Lowercase >> A villain to call your own

California Month, tremor #9:

Lowercase - "Willing To Follow You Down"

(Punk In My Vitamins?, 1998)

Note: Since this site has gotten so few visits / comments / etc., I'm going to be uploading most songs at a lower bitrate from now on, so I don't waste as much bandwidth.

Hailing from Palm Desert, California, wherever that is, though it sounds like somewhere I'd like to visit, seeing as I'm really into palms and desert flora, but later apparently based in San Francisco, Lowercase released two decently angsty LPs on Amphetamine Reptile Records to praise in the indie mag-o-sphere.  Then I guess they got dropped by AmRep, because their third & final album, The Going Away Present, came out on Punk On My Vitamins?, a tiny indie label run by Vern "Redrum" Rumsey, the nicotinophilic bassist of Unwound.  In fact, when I saw Unwound in 1998, Vern was wearing a Lowercase t-shirt, and I've seen other photos of him wearing different Lowercase t-shirts.  I will mention that the supremely irritating Deerhoof were one of the openers at that show, and that their singer girl was wearing a full-body pink bunny costume, as if her vocals were not annoying enough.  Anyway, Lowercase lived up – er, down – to their name by toning back the volume and abrasiveness for this album.  In the end, they came up with a stunning album of slow, brooding post-indie-rock songs.

Imaad even uses the word "thee" correctly in this song, to mean "you."  This song has always grabbed me since I got the album in '03, but there are plenty of other highlights on it.  Apparently the band had already called it quits by the time this album dropped in early '99, making its title very fitting.  Singer Imaad Wasif has gone on to a varied post-Lowercase career, fronting Alaska!, as a sideman for the Yeah Yeahs Yeahs, and also as a solo artist.  I remember that I missed an Alaska! show at the House Of Blues Parish on 3/14/04 because I was at a Beyoncé / Alicia Keys / Missy Elliott / Tamia concert at the N.O. Arena right up the street.  I even considered leaving after Alicia (who completely stole the show and was the only reason I went) in order to hustle over and see Alaska!.  In 2003, I somehow contacted Lowercase's drummer about doing an interview with the whole band over email, but it never happened, and the band has never reformed.

Wall to the left of my computer desk

Driving east at ~45 mph on RIver Rd. in Vacherie at 6:15 AM on 4/3/11, as the file name says.  The Mississippi River is about 50 feet to the left.  The point was to show all the morning mist & the telephone poles which are still tilted from Hurricane Gustav.

Our cousin Ali tipped my sister & I off to this video:

Planets with similar climates: U2 - "Drowning Man" (1982), American Music Club - "Big Night" (1987), Long Fin Killie - "Clinch" (1995), Idaho - "If You Dare" (1995), Slint - "Washer" (1991), Neil Young - "Cortez The Killer" (1975).