California Month, tremor #1:
Plexi - "Peel / He"
(I.F.A. Records, 1995)
For the last couple years, I've been noticing that the new generation of California bands has been killing it, so I've decided to devote this month to them and their forebears. I mentioned a few weeks ago that I lived in the Presidio, a decommissioned army base in San Francisco. We lived there from 1980 to '86 and I'll always be very fond of it, though I haven't set foot in that state since the day we drove away. Some of my best memories include walking across the Golden Gate Bridge (and back!) with my Cub Scout troop, going to the awe-inspiring Monterey Bay Aquarium, picnics in Golden Gate Park, the Exlporatorium in GGP, having several friends named Brian Lee at my elementary school which was half Asian, driving along the PCH to wine country in Napa, rafting on the Russian River, driving to Marin(?) County to see Halley's Comet, and so on. The songs that I liked the most at this time were "When Doves Cry" by Prince, "Every Breath You Take" by The Police, "Shout" by Tears For Fears, and "Abracadabra" by the Steve Miller Band.
My first choice for California Month was an easy one, since the band over which I obsessed for the second half of the '90s and still worship to this day hailed from Los Angeles. The choice of song was pretty easy too, since their only album came out on Sub Pop at a time when Sub Pop had recently sold 49% of itself to a major label. (And the album was reissued the following year on a full major label, Atlantic.) So that left the band's two indie EPs and one 7" single. I chose the double track "Peel / He" because it shows the band's haunting, introspective side and its aggressive, manic side. And has any band ever kicked off a guitar solo by having the lead singer do a "b-b-b-b-b" thing with his lips? (At the 3:51 mark.) "Peel" has cryptic lyrics and a gentle groove that lulls even the most caffeine-addled Seattleite to a trance. (This song is from the
I.F.A. EP, recorded in Seattle in January 1995.) Then "He" bulldozes the entranced listener to the ground. The guitar solos in this song and in the previously-posted song ("Kyuss" by Juned) are among the most badass ones ever.
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| 1996 or '97 Cheer Up press photo; L-R: Michael Barragan, Michael Angelos, Norm Block |
Plexi formed in 1993 around singer / bassist / songwriter Michael Angelos, guitarist Michael Barragan, and drummer Norm Block. All members wore black leather and a good deal of white face paint, and were heavily tattooed, making them curiosities in the mid-'90s slacker-rock scene, when you had bands with names like Archers Of Loaf and bands that dressed like, well, Archers Of Loaf. (I'm picking on them only because Plexi toured as the opening act of Loaf's west coast tour in late 1994, and again in late 1995.) This song goes out to Anne Lenhart, who, on my advice, bought
Cheer Up in early '97 and dubbed it onto a cassette... on shuffle mode! I remember thinking how cool that idea was, and wondered why I had never thought to do it. I don't think she has ever heard this song, and I know she was upset at never getting to see them live.
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| Pre-empting your local broadcast ca. 1996/'97 |
A re-recorded (and in fact far superior) version of "Peel" can be heard on the band's debut, and so far only, album,
Cheer Up. That album is a landmark in my life for so many reasons. I honestly could write so much about Plexi, and how they should have become legitimate arena stars, but I'll spare you all. Anyway, the second version of "Peel" has even spacier guitar textures and a cooler intro scream (Barragan screams directly into the pickups on his Gibson) (I saw him do this live when they played "Peel"). But more importantly, it has an entirely new second half to it (essentially replacing "He" with a turbocharged shoegaze riff-fest and family-friendly lyrics like "She was gonna swing from her neckbone.") As a guitar tone fanatic, that song will always remain my holy grail of celestial gtr tone, aside from maybe
"Blue Pedal" by Kitchens Of Distinction and
"Interstate" by the Sand Rubies.
For some reason, I think this is one of the best, or at least one of the most fitting, pieces of cover art ever. It captures Plexi's take on the decaying of decadence, and their humorous attitude towards L.A.'s favorite species, the floozy. Compare this choice of female to the type of female that adorned countless covers of L.A. hair-metal bands in the prior decade. It's hard to tell, but the band & EP name are printed in sort of a faux-pearl/abalone color.
Plexi broke up in 1999, though the three dudes remain great friends, and reformed for a couple of shows in 2002. The sophomore album they recorded in Amsterdam in 1998 has never been released, and my life will not be complete until I hear it. Do go check out Plexi's Wikipedia page, which I created about 5 years ago. Rather than gracing the covers of guitar magazines worldwide, Barragan hot-rods motorcycles for a living, and his talents are apparently in pretty high demand in SoCal. Block has drummed for many bands, including Jack Off Jill. Angelos got into independent filmmaking and was recording a solo album in 2002, the last I heard of him. His solo project is apparently called Cruelty To Animals.
My personal Plexi timeline:
Jan. 1996: I first hear of them via an ad for this EP (I.F.A.) in an issue of Alternative Press with the Flaming Lips on the cover, which I buy at the Tower Records in Richmond, VA. I only bought it because I had seen the Lips live two years earlier and was so unimpressed by them that I basically wanted to read the article just to laugh at their shmucky asses, or at least to figure out why on earth everyone seemed to take them seriously. Anyway, this ad quotes a review comparing them to Bailter Space and Metallica.
Summer '96: i write to Sub Pop begging for a free promo compilation CD "to get me into your new crop of bands," and am sent a free compilation called
That Virtua Feeling. I hear Plexi's frenzied 2-minute song
"Caught Up", and immediately scramble to find out more about them. The writeup in this CD's liner notes says "Tentatively scheduled for release on Sub Pop sometime in 1996. Plexi are a freshly inked Sub Pop band from beautiful Los Angeles. A new heavy psychedelia should your hypothalmus be overweight." (Note the pun in the word "inked," which can also mean "tattooed"... Only took me 15 years to figure this out.)
Later that summer: I track down both of Plexi's EPs (Plexi and I.F.A.) online and order them; I remember that one was from a record store in Orlando. Yes, this was in the days before file-sharing. I also call Sub Pop's hotline (1-800-SUB-POP1) to pester them about when Plexi's debut album is gonna come out, and I find out that it's October 6th.
Oct. 7, 1996: At Underground Sounds, I buy
Cheer Up the day after it is released, on promo CD in a cool black slipcase, with a fold-out poster filled with fun (mostly made-up) facts about the band, as part of a tongue-in-cheek attempt by Sub Pop to mythologize them, as they had done earlier with the likes of Tad and Nirvana. I am slightly disappointed with the album at first (keep in mind this was only a month after I had bought My Bloody Valentine's
Loveless), but I very quickly become totally obsessed with it. I dub a copy of it on cassette and listen to it endlessly in my Integra.
Fall 1996: Alternative Press runs a full-page article on Plexi. Michael A. opines about his love of Ziggy Stardust as the ultimate album to put on while you're getting ready to go out on a Saturday night, and about how Plexi's goal was to make an album that can fill that role for a new generation. In the final line of the article, after being asked how he would feel if any listeners took the band's lyrics about suicide seriously and killed themselves, M.A. coolly says "Well, as long as I don't die..." This one line perfectly illustrates the band's morbidly irreverent sense of humor, and solidifies their their place in my mind as my new favorite band. I make a point of hoarding every little Plexi-related thing I can get my hands on, because I had always heard about how some people were lucky enough to have followed their favorite bands from their infancy all the way to superstardom, and I knew this was my chance to do the same thing. I wanted to have the souvenirs along the way. (The only other bands I've "collected" in this obsessively creepy way are Hovercraft, Bailter Space, Unwound, and Swervedriver.)
Jan. 1997: An Alternative Press scribe, one of my most trusted ones, in fact, gives Cheer Up a lackluster 2-finger (2 stars out of 5) review. I send them an irate, tangential, fairly obnoxious letter in protest. (For what it's worth, one of A.P.'s head writers, Jason Pettigrew, writes me back to tell me that most of the staff disagreed with the 2-star review [hence why they decided to print my response letter], but they had to print it anyway since album reviews are not allowed to be vetoed there.)
Early May, 1997: I receive the May issue of A.P. with L7 on the cover and see my letter printed first in the "Incoming" (reader mail) section, along with a pic of the band, apparently from the same photo session that spawned the Cheer Up album cover. I knew it was coming, since they had told me a few months in advance, but it was still quite an arresting feeling to see it in print and know that every indie rock dude & dudette in the country was gonna be reading it. (Keep in mind this was way before A.P. turned into a laughable emo / metalcore mag.)
Saturday, May 3, 1997: I wake up particularly early, for some unknown reason. My clock radio is tuned, for irony value, to local pop station B97. The DJ is reading off a list of bands playing around town that day (something they
never do on that station), and he says that a band called "Flexi" is playing a free show at the Aquarium downtown. I just about have a heart attack, since I know I have to hurry down there on the chance that it's Plexi. After calling my then-semi-girlfriend Johanna, who turns down the opportunity to go with me since she has never heard of Plexi, my dad drops me off at the foot of Canal Street and I jog on a block or so of train tracks leading to the pavilion, while the eerie descending chords of
"Forest Ranger" echo through the ether, causing me to just about die from excitement. I see my heroes play a great set to a crowd of only a dozen or so people, right on the edge of the Mississippi River, as part of some sort of ESPN X Games tryouts, with cyclists doing aerial tricks in the background. Very surreal. (This was the last weekend of Jazz Fest, so most NOLA music fans were over at the Fairgrounds across town. On the other hand, I did meet an LSU student who had driven about 90 miles from Baton Rouge to see Plexi.) I remember there was a strong breeze, and the weather was just incredible, and quite cool for this time of year, and that I wore a white t-shirt with a huge UPC barcode on the front, a t-shirt of my friend's band, Fiddlehead. Afterwards, I meet them and show them the
A.P. letter I had ripped out and brought with me. They are genuinely blown away / humbled, and Michael A. mentioned that they had really felt hurt by that
A.P. review. They give me lots of free stuff, including a t-shirt, a promo CD single for "Roller Rock Cam," a few posters, stickers, etc., and they sign them all. It's dope as fuck; I'm suddenly "in the club," just like that. Norm even signs the drumstick of his that I had scooped up when he threw it out into the non-crowd at the end of their set. It just kind of sat there for a while in the sun on the brick terrace, so I sheepishly picked it up. (He wrote "Fuck this guy" next to the name Vic Firth on the drumstick; I never asked him why.) Norm tells me Plexi have signed to Atlantic, and that Cheer Up will be reissued soon. I feel crushed, my indie self feels betrayed, but I'm happy for the band's growing momentum. I suggest to him that the two EPs should also be reissued, on one CD, and he says that sounds like a great idea. Michael A. tells me that Plexi are trying to set up a last-minute show in New Orleans that same night, but I don't know if that show ever happened. Knowing me, I'm surprised I didn't call every single club in town that night to see if Plexi, or "Flexi," were playing there. Considering that Plexi had given me their
beeper number, I can't believe I didn't just dial it and have them call me back with any show info. What a dumbass.
But to summarize: A day on which I saw my favorite band play outside at my favorite spot (I was such a fish fanatic that I had my mom take me to the opening day of this aquarium in August 1990)
, for free, and got free stuff, including their freakin' beeper number? Are you kidding me? Easily the most memorable day of my life. To top it off, I went to Jazz Fest the next day on a blind date with two girls I met off of the internet. And the next day, I bought my pet Uromastyx lizard, Molly, whom I still have and cherish to this day, though she is now named Holly.
July 1997: Cheer Up is reissued with little fanfare on Atlantic Records, home of arena stars Led Zeppelin, King Missile and Laura Branigan, paving the way for Plexi's global conquest. Well, technically it's on Atlantic's "alternative rock" subsidiary Lava. I buy it on promo CD with no cover art at Underground Sounds. (The only sonic difference between the Sub Pop version of the album and the Atlantic version of the album is that opening track "Forest Ranger" was subtly remixed to beef it up and make it more radio-friendly.)
Mid-1997: Atlantic releases a CD single containing "Mountains" plus three live tracks. I join Plexi's fanclub (or maybe just mailing list), and soon receive a sweet signed glossy 8x10" black & white photo, and some little form letter, and probably some more stickers.
August 1997: I buy the regular (newly out-of-print) Sub Pop CD of Cheer Up at Tower Records.
September 1997: MTV airs the video for "Forest Ranger" once, on a Sunday night, on either 120 Minutes or Alternative Nation, whichever of those was on Sundays. I missed it, despite staying up all night to watch it. Plexi tours huge venues at around this time as the opening act for labelmates Smash Mouth. (Seriously.) Smash Mouth had a huge hit with "Walkin' On The Sun" at this time, so lots of people were presumably lucky enough to catch Plexi as an opening act. I consider driving about 10 hours to see this tour in Texas, but I figure I'll have at least another decade of chances to see them live in NOLA, so I don't go.
Dec. 1997: I buy the reissued version of Cheer Up on cassette, meaning that I have now bought this album four different times. I remember getting into a little argument with the cashier, after telling him it had come out the previous year on Sub Pop; he was like "No, it came out this year." Dave Navarro (Jane's Addiction guitarist and close friend of Michael Barragan) names Cheer Up his favorite album of the year in some magazine.
Summer or fall 1998: The notoriously drug-o-philic Plexi go to, of all places, Amsterdam to record a follow-up album. (I talked to Angelos a few times on AOL, where his screennames were IVMORPHINE and PUREHEROIN.) They record an album there, play a bunch of shows there, and break up for unknown reasons in early '99. I'm crushed, of course. According to Plexi's MySpace bio (2006), the breakup was due to "lack of communication skills and emotional unavailability." Haha.
In the ensuing years: I buy the regular Atlantic version of Cheer Up on CD every time I find it for sale used, to give them to friends. I also get the somewhat disappointing "Part Of Me" 7", which is redeemed by having "Caught Up" as its b-side. As Plexi were local legends in SoCal, the members are in high demand by other local groups. Norm forms the band Tape, fronted by ex-rapper Justin Warfield (future singer of She Wants Revenge). Tape release two excellent EPs circa 2002, but no album. Norm also goes on to be a part of Gift Horse Project, Meow Meow, Sweethead (featuring Troy from Queens Of The Stone Age), and Victoria (featuring Spacehog's former singer). Both Barragan and Block tour as part of Mark Lanegan's backing band. Barragan is in a California "supergroup" called Loaded, also featuring Duff McKagan (Guns N' Roses), Dez Cadena (Black Flag), and Taz Bentley (Reverend Horton Heat). He also records with a band called Broken, who were/are presumably based in L.A.
Fall 2002: I email a set of interview questions to an online friend (Carla; her AOL screenname was Vespertine) who tells me she will show them to Michael A., whom she knows in real life. I never get any answers back, so I get ticked off and pretty much never talk to Carla again, since I felt she embarrassed me in front of my favorite band.
April 2003: I finally buy the Plexi EP on limited orange-vinyl 10", on eBay.
Sometime later: I get the "Forest Ranger" promo CD single
Mar. 2006: I buy a signed copy of
I.F.A. on eBay. At this point, I own everything Plexi ever released, aside from
Cheer Up on LP and
Plexi on promo cassette. Here's pics of that signed
I.F.A. CD:
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| That's a cat on the CD |
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| Another cat inside the CD booklet |
I don't think I ever dialed Plexi's beeper, by the way... Something about not wanting to bug them after they had been so cool to me on that day, I guess, and the fact that they were just so many levels cooler than me. But I still have the scrap of paper with Norm's distinctive handwriting, the same kind he used in the lipstick-on-bathroom-mirror pics in the
Cheer Up CD booklet. I'll post a photo of it when I find it. I've been wanting to start a Plexi fansite for over a decade; in the late '90s there was one called Plexi Online, and there was a young Plexi cover band called
Dayglo.
Fun Facts:
Sub Pop band Sunny Day Real Estate were fans of Plexi, and were the ones who told Sub Pop about Plexi, which led to them being signed.
Angelos has "Damned" tattooed across his stomach, in Tupac "THUG LIFE" style, but his probably predates Tupac's.
Planets with similar climates to that of "Peel": Joy Division - "I Remember Nothing" (1979), American Music Club - "In The Shadow Of The Valley" (1994), Tram - "High Ground" (1998).
Planets with similar climates to that of "He": The Chameleons - "Return Of The Roughnecks" (1985), Catherine Wheel - "Chrome" (1993), Unwound - "Kantina" (1993), Jawbox - "Mirrorful" (1996), Quicksand - "Lie And Wait" (1992).
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