Redding, Ca Circa Early 90’s
Redding, CA’s Case For Radio formed as a group of high school friends with probably nothing better to do than to make some noise. Having grown up in Redding, California myself, I can vouch for the dull expansive vortex that is that town. Case For Radio was alive as long as the kids were still in high school and then morphed into a power trio similar to Velvet Crush/Nada Surf power pop with a shoegaze nuance. Kelly Bauman whom now lives in Portland, Oregon and recently put out an excellent album for Jealous Butcher sang on 99% of the songs, all of them examples of gorgeous indie rock, but it is this one penned and sung by Scott Zander that always slays me. “Anvil Hand” concerns itself with the age old literary theme of self-pleasure, and yet has a pervasive tone of melancholy. The guitar solo is one of those perfect ‘anti-solos’ that color rather than take over the instrumental break (think VU’s “I’m Set Free”). I remember commenting on how perfect the solo break was, only to have one of the guys tell me that was where they fucked up. Perfect Sound Forever? Yes.
Loving The Dead
What’s this I hear?!? The band of my dreams is breaking up?!? Is there no greater injustice in this world than finding out a band only to discover that they have just broken up? Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Portland, Oregon’s The Hunches…Too fast, too fine, perhaps too fun for this world…What hooked me was their 2009 long player Exit Dreams from Garage Rock Record Kings In The Red.
What can I say - the band comes off as a reckless blend of Kim Salmon’s Scientists and Iggy’s Stooges filtered through a recording process that sounds not unlike a mic shoved into a rusty Maxwell House Coffee can full of loose gravel. Part of the sheer joy The Hunches have to offer is a clear disrespect for the rules of rock - and at times, one could argue their music is all its musicians playing four different songs at the same time - inevitably through a cloud of hiss, a melody emerges.
“Not Invented” is the dark sister to the Stones’ “I Got The Blues”. This slow burner works counter to some of the more chaotic numbers (”Your Sick Blooms”, “Pinwheel Spins”) - but the most perfect revelation is that everything this band does works beautifully.
Surf City - New Zealand’s Furious Strum and Gun
Surf City takes their name from a Jesus and Mary Chain Single, and not some dreamy addiction to Jan & Dean and The Beach Boys all drowning in the orgiastic California Sixties Surf. Surf City’s self-titled debut EP is a can’t miss proposition. Five songs of frantic guitar and hurried rhythms melding the hyper pop of fellow countrymen The 3D’s with the timeless melodicism of The Clean. This is to say this band is not merely skulking in the shadows of its forefathers but rather Surf City functions as a peer to the very best of New Zealand’s rock and roll exports. “Headin’ Inside” is an adrenalin OD, a pop rock rush and perfected 2:28 second blast of righteous wind. The second offering here, “Dickshakers Union” is a more dynamic affair with instruments coming and going amidst excitable shouts and chants.
If blogs are the new record store (in terms of turning people onto new music) - this is definitely one of those bands that will be exposed by many writers on the web as a significant find. It’s impossible to ever forget the exhilaration any listener feels when hearing a band as legitimately astounding as Surf City for the very first time. Think Pavement, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, and The Verlaines - and more importantly, get this EP now.
Don’t Let Our Youth Go to Waste Ladies and Gentleman…
It’s Richman’s song, and it’s a classic. The first time I heard it however, was on vinyl and by the band Galaxie 500. I had no idea it belonged to the mad genius behind “She’s Cracked”, “Roadrunner”, and “Pablo Picasso” and this just barely stubs a toe against the vast wonderful catalog that is Jonathan Richman’s.
“Don’t Let Our Youth Go to Waste” is rock music’s greatest expression of the carpe dium credo. It’s not just a call to arms, but a call to the heart that life is but a series of moments receding from the shore so we better recognize what beauty they hold and celebrate them in any shape and form. It’s the plea from an insistent suitor to his soft target. Better now than not too late.
I could give you memories to rival Berlin in the 30’s….I don’t really understand your dating bar ways…
Richman’s version here is acapella and most likely from a performance at Harvard in the early seventies. It is taken from an out of print live recording called Precise Modern Lovers Order which includes tracks from shows at Berkeley, Harvard, and Boston. Richman pushes his voice beyond where it wants to go, which only adds to this song’s many charms as well as its awkward sincerity. Perhaps this is the moment Beat Happening took and ran with for their entire celebrated career.
Galaxie 500’s take on Richman’s song adds instruments and a melancholic tone to echo Richman’s poetry. The result is what became my favorite song…
…though hearing the naked honesty behind Richman’s voice sans instruments, perhaps his version is my favorite song…can I have two favorite songs here?
Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers - Don’t Let Our Youth Go To Waste
Galaxie 500 - Don’t Let Our Youth Go To Waste
Piles of Perfect Guitars!
Hailing from Greensboro, North Carolina, The Raymond Brake was the sound of boys growing up in the shadow of Superchunk, Archers of Loaf, and Polvo, and yet remarkably finding their own unique voice. Profoundly in love with the chaos and rush from tube amps pushing heat beyond broadcasts, The Raymond Brake’s debut Piles of Dirty Winter introduced an enthusiastic band whose beauty was in the innocence and impetuousness of romantic youth. Why start a band really, if one is not willing to turn volume knobs skyward and right.
Piles of Dirty Winter is guitar heaven from beginning to end. The churning mad hornet chording to album opener “Philistine” heralds the blueprint for what follows. No matter the volume and violence, melody reigns supreme percolating beneath the tangled troubled heap. Bass lines plunge, harmonics chime, and strings bend and singe. Initially released as a seven inch, “New Wave Dream” is perhaps a more representative, powerful example of what made The Raymond Brake matter. The song floats gauzy ambient passages that are leveled by the chorus and its colossal guitars.
Following its Simple Machines’ long player, The Raymond Brake released an EP Never Work Ever and eventually disbanded. With a move to San Francisco, guitarist and vocalist Andy Cabic went on to collaborate with indie dance instrumentalists Tussle, and eventually form the critically celebrated folk outfit Vetiver whose new album Tight Knit was released February 17th on Sub Pop Records.
A great guitar band will never go out of style, and The Raymond Brake were proof that the great ones will never be forgotten either.
The Raymond Brake - Philistine
The Raymond Brake - New Wave Dream