "rock" and more "pop" oriented, with Siouxsie and the Banshee's "Kiss Them For Me" holding the top spot, with Seal's "Crazy" and R.E.M.'s most pop song, "Shiny Happy People" also found in the Top 10. Even Big Audio Dynamite's "Rush" with its incongruous samples and pastiche song structure was more pop than most everything that would chart just a few years later.
I still don't know what she was singing about, but watching Siouxsie Sioux dance around in this video brings back a certain special feeling.
Here's the Top 10
1. Siouxsie & The Banshees - "Kiss Them For Me"
2. Big Audio Dynamite - "Rush"
3. Crowded House - "Chocolate Cake"
4. Psychedelic Furs - "Until She Comes"
5. Kirsty MacColl - "Walking Down Madison"
6. Electronic - "Tighten Up"
7. Seal - "Crazy"
8. House of Love - "Marble"
9. The Candyskins - "Submarine Song"
10. R.E.M. - "Shiny Happy People"
The good folks at SPIN magazine (remember those?) have put together a tribute to Nirvana's Nevermind and are offering it for FREE if you like their Facebook page.
So how is it? Like most tribute albums, some covers are inspired, some are just fun and some deserve to be dragged behind a horse for a few miles. Here's my thoughts:
01 Meat Puppets: "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
The Brothers Kirkwood bust out the acoustic guitars (presumably the same ones they used on Nirvana's Unplugged) to put a quieter take on this song. Not an easy song to cover, as NO ONE can replicated Kurt's vocal on the chorus, the Brothers Meat were wise to tone it down a bit. Easily the best cover of the song ever and the creepy backing vocals in the pre-chorus (Hello? Hello? Hello? How low?) are a nice touch.
02 Butch Walker & the Black Widows: "In Bloom"
Butch Walker is great with other people's songs - having seem him play Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" 3 or 4 times live - and this is no exception. The band puts a cool groove in the verse along with some surprisingly appropriate ukelele (the hippest instrument in the world right now) and add a bit more melody in the chorus backing vocals. Additionally, Walker is a hell of a guitar player and he lets it rip during the solo, which is night and day different from the original. Probably the most fun cover on the album. (Ed note: This was before I listened to the Foxy Shazam cover)
03 Midnight Juggernauts: "Come as You Are"
Just awful. A bunch of bleeps programmed with the same notes but none of the spirit of Nirvana. Though it can be argued that "Come As You Are" was always the limpest track on Nevermind, this take does nothing to counter that. Furthermore, the verse vocals sound like stoned Chipmunks. Skip.
04 Titus Andronicus: "Breed"
Definitely inspired, their track stays in spirit with the original, and without Butch Vig's layered production, brings it back to Nirvana's punk roots. This is probably what Nirvana wanted Nevermind to sound like, given their later misgivings about the album's sound.
05 The Vaselines: "Lithium"
One of two bands on this compilation to be covered by Nirvana (the other being, of course, The Meat Puppets), The Vaselines pretty much have license to do whatever they want to the Nirvana catalog. Their cover of "Lithium" is a reverential one, though and the synth and acoustic guitars complement the sparse vocals nicely. Grunge, punk or alternative it's not, but it's still cool and nice to see The Vaselines return the favor, for let's face it, without Nirvana, they are nothing.
06 Amanda Palmer: "Polly"
"Polly" was always Nevermind's creepiest song, and Amanda Palmer keeps that going here with soft, delicate vocals, some cacophonous vibes and, of all things, a banjo. Don't fret, though. The bass solo remains intact.
07 Surfer Blood: "Territorial Pissings"
Florida's alt-rock saviors contribute a pretty accurate cover here, complete with excerpt from The Youngbloods "Get Together". While the track isn't necessarily a disappointment, their choice of song kinda is - after seeing their involvement, I had hoped they would be taking on one of Nevermind's more complicated songs (particularly the next one) instead of it's simplest. Still, no matter who plays this song - Surfer Blood, Nirvana or even The Offspring - it's still punk as all get out.
08 Foxy Shazam: "Drain You"
Hoo boy. At first listen, this was instantly my least favorite song. Not only on the album, but EVER. "Drain You" has always been my favorite Nirvana song (Kurt's as well) and not being at all familiar with Foxy Shazam's music, I was put off from the start. False crowd noises, grand piano - it sounds more like "Bennie & The Jets" than anything Nirvana would have ever done. But the more I listened to it, the more I began to appreciate their take on the song. Foxy Shazam are a big, showy band, as if The Darkness had half an orchestra, but that does not mean they are not reverent. While most bands would have just skipped over the unforgettable interlude, Foxy Shazam owns it, throwing in wayward trumpet lines like Kurt did with guitar feedback. "Drain You" was always Nevermind's sweetest song, a love song wrapped in a lot of obtuse imagery and Foxy Shazam make this as big and as awesome as loving and loveable as any band's encore staple. It might be Nirvana's song, but Foxy Shazam makes it their "Freebird". A+.
09 Jessica Lea Mayfield: "Lounge Act"
Holy shit, this is it. Jessica Lea Mayfield is a star in the making, and her voice has such a quiet intensity, it's perfect for any Nirvana song, but especially for what could easily be argued as Nevermind's finest track. Having seen her live, I can attest that Jessica is the real deal and this cover is no exception. Stripped down to bare bones, her voices creeps over every word, while Richie Kirkpatrick's slinky guitar just sizzles, especially when it's countered over the murky single-note lines before the 3rd verse. I can't say enough about this song - just awesome.
10 Charles Bradley and the Menahan Street Band: "Stay Away"
This compilation is nothing if not imaginative. Similar to the Foxy Shazam track, 62-year-old Charles Bradley puts a completely different spin on "Stay Away", turning it into a simmering soul track, with some pretty hot 60's-esque tremolo fuzz guitar in the background. A cool take on this song, and unrecognizable as Nirvana.
11 Telekinesis: "On a Plain"
Back to the rock. Seattle's own Telekinesis take on their (his) hometown heroes (presumably) on a relatively straight-forward cover. But apparently this was a last minute fill-in for the original artists, Wavves, who apparently went AWOL. Or collapsed in fear of trying to measure up to Nirvana.
12 JEFF the Brotherhood: "Something in the Way"
The Nashville duo made up of actual brothers - neither named Jeff - put a pretty grunge spin on this decidedly non-grunge song. Rumor has it that Kurt Cobain wanted to get more into acoustic music as Nirvana went on, so there's a touch of irony that this song kinda works better with some sludgy distortion. Save for the vocals, it sounds like pre-Badmotorfinger Soundgarden.
13 EMA: "Endless, Nameless"
Surely the only recorded cover of this song in history, EMA does it justice, but not by much. Recording riffs, noise and screams is easy, but the spirit of the track is missing. "Endless, Nameless" was Nirvana trying to stay connected with their roots in the midst of the dozen more pop-tinged songs that came before it. While I'm sure EMA tried to recapture that sentiment, it's difficult without being more familiar with their regular material. Oh well.
During my teen years, specifically the second half of the 90s since I wasn't allowed to go to shows before I was 16, I tried to get to every concert I could. Of course, with the limited discretionary income that came from my minimum wage grocery store job, this wasn't near as many as I would have liked, and I missed some great shows (Dandy Warhols with special guests Treble Charger and the Longpigs in the 400-person-capacity Sapphire Supper Club comes to mind).
One such show was the Smoking Popes, who were on tour as openers for Tripping Daisy, and played the Embassy in Orlando. For $5. I am kicking my 16-year-old self as I write this. Regardless, the band was a more recent discovery at the time, but buoyed by their insanely great single "Need You Around", I took a chance and got their album Born To Quit as one of my Columbia House free selections.
This ended up being one of the best decisions I have ever made.
The album immediately resonated with me, as their songs of unrequited, near-obsessive love fit perfectly with the unrequited, near-obsessive attraction I felt to a certain lovely young lady at the time. Unsurprisingly, these same feelings emerged while listening to their follow-up album, 1997's Destination Failure, though by that point they were for a different lovely young lady.
By that time, Capitol Records was on the verge of dropping the band and lead singer (and one of three brothers in the band) Josh Caterer began to focus on his Christian faith and the band split up, leaving me having never seen Smoking Popes live.
Until tonight, naturally.
Smoking Popes Live! Tonight! Sold Out!
Once again an opening act, though no longer $5, tonight the Popes played the still-legendary Troubadour in support of Alkaline Trio. (Despite having formed in 1996, the Alkaline Trio didn't really garner a ton of attention until the early part of the 2000s and therefore will never be mentioned again on this blog.) Sixteen years of waiting paid off immediately as they opened with "Before I'm Gone" from Destination Failure, following it up quickly with "Rubella" the second single from Born to Quit.
Though it was a shortened opening set, the Popes flat out brought it as Josh Caterer connected with particular fans in the audience, something that is so very rare at rock shows. On top of that, they were having fun, which is something equally as rare in rock these days.
The easiest way to kill a crowd's enthusiasm is the simple phrase "here's something from our new album", but the Popes kept it short and sweet, playing "Wish We Were" from this year's This Is Only a Test, which fit in perfectly with their older material. Finally, they wrapped up the show with the crowd pleasing, beautiful song "Megan", "Need You Around" and "I Know You Love Me" featuring the second sing-along of the night (the other being "No More Smiles").
Too often, delayed gratification for something you have wanted so badly for so long, but seeing the Smoking Popes was not one of them. I only wish it could have been in 1995 with another band I never got to see, Tripping Daisy.
Happy 45th Birthday to the beautiful and super-awesome Tanya Donelly!
Here she is with Belly giving an awesome performance of one of my favorite 90s songs, "Super-Connected" on Letterman. Video quality isn't great, but the sound is superb.
Some years removed from the 90s, I find myself looking back at the bands of the 90s and examining their legacy. Generally speaking, they fall into one of the following categories:
Then-And-Always Revered: Usually saved for bands that broke up before they had a chance to suck. Example: Nirvana
Turns Out You Were Pretty Good: For bands that never got their due in the 90s, but are revered now. Examples: Guided By Voices, Neutral Milk Hotel, Archers of Loaf
You Should Have Quit While You Were Ahead: Bands that have tarnished their legacies by putting out crap, heartless records in an attempt to stay relevant, but end up becoming caricatures of what they originally were. Examples: Weezer, Green Day, The Smashing Pumpkins
We Actually Liked This Once?: Bands that sucked then, but we were too _____ to realize it at the time. Probably into some girl that liked them. Examples: Everclear, Goo Goo Dolls, Offspring
Then there's a littany of bands who don't really have much of a legacy, since they never reached a high level of popularity to be thought about 15 years later.
Then there's that dog.
Formed in LA in 1991, that dog. were an A&R rep's wet dream in the 90s: three cute girls singing pop songs about crushes and lost love complete with multi-part vocal harmonies and loud guitars. They even had a violin player. Often described as the female version of Weezer, that dog. never gained the following their male counterparts did. This was partly due to DGC Records' failure to give the record the support it deserved: that dog. should have been the next Veruca Salt in terms of chart success. However, this is also partly due to their more obtuse style of songwriting, one that figures heavily on dissonance in their chord progressions.
It was this juxtaposition of atonality with extremely harmonized vocals and heavily distorted guitars with a violin as a lead instrument that made that dog. one of the more interesting bands of the 90s, and "He's Kissing Christian" one of the more unusual singles during its time.
Released during that magical Summer of 1995, that "He's Kissing Christian" managed to find any airplay at all was pretty special. Alanis Morissette's massive crossover career had just started and "You Oughta Know" seemed to filling the female rock artist quota and then some. Throw in Elastica's "Stutter", Garbage's "Vow" and the little airplay Jen Trynin's "Better Than Nothing" got, and there was no room for that dog. and their loud little quiet song about having a crush on a gay man, even though they were god-damned adorable. Lead singer Anna Waronker was so petite (and still is), the white SG she plays in the video makes her look like a child. This of course in no way detracts from her musicianship, but only adds to what should have been their monumental appeal in 1995.
that dog. would go on to have more greater success with their 1997 album Retreat From the Sun and it's single, "Never Say Never". While that album is rock-solid and their most accessible, it doesn't have the singularity in theme and vision that made Totally Crushed Out! such an cohesive record. Unfortunately, while their legacy deserves to be in that second grouping listed above, with GBV and Archers of Loaf, they won't ever reach the wide appeal that those other bands did, even after their career was long over. However, after only three records, they never had the chance to ruin the great body of work they left behind.
In other words, don't be sad that it's over, be happy that it happened at all. Which is a sentiment that dog. would have probably gotten behind.
In the entirety of rock history, there are few bands who have been as prolific as The Smashing Pumpkins. Their 1993 album Siamese Dream was huge, and hugely revelatory for impressionable 14-year-olds. Imagine our happiness when only a year later we got another Smashing Pumpkins album, the rarities collection Pisces Iscariot. Then, a year later, ANOTHER album, this time a DOUBLE. It would have been too much, had it not all been amazing.
As successful as Siamese Dream was, Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was even bigger, bolstered by the popularity of the singles "Bullet With Butterfly Wings", "1979", "Zero", "Tonight, Tonight" and "Thirty-Three". The album was definitely one of the high points of the 1990s, not only in its scope and scale, but also in the sheer enormity of it. It was inescapable.
So for the band to put out ANOTHER release just a year later, with 28 new songs, they were simultaneously pretentious, presumptuous and genius.
The Aeroplane Flies High, in true Smashing Pumpkins grandeur, was a collection of expanded versions of the aforementioned singles from Melon Collie, each with it's own theme. The harder songs were on the "Zero" disc, the new wave-y stuff on the "1979" disc, the grandiose stuff on the "Tonight, Tonight" disc. All 5 were packaged (with a 44 page booklet containing lyrics, photos and a complete Smashing Pumpkins discography) in a retro box made to look like a 1960s carrying case for 45s.
Look how retro!
For a band to do this today would be near impossible - there's not enough radio, television and magazine support, and there is currently no rock band popular enough that could move this much product, as terribly consumerist as that sounds. The only thing that comes close is Teargarden By Kaleidyscope, a 44-song opus that is being released for free on the internet, one song at a time over several years. The band? The Smashing Pumpkins.
Back to Aeroplane, the set is truly remarkable just in the sheer amount of material included. For a band to have released 55 songs in a little over 2 years was astounding; to put out another half as many a year later was unheard of in the 1990s. Even Pearl Jam, a prolific band in their own right, only put out 37 songs in their most productive 3 years; Nirvana put out 55 the whole time Kurt Cobain was alive.
Don't act like your not going to buy it.
Not only is their quantity here, there's also quality. "The Boy", a James Iha-sung song from the "1979" disc, is a breezy little piece of power-pop that would have been a single for most of their contemporaries. That it got released as a B-side here speaks to the greatness of the band at the time. "Pennies" from the "Zero" disc is another standout track, and is a forebear to the future of the band, particularly songs like "Try, Try, Try" from their 2000 album, Machina.
The "Tonight, Tonight" disc is particularly engrossing, with "Medelia of the Gray Skies", a companion piece to "Porcelina of the Vast Oceans" off of Melon Collie, and "Rotten Apples", a song that's as beautiful as the lyrics are desperate.
The "Bullet" disc contains one Pumpkins song, "...Said Sadly", a country-ish duet between James Iha and fellow Chicago-an, Nina Gordon of Veruca Salt. The other tracks are made up of covers, mostly from the late 70s and early 80s - The Cars, The Cure, Alice Cooper, Blondie and Missing Persons. Their cover of The Cars "You're All I've Got Tonight" is a standout, as the raw, ferocious guitars and an unrelenting caveman stomp (equal parts drums and friends pounding their feet in the studio) turn the new-wave synth-driven original into Queen-sized stadium rock.
The "Thirty-Three" disc is where all the odds and ends ended up, which oddly makes it the most representative of the Pumpkins' work at the time. "The Last Song", no doubt a contender for Melon Collie's closer at one point, features Billy's father on piano and is a perfect companion for the sweeping Mellon Collie (forgive the pun) of "Thirty-Three". As gentle as "The Last Song" is, "Transformer" is raucous, sounding more like "Zero" than anything else. The James Iha-sung "The Bells" (featuring Fountains of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger) and a cover of the standard "My Blue Heaven" are also representative of the Pumpkins' softer side, but it's the track from which the collection derives its title, "The Aeroplane Flies High (Turns Left, Looks Right)" that most truly encapsulates what the Smashing Pumpkins were in 1996. Beginning with some random Billy-esque spoken word ("I never really liked sunny days...the black wings just reach out to me over a distance") over a strummed clean guitar riff, the song quickly explodes with the same riff, with all the power of the Pumpkins' guitarsenal, then goes on for a full 8:31, with meandering solo and the repeated line "disconnected by your smile". It's this juxtaposition of doom and glee, in its epic form, that perfectly sums up the era for the band.
Nowadays, the set is only available online and in record shops, where you'll inevitably pay too much for it, considering that every song ever recorded is available for download on the internet, whether at a cost or for free. Whereas it originally retailed for around $30, a mint copy of the set now fetches close to $200 on Amazon, and used copies in good condition go anywhere from $40 to $140.
That is, if you can find a buyer. Used record stores are quickly disappearing and the most common response from the 13-23 set would be, "I think my dad listened to them" before turning back to their X-Box and upping the volume on the new Neon Trees or whatever stupid crap they listen to.
For whatever the reason, alternative rock bands spent much of the 90s trying to convince their younger fans that the music of the 1970s was actually cool, and not the K-Tel, disco schlock that we so closely associated with that decade. Tributes to Carol King, Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and at least 4 different compilations were released, all with 90s bands putting their own unique spin on classic songs of the AM era. But us kids knew: that music sucked.
Not helping was the fact that few of us actually saw the 1970s and even fewer of us were of an age to remember anything but its waning moments. There was no nostalgia for what we thought of only as our parents' music (or the music of our parents' younger siblings), and no interest in hearing it, except for, ironically, the classic rock of the 70s that informed so much of 90s alternative (like Led Zeppelin). So when our favorite bands would get together and insist that we should listen to The Carpenters, our young brains could barely handle the dichotomy: on one hand, it's the fucking Carpenters. They're lame. On the other hand, Sonic Youth, Cracker, Grant Lee Buffalo and Matthew Sweet are telling us to listen. Who were we to argue?
Karen and The Carpenters
At the time, I wanted to like The Carpenters. At least, I thought I did. After all, most of my favorite bands recorded their music, so how bad could it be? To an angst-filled 15-year-old that was listening to as much White Zombie as he was The Cranberries, it was terrible. To me, it was soft, didn't have distortion and contained exactly none of the two emotions I felt most at the time: rage and lust. However...Sonic Youth. Now that was a Carpenters I could get into.
Sonic and The Youths
Ironically for me, Sonic Youth's version was probably the truest rendition to the Carpenters' version on the album and definitely the most loving. The band's inspiration/interest in The Carpenters was nothing new, having recorded "Tunic (Song for Karen)" for their 1990 album Goo. But what is really remarkable is how much the band was able to make it their own, while still retaining the spirit and tone of the version they were paying tribute to (as the song was not written by or for Richard and Karen Carpenter, but rather by Leon Russell and Bonnie Bramlett). All the trademark Sonic Youth noise is present, including feedback, random echo and muted, distant vocals. The video made for the song, directed by Dave Markey, apes the crossfades and soft lighting of musical performances on 1970s variety television and even includes some shots of bass player Kim Gordon hammering on the drums, as Karen Carpenter often did, as Karen was actually a drummer. This was pure 90s: an alternative rock band doing justice to a cheesy song with an ironic video, simultaneously serious and tongue-in-cheek. Though, Richard Carpenter doesn't like this version, but what the hell does he know?
Though much can be said of the legacy of Sonic Youth, it's easily boiled down to unappreciated geniuses that never let commerce get in the way of their art. Sadly, the legacy of The Carpenters is forever tied to Karen Carpenter's premature death from the side-effects of anorexia (for those who haven't seen Todd Haynes' Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, do. It's great.). But over time, as my rage lessened and my lust squelched, I learned to appreciate the Carpenters and the other unsung heroes of 1970s soft rock. There was great songwriting during that time, and I encourage everyone to give it a shot. It doesn't suck nearly as much as we thought it did.
Up to this point, I've been focused on alternative music from the 90s, but after hearing this song today, I thought it'd be interesting to take a look at something slightly more mainstream.
Years before Aerosmith were best known for being "the band the guy from American Idol was in", they were actually a relevant, popular rock band. Which in 1993 was pretty special, given that they were 20 years into their career. Like Pearl Jam are today. Wow.
However, instead of re-releasing their entire back catalog and holding a gigantic birthday party for themselves, Aerosmith did what they knew best and made a record. A fairly decent record that got a lot of airplay. Unheard of, given their age. These were the same music consumers that shunned Guns N' Roses for being old and stodgy, and their first album had come out only 6 years prior.
"Eat the Rich" is the collaboration of Tyler, guitarist Joe Perry and Jim Vallance, who was a professional songwriter that had written "Rag Doll", "The Other Side", and "Deuces Are Wild" from the Beavis & Butthead Experience album.
It was a different time.
Easily the most rock of the singles from Get a Grip, "Eat the Rich" features a signature Joe Perry guitar riff backed by some pretty Dave Grohl-esque drumming from Joey Kramer, who is really pounding the shit out of the skins, for an Aerosmith song.
But this was a new Aerosmith, a cool, sexy one as their record label would have you believe. They wore black, didn't button their shirts and looked pissed off. And it worked, as Get a Grip sold over 7 million copies it's first 2 years of release.
"Eat the Rich" peaked at #5 on the Mainstream Rock chart, but was the album's least successful single, thanks to the mega-success of their video trilogy of "Cryin'", "Amazing" and "Crazy" in which Steven Tyler's daughter Liv and her friend Alicia Silverstone danced around in their underwear and teased Steven Dorff.
It was a different time, indeed.
Back to "Eat the Rich", as you can hear (and see) from the above video, Aerosmith (and/or their management) were trying hard to fit in with the current youth alternative movement. However, there's something hugely amiss with the song - its message. Aerosmith are hardly the first rock band to rally against the upper class, but at this point in their careers, Aerosmith were the upper class. They were probably the richest people they knew. So if the song's orders were to be carried out to their most literal interpretation, Aerosmith would be committing cannibalism, or even worse, self-cannibalism. That's just gross.
It's rare for a band to make it to the two decade mark, as Aerosmith did with the release of Get a Grip, but it's even more rare to be relevant at the time. U2 marked their 20th anniversary with the release of All That You Can't Leave Behind, their 2nd most successful album. R.E.M., however, released Around the Sun, an album I still haven't heard. So the success of this album, and this song, is fairly significant.
Unfortunately for "Eat the Rich", the song hasn't really aged well. It became a big live hit for the band, one they play constantly on tour, but when you hear it today, it sounds more dated than other songs released at the same time. Additionally, the lyrics are very much a 90's sentiment, as the Alternative Revolution was very much born out of a socioeconomic backlash and not just a artistic one. While these same anti-upper class feelings remain in less mainstream music, the popular music of today is more about assimilation when it comes to class struggle than rebellion.
Of course, the song's dated feel may be a psychological effect as well, since the members of Aerosmith are now SIXTY years old and no one ever made important, relevant rock music at that age.
But you don't have to, because you're still rich from back when you did.
One of the main goals I have for this blog is to explore not only what the music (and other stuff) of the 90s meant to me then, but also what it means now. We're about 15 years removed from the peak of the Alternative Revolution, an interesting time to explore the legacy that this era has left behind. With a little bit of a history lesson, too.
Tonight, I saw a reunited Archers of Loaf, playing to a sold out crowd at the Troubadour in Los Angeles.
I knew little of Archers of Loaf back in the 90s; they had appeared on a few compilations and soundtracks (Mallrats and My So-Called Life among them), but I loved their 1993 hit "Web In Front". I use hit loosely, since it never got any airplay on any of the alternative stations I grew up with, but the song stands as their biggest single, and in my opinion, one of the best tracks of the 90s.
Archers of Loaf then.
Because of the derth of new bands in the 1990s, it was easy for a band whose music wasn't as accessible as most to get lost in the shuffle. Bands like Pavement, Superchunk and Guided By Voices weren't irrelevant, but hardly got the attention that more radio-friendly groups like Everclear and The Smashing Pumpkins did.
However, now that we've put some miles between then and now, it's easier to see what the better music of the decade actually was. As much as I like Everclear's Sparkle and Fade album, it feels more like a guilty pleasure now than it did when I bought it in 1995. Perhaps it's the indie/hipster aesthetic that came with the emergence of The Strokes, or perhaps what became of Everclear post-Sparkle that has caused this shame. I'd like to think it was more of the latter, as their albums got progressively worse and worse. Not to pick on Everclear, but to me they represent the most middle-of-the-road of mid-90s alt rock. Them and Better Than Ezra.
So the question becomes, would Everclear be more highly regarded if they had stopped after their third album? Hard to say, but it certainly didn't hurt Archers of Loaf in retrospect.
Which brings us back to tonight. Archers broke up in 1998, but have recently reunited (obviously) and are touring (still obvious). As evidenced by the crowd tonight, Archers legacy was never tarnished by increased attempts at the mainstream in order to make money, and has instead held intact as a respected and beloved group that is equal parts experimental noise as melodic rock.
Archers of Loaf tonight.
Tonight, the melodic rock side of Archers won out, with the rock weighing heavier into the equation. the band took the stage and tore into "Audiowhore" from their 1994 EP Vs. The Greatest of All Time. They continued the set with "Lowest Part is Free!" from the same disc.
As the show continued, I was surprised at how many songs I had managed to find a spot in my mental jukebox. And I wasn't the only one. When the band launched into 1995's "Harnessed In Slums" (their 2nd biggest hit), nearly the whole crowd was singing along, something that only increased as the night went on. By the time they played "Web In Front", around the 40 minute mark of their 45 minute set, the audience was raucous, yelling back at the band with fervor.
One thing I've noticed while seeing these reunited bands is that they don't show any signs of wear or age (except for The Cars, but since they were defunct for the 90s, they won't find their way onto this blog). In most cases, they're a better band than they were back in the day. With age comes wisdom and learning from your mistakes. Just like Buffalo Tom, Archers were tight and played with enthusiasm, something that is no doubt a by-product of not having to play the same songs night in and night out for the last 15 years.
I've often said that I think bands should resolve to stay together for a decade. Put out as much or as little music as you want, but after 10 years you have to make a choice: break up or tour only as a nostalgia act. There's always exceptions, but a band's creative output suffers greatly around the decade mark. Think of Weezer if they had stopped at Maladroit (we'd still have the green album, but that would be the worst of it). Or Metallica if the Black album was the last they'd put out. Their legacies would not be tarnished and their fans would not have to wish they had the "old Weezer" back. As I do so very often.
So because of their breakup, which came as a result of creative stagnation, Archers of Loaf never suffered through the post-decade garbage years and have instead re-emerged as relevant examples of the highest quality alternative music released in the 90s and can still put on an exciting - and cool - show.
