Cover Art #1. Seaweed - "Go Your Own Way"

While the movie soundtrack album was by no means a new invention in 1994, as The Big Chill and Saturday Night Fever had proved, they were near ubiquitous at the time. Nearly all studio released comedies and tentpoles had an accompanying album of the songs featured in the film (and ones written for it). Some were great (Empire Records), some were terrible (Airheads) and many were superior to the movie they were made to promote (The Crow: City of Angels, Mallrats, Judgement Night).

More often than not, these albums were made up of 4 types of tracks:

1. A song inspired by the movie, written by the flavor of the month in order to help sell both CD and movie (The Smashing Pumpkins - "The End is the Beginning is the End" from the Batman & Robin soundtrack)

2. A b-side from a popular band that for one reason or another didn't find its way onto an album, but was a quality song nonetheless and often received airplay (Weezer - "Suzanne" from the Mallrats soundtrack)

3. A song intended to break the "next big thing" but ultimately becomes a "whoa, I remember this song" while perusing the used soundtracks section at your local record store (Neve - "It's Over Now" from The Faculty soundtrack)

4. A cover, sometimes a tribute and sometimes a joke but usually uninspired, of a popular song, often from the 70s, by a band of the day.

For the first installment of Cover Art (how clever!), we'll take a look at the Tacoma, Washington band Seaweed's cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way" from the Clerks soundtrack.



As legend remembers it, the Clerks screening at the Sundance Film Festival was a watershed moment for independent film, and the movie grossed over $3 million domestically despite never playing on more than 100 screens at a time. Legend also has it, and is probably true, that the music rights for the film cost more than it did to make it, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of $28,000. Cheap, cheap, cheap.

The soundtrack featured a number of popular and less-so bands of the time: Alice in Chains and Soul Asylum (type 2 above), Bash & Pop and Supernova (type 3) and Golden Smog and Seaweed, both of whom contributed pure Type Fours: the aforementioned Fleetwood Mac cover and Golden Smog's version of Bad Company's "Shooting Star".

While the Golden Smog track is good example of bland take on a mostly bland song, Seaweed's version of this Fleetwood Mac classic is one of the best covers of the 90s. The song starts with the same simple chords of the original, but singer Aaron Stauffer, bass player John Atkins and drummer Bob Bulgrien give it a sense of urgency that is missing from it's predecessor. For the first 38 seconds, you're on the edge of your seat, less so from the familiarity of the upcoming chorus, and more because the band puts you there. Finally, when the chorus kicks in at the 0:39 mark, they launch into it with the punk abandon that separated them from the grunge brethren in Seattle. This song is played with passion from it's opening guitar strums and when the chorus finally kicks in, you're rewarded with the catharsis the band has been promising.

From there, they don't let up. Instead of keeping the double-time beat of the chorus throughout the song, the band uses the "Nirvana dynamics" (though to a lesser degree) and dials it back just enough in the second verse to keep you on the edge of your seat.

Later, the guitar solo kicks in and takes us through the end of the song, with the anthemic repetition of the song's hook repeated in true punk rock style: everyone yelling at once, fists no doubt pumping in the air. However, Seaweed never turns the song into a typical punk rock cover of the era, which usually featured a sneering, nasally singer making a joke out of a great song while the band plays it twice as fast as it was written. Theirs instead is a great moment, and Seaweed breathes new life into the song, introducing it to a generation of music-goers who no doubt shunned Fleetwood Mac because it's something their parents like. Me included.

Unfortunately, Seaweed never gained the notoriety of their peers, despite having one of the best singles of the alternative rock era, "Start With" from their 1995 album, Spanaway. But that's for another entry.

Whatever.

Remember This Song? #2. The Dandy Warhols - "Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth"

The Dandy Warhols

"Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth"

The Dandy Warhols Come Down

Another great 90s band that ultimately will be remembered for little more than a theme song to a CW show (see: Remy Zero, Nerf Herder), The Dandy Warhols first taste of mainstream success was not "We Used to Be Friends" aka Theme From Veronica Mars, but rather a catchy song with a catchy video and a catchy name, "Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth."



The first single off of their stellar 1997 album ...The Dandy Warhols Come Down, (the band's second) "Junkie" is instantly recognizable from it's refrain "heroin is so passe," a scathing indictment of...someone. The full line, "I never thought you'd be a junkie because heroin is so passe" was perfectly timed for alternative rock fans who had watched their patron saint commit suicide after well publicized heroin use not 3 years before, in the prime of his career. Countless other rock stars of the time fell prey to the drug and many, including Blind Melon's Shannon Hoon, Alice in Chains' Layne Stayley and Sublime's Bradley Nowell (not to be confused with Sublime With Rome's Rome), gave the drug their lives. However, the most popular theory is that the song skewers the Brian Jonestown Massacre's Anton Newcombe, no doubt made more credible by the bands' long running feud, documented in Ondi Timoner's great documentary, DiG!

All that aside, the band pushed the cheek hard in the video for the song, directed by photographer David LaChapelle. The video featured the band playing on a cheesy, drug-addled hybrid of The Price is Right and a Busby Berkeley movie, complete with dancing girls in syringe costumes and sets designed by Walter Barnett. The clip stood out on MTV (and it's much-greater sister station M2) not only for its silliness and imagery, but for it's use of color and lighting, which contrasted heavily with the dark, brooding videos of the time. I'm looking straight at you, Billy Corgan. Yep, you.

Also standing out at the time were the boobs of keyboardist Zia McCabe. Did this girl even own a bra? Not that we minded at the time...

Back to the song, its power-pop sensibility with it's relentless drum groove and Korg keyboard riff reminded all of its listeners of the most important thing with The Dandy Warhols: they were fucking cool. The lead singer had awesome hair and a hyphenated last name - and they were both the same name! Courtney Taylor-Taylor - how cool is that shit? Yes, in hindsight it seems pretentious and trite, but this was the 90s. You could get away with that kind of crap and even be considered cool for it.

The album itself is some kind of awesome (produced by Tony Lash of Heatmiser) and features some outstanding tracks, sharing the same pop sensibility as "Junkie" ("Every Day Should Be a Holiday") but maintaining their neo-psychedelic sound. This was a band at their peak.

Whatever.

90s Live Now - #1 Buffalo Tom

Tonight I had the pleasure of seeing one of my all-time favorite bands, Buffalo Tom, for the first time.

In the 90s, I had 3 key moments of exposure to the band, all of which are fond memories and factored heavily into who I am today. Or something like that.

Moment #1 - The "Self Esteem" episode of MY SO-CALLED LIFE. You know, the one where Angela and Jordan were making out in the boiler room and she goes to the Pike to see Buffalo Tom and Jordan is playing pool and totally gives her the cold shoulder. What a douche. We heard "Sodajerk" when Angela enters and "Late at Night" during that unforgettable moment. Side note: who would have thought that years later Jordan Catalano would be in a bigger (but in no way better) band (30 Seconds to Mars) than the one he was going to see that night? Crazy.

(Side note: Claire Danes was in attendance tonight. Awesome.)

Moment #2 - The June 25, 1995 episode of MTV's 120 Minutes, hosted by The Catherine Wheel. The episode premiered Buffalo Tom's video for "Summer," which was most appropriate, not only for its timeliness, but also that it will forever remind me of the summer of 1995, aka The Best Summer Ever.

Moment #3 - The last episode of the John Stewart Show. In his introduction to them, John said the network had given him his choice of musical guest for his last episode. His first choice was Nine Inch Nails, arguably the hardest act to book in 1995. His second choice? Buffalo Tom, a relatively unknown band at the time. Actually, they still are today. The played their newest single, "Summer" and I was hooked.

Fast forward to 1998. Buffalo Tom was running a promotion on their website. Fans could write their local radio station requesting their new single, "Rachael" and forward or cc the email to the band. One lucky winner (presumably) from each town would be put on the guestlist for an upcoming show.

It was to my great surprise one evening that my mom told me that there was a message on the answering machine (no voicemail yet!) from a guy named Bill. Sure enough, it was Bill Janovitz, thanking me for the email I sent to Orlando's terrible (and at the time only) rock station, WJRR. The station around this time had Stabbing Westward and Korn in heavy rotation, so the chances of "Rachael" getting played were slim to none, but I tried. For my reward, Bill would put me on the guestlist of the nearest show...which was in Connecticut. Buffalo Tom had not come through Orlando before and would not again before their breakup, and I never had the chance to see them.


Bill Janovitz on a different night

Which brings us to tonight. When I saw that they were playing the Troubadour, one of the greatest music venues in the world, I couldn't pass it up. And thank god I didn't. Opening with "Tree House" from their album Big Red Letter Day, the band launched right into their 90+ minute set, and hit all of the highlights; every song I wanted to hear. I can't remember the last time I saw a band that played so many of my favorite of their songs. "Summer", "Late at Night", "Mineral", "Taillights Fade", "Sodajerk"...even a cover of New Order's "Age of Consent" and a great one at that.

On top of that, the band was extremely tight, engaging and played with an enthusiasm rarely seen anymore. A fantastic show and the perfect first entry for this feature.

Whatever.