90’s alternative

Confused, Remorseful & Angry… It’s Awesome! or Sebadoh – Bakesale

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Back in ’93 a good friend turned me towards the lo-fi sounds of Sebadoh and their initial Sub Pop offering Bubble & Scrape. One listen to the fabulous opening number “Soul & Fire” and I became a forever fan.

Bakesale was released in 1994, and was a slight change of direction for the band in that they had refined the sound now and were becoming more accessible to the alt-rock hipsters. Lou Barlow and Jason Lowenstein were capable of breaking your heart at one moment and smacking you in the head another with their confessional lyrics and fuzzed out guitar work.

“What was that you just said, that didn’t make any sense to me, it’s not the way I see it man, I’m almost tired of listening to you” from the awesome “Not Too Amused” comes off all at once confused, remorseful and angry with the music only adding to the emotional impact. These are themes that play out over the course of the whole record.

Some critics call Bakesale Sebadoh’s finest moment; I’m not sure I would go that far as they have several records that have a giant place in my heart. However, it is certainly a great place to begin if you haven’t listened to them before and vinyl is definitely a great option.

Outside of the original ’94 release, Bakesale was re-mastered in 2011 and has a couple options. The first is your basic black vinyl which also came with a download card and is still available at all your finer record retailers. The second, long sold out edition was on grey splatter vinyl and was sold directly from the Sub Pop online store.

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If you are a fan of those essential records from the 1990’s, Bakesale definitely fits the bill. I’m just hoping Bubble & Scrape and Harmacy eventually see a vinyl re-release. Either that or I may have to start hunting down used copies.

Sebadoh is playing at Lee’s Palace in Toronto tomorrow night (May 27).

Who is that Masked Man? or Foxboro Hot Tubs – Stop Drop and Roll!!!

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Green Day has had a few career highlights in terms of records, but one of my personal favorites is an album they didn’t even credit to themselves. The debut of Foxboro Hot Tubs was a splash of early rock ‘n’ roll that crossed the Sonics with the Kinks and just never let up. Gone were the political messages of American Idiot, and back came the sarcasm and pointed lyrical shots that made you a fan back when Dookie came out. From “The Pedestrian” Reverend Strychnine Twitch (Armstrong) sings “it doesn’t take a genius to be an idiot” and while bordering on a playful cliché, it still cuts to the desire for sound bites meant for fun.

Having played the CD recently I made the decision that I wanted a vinyl version to spin and had a need to find out what is available.

Um… well… ok…

There has been and still remains only one option.

Released in 2008, Stop Drop and Roll!!! has a single vinyl printing that also contained a CD version of the record. However, it should be noted that the album was recorded on an old fashioned analog 8 track, making vinyl the perfect medium to hear it.

Don’t go to resellers for the album either as it is still widely available through your local record retailers.

I really hope they do another of these, it really is a great summer blast of fun!

A Roller Coaster Ride! or The Vaccines – English Graffiti

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The Vaccines brand of rock ‘n’ pop has recently been conjuring comparisons to The Strokes but that is both a little obvious and not quite hitting the target. Like most bands that have a quest for timelessness in their music; they are roller coasters that shift left when you think right and ultimately bring excitement to both the peaks and valleys.

In the past they were using a bit of 60’s pop music reminiscent of the early hits of the Kinks, but with English Graffiti they seemed to have filtered it through the 80’s synth pop. “Dream Lover” is a hybrid of Brit-Pop that has more Duran Duran than Oasis in the sound. Then they get you thinking that they will let the good times roll with “20/20” which crosses the Kaiser Chiefs with Motion City Soundtrack.

With energy levels about to go through the roof they abandon it all for a Moody Blues moment in “(All Afternoon) In Love” and later in “I Want You So Bad.”

Lyrically they are pretty quick to turn a phrase and go for the biting one liner, rather than look for a character to drive the story. Album opener “Handsome” provides a pretty good case in point as they drop the line “you think that you look good in whatever they sugarcoat you in.”  The song is all sarcasm and snot with a big F.U. to whomever is trying to sell bullshit for image.

The real point The Vaccines make more than any other is that they want to keep rockin’. English Graffiti isn’t life altering or earth shattering it’s just a fun rock ‘n’ roll record that you play on your way to the amusement park… and really, what more can you ask for.

A Glorious Bit Of Ragged String Bending or Foo Fighters – Medium Rare

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Foo Fighters have always enjoyed putting out limited and rare b-sides for their hard core fans, but finding them all can be a big frickin’ problem. To solve this minor dilemma, they compiled the whole lot of cover songs as an album for Record Store Day 2011 and dubbed it Medium Rare. The vinyl included thirteen songs from various EP’s, singles and soundtracks. The CD version, which was released as a companion to Q Magazine subscriptions, was missing the Prince cover of “Darling Nikki.”

As cover albums go, the songs are over the spectrum including numbers from Prince, Joe Walsh, Husker Du, Paul McCartney & Wings, Cream, Gerry Rafferty and few others. The whole album sounds great and gets held together by the Foo Fighters enthusiasm for the material. Taylor Hawkins vocals sound stellar on “Life Of Illusion” and the guitar solo on “Baker Street” is a genuinely glorious bit of ragged string bending.

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Thing is, trying to get a copy.

Record stores sold out of this a very long time ago and I’ve only seen one copy in the used bin of my favourite record store (or any other for that matter) once in the last four years. Discogs seem to have the most reasonable prices in the resale market with asking prices in the $100.00 range for either of the CD or vinyl.

On the other hand, e-bay resellers have sealed copies with asking prices that balloon to nearly $250.00 for a CD copy and over $500.00 for the vinyl. However, those high prices are by no means an average, and if you have your eyes open you should be able to snag a copy for under $100.00.

I think the best bet might be to hope for a limited re-issue at some point. The market is certainly there for it, let’s hope Grohl and co. decide it is worth doing.

The Greatest Air-Guitar Record Ever! or Green Day – Dookie

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Love it or loath it the 90’s punk revival didn’t go mainstream because of Nirvana, Sonic Youth or any of the other champions of noise from 89 to 93. The exact day it started was February 1st 1994 with the release of Dookie, and it was a monster. It sold 10 million copies in the year following its release and has sold another 10 million since. It was fast, it was fun, it was angry, and it was everywhere! It was the kind of record you knew would be HUGE on a single listen, and believe me, that isn’t an easy thing to say as a critic. Arguably, Dookie may even be the greatest air-guitar record ever!

So from a vinyl perspective, it is an obvious and essential part of the collection, but what is available and where the hell do you start?

Well believe it or not, your options are quite limited. You can find a used copy from 1994, of which a dump load of unofficial copies were also released, or you can buy new and there have only been three “official” re-releases since 2008. The first two are re-issues printed in the US and Europe on black 180 gram vinyl and are still widely available.

The last one is slightly more interesting than the others. It is a limited edition green translucent vinyl that had only 1000 copies printed and were sold exclusively at Hot Topic stores in the US. While the limited Dookie sold out long ago, most Hot Topic vinyl is sold under $30.00.  Resellers are asking over $50.00 for the green vinyl now. Of course, if you have a giant whack of cash, you could buy an original 1994 green translucent vinyl or autographed copy for several hundred dollars on the resale market… but … um… that’s a bit out of my price range.

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If you are looking to get a copy, your best bet is still the 2008 180 gram version which sounds great and can be purchased at very reasonable prices at all the usual places.

 

The Age Of Expiration or Brandon Flowers – The Desired Effect

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Brandon Flowers best asset has always been his ability to convey emotion with even the most basic of lyrical content. Look at the Killers “Andy, You’re A Star” which soars like an epic even if the words are no more than jocular reminiscence.  So now you have Flowers second solo outing which he has referred to as “what the Killers second record should have sounded like” and expectations begin to run high. BUT – that has always been what Flowers does, he shoots from the hip and sometimes he hits the mark and sometimes… well, not so much.

The Desired Effect comes off as being influenced by the biggest stadium rockers of the 80’s. “Dreams Come True” points towards Born In The USA Springsteen and it is followed by “Can’t Deny My Love” which is reminiscent of Security era Peter Gabriel. However both are bogged down with lyrical metaphors that drip of modern country music formula.

Things pick up by “I Can Change” which runs off a sample of Bronski Beat’s “Small Town Boy”, but I’m unsure if the rise in my attention was really due to Flowers song or his chosen sample. There are moments of playfulness (“Still Want You”), tenderness (“Between Me and You”) and renewed love (“Untangled Love”) but again the images seem to conjure little more than a closing sequence of Friday Night Lights mixed with a soundtrack of “the best songs you didn’t hear in the 80’s.”

The Desired Effect has the unfortunate problem of being bogged down in the sounds of a time long past without a twist of something new. It’s a perfectly pleasant listen but it also comes with a quick expiration date.

The Emotional Depth of Flanging and Reverb or Ride –OX4

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There was a time before the 90’s wave of Grunge and Brit-Pop when a generation of music geeks had their collective consciousness turned towards the sounds of a UK movement dubbed “shoegaze.” Known for “wall of sound” like buzz and a variety of guitar effects it was the best possible escape for people tired of pop and hair metal but still loved loud electric guitar as the driver behind the tunes.

Ride was one of the best of the era with their own brand of songs crossed between My Bloody Valentine, The Smiths and even American avant-garde noise rockers Sonic Youth. At the beginning what attracted people to the band was the menagerie of influence pooled together under a banner of rock attitude and loud experimentation.

Unlike classic rock bands that would build a song around a guitar riff using it for the more climatic moments, Ride would use a riff like a wave over the song and change its very dynamic. If you listen to “Like A Daydream” even when the songs driving force is held back during the lyrical sequence, the guitar riff is still present as the basis for the rhythm. What changes is the tone and power with which it is played. The song itself gains more emotional resonance by the riff coasting for the duration rather than any one specific moment. At their best, this is exactly how Ride operated, a lyric of longing surrounded by shimmering guitar lines that buzz meaning with flanging and reverb.

Unfortunately, their existence was a brief eight years and it ended with internal disagreements and some half hearted attempt to go in a more ‘commercial’ direction. Some critics have claimed they fell flat looking for a more Brit-Pop sound, but honestly, after reading some of their more recent interviews, it sounds more like they just lost the motivation to be a band.

Still Record Store Day 2015 was a reminder of what brilliant music they did put out back in the day, with the vinyl re-issue of OX4: The Best Of. Three editions were released on April 18th in three major markets. The UK and Europe saw 500 copies each printed in red translucent vinyl while the North American market printed an additional 5000 copies of the same. As of last week when I was visiting record stores in Toronto I still saw copies around at the regular RSD prices.

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On a cooler note, Ride have worked out all their differences, are back together and currently touring. They’ll be hitting the Danforth Music Hall in Toronto on June 2nd and are being presented by 102.1 The Edge/Spirit Of Radio.

Technicolor Horror Story or Faith No More – Sol Invictus

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So much more than just another ‘alt-rock’ or ‘metal’ band Faith No More could pack influences into music so tightly I would have no other choice but to call it ‘genre skipping.’ Crazy as that sounds they do it in individual songs. Funk, hip hop, metal, and even easy listening soft rock balladry naturally bounce around so well you’ld think they were a basketball.

Add that to the fact that Mike Patton is the best living rock vocalist on the planet (seriously, he has a vocal range that stretches six octaves) and you have a powerful explanation as to why music fans are salivating at the mere thought of a new Faith No More record.

Eighteen years between records and Faith No More not only picks up from where they left off, but do it as if both a love letter to fans and kiss off to anyone else. In fact, the feel of Sol Invictus is far more reminiscent of Angel Dust than the commercially lauded The Real Thing. The result is an album that just seems to go in whatever direction the wind is blowing at any given moment. Which isn’t to say that Faith No More lets anything get away from them, but rather that the transitions seem natural.

The title track opens with a bit of a circus atmosphere before breaking off into atmospheric melody. “Superhero” takes medal riffs and builds them towards a climatic cliff that is followed by the sinister “Sunny Side Up” which comes off as the proclamations of a narcissist. Characters are littered throughout Sol Invictus creating a type of epic short story one might imagine as the work of Flannery O’Connor or Richard Bachman. Listening to “Black Friday” as it describes living in the “age of the mercenary” comes with the realization that hope is a matter of perspective. Faith No More may not have created a pop masterpiece, but they have made a record that tells dark stories of broken people in vivid sonic colours. Sol Invictus is an album that stays with you long after the needle has lifted, and compelling enough to keep you up long after your head hits the pillow.

For you fans of vinyl, Faith No More have given you a couple options. Sol Invictus can be ordered in clear (limited edition) or black 140 gram vinyl and of course their web store also has a variety of bundles to make a true music geek happy.

Like Riding A Rollercoaster Blindfolded… or Crocodiles – Boys

/ ds barrett / 2 Comments

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A touch of psychedelia, a smidge of shoegaze and sounding like they spent a whole lot of time in a garage playing covers of The Shondells is the basic Crocodiles recipe. So the real question, if one dares to ask, is this any different from the plethora of bands also trying to mine this vein?

Well, yes and no…

Heading into summer lets use baseball as an analogy. Major League Baseball has thirty teams all trying to attain a single goal – win the World Series. There are a lot of both good and bad teams that resemble one another but only the best really stand out while the rest are merely background noise until the playoffs arrive.

The Crocodiles are contenders.

Many bands have similar sounds but the pure catchiness and fun they exude is what keeps bringing me back for more. Hell, if they hired Rick Rubin to produce they would likely end up sounding like The Cult during the Electric era.

As it is, their brand of ‘riff-riding’ gives them a different team from others. They’re not as angry or skillful as Detroit’s Dirtbombs and they’re not as trippy as California’s Best Coast, but they carry your attention down the stretch.

“Crybaby Demon” starts things off with a “She Sells Santuary” guitar intro that takes a left turn towards the Happy Mondays. “Do The Void” plays with a 90’s alt-rock sludge guitar than breaks towards a early 70’s Banana Splits party. To a certain degree, listening to the Crocodiles is a bit like riding a rollercoaster blindfolded – it’s a great adventure and half the fun is not knowing where the hell you’re going next.

You can get the new Crocodiles album Boys on multiple formats at all those places music is being sold.

I Really Want This! Sweet Relief: A Benefit For Victoria Williams – Various Artists

/ ds barrett / 1 Comment

 

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Back in ’93 I was given an album to review that became a best friend of sorts. Surprisingly it was a compilation record (which usually just don’t stand up due to inconsistency) of songs by an artist whose music was only known previously to musicians and music geeks, but it knocked me over. One song after another caught my imagination with vivid imagery and music that could be both morose and uplifting within the same moment. It was brilliant, which is something you usually can’t say for a record recorded by “various artists.” However, what holds it together is the artist to who the album was benefiting – Victoria Williams.

“My sister got bit by a copperhead snake in the woods behind the house” is the first line that pops out the old speakers as Soul Asylum breaks into “Summer Of Drugs” and I as listener was hooked. By the time Evan Dando (of the Lemonheads) sings “Frying Pan” I’ve decided I want to play guitar.  By the conclusion I’m looking for a bullhorn so I can tell any and everyone within earshot that they have to listen and buy this record. Williams’ songs are so detailed in character that songs feel like you’ve both read an exceptional short story and listened to a new musical experience. Despite the different styles of the various artists performing the songs, the original vision of the songwriter herself remains potent and shines through any genre leaping in the album itself.

If you don’t know the story, Williams star was on the rise when she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Having been bogged down with debt from increasing medical bills a virtual who’s who of 90’s alt rock and beyond joined forces to help her and others out. The Sweet Relief Charity Fund was set up to help musicians in need of expensive health care.

More than 20 years have gone by and Pearl Jam is still playing their contribution “Crazy Mary” live, and my CD still has a home within twelve inches of the stereo. So, you can see my love for this record runs deep, and I want a vinyl copy… I just didn’t think that one actually existed. That is until the other day when I just started putting album titles into the discogs search engine and… oh my, it exists. But damn… only in European used stores that would raise the price with shipping to over a hundred bucks.

So, I hope that it gets re-issued on vinyl eventually or that the ghost of Ed McMahon shows up at my door with an oversized check.

Sweet Relief can still be purchased at your better record stores on CD and has two follow up LP’s.

Sweet Relief II: Gravity Of The Situation – The Songs Of Vic Chesnutt

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And

Sweet Relief III: Pennies From Heaven

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Check them out, give ‘em a listen, and maybe you’ll want to drop a few dollars to a worthy cause.

P.S. – Here’s a video of Victoria Williams covering the great Sam Cooke