Swirlies - "Park The Car By The Side Of The Road"
(Taang! Records, 1992)
I wrote this post last September & October, but for some reason never got around to posting it. So since I'm doing Massachusetts bands, here it is. Sorry for the 2-month delay since the last post.
By the way, my mp3 hosing service, DivShare, has a new policy: "All your files will stay online as long as they are viewed at least once every 30 days. (Upgrade to keep your files online forever.)" So it looks like most of the songs on this site will be deleted gradually, since I doubt anyone downloads or streams them very often.
Swirlies are the only band that I know of that has a song called "Chris R." (my name), but this song is much better. If there is ever a noise pop box set on Rhino -- Yes, I love saying "If there is ever a [genre] box set on Rhino..." -- this song ought to make the cut. And its title could even be used as the name of this box set, since operating a motor vehicle while listening to such angular riffage could be dangerous. Apparently the band named itself after the prank of putting someone's head in a toilet and flushing it. I only recently learned that a melvin is a particularly severe type of wedgie, so I guess highbrow rock outfit the Melvins were named after that. The name of this blog is a lyric in a song that's named after a wrist-abrasion technique. Smashing Pumpkins are named after a prank in which you smash someone's pumpkins. Bands... They're so funny!
The first time I ever heard of Swirlies was in a review of Modest Mouse's Interstate 8 EP in Alternative Press in fall '96. I immediately bought that M.M. EP just because I assumed that any band that sounded like a band with the name "Swirlies" must have a really swirly, unique, shoegazey sound. Yes, I bought a CD in large part because I liked the name of a band to which they were being compared in a review. (Gotta love those pre-internet fumblings... People these days have no idea how easy they have it. One can now literally become an expert on some obscure old band in 20 minutes by just reading up on the right websites.) That rationale turned out to be not quite accurate, but I'll still vouch for the quality of that Modest Mouse disc.
Jumping a year forward... In fall of '97 I decided to finally get into the Swirlies, after having heard about them in AOL's indie rock chatroom quite a bit that year...
October: I bought their Brokedick Car EP for about a dollar at a booth at the French Market in New Orleans and was fairly impressed. (This purchase was overshadowed by the fact that I also bought You Am I's stunning Coprolalia EP from the same seller on the same day.)
November: I saw Syrup USA, a band helmed by former Swirlies singer Seana Carmody, at the Mermaid Lounge. The crowd was about 10 people and it was freezing outside, but the Syrup still rocked out in a cutesy sort of way. Syrup USA had a very keyboard-based sound, not the fuzzy noise-pop of Swirlies. I even bought a t-shirt and both of their 7"s.
December: I bought this CD, Blonder Tongue Audio Baton (named after a guitar pedal) for my sister for Christmas. I kind of soon "borrowed" it back and I don't think she ever really dug it. The noisy guitar textures made me sit up and say "Dayumn," even though I was a huge Sonic Youth, MBV & Dino Jr. fan and I had thought that genre was tapped out. Swirlies obviously proved me wrong. Anyway, Swirlies' heyday was a little before my time, so I never got to see them. After Seana left the band, she was replaced by a soundalike named Christina Files, and uh, well, I don't like to sit here and give band bios unless I have some cool factoids to add, so you can go read an exorbitant amount about them on any number of fine websites. If Swirlies hadn't been so in thrall to the early '90s slacker ethos popularized by Pavement, Archer Of Loaf, etc., they could've really been great. They probably have the worst cover art of any band ever, aside from Pavement, and some irritatingly pointless song titles too. In fact, my favorite Swirlies song overall is "Jeremy Parker", but I name-specific song titles annoy me so much that I couldn't allow myself to post that song.
This one goes out to the local band Glish, who apparently arrived at a similar sound as that of Swirlies without all members even knowing about them, or at least without trying to emulate them. This could be compared to the biological concept called convergent evolution, a prime example of which is the similar appearances of the green tree python (Morelia viridis) from the Indo-Pacific and the emerald tree boa (Corallus caninus) from South America, which each evolved separately to sit in trees and be green while waiting for prey to pass below.
So, last month my sister got married and the band was Meschiya Lake and The Little Big Horns. The first-dance song was the Cure's "Just Like Heaven." Yes, it was weird seeing a female-fronted 1920's-style jazz band covering a Cure song.
In other musical news: The weekend before that, I went to Jazz Fest and caught Fleetwood Mac, Frank Ocean, and some Terence Blanchard and Stanley Clarke / George Duke. Saw Pure X (chilled-out desert pop) + ArchAnimals (angsty emocore) at the Circle Bar. This month I saw a typically kickass performance by A Place To Bury Strangers, opening for Japandroids at the Spanish Moon. Also saw an incredibly fun and strange performance-art-y headlining set by Prince Rama at Circle Bar. (The opening band, Spaceface, ended with a cover of David Bowie's glam classic "Moonage Daydream.") Also saw a few songs at the AllWays Lounge by a promising band called Jane Jane. They have recently relocated to New Orleans and shortened their name from Jane Jane Pollock.
In May and June I missed lots of concerts: Broken Water + Glish at someone's house called the Stripped Mall; Twin Shadow + Elliphant at Maison; Glish (opening for Coliseum) at Circle Bar; Faun Fables (headlined over Jane Jane but played first for some reason); Des Ark at the Big Top and at the Spanish Moon; the Record Raid on Piety Street.
Planets with similar climates: Mystery Machine - "Shaky Ground" (1992), Sonic Youth - "Silver Rocket" (1988), My Bloody Valentine - "Feed Me With Your Kiss" & "(When You Wake) You're Still In A Dream" (1988), Glish - "Future Things" & "Swings" (2012), Polvo - "Bend Or Break" (1992) & "High-Wire Moves" (1995), Pond - "Sideroad" (1995), Sebadoh - "Rebound" (1994).
Currently obsessed with: Sacred Grinds coffee house. It's the size of a closet, but has some of the best food and smoothies in town, and two of the best baristas ever.
R.I.P. Maple Street Books Mid-City and Maple Street Books on St. Claude Ave. Both closed on June 28th. Not to be rude, but wouldn't it have helped if they had changed their names to fit into their respective neighborhoods?
