Band Of Susans >> Riot of shooting stars in dislocated skies

Band Of Susans - "Ice Age" ¬¬¬

(Restless Records / Rough Trade Records [Germany], 1990) ¬¬¬

Band Of Susans formed in 1986, and were fronted throughout their 10-year history by Susan Stenger (vocals, bass, lyrics) and Robert Poss (guitar, vocals, lyrics, production), along with drummer Ron Spitzer.  They originally did have three Susans, but, thanks to some freak organic gardening accidents, were down to one Susan by the time of this album, though they did manage to add an Anne.  This is yet another song that I considered for the first-ever post on this blog, due to its seismic impact on me, its addictively technicolor feel, and its overall vastness / timelessness, not to mention the fact that it's just a great pop song at heart.  The bassline is all but unsurpassable, and when you play it on a bass, you can feel the earth being thrown briefly off its axis under your feet.

I've decided to post the original 1991 song rather than the "1994 Remix" (just beefed-up via mastering) version on the band's best-of compilation (2 CDs / 3 LPs) entitled Wired For Sound: 1986-1993.  That version basically just has beefed-up guitar sound, which unfortunately drowns out the vocals, since the vocals were stupidly not beefed-up.  I point this out because BOS were known for mixing their guitar parts louder than any other band, and they used a triple-guitar attack.  That means three guitarists, holmes.  They were also known for their excruciating attention to sonic details, particularly as pertained to guitar tone / sound / effects / feedback, making them arguably the ultimate "guitar band" for guitar geeks with an ear for melodic noise.

Right from the opening guitar feedback, to the police siren, to the ultra-sinister bassline, to the krautrock-y drums, you know you're in for something that is more badass than just about anything you have ever experienced.  Since this was the first BOS song I ever heard, it made quite a dandy first impression on me, and now I'll say what I always say: "Amazingly, this song was not released as a single."  Stenger just destroys on this song, and on most of the other songs on this album.  I love how she starts off by just singing the phrase "Still life," and then pauses for a long time while the instruments use the breathing room to do their thing.  It's a subtle and effective thing that very few bands do, and it always makes me think of Dark Side Of The Moon-era Pink Floyd (e.g. "Us And Them").  It's also cool how the opening two guitar notes which kick in at 0:28 foreshadow the "Still life" lyric, even using the same exact notes.  Black Sabbath were relentlessly mocked for having their lyrics follow the same notes as the guitars (think "Has he lost his mind..." from "Iron Man"), but BOS do it in a much more tasteful and sleek way.

Page Hamilton left BOS right after their previous album, Love Agenda, to form the way more famous nu-metalers Helmet, whom I completely worshipped in the early to mid '90s, and saw at Tipitina's in Jan. '95, but my point is that BOS didn't suffer at all from his loss, and actually bounced back stronger.

1990-96 lineup, clockwise from left: Mark Lonergan, Ron Spitzer, Anne Husick, Robert Poss, Susan Stenger

I had heard about this band for many years as stalwarts of the NYC melodic noize scene alongside Sonic Youth and Live Skull.  I finally bought this album on cassette in Dec. 2000 in the dollar clearance rack at a local Wherehouse Music (formerly Blockbuster Music, originally Sound Warehouse).  I also bought its equally great follow-up, 1993's Veil, on cassette that day, and just about wore both of them out in my car over the following few years before I got them both on CD.  Someone put up some nice pics of the cassette packaging, including full lyrics, here.  I'm not sure if I've put any song on mix tapes/CDs more than "Ice Age" over the last decade.  There was a point when it was so automatic that it wasn't a question of if I'd use it, but rather a question of whether to make it the first song or the last one.  While writing this post, I realized I had already written a big song-by-song analysis of this album for the "Lost Classics" section of my old online zine in 2002 or 2003, so I'll try to post that somewhere, sometime.

Susan Stenger & Robert Poss, 1988; photo by Michael Lavine

The cover designs of The Word And The Flesh and My Bloody Valentine's Loveless are suspiciously similar, but I know the BOS album came out slightly earlier, I think only by a few weeks or months.

vs.

Both albums were actually recorded in 1990, so it's kind of a moot point.  After hearing "Ice Age," it goes without saying that fans of Loveless will find much to like on TWATF.
In the movie Empire Records, there's a BOS poster right outside the office of the boss or manager guy.  The legendary Leo Fender, creator of the Fender guitar company, was a big BOS fan and invited them over for a tour of his G&L guitar / amp factory.  (G&L is the company he founded after leaving Fender.)  That's a G&L on the cover of this album, and several of them on the cover of Wired For Sound.  It's a shame that Leo died right before this album came out... I could list tons more factoids about Band Of Susans, but I'll let you seek that stuff out.  I don't like writing a whole lot about bands on here, and I usually end up deleting a lot of what I've written in order to make the posts shorter.  But I'd suggest checking out some of their live posters over here, including gigs with A.C. Temple (astute readers will remember that this blog is named after an A.C. Temple lyric), Dinosaur Jr., Live Skull, Rollins Band, Throwing Muses, Butthole Surfers, and other notable rock acts.  Members of BOS got their start in the experimental guitar-drone orchestra of Rhys Chatham, a.k.a. the guy that Glenn Branca ripped off.

1989 or '90 video for the awesomely pummeling "The Pursuit Of Happiness," with the band's tour of the G&L facility starting at the 3-minute mark:

Planets with similar climates: Bleach - "Seeing" & "First" (1991), My Bloody Valentine - "Only Shallow" (1990), Bailter Space - "Now I Will Live" (1987), Verve - "Slide Away" (1993), Juned - "Kyuss" (1995), Jawbox - "Savory" (1993), Catherine Wheel - "Black Metallic" (1991), Tamaryn - "Mild Confusion" (2010).