The Sea And Cake >> Water breathing warm and heavy

The Sea And Cake - "Choice Blanket"

(Thrill Jockey Records [U.S.] / Rough Trade Records [U.K.], 1993)

Few songs immediately make me feel summer's warmth deep in my bones like this one, so I had to post it to kick off the summer.  I think I've told this story before, but in October 1996, I heard a stunningly strange and joyous song on WTUL while stuck in traffic on Jefferson Hwy. driving to a dermatology appointment.  It turned out to be "Lamont's Lament" by a band called The Sea And Cake.  I couldn't even hazard a guess as to what year it had been made, what city the band was from, what ethnicity its members were, etc., which is usually a good sign of a unique work of art.  It bewitched and bewildered me so much that I immediately sent some money to Thrill Jockey Recs. and demanded that they send me whichever TSAC CD had "Lamont's Lament" on it.  I got the CD, Nassau, a week or so later.  It came with a Thrill Jockey catalog full of stuff I would soon obtain, by groups with intriguing names like Trans Am, Tortoise, and Oval, all of whom have recently been Blowtorch Babied.  Brad Wood recorded this album in early September 1993, fresh off of becoming indie rock's producer célèbre after twiddling knobs on Liz Phair's Exile In Guyville.

Archer Prewitt shows why he is the thinking jazzbo's guitar hero on this song, unfurling effortlessly cool licks as though the bloated and/or macho genres that marred the music scenes of the 1970s, '80s, and '90s never happened.  Sam Prekop's creaky vocals are unmistakable, and his falsetto near the end is the perfect closing touch.  It's worth listening closely to his lyrics, which are cryptically beautiful and naïve in almost a beat poet kind of way.  Even the maracas are perfectly shaken on the off beats.  The baffling cover art deserves mention, since it is a guy's afro made up of around a hundred cotton balls.  There's also a painting of Charles Mingus by TSAC's bassist, Eric Claridge.  I should mention he's one of the best bassists ever, period.  The combination of that one particular shade of sky blue with that one particular shade of corn yellow just works perfectly, and puts me in the perfect mindstate to listen to the music.  See all the artwork (of the U.K. LP, to be exact) here.  As for me giving this the tag "should've been a #1 hit," well, I'm not necessarily referring to the '90s; in the '50s or '60s it could've made serious inroads on AM pop radio, and I bet the band would've been fighting off major label offers left and right.

AllMusic Guide's 4.5-star review succinctly said "The Sea and Cake's buoyant debut is a breath of fresh air, an utterly distinctive and innovative work that expands the scope of frontman Sam Prekop's work in the great Shrimp Boat to incorporate a new fascination with Afro-Caribbean rhythms and textures. Recorded by Brad Wood, the album simply glows -- Prekop's dry vocals and free-associative lyrics skip along a shimmering and lushly pastoral backdrop that nimbly fuses pop, soul, jazz, and even prog rock; tracks like 'Jacking the Ball,' 'Flat Lay the Water,' and 'Showboat Angel' are as seductive as they are elusive."

This summerrific image is used on the back cover of the CD & LP, as well as on the LP itself

My TSAC timeline:

Jan. 1996: Read about them in a long article about this new-fangled scene called "post-rock" in a guitar magazine.

Oct. '96: Hear "Lamont's Lament," immediately buy their sophomore album Nassau. (See above.)

Mar. '97: Hear a few songs from their brand-new album The Fawn in my car and am blown away.

Spring '97: Buy The Fawn on LP at Tower Records in New Orleans.

June '97: Buy The Sea And Cake CD for my dad. (See above.)
Mar. '98: Got a free The Fawn promo poster from mailorder; promptly put it up on my wall for almost a decade.

Mid-'98: Buy Two Gentlemen remix 12" from Thrill Jockey mailorder.

Early '99: Borrow The Biz and Sam Prekop's debut solo CD from hip friend Andrew Mister.

Ca. '99: Buy Shrimp Boat's CD Cavale, since Prekop fronted this band before TSAC.  (Claridge and Wood also did time in the Boat; a very incestuous scene there in Chicago.)

Late '00: Somewhat disappointed by new album Oui after sampling it on the listening station at Borders; lose faith in band for a few years.

Mid-'03: Download Glass EP from eMusic; "An Echo In" restores my faith in the band's prowess.

9/23/03: After waiting 7 years for TSAC to come to NOLA, I sell my stereo to a pawn shop for $35 to buy a ticket to go see them play at TwiRoPa.  An incredibly boring band called The Kingsbury Manx opened.  TSAC were loud and used lots of distortion, which disappointed me, since I wanted a quiet, crisp, nuanced show.
Ca. '06: Buy a beautiful neon green Nassau promo poster on eBay.
Early 2009: "Jacking The Ball" is used in a commercial for the ultra-evil criminal enterprise* known as Citibank.  (In this live clip of the band's first-ever gig, Sam says the phrase means "Bring out your firearms and ammo."  I had only been wondering for 15 years!)
Early 2010: "Parasol" is used in the R. Patz "I'm-not-just-a-brooding-vampire" drama Remember Me.

I would say that, along with "Lamont's Lament," "Jacking The Ball" and "Parasol" were The Sea And Cake's two best-known songs, even before they got the aforementioned exposure recently.  The band's recordings since then have been pretty spotty, essentially treading water, though few bands are skilled enough to tread water like TSAC can, and fewer still are even allowed in the same pool.  Overall, Nassau remains my favorite album of theirs, with The Fawn and The Sea And Cake tying for second.  Buy all three.

Tue. June 19: Saw two garter snakes mating below my parents' neighbor's doorstep.  Later was called upon to help extricate a baby raccoon from her enclosed swimming pool room / greenhouse.  Stayed up all night talking to Drea online.

Wed. June 20: Finished up with two weeks of house-sitting for my parents while my mom was in Japan & other parts of Asia.  Realized I might be slightly allergic to dogs, since I always seem to get sinus problems when I stay there too long.  I've also banned my favorite food, blueberries, from my diet since I think I might have a sensitivity to them.

Yes, that's a Prince CD

Thurs. June 21: I got into one of the most HILARIOUS and rewarding incidents of my life.  I'm driving down Hwy. 20 to Thibodaux when some psycho person starts tailgating on me, while combing his/her hair, and weaving side to side on the road, nearly going off it a few times.  It's a narrow 55 MPH road with nowhere to pull over.  So I maintain my speed and take a film clip in my rearview mirrors using a little digital camera that I often bring with me, making sure to periodically show my speed, as well the time & date, on the dashboard display.  Down in Thibodaux, after being tailgated for over 10 miles, a cop pulls me over.  I'm trying not to laugh as she walks up to my car on this 90º day, since I know all my shit is up-to-date and on point and I will put my 20 years of driving up against anyone's.  She tells me that someone called the police and said I was photographing them while driving.  I say "Yes, and I have video of that person tailgating me right here."  HAHAHAHAHAHA.  LOL.  She watches the clip and decides I'm right, since she can see/hear that I even tried to wave the person around me at one point.  (FWIW, she was short, blonde, cute, and slightly chubby, with a gigantic, staggeringly vicious pink scar in a semicircle under her chin / on her throat.  I seriously was amazed that anyone could even survive such a wound.  A bite from the lower jaw of an alligator?)  She even gives me a business card with the Lafourche Parish police dept.'s phone #s on it so I can report tailgaters in the future.  So this was fun and all, but a few minutes later, I start to think what would've happened if I hadn't taken that video, if it was just my word against the tailgater's.  Would I have been ticketed?  And since two cop cars were dispatched to intercept me, and the cop declined my offer to burn a copy of the video for them to use against the tailgater, that meant the tailgater probably got away scot-free.  Not so funny.  But this did remind me of the power of video in clearing up a dispute, and coincidentally it came a few days after the death of Rodney King.
Continued on to Hebert's Nursery and labeled a bunch of their cacti for them.  At Rouses, being a huge Guinness fan, I took a chance on an amazing beer by Guinness called Foreign Extra Stout.  It's almost comically full of flavors like coffee, chocolate, honey, toffee, etc.  By far the best beer I've ever had.  The cHeat won the NBA title.

*Citibank received $45 billion in federal bailout money in late 2008, with which they immediately, brazenly, bought a $50 million corporate jet and then teetered on the edge of insolvency for a while as people like me gleefully waited for them to fail.  According to Bloomberg in 2011, "Citigroup paid back $20 billion of its bailout funds and the Treasury converted the remaining $25 billion into a 27 percent stake in the bank, which it began selling last year. It sold the last of its investment in December, realizing an overall gain for taxpayers of about $12 billion."  It is clear that that groovy Sea And Cake song singlehandedly revived the bank's fortunes and hence really paid off for the taxpayers in the end.  America.

Mark Bittman: What's wrong with what we eat - A fascinating, disturbing, and oft-humorous video

Beirutopia: Could Lebanon's capital become a garden city?

Man sees his stolen bike on Craigslist, steals it back - "A spoke for a spoke, so to speak."

Planets with similar climates: The Promise Ring - "A Picture Postcard" (1996), Luna - "California (All The Way)" (1994), The Sundays - "Summertime" (1997), The Cardigans - "Carnival" (1994), The Police - "Bring On The Night" & "The Bed's Too Big Without You" (1979), The Church - "Already Yesterday" (1986), The Smiths - "This Charming Man" (1983).