Lid >> The atmosphere is somewhere very, very close to here

Lid - "Up"

(Brilliant Records, 1992)

In early 2010 I was at The Mushroom and picked up a compilation CD called Something Pretty Beautiful from the pile of free used CDs that they sometimes stack up at the top of the entry stairway.  (They give away CDs that have gone unsold for years, sometimes for over a decade.)  When listening to the track by a band called Lid, something sounded very familiar to me.  I was all "This is like a bluesier, more psychedelic version of Poem Rocket!"  Well, it turns out Lid was P.R. singer / guitarist Michael Peters' previous band, and as far as I know, this was the only song they ever released, though hopefully I'm wrong.  Doing an online search for "lid" + "up" does not exactly return many music-related results.

"The atmosphere is somewhere very, very close to here" is a pretty unique way of saying that one is at a high altitude.  All the elements of Poem Rocket's genius are present here.  This song really takes the major-label suits on a wild rollercoaster courtship ride in the confusing wake of Nirvana, and makes them get out their pens and start clicking them to test if the ink works before fishing around in their pockets for a piece of paper on which to scrawl a multi-album contract for Lid to sign.  That's how good of a song it is.  The production values are simply stunning, with some of the most "3-D" surround-sound I've ever heard.  The closing guitar onslaught (3:58 mark) all but leaps out of the speakers; I really can't emphasize the coolness of this last part enough.  You have to listen to this song on a good stereo or with headphones, but it does sound rather massive even on small speakers, without relying on simple loudness.  I made this a high-quality 224 kbps file for maximum shock and awe.

Poem Rocket's press kit .pdf (see two posts ago), says that Peters lived in both Ohio and Virginia before moving to NYC and forming Poem Rocket.  Brilliant Records was based in Richmond, so it makes sense that this compilation has a good amount of VA bands, especially since the northern VA / southern MD area was really fertile with great bands at the time... Not that I knew this when I went to the Univ. of Richmond for a year in the mid-'90s, sadly.  The Virginia bands on this comp. are: Fudge (Richmond), The Knievels (Chester), Lid (Richmond), Lorelei (Arlington), The Petals (Richmond), Schwa (Richmond), The Technical Jed (Richmond), The Tribbles (Richmond), Twitch Hazel (Richmond), Ultra Cindy (Chesapeake), The Waking Hours (Midlothian).  The booklet says Lid also put out some stuff on a label called Radioactive Rat, which I really need to hear.  Unfortunately, the liner notes don't list the members of the bands.  I found out that Something Pretty Beautiful was the name of a band on Creation Records, so this comp must've been named after them.

Speaking of the word "Lid" and the mid-'90s, I once went on a date with this girl Lydia in May '95, my last month of high school.  (That was also the month I got accepted into the Univ. of Richmond.)  We went to a women's beach volleyball match at Coconut Beach (R.I.P.) and then went to Blockbuster Music, where I bought Jeff Buckley's Grace on cassette.  I popped it in the tape deck, and it was kind of awkward listening to "Last Goodbye"'s line "Kiss me, pleeeease kiss meeee" during the car ride back to her place to drop her off.  And no, we didn't.  Strangely, the last time I ever saw her was on the morning of 9/11/11, walking across the campus of Loyola Univ. in New Orleans.

Planets with similar climates: Swervedriver - "Deep Seat" (1991) & "Duress" (1993), Juno (with Jen Wood) - "A Listening Ear" (1998), Acetone - "Sundown" (1993), Temple Of The Dog - "Reach Down" (1990), Nudeswirl - "Three" (1993), Big Head Todd & The Monsters - "Circle" (1993), Screaming Trees - "Shadow Of The Season" (1992), Soundgarden - "Blind Dogs" (1995).

Currently eating or drinking: Vincotto orange velvety condiment (fermented grape & orange must), BelGioioso mascarpone, Rouses polder goat gouda, Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout, Naturally Delicious banana bread.