If the undertaking of this four part series hasn't made it abundantly clear from the onset, I'm currently on what you might call a serious Smiths kick at present. For the last decade or so this has become sort of a quarterly tradition, wherein which my moderate Smiths consumption elevates to something of a mania, until eventually I can hardly listen to anything else. And though the escalation of these jags typically reaches an absurd and irrational level on little more than their own self-consuming fuel, the Smiths kick is always inspired by something close to what one might call tangible: a previously unheard bootleg or demo; a new appreciation for a lesser song; a lyric circumstantially shone in a new light, or that had somehow escaped my ears altogether for these many years. Obsession festers best in the smallest spaces.
Case in point: this particular period of consumption was spurred by something as simple as a lyrical incongruity previously overlooked between two versions of a relatively obscure B-side. Because of the Smiths' penchant for anthologizing their works while the band was still active, there's a tremendous amount of overlap between their three pre-break-up collections. This is especially true between the latter two, Louder Than Bombs and The World Won't Listen, as they were designed to serve the same purpose, just on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Besides the inclusion of one of Marr's well titled, but otherwise forgettable instrumentals ("Money Changes Everything"), the later record appears to offer nothing not otherwise available on the considerable longer Louder Than Bombs, and as such I've never found much reason to pursue it. But the devil, of course, is in the details: as it turns out, World actually features an alternate, lyrically superior version of "Stretch Out and Wait," a customarily strong b-side for which I hold particular reverence. Only two lines differ (On the high rise estate/what's at the back of your mind?/Oh, the three day debate on a high rise estate/what's at the back of your mind?" becomes "All the Lies that you make up/what's at the back of your mind/your face i can see, and it's desperately kind/but what's at the back of your mind?"), but that was enough—obsession is hardly a logical mistress. It's this sort of minutia that has kept me returning endlessly to Morrissey over the years as numerous other heroes of my adolescence have taken their place in the annuls of my history: the effortless density of Morrissey's lyrical work—self-absorbed, plagaristic, romantic, and ridiculous as it usually is (telling?)—offers me a seemingly inexhaustible well upon which to percolate... through new angles, new interpretations, new perspectives. Yes, I'm being sincere about this. No, I'm not entirely proud of it.
Now that I've throughly alienated everyone, let me quickly redirect your attention to the topic of episode two: the Meat Is Murder era. As the band grew less and less enchanted with the promotional abilities of Rough Trade, the label decided to make their big American single push by promoting "How Soon Is Now?" to A-side status, to surprisingly little fanfare. In retrospect, it seems sort of unfathomable that such a clearly classic song—as evidenced by its continued rotation on American "modern rock" stations—barely pushed it's way into the top 200, even with the backing of their American major, Sire. With one of the most instantly recognizable intros of all time, "How Soon Is Now?" is probably the clearest single example of Morrissey/Marr's sheer force at that or any period of their working relationship—and despite it's near 7-minute running time, captures the Smiths at the height of their commercial potential. The "How Soon Is Now?" single was backed by the restrained beauty of "Well I Wonder"—only Morrissey could make lines like "Gasping, dying, but somehow still alive/this is the fierce last stand of all I am" and "Do you see me when we pass?/I half-die" sound understated.
That same month, the band released Meat Is Murder—an album that represented a somewhat startling shift in tone from their first record—which promptly shot to number one on the albums chart. The self-defined singles band that somehow couldn't manage a runaway hit song was now in the uncomfortable position of being an album band. Ironically, Meat Is Murder is the Smiths at their least effective in album format. Though Marr's studio technique had clearly made vast improvements over the self-titled debut, Morrissey's heavy-handed politicking ages sourly—and despite the anger and conviction in tone, his words undermine the music here in a way that's not really seen anywhere in the Smiths catalog. By this point, Morrissey had become an outspoken media manipulator—casually supporting violent extremists in both the IRA and Animal Liberation, and openly calling for the immediate death of Margaret Thatcher. An album awash in strong societal violence, Meat Is Murder kicks off appropriately with "The Headmaster Ritual," a memorable addition to the long history of pop indictments of corporeal punishment in the British school system (see also: Pink Floyd, Radiohead, etc), and ends with "Barbarism Begins At Home" and "Meat Is Murder," two needlessly long, terribly heavy-handed attacks on child abuse and carnivorism, respectively. "Meat Is Murder" is the particularly disappointing—with its ridiculously ham-fisted (pardon the pun) slaughterhouse samples, and flawed assessment that "death for no reason is MURDER," "Meat..." failed move even those sympathetic to the cause. The Smiths got political on wax for the first time, and the results left much to be desired.
There are, however, considerable joys to be found on Meat Is Murder, primarily in the records more understated songs. Inspired by the riff to Elvis' "Marie's the Name (of His Latest Flame)," "Rusholme Ruffians" is a particularly perfect Smiths moment, a brutal, superbly visceral retelling of Morrissey's adolescence at spent being "educated" at the yearly local Boxing Day fairgrounds. (For a period, Marr took to introing the song live with a brief cover of "Marie...," as documented on the live album Rank.) Also totally brilliant is the painfully brief "What She Said"—one of the band's most aggressive songs, and following a familiarly suicidal theme, Moz again struggles with the importance of mind over body and vice versa—and despite all of the "Heady books" the titular character read, concludes that it "took a tattooed by from Birkenhead/to really really open her eyes."
The other glory of Meat Is Murder is proof that even in lesser songs, Morrissey is miraculously equipped to save sinking ships with the power of one well-placed line. A prime example is the relatively unremarkable "Nowhere Fast," another of Morrissey's cheekily (pun intended) ridiculous songs saved from drowning with the perfect "And when I'm lying in my bed/I think about life and I think about death/and neither one particularly appeals to me". (incidentally, "Nowhere Fast" is from whence the Slender Means Society finds its namesake.)
In spite of the hit record they had in Meat, the Smiths chose to immediately release a non-album track as their next single—the solid, if somewhat underwhelming suicide script, "Shakespeare's Sister." Backed by the aforementioned "Stretch Out and Wait," "Shakespeare's Sister" did surprisingly poor business—reaching a lowly number 26 on the pop charts, and further straining their relationship with Rough Trade. It was also roughly about this time that bassist Andy Rourke was handed his first ultimatum regarding his increasing dependancy on heroin.
Some four months later, the Smiths would release their first proper single from Meat Is Murder, making the bizarre decision to go with the powerfully uncommercial "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore." It's fate was unsurprisingly similar to that of "Shakespeare's Sister." The band was quick to add the singles' plight to the laundry list of complaints they already harbored against Rough Trade (not to mention Morrissey's paranoid theory about a radio conspiracy against the Smiths), but just two months later released another single on the label, "The Boy With the Thorn In His Side." "Thorn" was standard early Smiths fair which could have fit comfortably on either Hatful Of Hollow or their debut, but what was particularly notable about the single was its flipside, again featuring a pair of the Smiths' greatest compositions: "Rubber Ring" and "Asleep."
Brilliantly played, "Rubber Ring" is Morrissey at his most powerfully self-referential—a song that begins by mourning the death of personal reverence for pop songs "that saved your life" as you grow older, "Rubber Ring" twists into Morrissey's own clever plea for pop immortality: "I'm here with the cause/I'm holding the torch/In the corner of your room/can you hear me/and when you dancing, and laughing, and finally living/Hear my voice in your head and think of me kindly". There is scarcely a more perfectly Morrissey moment.
In spite of minor flirtations with other songs now and again, "Asleep" will forever remain my very favorite Smiths song, and quite probably my second favorite song ever. It's suicidal resignation is perhaps the bleakest of Morrissey's songs—humorless, whispering, desolate, and utterly miserable, but free of the absurd melodrama that often weighs down his more heavy-handed sentiments. Asleep is, quite simply, a perfect song—and as such, understandably difficult for me to do justice in blog form.
Following another belly up single ("The Boy With the Thorn In His Side" stalled at 26), the Smiths were openly frustrated about their relationship with Rough Trade, and suggested that they planned to part ways with the label. Rough Trade secured a high court injunction to block the group from recording for another label under the stipulations of their contract, with the red tape momentarily suspending the release of the band's just completed masterpiece, The Queen Is Dead.
Forgive me any factual errors in the following tirade, but it must be expected that when charting what may, however embarrassingly, very well be the most dominant single factor of one's life for the better part of a decade, there is bound to be at least a hint of selective mythology, erroneous extensions of truths, and just plain inventions of the imagination. Forgive me further for my trepidation, but it has some grounding—this will certainly be the most difficult entry I have ever cast into the forgotten annuls of The Greatest Band of All Time. For one, because I could never hope to do justice to my very personal relationship to the Smiths in the tossed-off body of a blog entry. For two, because I can whole-heartedly type sentences like "I could never hope to do justice to my very personal relationship to the Smiths" and feel positively sincere doing so. For three, because my affections for the Smiths competes with that of virtually everyone I have ever shared kinship, and is appropriately dwarfed by the continued allegiance of a worldwide army of confused, disaffected, spotty teenagers, as well as every generation that has preceded them since roughly 1983. Nothing I can say here will keep me from sounding anything less than a deluded, mouth-foaming adolescent—and that's the only way, really. Because for most people who care, the Smiths are the closest approximation pop music can muster to honest to god first love—deified, idealized, haunting, and never, ever to be repeated. The Smiths are, in total seriousness, the closest thing I have ever had to a religion—and the fact of the matter is, in most company, this fact sort of embarrasses me. In spite of their near universal acceptance socially, there is very little in this world less dignified than true, unabashed Smiths fanaticism. And while I'd never claim to be the craziest Smiths fan—one of my very best friends, who is tattooed with Morrissey lyrics, once jumped out of a moving car when she saw the man himself standing at a street corner, a friend of a friend reportedly had an affair with one of Morrissey's producers just to get closer to the Mozzer, etc., etc.—the fact remains that I am a grown man of 25 who still can't break free of his teenaged obsessions with a band that lasted merely five years, released only four proper studio albums, and broke up a month before I started the second grade. The Smiths very well may have ruined my life, and yet I've found time nearly every day for roughly ten years to listen to at least one of their songs. Stop me if you think that you've heard this one before: The Smiths are the Greatest Band Of All Time.
Mirroring Steve's now ancient tome to his Greatest Band of All Time, Guided By Voices, I hope to spend a few days reflecting upon the Smiths in what I'm stretching to call their four "periods"—a bit of misnomer, considering that in their brief existence, they have very few hints of major stylistic shift. The "periods" of observation will instead be broken down by records and related singles—also sort of a weird tactic, considering that the Smiths, arguably the last great singles band (or "group," as they preferred), have never really been defined by their albums proper. In fact, the Smiths are in a lot of ways the polar opposites of Steve's GBOAT—their discography carefully contained in a succinct four propers, a couple of compilations, a live album, and a few stray b-sides that amount to roughly 70 total songs, a negligible number of failures among them.
Born famously from the streets of industrial Manchester, the Smiths—Steven Patrick Morrissey, Johnny Maher, Mike Joyce, and Andy Rourke—were all notably descended from recent Irish immigrants, a fact of some ridiculous importance in the casual prejudice of 1960-70s England. Primarily the marriage of two very disparate, yet equally motivated egos, the Smiths officially began in 1982 as a songwriting partnership between 23-year-old pop obsessive Morrissey and 18-year-old jack of all trades Maher, who had both struggled for some years individually with other lesser projects (the Nosebleeds and White Dice respectively and most notably). A fledgling (though rather mediocre) rock journalist, Morrissey had listlessly spent his post-scholastic running a fan club for the New York Dolls, attempting (and failing) to learn a number of different instruments, writing (and occasionally publishing) a handful of pulp-y pop culture tomes of little consequence (James Dean Is Not Dead and The New York Dolls), and doing his best to stay unemployed. Morrissey's once-promising aspirations toward pop fame seemed relatively ripe for the dustbin by the time he was approached by the unlikely Maher, a talented, calculating rock kid with a similarly deep appreciation of Pop in search of a songwriting partner. Distant acquaintances, Maher had some years prior been impressed by some of the lyrics Morrissey had penned with the now-defunct Nosebleeds, and decided to arrange a meeting romantically inspired by the story of songwriting powerhouse Leiber and Stoller's first encounter—arriving on Morrissey's doorstep to insist they start a partnership. Within a few days, they had "Suffer Little Children" and "the Hand that Rocks the Cradle".
Within a year or so, the duo had secured bassist Rourke—an old school friend and former bandmate of Johnny's—and drummer Joyce. The fledgling foursome released their first seven inch on Rough Trade at the crest of the label's many years of brilliance, in the form of "Hand In Glove" b/w "Handsome Devil." The disc was clearly a less than subtle statement of purpose—with two of the most elusive, sexually complicated, and defiant songs Morrissey would ever pen for the group. "Hand In Glove," with its strong suggestions of a forbidden love where the "Sun shines out of our behinds" was a relatively unlikely debut, but a perfect first wrung of the Smiths mythology. The most explicitly carnal of all of the self-professed a-sexual Morrissey's Smiths work, "Handsome Devil" is also one of the most menacing—with casual (possible) allusions to an untamed thirst for sexual violence, as well as some possible hints of pedophilia. "All the streets are crammed with things/eager to be held/I know what hands are for/and I'd like to help myself/you ask me the time/but I sense something more/and I would like to give you what I think you're asking for... I crack the whip and you skip/but you deserve it". Additionally, it's with "Handsome Devil" that Morrissey debuts his now familiar fascination with gender confusions, referencing both a pair of "mammary glands" that he wishes to get his "hands on," which he follows with "A boy in the bush is worth two in the hand/I think I can help you get through your exams," and ultimately inquiring "When we're in your scholarly room/who will swallow whom?" atop one of Maher's (now Marr) rare bludgeoning riffs. The quiet, poetic violence of "Handsome Devil"—though largely abandoned in later work—was a theme repeated regularly throughout the songs produced in the first couple years that Morrissey and Marr were together, but never again would the seem quite so darkly mysterious as with their debut, which quietly underperformed Rough Trade's initial hopes.
A handful of popular BBC sessions followed, soon after which the Manchurians least likely found their first official controversy in a story entitled "Child Sex Song Puts the Beeb In a Spin,"—wherein The Sun questionably cobbled together some of Morrissey's more allusively suggestive lyrics—from "Reel Around the Fountain," "Handsome Devil," and "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle"—and confusingly report that the band were advocates of pedophilia. Certainly the songs weren't entirely free of troubling allusions to youth (It's time that the tale were told/of how you took a child/and you made him old," "there's sadness in your beautiful eyes/you're untouched, unsoiled, wondrous eyes... They'll be blood on the cleaver tonight") nor explorations of the flesh ("Fifteen minutes with you/well, i wouldn't say no/...you can pin and mount me like a butterfly"), but with Morrissey's evasive, intentionally ambiguous lyrical structure at the time, it's impossible throughout to really discern more than just an abstract comprehension of his suggested narrative, despite some arguable connotations. Morrissey of course firmly (though again somewhat aloofly) denied any leering intentions, and the controversy soon quelled.
The band's first serious commercial break came by way of their second single, the instantly and lastingly infectious "This Charming Man," which hit the top forty, and saw them performing on Top Of the Pops for the first time. One of Marr's shiningly melodic guitar achievements, "Charming Man" was backed in various formats by a handful of additional cuts that would prove to further expand the Smiths' thematic mythology via some of Morrissey's many cultural and personal fascinations (an aside: these fascinations are also evident in his hand selection of the "cover stars" of the Smiths' mounting releases—people like Terrance Stamp, Elvis, Joe Dallesandro, James Dean, etc.—each a pin-up from Morrissey's fame-following adolescence): the classically British kitchen sink motif of "Jeane" (Jeane/I'm not sure what happiness means/but I look in your eyes and it isn't there"), the ridiculous dark comedy of "Wonderful Woman" ("I'm starved of mirth/Let's go and trip a dwarf"), and the outsider self-analysis of "Accept Yourself" ("I once had a dream and it never came true/and time is against me now"). Next came "What Difference Does It Make?" the lead-off single from their long-awaited debut album, with a now familiar theme of an unspoken dark secret defiantly threatening a love affair—which happened to fare even better at number 12 on the charts.
A month later, the Smiths' hastily recorded, self-titled debut hit the shelves, and landed with some disappointment. Originally featuring only two of the band's powerful introductory A and B sides ("Hand In Glove" and "What Difference Does It Make?"), The Smiths remains a somewhat muddy affair—setting the pace for a career of seemingly strange ambivalence toward the album format. Still, the record introduces the band as a startling force straight out of the gate, and features, more than anything, some of Morrissey's most memorable lyrical material—even if a lot of it was arguably plagiarized. Another of Morrissey's most effective talents is his ability to devour and appropriate pop and literary sources for lyrical content, and, to appropriately paraphrase the man, claim these words as his own. (For a quick reference, check out this interesting, lengthy, and incomplete Morrissey Sources Guide.) Even where the production might fail (the band largely acknowledges that their BBC sessions are generally superior), there's scarcely a lyrical dud on The Smiths, which is certainly more than can be said for the rest of the band's records. Particularly brilliant is the afore mentioned "Reel Around the Fountain," along with the totally essential "Still Ill", and the chilling finale of "Suffer Little Children," about the serial child killing Moors Murderers that haunted much of Morrissey's Manchurian childhood. More importantly, The Smiths marked the darkest, most dangerous creative period the band would ever undertake—before fatal fame would send Morrissey's (still brilliant) vision to some points of near caricature. It was the time before the Smiths became THE SMITHS, when Moz unleashed the bulk of his most confrontational couplets, hidden behind Marr's most reserved presence.
The band rounded out the year with non-album singles "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" and "William, It Was Really Nothing"—the latter of which featuring a couple of songs written and recorded in the studio over the span of a few days, which would later become two of the band's most memorable songs: "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" and the eternal "How Soon Is Now?" Both singles, as well as all of the remaining non-album tracks and radio sessions, were soon compiled on the bargain-priced Hatful Of Hollow—which, like most of the Smiths' compilations, is arguably more essential than their albums proper. Also that year, Morrissey also persuaded one of his early idols, British pop singer Sandy Shaw, to record a version of "Hand In Glove" of her own with the band—the track finally vindicated when it reached the top 30 the second time around.
At the close of 1984, The Smiths were on an insane creative and commercial roll with scarcely two years under their belts, and were well on their way to becoming the most important British rock group of the '80s. And then after that? The Greatest Band of All Time, of course.
The 2005-2006 English Premier League season began a couple months ago with newly promoted Wigan Athletic F.C. giving champions Chelsea an early season endurance test, narrowly losing 1-0 in the last minute. Normally a match with a small side like Wigan wouldn't have meant much to me, but this time it was different--I had a frame of reference. "Wigan, huh? That's where The Verve were from."
Lost in the shuffle between big northern cities Liverpool and Manchester, Wigan wasn't ever known for producing much besides factory workers, and were it not for The Verve seizing their small window of opportunity in 1997 it might have stayed that way. Formed in 1989, the early days of the then simply "Verve" were spent exploring their psychedelic sounds. Led by the iconic Richard Ashcroft, they released a number of quality singles, (one of which "All In The Mind" features a b-side "A Man Called Sun" that inspired the name of a former Portland band). With a subsequent, eponymous 1992 E.P. that compiled a few of these tracks and continued to build their fanbase the group was poised to break through with their debut LP a year later, A Storm In Heaven.
Easily my favorite album of theirs, A Storm In Heaven settled on my ears like a warm, gentle breeze. Not terribly concerned with making proper "hits", they layered their sounds in true shoegazer fashion to create a beginning-to-end classic that I have yet to get tired of. Produced by John Leckie (who also handled duties on one of my other all-time faves, The Bends) and featuring blissful art design by Brian Cannon and photography by Michael Spencer Jones (who later gained greater attention for their work with Oasis). The album cover nailed the embodiment of their paradoxical esthetic--how can this be the after-life if there is still inclement weather? From the noisy opening "Star Sail", featuring Nick McCabe's signature guitars, to the more stripped down "Make It Till Monday" and the piano-based goodbye "See You In The Next One (Have A Good Time)" ASIH represents their pure embodiment of youthful ambition.
Even though they were well received by critics, the band didn't exactly take off in popularity. As with so many British bands, they were set on capturing the States, and they joined up with the second stage on Lollapalooza 1994, only to be done in by health problems and the first of two famous legal troubles. It seems the well-known jazz label of the same name took notice and forced the group to add the not-so superfluous "The." Heading into the studio to record their second proper album, the group was on edge and brought in producer Owen Morris (another Oasis association---actually, I believe in the early days of the 'sis they played some opening gigs for The Verve) to help them sort things out. There are some legendary stories about massive drug use and destruction at the studio that seemed to seal their fate, and when they released the material as A Northern Soul in 1995 it was met with mixed reviews. More health problems (I missed seeing them play First Ave. in Minneapolis due to Ashcroft's supposed sore throat) and a growing feud between Ashcroft and McCabe saw the band split up that fall.
Convinced that I had heard the last of the group, I was left trying to make sense of A Northern Soul, as it contained little of what I had loved about their early work. Sure, there were some trippy jams, but bringing in the string section for "History" seemed forced (I was always kind of annoyed by those that claimed the group knew it would be their swan song), and the single "On Your Own" was just so clean and perfect. The album gets better towards the end, with the combined weight of "Life's An Ocean" and "Stormy Clouds", but it was hardly the cohesive whole I had hoped for. I suppose the group had taken the idea of their region's dedication to American soul music to heart, and hoped they could recreate the sound for a new generation, while I just wanted more shoegaze.
About a year after their breakup, and now with the information overload of the Internet, I was following stories about new Ashcroft projects with Verve drummer Pete Salisbury, and wondering if I would ever hear the results. Eventually it became clear that the band were more-or-less reforming, convincing McCabe to re-join and bringing in an additional member, Simon Tong, to handle some of the guitars and add keyboard to compliment the original four (Ashcroft, McCabe, Salisbury, and bassist Simon Jones). Knowing their difficult history I wasn't exactly holding my breath in anticipation, but I will never forget the moment in the summer of 1997 when I picked up the import single of "Bitter Sweet Symphony" from Let It Be Records in Minneapolis. Putting the disc in the car stereo and hearing those now-infamous strings kick in I felt a mixture of disappointment and anticipation--I wondered if they would break-through with this new, Britpop sound, and was unsure if I'd accept it as their natural sonic progression. (On a strange legal sidenote, the royalties for "BSS" were eventually taken away from the group, since they used a looped sample of a symphonic recording of the Rolling Stones' "The Last Time" they made the song the property of Mick and Keith.)
It wouldn't take long for me to get my answer as it soon seemed like they were everywhere, even to the point where I was no longer answering the confused question about the difference between them and The Verve Pipe. I was admittedly kind of excited, since I thought that perhaps the album would turn out different from this first single -- I have a pretty weird memory of waking up terribly hungover on the day I turned 21 and putting Urban Hymns (released the day before) in the stereo for its first play. I kind of liked bits more than I expected to, but ultimately found it pretty unmemorable--besides "BSS", singles "The Drugs Don't Work" and "Lucky Man" are the only songs that stood out.
Following another attempt to tour the States (I half-heartedly tried to see them in Seattle), McCabe left again and the group eventually imploded for good. Soon after Richard Ashcroft began making awful solo records. However, I still remember the time when The Verve were The Greatest Band Of All Time.
The idea of things becoming cliche is pretty amazing. The ability for something just to become cliche is a testament to the power of that particular concept, right, because it must have been something that was successful enough or enjoyable enough that it was repeated to the point where a pattern was spotted and it was declared cliche. I guess my real question is this: if someone does something that seems cool at the time but later becomes cliche in retrospect does it ruin that thing, OR OR if something seems cliche at the time it happens but then that sorta thing becomes in style does the part thing gain awesomeness in the pub eye?
I think that Los Angeles psychedelic past band Beachwood Sparks was at one point or is remembered being cliche. They are a band that showed it's influences (The Byrds, Flying Burrito Bros, American Beauty era Dead) on it's sleeve, but existed in a time in between the rennaissances of alt country and the current it trend of freaky folk music, two movements they could have more than likely been associated with. Instead they existed in this period where they were seen as this cute little anomaly, and I'm not quite sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing. In some ways, not being associated with these larger movements was probably good as so many of the bands associated with these movements are marginalized and written off immediately as followers and shunned to the ghetto of that subgenre movement. It just depends. If you look at the freak folk movement there are a couple acts that get all the notoriety (Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom) just because it's so easy to write about names that people are familiar with. It seems as if there is some fear in writers (and bloggers, music blog culture has a deep theme of having to write about that one hot band that everyone is writing about i.e. The Arcade Fire, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah) that if they don't write about those specific names that are written about time and again they will be seen as not having their fingers on the pulse of the industry. So many more bands are mostly dismissed quickly (in a way that seems foolish and mob mentality) by the media like Vetiver and Cocorosie. The whole hot trend (like freaky folk) business is hard because while a lot of bands names get tossed around, but only a few get really famous, and then the trend fades fairly quickly and the whole thing is looked back upon in a very dismissive light, "Remember that whole Freaky Folk thing? What was that even about? Six Organs of Admittance??? HA!!" You know, it's like remembering "grunge music" or "nu metal" or "idm" or something. It all seems very silly and the bands aren't really remembered that fondly.
In reality, the Beachwood Sparks existed in somewhat of a vacuum. They were on a big label (Sub Pop), and people sorta knew who they were, but really were mostly ignored as a bit of a novelty. The did seem to be leading their own hot genre trend, but there weren't really any other bands to go along with them. I'm sure there were bands with a somewhat similar aesthetic (most tend to have some sister of brother bands who they vibe off of and together with), but none that ever really came into the general indie rock media eye, leaving Beachwood floating out there like and unprotected island.
Before everyone starts weeping because of this very sad tale I'm weaving about the little nostalgic band that was goofed on and under-appreciated, these dudes did bring it on themselves. A number of the members of the Beachwood Sparks were in the already ordained Greatest Band of All Time, Further, which was pretty much a grunge band like sorta how Dinosaur Jr. was a grunge band, but weirder. The majority of the Sparks worked for many years at the seminal Los Angeles college radio station KXLU. I listened to "Farmer Dave" Scher's (pedal steel/keyboard) killer radio show for years. What I'm saying is, these dudes were hip to the jive. These dudes knew about the indie rock music industry, so when they started growing theire hair all long and wearing funny vintage cowboy shirts they knew what they were doing. I'm calling GIMMICK. I think the dudes were sincere in their appreciation and influences, but let's call a spade a spade. Gimmicks don't have to be bad, in fact, I think it works really well for this band. The first time I saw this band was in early '99 on the internet in some video of them playing live. It was 3 dudes playing acoustic in the shady very overgrown backyard of a house in Silverlake. It was so visually refreshing, the concept of this coming from Los Angeles. It looked nothing like the LA that I knew, and that was so attractive to me, so different than your 80s hair metal, than your punk rocks, than your weird old Beck, than your Britney and Backstreet that was so big at the time which was being recorded only miles away, but somehow these dudes have found a place that was the exact opposite.
The specifics of the Beachwood Sparks look like this: they released a couple of singles in '99 built some sweet buzz with lots of live shows in LA, signed to Sub Pop and their self titled full length debut was unleashed in early '00. The epitome of canyon music, the album was filled with great late 60s influenced melodies and dreamy instrumental passages. The more expansive and more original Once We Were Trees followed a little more than a year later. Main songwriter Chris Gunst found melodies that were more his own and less obviously influenced by those of The Byrds and helps the album attain a lovely forlorn melancholy. It should be noted that this album includes a brilliant cover of Sade's "By Your Side." In early '02, Make the Cowboy Robots Cry EP was released, and it showed the Sparks searching deeper for their own voice with great results. The EP was recorded by Jimmy Tamborello (Dntel, Figurine, The Postal Service) who also provided some instrumentation (some electronics). Having amuch more ethereal vibe that even garnered some Spiritualized references MTCRC was the band's most successful release to date, and unfortunately it has been the band's last release. Rumors of breakups followed after their tour for the EP, and the band has definitely been on hiatus with all the members working on other projects. There are some rumors of a new Beachwood Sparks album, but I wouldn't put to much faith in those.
It's hard for a band that is so styleized to continue on, so many times these bands come to an early demise, feeling trapped by their own style decisions. Beachwood Sparks began to try to break free of their own gimmick, but it might have been too little too late. In the end, I think it was better for this band to not be associated with a hot trend, and instead to have been a bit of a lone quirky oddity and been somewhat cliche in their time, as it allows for a kinder and more open look back. They can be viewed as under appreciated, and when people find out about them and how their visual aesthetic and their musical sound both projected a beautiful hazy earthness they will realize that the Beachwood Sparks left a wonderful legacy. Sometimes even The Greatest Band of All Time is gimmicky, and a little cliche, whatever that means.
Let's just cut this one off at the pass. Steve Martin is not a band per se, BUT Steve Martin made some of the greatest albums of the 1970s, has won Grammys for comedy albums and for his banjo playing on bluegrass recordings. Steve Martin in his stand up days was more rock'n'roll than Oasis. Martin has since gone on to have a mostly brilliant film career, been a frequent contributor to the New Yorker, written acclaimed plays and novels, but this is not what we are concerned. ALBUMS. Must talk about ALBUMS to make this relevant to this blog.
Martin was raised in Southern California. He got his start as a performer at Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm doing magic, comedy, playing banjo, juggling, balloon animals, and lassoing. He broke into the "industry" via his girlfriend who was a dancer on The Smother Brothers Comedy Hour and got him a job as a writer on the show. Martin dropped out of college where he was studying philosophy(specifically logic, cause and effect, and chaos which greatly influenced his comedy material). Martin had great success as a writer including winning a few Emmys. He started doing more standup, working comedy clubs but also opened for music groups like Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Martin became a frequent guest on The Tonight Show and hosted Saturday Night Live 8 times in the first 5 seasons.
Martin released his first album, Let's Get Small, in 1977 and it is a classic comedy album that triumphs over some of the main problems with the entire comedy album concept. It is somehow funny again and again as to where most comedy albums are really only enjoyable for a listen or two. Martin's irreverant non sequiter comedy combined with his shrewd ability to rip on stand up comedy standards made him a truly unique voice in the comedy world. He mixed cool counter culture references (read: drugs) with odd sight gags (which are inexplicable funny without the visuals) and would randomly break out into bizarre hilarious banjo virtuosity. Let's Get Small was recorded live at The Boarding House in San Francisco, and it totally translates onto the album that it was an electric atmosphere and an incredibly cool place to be.
By the late 70s Martin was doing comedy tours in stadiums. He was totally like Andrew "Dice" Clay, but awesome. His second album, A Wild and Crazy Guy, was released a year after his first album and was a huge commercial hit. It hit no. 2 on the Billboard chart. It's a combination of material recorded at smaller clubs and also in mega arena venues and it's an interesting contrast between the two. The stuff in the smaller clubs being much more intellectual and the arena stuff being simpler and goofier. These first two albums are just filled to the brim with Martin's almost overwhelming amount of energy, which is powerful and all over the place. This undeniable energy combined with Martin's very likable self deprecating style makes the Steve Martin of these first two albums maybe the funniest human of all time.
Martin released two more comedy albums, 79's Comedy Is Not Pretty, which is a bit more subdued, but still a good record even though it is a bit of a step back after the first two, and 80's The Steve Martin Brothers which is only comedy on side one and just straight banjo bluegrass jams on side two. This last album is not very funny, unfortunately. There were some very interesting aspects to these albums like the re-appearance of some previously used bits but with different punchlines, that were sometimes more funnier than the original version, but mostly it sounded like old Steve was just going through the motions of the the wild and crazy rambling man. Martin was still a huge huge draw, but wisely decided to officially retire from stand up comedy in 1980.
Dude, OK, I know it's not music, and I know that after some of my recent entries here it might seem like I'm just avoiding writing about something serious, but comedy is serious, people. I believe the same struggles exist in making a great comedy album, or live act for that matter, as exist when making a music record, or live act. The comedy album is mostly a lost art, but it should not be forgotten. Steve Martin says stuff like "electric dog polisher," and also "excuuuuse me," clearly comedy gold, clearly The Greatest Band of All Time.
A popular theory—mostly amongst people who have very little authority to devise such theories—suggests that the vast majority of people have defined their musical vocabulary by the time they've reached their early 20s. What this generally means is that your "favorite" music—that which sets the standard for what will forever be your yardstick in all future listening—has been carved out in your impressionable high school and college years, and that most people will only understand music in the constructs of that time. This is why, for example, "Classic Alternative" radio stations have any legs to stand on—because most people have no interest in hearing things that challenge them beyond what they've understood in their youth. (This may also explain the popularity of Coldplay, but I'm not entirely sure.)
Another popular theory (or one popular with me, anyway) is that when a person plays rock music throughout their formative years, those persons—as they begin to unlock the previously magical mechanics of song structures—are much more likely to become disenchanted with the confines of pop music. In their adult life, these musicians—the smart ones, anyway—have mostly given up on the practices of "pop" music altogether; finding its structures rudimentary, and tedious to play. Instead, they gravitate toward the alienating, often indulgent structures of more complicated musicianship. This is also why traditionally good musicians typically have some of the worst taste in music.
So here's what I'm getting at: if only for the sake of my record collection, I'm sort of glad that I never learned to play an instrument as a kid. Because I'm perfectly contented in my boring ol' pop music. The boring-er the better, in fact. Because in my formative years, I spent most of my time listening molasses-y, hyper-intentional slowcore bands like Bedhead.
Bedhead began in Dallas in 1991, largely as a partnership between the brothers Kadane—Matt and Bubba. After the self-release of a seven inch, Bedhead aligned with one of Texas' only other notables—releasing WhatFunLifeWas, their debut, on King Coffey's (of the Butthole Surfers) Trance Syndicate label. Like most slowcore bands—Codeine, Low, and Galaxie 500 being the most notable—Bedhead's music was more defined by what it wasn't then what it was: it wasn't complicated, wasn't a spectacle, and most obviously, wasn't fast. It was dramatic if only for its sheer lack of dynamics. It was deliberate, melancholy, stark, thoughtful—and ultimately, sort of boring. But it was also lyrically brilliant and highly personal—just the sort of navel-gazey depression soundtrack I needed as I graduated into my 20s... by which time most of the bands that defined the sound had long broken up.
The band seemed sort of doomed from the get-go—always taking a backseat to Matt's academic career, the band only toured when he occasionally returned home to Texas from his new home in New York, with other members regularly stretching all across the globe for a variety of non-band pursuit. But in the whole of their seven-year career, Bedhead managed to release three full-lengths and two EPs (plus a couple of posthumous ones)—each successively better than the last—before calling it quits in 1998.
Their final proper album—the Albini-produced Transaction De Novo—was absolutely life-altering for me; giving me some of my first tastes at a true personal musical aesthetic with a vision that still maintains a lingering impression. It's bands like Bedhead that—sort of for the first time—introduced me to a music that I would want to make, and if I hadn't had the sort of patience for simplicity that I always associate with musical naivety, I may never have had the patience for them. Not that Bedhead were novices, by any means—they were just simple by intention. The sort of simple that most anyone could probably play. Not the sort of thing that dudes who play classical guitar are typically going to want to rock. And I sort of believe that even if I did eventually become virtuosic guitar player, I now have the sort of foundation in my life where the shitty taste in music won't necessarily come with it. Because when i was in my early 20s, I had bands like the Greatest Band of All Time on my side.
Although it might be a difficult matter for some people to wrap their heads around, the idea of being both pop music-obsessed and a discerning music fan aren't always mutually exclusive. Like many other self-conscious music fans before me, I've suffered a great deal of self-flagellation over my affection for perfect, pristine pop songs--never totally comprehending the joys discerning music fans are supposed to find in tuneless walls of noise and jazz music. In recent years, however, I've sort of resolved myself to my fate--but all is not necessarily lost in my pursuit of erudite music snobbery. And I have people like Jens Lekman to thank for it.
At 23, Jens Lekman is a bonafide pop star in his homeland of Sweden--a nation that knows a thing or two about cloyingly perfect pop music--where he recently scored a number two hit on the Swedish pop charts, and picked up three Swedish Grammy nominations. Here in the States, Lekman is a slightly less familiar name--recently releasing his Stateside debut, When I Said I Wanted To Be Your Dog, on Secretly Canadian to decidedly less acclaim. Clearly a card-carrying pop music obsessive, Lekman culls his pop palette from only the finest of sources--a well that includes the likes of Bacharach, Momus, Stephen Merritt, and (a lot of) Jonathan Richman, and that's without even scratching the surface. Fusing baroque pop affectations, a syrupy AM radio baritone, and, appropriately, the occasional well-placed string sample, Lekman's music is something of an experiment in impeccable pop taste--a thoughtful, charmingly light-hearted songwriter of impressive intention. Sure, his lyrics--borrowing Richman's sense of goof, minus the loveably wide-eyed naivety--can get a little cloying, but you've really got to hand it to a guy who can make name-checking Warren G's "Regulate" sound perfectly nostalgic without so much as a hint of irony. Because that guy might just be the Great Band of All Time.
Though it works against most of my preconceptions about the nature of music snobbery—that is to say, it is in some respects my very definition of snobbery—there is very little in this great big musical world that I enjoy more than the classically acquired taste.
Here's the thing—for as narrow and critical my pop world view can be sometimes, I feel like I'm generally pretty open to appreciating new sounds and ideas in the music I consume. Because of this—and because for the past year or so I've been buried in mediocre CDs by bands that insist they sound like "If Brian Wilson had a one night stand in a cantina with Edward G. Robinson, and their gay love child then had a child with the corpse of Ennio Morricone's mother, [insert band name here] would be that child's mid-wife" or some bullshit—I am generally one to take records at face value. If I don't like something the first time, I don't force myself to like it, no matter how much it irritates my friends. Learning to like something seems in many ways antithetical to all that which makes pop music so joyful—if it takes a lot of work to have even the slightest inkling of appreciation, than I figure my time would be better spent just to listen to Louder Than Bombs again.
I say this, of course, acknowledging the fact that the vast majority of my favorite musics could have been at one point considered an acquired taste. The difference is that, over the years, I feel as if I've come to understand just which largely indefinable traits in a music that I will someday, if given time, warm up to tremendously. And after about five years of this sort of vague acknowledgment, I can happily say that the Moles are finally one of my favorite bands.
Formed in the late '80s in Australia, the Moles were one of the main proponents of the oft-revived but never really fully embraced Orch/Chamber-pop movement—a scene for which their fabulously bizarre Untune the Sky is one of the primary articles. After releasing a few singles in the very early '90s, the Moles up-rooted to New York as soon as they completed Untune in 1992. The record was a sort of awkward mix of Go-Betweens styled Aussie-rock and Spacemen 3 tripp-age, but do to the talents of head songsmith/law student Richard Davies (no relation) and the band's general fascination with sonic oddities, Untune often outshines both. The band released a couple of additional singles while in New York before uprooting for London. Following the tradition of most misunderstood pop bands of the era, the Moles drew a great deal of critical attention (read: no money) before breaking up in 1993. In 1994, Davies released Instinct—a solo album for which he maintained the Moles moniker. At nine songs in about 23 minutes, Instinct has been less critically heralded over the years than Untune the Sky—it's considerably more bizarre and disjointed than it's predecessor, and in my opinion a great deal more compelling. Heavy on the horns and strange atmospherics, Instinct was my Moles introduction—and though it took a great while, there's little else I'd rather be listening to these days.
Davies' next project was the mega-nerdily-acclaimed orch-pop project Cardinal, with then unknown (and later controversial) Portland instrumentalist Eric Matthews. People love the shit out of the single, self-titled record they mustered in 1994 before they bitterly split ties, but I've yet to really absorb the magic in it—it sort of just seems like Moles-lite. Davies has released three solo records post-Cardinal: two on Flydaddy—who released the Moles' stuff in the states, as well as Cardinal—and one on Kindercore. (The first solo album was apparently toured with the Flaming Lips as his backing band). Both labels are now defunct, and as most of the material is out of print, I've yet to hunt down Davies' proper solo albums. A label called Wishing Tree recently released a two-disc, Davies compiled compilation of band-era Moles material called Out on the Street, featuring a bunch of stuff from Untune and the early singles, as well as a bunch of "rare and weird" supplementary recordings. It's a good comp, but sort of an awkward introduction for a band with such excellent proper albums. Davies apparently now lives in Massachusetts, where he practices law. He was supposedly supposed to release his fourth solo album in 2004, but for whatever reason—perhaps Kindercore's folding—it's yet to come out. But that fine—'cuz the Moles will always be the Greatest Acquired Taste of All Time.
Earning his teaching certificate in the early '70s British Columbia, former struggling rock musician-turned elementary teacher Hans Fenger took a job at Belmont Elementary School in the semi-remote, "Canadian Bible belt" rurality of Langley, B.C. By 1975, Fenger was assigned by the Langley School District to shuttle between three very small rural schools: Lochiel School, which had an enrollment of about 50 kids; South Carvolth Elementary, a four room school house in the country; and Glenwood School. Fenger, a deeper hippie in the traditional sense, instructed fourth-through-seventh grade students with little regard for music theory—teaching the children to play modern pop music "organically," with arrangements taught orally. After several months of classes, the three schools (about 60 students in all) came together in the Glenwood Gymnasium for three rehearsals before Fenger brought in his buddy's 2-track and a couple of Shure 58s to document the cavernously echoing mess. Recording nine songs—The Beach Boys' "You're So Good To Me," "Little Deuce Coupe," and "Help Me, Rhonda"; Phil Spector's "To Know Him Is To Love Him"; David Bowie's "Space Oddity"; Herman's Hermits' "Into Something Good"; Paul McCartney's "Band On the Run"; Fleetwood Mac's "Rhiannon"; and the Bay City Rollers' "Saturday Night"—in one take, Fenger collected a small sum from the kids and pressed 300 LP copies of Lochiel, South Carvolth, and Glenwood Schools in 1976.
The next year, Fenger was assigned to Wix-Brown Elementary—also in Langley—where with roughly 180 children (and an interpretive gymnastics squad) he recorded a second album's worth of songs—twelve in all—including four more Beach Boys songs ("In My Room," "Good Vibrations," "I Get Around," and "God Only Knows"), the Eagles' "Desperado," and "Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft." With a couple of stand-out soloists to set the to sessions apart, this group was pressed as Wix-Brown Elementary in 1977. And then—or so the legend goes—the recordings were promptly forgotten for about a quarter century.
Oh, right... I almost forgot to mention: the Langley Schools Music Project is perhaps the single most haunting sonic experience ever recorded. Terrifyingly so. Beautifully so. Crushingly so. Beneath a nullifying wall of elementary school gym reverb, dozen of pre-pubescent children singing in startling unison—crashing off-beat percussion, eerily echoed xylophone, tremeloed lapsteel, and coke-bottle slide guitar into something so transcendent and perfectly otherworldly it almost comes off like a put-on.
Rediscovered by DJ, outsider music historian and Songs In the Key of Z author Irwin Chusid (who credits himself for the Esquivel resurgence of the 1990s), the two records Fenger produced in the late '70s had, due to their tiny press run, virtually disappeared. Chusid—after hearing Lochiel, South Carvolth, and Glenwood Schools' rendition of "Space Oddity" on a mixtape submitted to his radio show—hunted down Hans Fenger, who, along with the Langley School district and the Basta Audio-Visuals label, assisted the author in his effort re-release the recordings to a wider audience. Compiled in 2001 under the umbrella of the Langley Schools Music Project, the two original records became Innocence and Dispair (the way Fenger described nine-year-old Sheila Behman's vocal solo on "Desperado"—released to a great deal of critical acclaim, and apparently spawning a VH1 reunion special.
What sounds like little more than readymade NPR fodder—and to be fair, the Langley Schools Music Project has gotten it's fair amount public radio time since its rediscovery—is actually a surprisingly listenable oddity; transcending the sort of novelty status this sort of project seems inevitably doomed to languishing in. It's beautiful, haunting, and incredibly powerful. Were I not so exhausted at present, the preceding description would no doubt be a good deal more evocative, but as it stands, I'll leave you with the obvious: the Langley Schools Music Project was—for at least a couple afternoons in the mid-70s—the Greatest Band of All Time.
In 1991, the biggest album of the decade was released, Nirvana's Nevermind, as well the endlessly lauded Loveless by My Bloody Valentine and also big albums from The Pixies, REM, Slint. So, what album did Spin Magazine pick for its best album of 1991? Teenage Fanclub's Bandwagonesque. It's true. Look it up. They were this mega buzz band. They performed on SNL with Jason Priestly hosting. Magazines called them the next big thing. Pitchfork would've said they were "Best new Music" if Pitchfork would've existed. Alas, Pitchfork didn't exist, and alas Teenage Fanclub was not the next big thing. They continued to make albums that I loved, but critics didn't. They sorta slowly faded away like a old photograph. They put out a quality record every few years, and each time it features at least a few brilliant pop songs. I think that critics sometimes get bitter at dudes who are dependable and not rock'n'roll enough.
It pisses me off, though. Teenage Fanclub is such a special band. It features 3 songwriters who all provide at least 3 tracks per album of amazingly crafted pop music. They are like the Scottish Crosby Stills and Nash but less burnt out and lesbian impregnating and TFC actually have more good albums that CSN. The thing is, if you don't pay very very close attention you wouldn't realize that it is 3 different people penning the music and 3 different people singing the songs. In other cases like Pavement or Guided by Voices where the songwriting was shared, the difference between the writers is very obvious and there is quite a quality difference between the songwriters, but in Fanclub all three dudes (Gerard Love, Norman Blake, Raymond McGinley) are incredible pop music craftsmen. Flat out, there has never been a more ignored and underrated band ever.
They started in Glasgow in the extremely late 80s as the Boy Hairdressers, becoming Teenage Fanclub in 1989. They released their amazing pre grunge debut disc A Catholic Education in 1990. It put every one into a tizzy with its thick guitars, swirling sludge mixed with pop sensibilities. The band was almost immediately scooped up by a major label. Within a year they released the best album of 1991, Bandwagonesque. It was a perfect album, sad and sharp and a little snotty but also forlorn and beautiful. The album opener, "The Concept" absolutely sounds like the early 90s. It's a song about being cool, which sounds trite, but really that's all what we want to hear sometimes. These first two albums Teenage Fanclub was truly "cool." It's really bizarre and intangible, but it exists there in those albums, and ever since then they haven't had that cool....only the amazing songs.
Two years later TFC released Thirteen, which is named after a Big Star song. It was panned and dismissed immediately by the critics. I don't get it. I think it is my favorite TFC album. The emotion on Thirteen run deeper. They lost that snot (which is maybe what made them "cool" but certainly not what made them "good") and brought a deeper sincerity and heaviness. Grand Prix was released in '95 and was met slightly more warmly than Thirteen and was hailed with terms like "concise." It, of course, has a few mind blowing perfect pop songs, but it's second half is a little lacking.
Like the dependable fellows they are, TFC retruned exactly 2 years later with Songs From Northern Britain an album that saw TFC lose the crunchy guitars for the most part, and they showed their 60s pop influence much more than before, especially in production. The album is a beautfiul tribute to their homeland of Scotland, and the art for the album was filled with beautiful pictures the band took of rural Scotland. Another brilliant looked over album that without fail makes me feel so good by just listening to its very precise and personal pop music.
Howdy! was released in 2000 after much label difficulty, and it was an album that never stood out to me, but listening to it now it sounds better than it ever did. TIMELESS MUSIC, PEOPLE! I'm telling you. Just this year the Fannies have released their 7th proper studio album, Man-Made, and it is another very enjoyable album. It's remarkable how they keep doing it. I'm sure the band has been pressured to make some drastic change to their sound to get the critics buzzing. People thought that due to the fact that they were recording with Tortoise's John McEntire that Man-Made would sound like Stereolab or post rock or whatever, but it doesn't, it sounds like Teenage Fanclub. McEntire did a great job and there are a few touches that you can tell are McEntire, but he did not alter the band. It's also not that TFC sounds stale at all, the sound slowly changes. All the records do sound different, but in the fickle world of independent rock music people want to see artists make bold moves that are possible genius or career killers. It's just people wanting a good drama/trajedy and not being happy with amazing music.
I might have missed my chance. I have seen lots of shows, and I have seen almost all my favorite bands. I feel pretty fulfilled as a music fan, but just last week I missed a show by Teenage Fanclub which was only 3 hours away. I feel stupid. I have never seen them play. TFC and Willie Nelson are the only two bands that I still need to see to feel like I have seen everything I need to see in my musical life. I BLEW IT! I blew my chance of seeing a band that has so many great pop songs in the last 15 years I'm giving you a full albums worth today (sorry for the overwhelming amount, I just can't say no to sharing these beauties). I blew my chance at seeing the Greatest Band of All Time.
