Orbit >> Shed your skin and let me in

Orbit - "Come Inside"

(Lunch Records, 1995)

This song takes the Pixies' sound a bit further by adding a rockabilly-style guitar riff and Sonic Youth-y flourishes.  Just an amazingly badass song overall, though it took a while to grow on me.  I actually overlooked this song for years because "Purge" was my favorite song on the EP (La Mano), which I bought at a thrift store ca. 2006.  "Come Inside" steadily grew on me over the years, with its simple, chanted slogan and well-placed "oh-ohh"s.  I think the rockabilly thing is what prevented me from loving it immediately.  Orbit were yet another Boston band that wanted to be the Pixies, even covering "Where Is My Mind?" in 1998.  But they came at it with their own personality and charisma, and created some of the flat-out greatest songs of the era.  I think they could've been legitimate stars.

Above is my 7" which I bought at Euclid Records a few months ago.  I had seen it there 2 years ago but stupidly passed on it, and only recently re-found it while spending a few hours digging through their endless boxes of used 7"s.  It's actually a split single with a band called Welcome To Julian (wow... and you thought band names nowadays sucked...), on Orbit's own label, Lunch Records.  It's a numbered edition and one of the hidden crown jewels of my record collection.  Marine biology buffs like myself know that starfish look cute but are relentless predators of bivalves, often expelling their stomachs out of their bodies to digest their prey.  (Info)  Hence the genteel cover art hides a violent secret, muahaha.  This song is likely about sexual assault, with Jeff Robbins singing from the perspective of the assaulter.  The opening line is "Why can I not come inside?  Beautiful, I'm beautiful like you."  The phrase "come inside" takes on a disturbing meaning when you think about the song this way.  This of course ties in with the disgusting way that a starfish feeds.

The music video is strange, pretentious, trippy, and NSFW, so I doubt MTV ever aired it:

Most people know Orbit for their 1997 MTV / alt-radio hit "Medicine", a.k.a. "Medicine (Baby Come Back)."  That album, Libido Speedway, also had the stunningly awesome song "Nocturnal Autodrive".  I can't post it because it came out on a major label, but trust me, go out of your way to track it down.  It's very dark, intense, and predatory.  It takes the sound of "Come Inside" to a new dimension of desperation and obsession.

So to summarize, here are Orbital's best songs, in order, from Libido Speedway and La Mano:
1. "Nocturnal Autodrive"
2. "Come Inside"
3. "Medicine"
4. "Purge"

Tue. Oct. 1: I photographed the most metal car in New Orleans on Tulane Ave.  (That elevated freeway is I-10.)

As best as I can make out, these are the band stickers on it:
Pestilence, Opeth, Testament, Iron Maiden, Terrorizer, Suffocation, Asphyx, Nuclear Assault, At The Gates, Skeletonwitch.  Plus four more that I can't make out.  But I can tell you without hesitation that they were all bought at The Mushroom.
Wed. Oct. 2: Saw Local Natives + Wild Nothing at Tiptitina's.  Jack from WN sang live exactly like he does on record, which for some reason really impressed me.  They concluded with a killer extended version of new cut "Ride," but sadly omitted personal favorites "Shadow," "A Dancing Shell," and "Disappear Always."  In fact, they played a mere three songs from Nocturne, my favorite album of last year.  (They opened with the title track, and later did "Paradise" and "The Blue Dress.")  We went just for WN, but were all won over by LN by night's end.  I inflicted a severely sprained ankle on myself in between bands by trying to jump up and touch the Napoleon Ave. sign on the median.  It was probably 11 feet high and the ground was slightly slick from rain.  I was able to see most of LN though.
Thu. Oct. 3: I opted to ditch my crutches and go to see Sigur Rós on two feet like a boss.  They played at Champions Square, which is outside right next to the Superdome.  Louisiana-born ambient vocal soundscaper Julianna Barwick was the opening act.  She cancelled her fall headlining tour (incl. stops in N.O. and Baton Rouge) to do this.  The concert was amazing; see a clip I took of SR here and a few pics I took of J-Bar here.  This made up for missing SR at the House Of Blues in early 2003, something I had regretted constantly since that night.

Planets with similar climates: Pixies - "Is She Weird?" (1990), Pavement - "Conduit For Sale!" (1991), Poem Rocket - "Appeal To The Imagination" (2000).

Swirlies >> She's got a gun in her drawer that's meant for me

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?

St*Johnny >> I wanna burn like a martyr in my Chevrolet

St*Johnny - "Go To Sleep"

(Ajax Records, 1992 / Caroline Records [U.S.], 1993; Rough Trade Records [U.K.], 1993)

This song was released as a 7" by cool indie Ajax in '92, and then appeared on the band's High As A Kite singles compilation the next year.  (The U.S. version on Caroline, which I own, has 11 tracks, while the U.K. version on Rough Trade has only 8.)  This type of song is a perfect example of why I started this site: An obscure indie band releases a universe-destroyingly great anthem; no one hears it back in the day; the band breaks up; the song languishes in cool ppl's mix tapes / closets / iTunes for years or decades until the song decides to break free and assert itself much like when the robots rose in T2: Judgment Day.  The only unfortunate thing about this song is its name, which does not exactly generate much excitement, especially when the mundane band name is factored in.  Note: They sometimes spelled their name St. Johnny (in the early days), st. johnny, or St Johnny, and the asterisked (DGC-era) version of their name is technically spelled st✮johnny.

Reviews and zines from the early to mid '90s always pointed out how St*Johnny were protegés of Sonic Youth, though I think they were more aligned with fellow New Yorkers Mercury Rev.  (The Rev's Grasshopper guested on at least three of their songs: "Velocity," "My Father's Father," "Matador.")  Either way, this kind of thing is always a double-edged sword.  The band was allegedly scoffed at relentlessly, at least by the hipsters and tastemakers of the era, which seems really sad to me.  This song obviously has a ton of S.Y.-esque characteristics and charisma, down to the Thurston-y vocals, but it is definitely its own beast.  To describe how awesome this song is would take me a while, but I don't think most people need a roadmap to its bounty.  That one killer guitar riff immediately grabs the attention, and melds perfectly with the vocals, which are delivered in a desperate way, and with interesting post-Lou Reed / Tom Verlaine enunciation.  It's a really amazing vocal performance overall.  He says "I know that we're in trouble now, and I know that we're in deep" and "You're cursed and I'm a liar" without explaining the conflict in question.  More cool lyrics: "If we live long enough we'll see the other side of everything," "The stars are out and they're comin' down on my head," and of course "I wanna burn like a martyr in my Chevrolet."  (Note: I had thought for the last decade that it was "I wanna burn like the motor in my Chevrolet.")  The somewhat detuned, violin-esque guitar anti-solo at the 2:29 mark is the perfect bridge between arena dino-rock and the noisy indie rock of the '90s.  And I love when any instrumental break is preceded by a frenzied volley of drumming.  Another cool touch is that the song's title is only uttered right before the guitar solo and as the final words of the song.  I mean, check this out, they should build a whole museum dedicated to this song, if only so that lame, putzy, non-rocking rock bands like Wilco, Arcade Fire, Spoon, etc. can make pilgrimages to it in order to learn how to rock like motherfuckers.
The band's proper debut album in '94 had the great title Speed Is Dreaming.  But, aside from the killer "A Car Or A Boy?" (featuring some backing vocals from Mercury Rev's head weirdo David Baker), sucked.  I owned that CD but actually threw it away years ago; wish I had it back to check it out again, though.  Being signed to DGC (Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Beck, Posies, Sundays) apparently didn't land them in the Buzz Bin, and they faded into obscurity in the mid-'90s.  Singer Bill Whitten reemerged with the band Grand Mal (named after a St*Johnny song, which was named after a type of seizure) soon afterwards, but I don't think I've ever heard them.

7" insert sheet

Well, I was very wrong about Hurricane Isaac last week.  It turned out to be one of the worst disasters in the state's history, and was much more of a rainmaker than I had anticipated.  Luckily I had trimmed most of my trees a week or two earlier, so they didn't blow around too much in the wind and suffer torsional stress injuries to their trunks.  Since the eye of the hurricane passed directly over us, I went out and trimmed them a little more during that calm period.  That day (Wednesday) was probably the most harrowing day of my life, due to all the wind and rain noise, and not being able to see the origin of it since most of the windows were shuttered closed.  We never lost power, though over a million people statewide did.  And it's fun to be able to walk around the house butt-ass naked, thanks to the boarded window thing.  I drove through Gonzales, Prairieville, & Baton Rouge a few days later and ended up scoring this t-shirt at FYE:

...as well as the Stooges' Fun House 2xCD reissue and a rather tame CD by a band called The Mysteries Of Life. The store was playing Portishead's first album, so I recommended Slowdive to the Asian employee who had put it on after he told me he was a big Cocteau Twins fan.

Mon. 3rd: Went to Cocodrie (old Cajun slang term for "crocidile"), right on one of the southernmost tips of Louisiana.  Listened to Verve's A Storm In Heaven, perhaps the ultimate roadtrip album.  The area pretty much got no damage.
Tue. 4th: Watched Batman Begins at my sister's, since my parents in N.O. still hadn't gotten power back.
Wed. 5th: Went used book shopping for a few hours at The Book Rack in Mandeville, then drove over through Lacombe & Slidell.

Planets with similar climates: Sonic Youth - "Hey Joni" (1988), Verve - "All In The Mind" (1992), Swervedriver - "Blowin' Cool" (1993), Ride - "Here And Now" (1990), Catherine Wheel - "Texture" (1992), Silversun Pickups - "Well Thought Out Twinkles" (2006), Glide [Australia] - "Taste Of You" (1992), Nice Strong Arm - "Cloud Machine" (1989), You Am I - "Berlin Chair" (1993).

Drop Nineteens >> Yesterday's home cut in half

Drop Nineteens - "Delaware"

(Caroline Records, 1992)

Riding atop one of the sickest basslines in history, not to mention some furious drumming, Drop Nineteens exploded out of the gate with the first cut on their debut album.  I don't know where the band got its name, nor do I have any idea why the song and album were called Delaware.  I'm guessing they jokingly chose to honor an American state in anticipation of every music critic calling them out for their unabashed Brit-rock fixation.  They apparently had three guitarists on this album, which helps explain the dense web of guitar textures.

AllMusic Guide said "Acclaimed upon emergence as the American response to the U.K.'s shoegazing trend, the Drop Nineteens weren't totally following in that particular vein, though it was clear that they were the first of many American bands who had played Spacemen 3 and My Bloody Valentine releases to death. Combining that version of blissout with a dollop of late-'80s indie/college rock, the quintet on its first album created a sometimes excellent, sometimes generic effort of politely queasy guitar overdrive and gentle melancholia. Lead guitarists/vocalists Greg Ackell and Paula Kelley made for a good (if clearly Kevin Shields/Bilinda Butcher-inspired) front team, the latter's singing the more distinct but the former's generally more prominent, if flatter."

Spacemen 3?  Ned Raggett is usually very trustworthy, but that's a huge swing-and-a-miss there.  I would say their sound on this album owes a lot to Bleach, but I guess My Bloody Valentine is an easier reference point for most casual fans to grasp.  As for the line "Yesterday's home cut in half," I always thought it was "whole" or "hole" rather than "home."  I think the concept of a whole or hole cut in half is cooler than a home cut in half.  Some accurate-looking lyrics can be found here.  The album also has a surprisingly great, psychedelicized cover of Madonna's early hit "Angel."  Aside from the title track, the best songs on it are the stunning "Kick The Tragedy" and the passive-aggressive "Reberrymemberer."  I got this CD sometime in the early '00s, and a promo cassingle for their next album National Coma, and National Coma itself, which sucks, and a Paula Kelley solo CD.  A few years ago I downloaded their near-mythical Mayfield demo album, which was never commercially released.  That album eschews their Pixies fetish in favor of pure shoegazeness, and is viewed by some people as one of the best shoegaze LPs ever made.  These are the two most commonly-used promo pics of the band, and guitarist Motohiro Yasue is dressed the same way in both of them:

Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a pic of a member of Run-DMC wearing a Drop Nineteens shirt... yet.

Note: Delaware was reissued by Cherry Red in 2009 (with the Your Aquarium EP tacked on as bonus tracks), but this mp3 is from my 1992 Caroline CD.

I have a 1992 Caroline promo CD called Between A Flower And A Chainsaw, whose liner notes contain this write-up of the D19s: "Halfway between a flower and a chainsaw, Drop Nineteens are poised to shake music's summer doldrums with their debut Delaware. Their impressionistic guitar-ridden pop orientation has been favorably compared to English practitioners like My Bloody Valentine, Chapterhouse and Ride.  Quick brush strokes and calculated harmony, full on sonic melee and lilting vocal melodies set Drop Nineteens apart from the pack."  (The only D19s songs on this CD are "Winona" and "Angel," unfortunately.)

You can see that they got that girl-with-gun photo from the cover of Delaware:

The Droppers were definitely going for the Pavement slacker-rock mediocrity vibe with the mediocre video for the mediocre "Winona," named after the mediocre actress:

Speaking of mediocre actresses, I'd have to cite Kirsten Dunst and Scarlett Johanssen as my least favorite ones of the last decade or so.

I hate when everyone makes "Best of the year" lists, as though they've actually listened to all 50,000 or so albums that came out in that particular year, or arrogant / dumb enough to think that the random ones they have heard are somehow the best, so there's no way I'll do that kind of thing.  I've learned that I have to wait 10-20 years before having a good idea of everything that was going on in any year.  I would say the most memorable music video I saw from this year was "Milkman" by EMA:

Make sure to watch that video and Pocahaunted's "Ashes is White" video back to back.  Spin magazine always overreacts to everything, but even I was shocked to see them rank EMA's album as the #3 best of the year, to say nothing of them putting Fucked Up at #1.  It would be too easy for me to say underground music blows nowadays.  But you can't deny that music is pretty polarized nowadays, with polite, parent-friendly diary-folk (Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, etc.) on one side and obnoxious, over-the-top primordial stuff (Fucked Up, Odd Future, Monotonix, etc.) on the other.  Then there are niche genres (markets, actually) like chillwave and this disastrous new hybrid of metal and shoegaze that is laughably being called blackgaze.  The chances of a song like "Delaware" coming out in 2011 are very slim.  It's kind of amazing to think that great bands / songs like this were so common in the early '90s that they actually got viciously criticized for allegedly sounding too similar to one another.  Music critics shouldn't have taken that scene for granted, and now we all suffer because they did.  Every year there are fewer and fewer bands doing the kind of music I like, but every year I discover old ones that did it, so I can't really complain.  As usual, few noteworthy rock bands bother to come through Louisiana, so I try to go and catch lots of local jazz groups in the Frenchmen Street area when possible.  The Baton Rouge scene is essentially dead, even as a touring stop for national bands.

Best live acts I saw in the second half of 2011: Rex Gregory group, Memoryhouse, Puro Instinct, Tarik Hassan group (strange abstract soundscapes), Geneva Jacuzzi, TV On The Radio (good live, still terrible on record), The Meters, Das Racist, Brothers (local jazz-hardcore group with two dueling sax players), Boris, Asobi Seksu, Matana Roberts (solo), Ri¢hie, Simon Berz + Simon Lott + toktek (trio), Danny Brown.

This was my worst year of driving in my 19 years of driving; highlights include two tickets, two instances of driving away from a gas station with the nozzle still in my gas tank, a flat tire, and a huge scar on my front left panel from a neighbor's mailbox door.

I rarely talk about politics on this site, but for the last decade or so I've watched several hours of political talk shows a day, mainly on MSNBC and CNN, and the Sunday morning ones, plus I try to listen to political talk radio, and I'm also addicted to politics-based websites.  It's definitely an obsession, and keeps me from doing more productive stuff like working on art, exercising, taking care of my plants, going to bed on time, etc.  As with music, I feel that the more I learn about politics, the more I realize I don't know... and that leads to me spending more and more time researching it.  A vicious cycle, all so that I can decide on a few meaningless votes every year or two.  So I resolve to spend less time thinking about politics in 2012.  But here's an example of an interesting article that I found peripherally this week: Is the world really safer without the Soviet Union?

I also have to spend less time on cacti / succulents, though it's hard when you keep finding cool species, like this amazing beauty I found last night:

Micranthocereus estevesii; photo © David S. Franges, 2006

Congrats to my sister and Damion for getting engaged today in Amsterdam.

I played basketball on the following courts this year: Lutcher Playground, Paulina Park, Ama Park, the ones at the Thibodaux civic center (outdoors in indoors), Gray Park, two in Laplace, the covered court in St. Rose by the airport, the one at SUNO, my driveway, the covered court at the foot of Broadway in New Orleans.  I believe I could start at shooting guard for any team in the NBA.

Planets with similar climates: Bleach - "First" (1991), Pixies - "Break My Body" (1988), Morella's Forest - "Hang Out" (1995), Poem Rocket - "Box: Tallow, Felt And Ice" (1997).

Earwig >> Everything just blinds me

Earwig - "Everything's Just Fine"

(La-Di-Da Productions, 1991)

This is from Earwig's EP called Might, which is a pretty cool word when you think of the two totally different meanings of it, one of them denoting power and the other indecision.  The contrast between Kirsty Yates' catatonic vocals and the tumultuous, bombastic backing music is just brilliant, IMO, and has a disorienting effect on the listener's brain.  In fact, a great downtempo / trip-hop remix of this song could easily be made by just taking out the guitar and adding some atmospheric synth.

I believe the song is about domestic violence, but I'm not sure.  Might was released only on 12", but all four of its tracks were included in the band's compilation CD called Past, which came out the following year; that's where I got this song.  Yes, British bands of this era & ilk loved to use one-word titles for their albums / EPs, preferably with four or five letters.  The other awesome song on Might is "Driving You Mad, Slowly," which has a great video that I just recently discovered:

Other music videos that feature cars being smashed with blunt implements:

Depeche Mode - "Stripped"

Failure - "Undone"

Surely there are more, so let me know of any. 

I would say Might is one of the key releases of its time and place, but it's almost totally unknown.  If it had been released on Creation, 4AD, Matador, etc., it'd probably be talked about extensively as a landmark of the scene.  Not long after this, Earwig shed their drummer and changed their insect-y name to the much better Insides, and changed their sound dramatically, to an insular, downtempo, electronic throb, but more on that later.  I only found out about Earwig after falling in love with Insides two years ago.

CDs currently in my car:

Lowercase - The Going Away Present

A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory

Puro Instinct - Headbangers In Ecstasy

Warpaint - Exquisite Corpse

Various Artists - Excursions In Ambience: The Third Dimension

A.R. Kane - Americana

Philip Aaberg - Out Of The Frame

Suzanne Vega - Suzanne Vega

The Drop - The New Horror Guidelines

Bauhaus - Press The Eject And Give Me The Tape (CD-R)

The Police - Every Breath You Take: The Classics

(Rahsaan) Roland Kirk - Rip, Rig, And Panic / Now Please Don't You Cry, Beautiful Edith

Planets with similar climates: Sonic Youth - "Wish Fulfillment" (1992), Bleach - "First" (1991), Helium - "Hole In The Ground" (1993), Band Of Susans - "Hell Bent" (1994), Editors - "Lights" (2005).

Most bizarre thing that I read today: Man Gets Eye Replaced With Video Camera

Most horrifying non-Hurricane-Irene-related headline of the day: Neutral Milk Hotel To Release Box Set

Chug >> Burning like acid rain

Chug - "Water Torture"
(Alias Records, 1996)

Chug were a co-ed New Zealand band who were signed to U.S.-based Alias Records.  I didn't dig the rest of this CD too much, and I in fact threw it away, but this song is just perfection.  The female vocals poke out from the schizophrenic guitars, which go from gently plucked harmonics to arena-ready riffage and back again in half a heartbeat.  I can't think of another song that nails the soft-loud dynamic with better panache than this one, other than maybe "Windshear" by Dazzling Killmen or "Choker" by Magic Dirt.  The way the vocals interlock with the spaces in between the guitar stabs is just tremendous; I think the chiming/plinking sound of the harmonics is supposed to represent water drops, hence the name of the song.  It was not released as a true single, but it was included on several various-artists compilations in 1997, including the CD w/ the August '97 CMJ magazine.  I first heard it that year on an Alias Records promo compilation CD called Year Of The Wagon, which Alias sent me for free after I wrote to them; it also got me into the indie rock anthem "Web In Front" by Archers Of Loaf.  After reading a glowing review of the album (Metalon) on AllMusic by the usually-trustable Ned Raggett, I'm wishing I had the CD back again to give it another chance.  The strangely unsettling cover art features two sprouting seeds that resemble a pair of swans.  There are European black swans that live in Lafreniere Park in Kenner year-round now, with freaky-looking red beaks and eyes.  I think they used to just stop in there over the winter while migrating, but decided to stay here.  They can also sometimes be seen at City Park in N.O.  I started collecting swan-related trinkets about four years ago for some reason, and have since added palm trees and mermaids to the queue.  Swans are just so darn elegant and cool, yet males fight each other to the death over females, and pairs supposedly stay together for life.

Planets with similar climates: Pixies - "Gouge Away" (1988), Magic Dirt - "Ice" (1994), Orbit - "Purge" (1995), Bleach - "Fuse" (1992), Sonic Youth - "Becuz (1995), Blonde Redhead - "Distilled" (1998).