Ultracherry Violet - "Post Wing-And-Prayer"
(Bedazzled Records, 1994)
Just a kewl instrumental shoegaze / post-rock voyage, with one of the sickest basslines ever (starting right after the 4-minute mark). The bass also has that nice round, "fat," undistorted sound that I prefer. Other examples of bands with this bass sound include Bark Psychosis, Hovercraft, Unwound, Bleach, and Poem Rocket, which coincidentally happen to be some of my all-time favorites; as in: bands to whom I'd donate a kidney with no questions asked if they ever needed one.
I bought this CD, I Fall To Pieces, used in the $2 or $4 clearance rack at the Mushroom in the early '00s, partly due to it being on Bedazzled. The packaging is very artsy, with translucent, vellum-esque paper and a definite Factory / 4AD aesthetic, which is not surprising, since Bedazzled always wanted to be the U.S. 4AD or Factory.
While doing some research for this post, not expecting to find much, I found out about a 5-song demo tape UlVi released in 1992, which someone is currently selling on eBay. Cool find. But I was more amazed to find out about the long, strange tale of their drummer, Danny Ingram. Read all about it here. Summary: He met the Clash at a '79 concert in Ontario and was urged by Joe Strummer to form his own band; was in some D.C. harDCore bands in the '80s, most notably Youth Brigade; co-founded gothy post-punkers Strange Boutique (and Bedazzled Records); briefly joined Swervedriver on drums after their drummer fled at the Canadian Border on their '91 tour; appears in their "Never Lose That Feeling" video (as I've mentioned before, it's my #2 favorite song ever, and my #1 favorite shoegaze song ever); co-founded Ultracherry Violet; played in some other bands.
I'm printing everything he says about UltraVio here for posterity, just in case that A Pessimist Is Never Disappointed blog ever goes kaput without warning, like so many music blogs do:
"I started playing in Ultracherry Violet with my friends Dan Marx and Dugan Broadhurst shortly after the demise of Emma Peel. I loved this band. It was very much an extension of the sort of shoegaze thing that I'd been doing in Swervedriver and it was very much in my musical wheelhouse. I really thought that we had some great, original songs. But I quickly became really frustrated that the band was gaining no traction. It was either late '93 or early '94 and we were playing a show at The Black Cat. I think there were maybe 30 or so people in attendance. My frustration reached critical mass and I pulled a Keith Moon on stage. Throwing my drums at Nick P., the sound man, and threatening bodily harm to anyone who came near me. I'd had it with drumming. I made up my mind that night that I was done with it. And to make sure I would have no second thoughts, I did my best to demolish my poor, beautiful Gretsch drum kit. I was convinced that was it. I was in a new relationship, my life was starting to turn around in different ways, and I wanted to make a break with the past. That lasted about a year. I didn't touch my drums from that night until about 11 months later. Steve Willet called -– he had taken over Bedazzled records (the label that Monica and I started to release Strange Boutique music). He decided he wanted to release a CD of Ultracherry Violet. I'd mellowed out quite a bit in the intervening time, thanks to my new partner and future wife, Sally. Dan, Dugan, and I talked it over and decided to do it. We lugged our gear up to a dilapidated warehouse in a run-down part of Baltimore to record our CD. It had been so long since I'd played that my hands quickly blistered and started bleeding. I polished off nearly 3/4ths a bottle of Jack Daniels to try and steady my nerves and dull the pain of holding the sticks. We recorded all the songs in one day, but by the time we got to the last two -- "Mexico Song" in particular -- I could barely grip the sticks. My blisters kept bleeding and they kept slipping out of my hands. Still, we did all the songs in one take. There are 3 or 4 songs on that CD of which I'm really, really proud. The production is all over the place, but you can really tell that Dugan wrote some great songs... and Dan was really imaginative on the bass."
Indeed, the bass grooves and radioactive guitar tones on this album could be called seminal in the history of U.S. shoegaze... if anyone had actually bought the CD, that is. I believe Bedazzled Records went out of business a few years after the album came out, and the Violets never made any music videos to my knowledge. Note that Ingram doesn't even mention the demo tape in the interview. The one song I've heard from it, "Wayve", is pretty gothy and primordial.
UnFun Fact: According to UlCherVio's guitarist, tracks 3 and 6 are the same song ("Losing My Friends") because of an error by someone or an error at the CD pressing plant. So apparently, the only place to hear "Remember" is here, where said guitarist left his comment.
 |
| Pic taken from the website mentioned above; photographer, venue & date unknown |
Thurs.: Saw The Hunger Games in Houma, despite having only read about a third of the book. Felt the campy overtones of most of the adult male characters detracted from the film's impact. Played for a while at a basketball court I found, in 90ยบ heat, in my Reggie Miller jersey which I recently dug out, yet dudes still called me "Larry Bird." I think one called me "Reggie Bird," which I found quite creative. The Pacers blew out the favored Heat that night.
Breasts lead to arrest of Anonymous hacker
Planets with similar climates: Southpacific - "Blue Lotus" & "Automata" (1999), Bright Channel - "Interception" (2005), Swervedriver - "Never Learn" (1992), Poem Rocket - "Contrail de l'avion" (1994), Unwound - "Abstraktions" (1993), Colfax Abbey - "Shanesong" (1995), Tamaryn - "The Waves" (2010).
1 comment:
nice!
Post a Comment