Glide >> So close I trip and fall under your wheel

≈≈≈≈ Glide - "Water Falls"

(Medical Records, 1992) \\\\

In honor of the first rainfall here in over 2 months, I'm finally posting this song.  (Note: Do not confuse this Glide, from Australia, with the Glide from England that is the solo project of Echo & The Bunnymen's guitarist Will Sergeant.)  The volume and bass levels are mastered very low, so please play this very loudly...  I bought this CD totally on a whim at a thrift store a few summers ago, despite its lame title, Shuffle Off To Buffalo, which I later found out is a tap dancing reference, but, based on the EP's lyrical themes, presumably also references the breakdown of a relationship.  I vividly remember cranking this song up loudly after hearing the Cocteau Twins-esque wimpfest that opens this song, and then being walloped by the drums and guitars, and then hearing the huge chorus and wondering how this band was not world-famous.  I'd accuse Hum of ripping off their hit "Stars" from this song, except that they had probably never heard of this little shoegaze band from Australia.  Then again, who knows?  "Stars" is one of my favorite songs ever, and Hum were tremendously great when I saw them in '98, so I won't sit here and rip on them, but I had to at least float that theory.  Then again, the opening chords of "Water Falls" sound an awful lot like those in The Cure's giganto-hit "Just Like Heaven."  This EP is mastered pretty quietly, especially by today's "Loudness Wars" standards, so play it at maximum volume.  Oh yeah, the EP is utterly amazing, and it's one of the few things to which I've ever given 5 stars on rateyourmusic.com.

A few more songs from the Shuffle EP will be posted on this blog in the future, such as the devastating acoustic track "Worlds Away" which shows that some shoegaze bands can sound great even with the loud guitars stripped away.  "Water Falls" song also appears on Glide's 1997 EP/single compilation CD called Shrink Wrapped Real Thing.  According to Glide's website, they formed in 1991 and played live with Swervedriver, Ride, Lush, Morphine, Blur, Juliana Hatfield, Clouds, The Dambuilders, Luna, Live ("Her placenta... falls.... to the floor"), Longpigs, and many others.

I'm not sure if this is the lineup that played on this EP; William Arthur is second from right.

Singer William Arthur committed suicide in 1999, a few months after Adrian Borland of The Sound did the same thing.  I've read some of Arthur's tour diaries posted on some Glide fansite (I can no longer find the diaries or the site), and I have to say he comes off as a cocky, sexist prick, delivering bluntly withering critiques of the physiques of women who were so rude as to talk to him, and general criticisms of the U.S. and life on the road in general.  Which is the opposite of how I thought he would be, based on his existentially vulnerable and poetic lyrics.  Maybe they just caught him in a bad mood.  With what could politely be called an extremely limited singing voice, he was able to wrest some pretty impressive vocal stylings over the course of this EP, letting the edgy guitars and drums keep their place in the spotlight.  After this EP, the band drastically changed its sound to more of a Sunny Day Real Estate kind of thing, pretty much ditching its majestic shoegazeness for more of a gnarled post-grunge sound, which is not as pleasing to the ears without the soaring vocals of someone like, say, Jeremy Enigk.

Planets with similar climates: Hum - "Stars" (1995), Catherine Wheel - "Texture" (1992), Plexi - "Forest Ranger" (1996), Sunny Day Real Estate - "Seven" (1994), Bailter Space - "So La" (1997), The Cure - "Just Like Heaven" (1987).


Currently eating or drinking: Pillsbury Simply... Rustic French bread; Otria Greek Yogurt Veggie Dip; Mandarin oranges (from a can, embarrassingly, since my Mandarin orange tree hasn't made any fruit in the last 2 years).


Currently bewildered by: The existence of this 1983 video game: 

(Found via Can't Stop The Bleeding, a sports blog run by the head of Matador Records)

Update: A few days later, I found out on WIkipedia that this game is a recently-created spoof, but I bet ol' George would've been proud.