The Counterforce No. 7
Twin Peaks/Minutemen, Ian Winwood's 'Bodies', Stud Count, Gina Birch/The Raincoats, longboxes, and much more...
This tweet made me so happy on Sunday, I had to share it twice. And now again here. Most people know ‘History Lesson Part II’, but oh man, when I discovered it back in 1991, this song blew me away.
Double Nickels On The Dime was another record I bought at Cutler’s Records & Tapes back then. The site of my best friend asking ‘do you have anything by Buttery Cake Ass?’ which inspired the book I’ve been focusing all my energies on this year. It wasn’t until a couple decades later that I learned the Minutemen title was a response to Red Rocker Sammy Hagar’s ‘I Can’t Drive 55’. ‘History Lesson Part II’ was a song my friend Mark and I used to jam on all the time back then. Mark was a good musician, playing the clarinet and soon picking up the bass clarinet, and something about those lower frequencies brought him to the bass guitar, smiling as he imitated Mike Watt here whenever we’d play. Something I always loved about Mark was that, as he was learning the bass, if there was something he was hearing in his head that his fingers couldn’t quite do yet, he’d stop playing and sing the part. Getting the musical idea out there any way you can.
The big thing I’ve spent most of my free time with this past week has been Ian Winwood’s Bodies: Life and Death in Music. I can’t recommend this enough. An excellent book. Dark as it often gets, the writing itself is a delight. Talking to musicians and mental health experts alike, alongside hefty doses of his own personal struggles, Winwood details the dangers of life on the artistic side of the music industry. The multitude of stresses that are all too easily (temporarily) alleviated by ready and ample supplies of drink and drugs, while those controlling the purse strings look on unconcerned as to how you get through it all, or even if you personally do, for there’s always plenty of other hopefuls who have been waiting for their chance. Laid out like a record, with chapters 1-5 making up side one, and 6-10 side two, in its own way, the book follows the course one would take undergoing a long term relationship with substance abuse. The first few chapters discuss the allure of rock star antics. One of my favourite quotes, setting the measure for these things - “Ozzy urinated on the Alamo, wearing women’s clothing, in the middle of the afternoon. What have you got?” Then chapter four gets very grim, and for altogether different reasons, chapter five is harrowing, Winwood recalling a scene from his own life that no one should ever have to go through. Flipping over the side, from chapter six onwards, Winwood offers slight rays of hope as he recounts artists - Biffy Clyro, The Offspring, Chumbawamba, Frank Turner - who found ways to cope with such insane demands and manage to hang on to some of their sanity. Touching too on the fact that because of the way the industry is now set up, artists need to be on the road to earn any sort of living from music, and it’s out there where most of the temptations linger. Though of course there are ones who find life at home just as difficult.
Early on Winwood points out that in receiving letters from his dad when he was young, he would marvel how - reduced to only words on the page, no vocal inflections or other additional circumstances - his father could still really make him laugh. And Winwood’s own writing is very funny indeed. He can sure craft a sentence, amusing even as the words pack a punch about the topic at hand. Admittedly, I listened to the audiobook, which Winwood reads himself, but I can still recognise a great phrase when I hear one. On a side note, I was pleased to hear the author’s advice to young writers is learn how to type. I fondly recall reading this very same prescription in J.P. Donleavy’s The History Of The Ginger Man back in 2004 and straight away setting myself upon an internet typing course. Now I average 60-70 wpm. But back to the book at hand - BUY IT
My big musical discovery of this week has been Stud Count. Often veering on the rock side of punk rock, this Philadelphia quartet mean business. Their album is 12 songs in 21 minutes. Oh yeah. Great energy with a big sense of melody. ‘Through My Window’ is my current fave off their self-titled debut, getting a lot of plays on my stereo lately.
Other highlights include ‘Willow’, ‘Talkin’ 2 You’, & ‘Big Fish’
I’m a few weeks late to this, but I’ve also really been enjoying Gina Birch’s I Play My Bass Loud. The whole album is really good. Groovy, dubby, big atmospheres and a whole lot of fun. I’ve always loved The Raincoats, and also heartily recommend Jenn Pelly’s 33 1/3 book on their debut album. Oh yeah, looking at that link, there’s a quote from my review of the book for Under The Radar - “It is a record that could only be made by women, and although Pelly doesn't labor over this, she does an excellent job of showing its truth...a fine addition to the 33 1/3 canon, dealing with an album that is most worthy of being analyzed even while its very nature escapes any definite conclusions.”
Returning to the Minutemen, I finally had a chance to dig out my old longboxes yesterday and it was wonderful to look at them again. Brought back so many memories of just how exciting it was, being 16 and getting into all this great music. I vividly recall the occasions I got each one of them, especially Christmas 1992 where my mom got me The Jesus & Mary Chain’s Darklands, Sebadoh’s Smash Your Head On The Punk Rock, Drop Nineteens’ Delaware, and Minutemen’s 3-Way Tie (For Last). Perhaps my favourite Xmas ever. Or driving up to New Haven, again to Cutler’s, one afternoon in February 1993 hoping they’d have PiL’s Second Edition. So psyched that they did, rushing home - no cd player in the car yet - to listen to it. Then, as the experience was so unlike anything else I’d ever felt, immediately driving to my friend Jon’s house, ‘You gotta hear this!’. For those of you too young to remember and/or outside the US, until 1993 cds used to come in ‘longboxes’, the width of a cd but 12” high to mimic a record in the stacks. One reason I’ve heard for this excess packaging was that US companies couldn’t agree on where to place the barcode on the cd insert itself and thus this was the compromise reached.
SEVEN SONGS
The Damned - ‘Plan 9 Channel 7’. concertarchives.org reminded me that 25 years ago last Tuesday I drove three hours through a blizzard to get to The Middle East club in Cambridge, MA to see The Damned play for the first time. It was crazy, cars were spinning off the highway in front of me and at times visibility was close to zero. But I made it just in time for them to kick into this tune, one of my faves, and it was freaking awesome
Drop Nineteens - ‘Winona’. When I posted those longbox pics on Twitter and IG, quite a few people commented about this band. This is a lost shoegaze classic
Love And Rockets - ‘Dog-End Of A Day Gone By’. David J did a Tim’s Twitter Listening Party for the trio’s mighty debut album yesterday. Such an awesome record sleeve too. I really must pick this up on vinyl, my cd artwork is different.
Tough to choose, I love ‘Haunted When The Minutes Drag’ just as much, but this is one of my favourites
The Hold Steady - ‘Girls Like Status’. I’ve been on a Hold Steady kick the past coupla days. One of the great American rock bands
Angelo Badalamenti & Siouxsie Sioux - ‘Careless Love’. Speaking of Twin Peaks… plenty of other great stuff from The Bad Angel too
Luna - ‘Slash Your Tires’. A fine, fine pop song. One of my favourite things Dean has ever done
Kendra Smith - ‘Stille Im Meine Hamburg’. The flipside of a split 7” with Keith Levene & Hillel Slovak. I couldn’t believe my luck when I found this, at Brass City Records in Waterbury, CT sometime in the 90s. I was on a big Keith Levene kick and wouldn’t come to discover Opal and Kendra’s solo music until a little later. This is beautiful, a slight feeling of derangement with all the pieces feeling like they’re pulling against each other, overcoming that for a cohesive bit of loveliness
As a Connecticut native (and returnee), great to hear mentions of Cutler’s and Brass City Records.
In the mid- to late-70s, my friends and I made regular jaunts to the record store in Meriden Square, the Civic Center’s Al Franklin’s, and Cutler’s.
Of course we bought everything by the old-school outfits, but punk and New Wave blew our minds.