Hefner – Breaking God’s Heart

I first got this record back in 1998 because I was doing QRD & got promos from Beggar’s Banquet.  In one envelope were my two favorite records of that year, Hefner’s Breaking God’s Heart & Six By Seven’s The Closer You Get.  From the outside there was no reason I would like the Hefner disc as they had none of the elements I was really into at the time.  No shoegazing guitar.  No tribal drums.  No ambient drones. No baritone vocals.  More or less straight indie rock with a little bit of a Buddy Holly edge. But somehow I gave it a chance & it was an instant favorite.

I’m not sure how long it’s been since I heard this record or how it ever got out of my rotation.  It is pretty incredible & I’ve always had a fondness for it.  It’s funny because even now I don’t find any of the many bands that “sound” like Hefner (Built to Spill, Weezer, etc.) interesting at all & there’s something special about Hefner.  I’m not sure that what I really like about Hefner actually has anything to do with the music as much as Darren Hayman’s ability as a storyteller with his lyrics.  All of the songs on here are narcissistic passive-aggressive tales of semi-unrequited love & I don’t know if I’d like them as much if they weren’t so easy for me to relate to them, but luckily enough I can.  I think this might be one of the twenty records I will always want to own & I’d be willing to put it up against Neil Young’s Harvest or Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska & I’m not sure I can think of any band with a stronger debut album.  It may be better to me now than it was all those years ago.

Queensryche: Operation: mindcrime

Well, this is from 1988.  I was 13.  Even at the time I thought the music was a little cheesy & over-the-top.  But the storyline of a drug addict becoming a revolutionary that could save America from it’s government with the help of the Catholic Church seemed like if I played my cards just right it could be about me.  Even though I loved this record, I only had a dub of it on cassette & I had re-arranged the order of the tracks to make it fit on the cassette (despite the fact the songs tell a story in chronological order).  I probably haven’t even heard a song off of this record since 1990 as I started to get into speed metal & death metal at that time.  Still I have jokingly sang a parody of “I Don’t Believe in Love” on a regular basis for years, though pretty much no one ever gets the reference.
So the first thing I notice about this record is the keyboard sounds are awful.  They sound like a 1980s Yamaha & not in the ironic embracing way that some pop bands get away with.  They are just awful.  The vocal style reminds me of Iron Maiden & I don’t mean that in a good way. (Even in the 1980s I thought Iron Maiden’s artwork was way better than their music & I still think that.  Though I haven’t listened to them in 20 years now so maybe Killers is a good record?)  But I think some of the guitar arpeggio stuff on here may have sunk into my unconscious because every once in a while I hear a part of a riff that I have lifted into my own songs.  I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a narrative album that wasn’t over the top & ridiculous, so I’m not sure I can fault this for that.  I just find myself wishing this was an actual rock opera with video.  I feel like I’m missing something with just the audio (I feel the same way about The Wall), but I don’t think they even made videos for most of the songs (at least I can’t find them on YouTube).
This record really does serve as a time machine for me & makes me want to go & smoke Marlboro Reds & drink beers in the woods at the park down the street & plan a revolution, but somehow I don’t think my best friend from junior high would know to show up.  Still I can’t really whole-heartedly endorse it or push it away.  I would say it’s an album worth hearing, just because the narrative element is so bizarre.  Musically it really is way over the top glam metal which is fun & funny.  I think it would be a fun album to take on tour & make the whole van listen to.  You can probably find it used for about the same price as to rent a movie & I think it is worth an hour of your life hanging around a group of folks to talk about it.

Jandek: Six and Six

I didn't get into Jandek until around 2002.  I heard the song "Feathered Drums" & liked it enough that I sent in for the 20 albums for $80 deal that was going at the time (this was a time in my life where I was making more money than usual & didn't have a girlfriend to make me live a little nicer off the extra cash).  Maybe it's because the first song I remember hearing by Jandek is on this album that I gravitated towards it, but this was pretty instantly my favorite of his & clearly the one I'd listened to the most times.  It reminds me of what I like to think I would've done if I'd recorded an album in high school on LSD armed with the acoustic guitar I had with broken tuning pegs.  But at the same time it sounds out there & crazy, the whole thing feels intentional & like a letter from a friend on the brink of discovering the ultimate truth of reality.
It's probably been three years since I last listened to this album & I really have no reason why.  Probably because after seeing him live a while ago, it felt like part of the magic was gone (due in large part to the backing band he had).  Wow, this is still brilliant.  Put him next to Bob Dylan as one of the best songwriters of the twentieth century.  Just a man & his acoustic guitar & that's all you need.  When I put the record on it immediately feels like the room is turned into Jandek's home, he penetrates.  But as much as I love this record I know it's not for everyone.  The guitar is tuned to bring a degree of emotional accuracy rather than tonal accuracy.  The same with the vocals.  People want to call this a blues record & I can see it being up there with some of the Leadbelly stuff that I also like a lot.  This is generally thought of as Jandek at his most raw & that's what I want.  Some how undistilled is better than cleaned up & purified.  The lyrics here stick with you, every time I hear someone talking about going to jail I think of the lines "I've been to jail before / Been let out to" & whenever I see two spiders I remember "two spiders meet on a rock / but they're the same anyway." 
I can't really explain what makes this record special.  There is a vibe like it was made from the sole survivor of a cult that committed suicide & I think that feeling is part of what allowed the rise of the Jandek mythos.  This is the second record (or first record if you credit the first album to The Units) & if you only ever hear one Jandek record, this probably should be the one (though I am also quite fond of the much later The Gone Wait).
The strangest thing for me is on this record Jandek is presumably 35, the same age I am right now.  So it gives me a certain degree of hope that I could go on to do something brilliant & start a new career & we all need to have that feeling of hope more often.

Samhain III: November's Coming Fire

How appropriate. Samhain has always been Glenn Danzig's most underrated project, neither as catchy and fun as Misfits nor as mainstream as Danzig, the band fell somewhere in between. And even amongst Samhain albums, November's Coming Fire stands out as something unique. I remember being in Germany and a big metal fan just getting into punk (which is weird since most punk bands morph into metal), we would travel from our little village to Frankfurt to go to the WOM. At the time you were able to find all sorts of unofficial releases on vinyl, many coloured Misfits vinyl were purchased and eventually that lead to the purchase of Samhain. Everything about this release fit exactly where the imagery Glenn tried to keep up should be. The music was dark, morbid, intense and fit the mood of dark autumn nights lit only by open fire, sort of like a goth camping trip. The back cover photography was exactly the mood the music on the record conveyed. Having seen some bootlegs of the band during this era, it's safe to say that what they captured on tape was something more special than their live set which emphasized the energy more than the mood of the songs. It was goth, not metal, not punk and definitely not the blues rock that Danzig became. For a couple years straight I'd listen to this record what seemed like a couple times a week. Songs like "Mother of Mercy," "Let the Day Begin," "To Walk the Night," and "November's Fire" were all favourites. To me this is Glenn at his peak and it's all been downhill since then. I think the opening instrumental could have been left off but aside from that it's pretty much a perfect record. Well aside from that and the drums being overdubbed, at times you can hear where the beats aren't exactly synched to each other.

Turtletoes: Jackersville

I have a real sort of love-hate relationship with music. In the past few years, most of the new music I've been exposed to has been distastefully mediocre and homogenized, and much of the old music I used to listen to has become dry and dull. I fill my days with podcasts (http://www.guttertrash.net), comedy, books, news and talk radio. Music can stay the fuck away. Stay away, Music! You're not welcome here. Not without handjobs and lollipops.

So, when invited to this blog and told it was to review old favorite albums long strayed, I thought to myself "Brian John Mitchell, what are you trying to get me into this time?! Goddammit!" I want no part of this. Why am I accepting the invite? What are you doing, fingerbrains? I was later told I didn't have to review an album, I could watch an old movie or read an old comic. But it was too late. I listened to something.

Here's my problem. I find all artists to be unreliable pretentious fucktards without any sense of fun or basic human decency, but I find musicians to be the absolute worst kind of artist, especially lyricists. Don't get me wrong - all my best friends are artists. They're also everything I just mentioned. Especially the musicians. Good lord, the musicians. I also think that any creative person who can become adept at their chosen outlet is an amazing human being with a fantastic capacity for mastering an instrument, be it brush or guitar. They're also just, y'know, pretentious scum. But man, lyricists (and poets) need to all go fuck themselves in the faces with a funstick.

Or this.

But back when I listened to music heavily, around '95 and '96, I was always searching for something new and different. I had a couple of friends fully entrenched in the indie music scene at the time - brothers Tim and Joe - and still are to this day. We all worked together at a movie theater, I was finishing up high school and getting ready for art school. I would often work the popcorn popping shift - 8 straight hours in a tiny hot room, popping corn. Luckily there was a stereo, and I would listen to anything and everything. Tim let me borrow a CD from a band called Turtletoes. He claimed to have gone to Ohio University with the primary musician - John Hughes III. I don't know if Tim was lying. He may have been, but it didn't matter, because that album blew my mind. I made a copy and listened to that thing 'til the tape broke. It got me through popcorn popping, art school, my night-manager job at a hotel, shoveling snow in one of the worst winters I can remember, and moving into my own place. I finally got my own copy of the CD back in 2001. It's been a few years since I last heard it all the way through, and so I made it my first choice for this blog.

Self-released from Hughes' own Chicago based Hefty Records, Jackersville was the only album put out under the guise of Turtletoes. In case you missed the connection, Hughes is indeed the son of the legendary filmmaker behind such movies as Baby's Day Out and Curly Sue. The album is a fantastic fusion of jazz and indie rock. Every song is hook-filled and memorable, while all at the same time discordant and schizophrenic. But there's not a track that doesn't have some part that will stick in your head for days. The tracks tend to switch back and forth between jazzy instrumental pieces and rockin' indie/fusion songs. There's no denying that I love the instrumentals far more than the tracks with lyrics. They all have a fantastic rhythm and composition that still reaches into my dead black heart and massages it back to life and gives me chills. Strung together, the instrumentals could be the soundtrack from some sort of Neo-Noir film in the vein of Robert Altman and Elliot Gould's version of Phillip Marlowe.

That said, the "song" songs are also incredibly listenable, enjoyable and catchy. The lyrics all reek of the ridiculousness of a musician high on his own ego and pretension, in a sort of post-Beck way, though this album hit before Beck fully enjoyed mainstream popularity (Odelay was still a year away). Hughes is also not a fantastic singer by any means, but I've never believed that a good singing voice is necessary to making an effective performance. Hell, I love Lemmy.

That guy.

I don't think I could ever go back to listening to this album as much as I did in 1996, but I still definitely love it as much as I did, if not more, due to the simple lack of music I find enjoyable nowadays. I would always welcome Jackersville into my CD player or Windows Media Player. The handjobs are little rougher nowadays, could use some lotion, but the lollipops are just as sweet.

Cranes: Self Non-Self

Like many Cranes fans,  The first introduction to the band was as openers for The Cure's Wish Tour in 1992.  They came across the stadium with Alison's helium voice over dark songs and an emphasis on piano and guitar noise whilst abstract rhythms echoed.  Immediately after the show the hunt was on for the only release available at the time in the states, Wings of Joy.  What I heard was probably the most original collection of sounds I'd heard up to that point in my life.  The subsequent albums became more pop oriented and older releases were pretty much impossible to find in US based CD shops and in an age before widespread internet usage it was a blessing when their first proper release Self Non-Self was re-released by Dedicated later in the 90's.

Unlike the later more song driven and pop oriented albums, Self Non-Self assaults you with the contrast between fragile vocals and the harsh throbbing rhythms.   Obvious influneces included the Birthday Party, but its much more controlled and not a free for all (probably as a result of the lack of drug use in this band in comparison), and I read that the Young Gods were a big influence but i've never really gotten around to listening to them to be able to accurately say it's true.  Self Non-Self is definitely an album that a.) stands the test of time  and b.) sounds like no other album I've heard which probably is why it stands that test of time.  It's not something I can listen to on a regular basis which is probably why I haven't listened to it in quite some time and as a result I'm probably going to be listening to Wings of Joy pretty soon too.   The harsh rhythms, noise guitar, and simplistic repetitive melody structures are industrial and goth influenced but not in the corny electrogoth way, instead offer something more unique that I'm finding a difficult time describing accurately.  It's a pity to hear where they wound up when you listen to where they came from.  

Highlights include "Focus Breathe" and the live version of "Reach."

The Mission UK: Carved in Sand

1988-92 seemed to be a peak in the British music scene’s output, most of the bands that formed in the late 70’s & early 80’s seemed to have released their best material during this time frame and a new crop of bands that would carry the torch were formed.  The Mission UK fell into the former category and since they formed from a split with Andrew Eldritch’s Sisters of Mercy, they’ve released a few albums all seeming to lead up to Carved in Sand.  It was probably their most successful release both commercially and artistically. I’m sure some research would prove that out but it’s not really the point of this review so I’m going to let readers google that on their own if they care.

I purchased this release on cassette at the PX based on the strength of hearing their cover of Aerosmith’s “Dream On” (which at the time I didn’t realize was a cover and wasn’t on this release unfortunately).  Carved in Sand is pieced together the way you’d imagine a live set would come across with songs bleeding into the other, heavy 80’s drums, a wash of reverb over the guitars and upfront vocals.  The thing about the Mission UK is that musically nothing really stands out but instead it all works together to form a cohesive backdrop for Wayne Hussey’s vocals.  Whom in my opinion sounds like Bono, if he actually cared about what he was singing.  It’s full of passion to the point that it’s almost whining.  Both a blessing and a curse for the Mission because on one hand it fits perfectly and adds a different element to the music on the other, it’s sometimes unbearable and borderline cheese filled.   The album kicks off with “Amelia” a sweet song about father/daughter relations which starts off with fast acoustic strumming and Hussey’s whine, calling out to Amelia and damning her fathers actions and for the next five songs the Mission UK delivers a strong, nostalgic and peculiar arena rock set of songs.  Highlights include “Butterfly on a Wheel” and “Deliverance”.  Things start winding down around “Grapes of Wrath,” which reminded me that when I had the cassette, I probably rarely listened to side B.  The songs on the later half of this release mostly sound like the first half but less catchy or interesting, the only exception being the acoustic closer “Lovely.”  This album would make for good traveling music, riding alone in a car for long distances.  It actually reminds me of going to Spain, probably because I purchased it around the time I took a trip there for the first time, although in reality I probably didn’t listen to it once on the trip and in all likelihood I heard Snap’s “I’ve Got The Power” and Technotronix’s “Pump Up The Jam” way more that week.

The Sisters of Mercy: Some Girls Wander By Mistake

I bought this CD in 1993.  Pretty much the peak of my phase of being into the “goth scene” before getting fed up with how much of it was about fashion rather than music.  A part of getting this was that a girl I liked was into the song “Temple of Love.”  I was 18, so girls could still influence the music I listened to at least to a certain degree.  Even back then I remembered thinking this was a bit uneven, probably part of why I haven’t listened to it in about twelve years now.  It kicks off with “Alice” & me thinking, “Why haven’t I listened to this in so long?”  Then the rest of the record starts.  It totally has that production vibe of all the British proto-goth bands (Joy Division, Bauhaus, The Cure, etc.) & the weird swirling stereophonic reverbs remind me of when I used to take LSD & listen to this kind of music.  That probably is the best way to listen to a record like this.  Be 18 & depressed & lonely & intoxicated & trying to crawl into someone else’s brain to figure out how their vision of reality works & if yours is working properly (newsflash: it probably isn’t).  There are songs I like on here (“Alice,” “Heartland,” “Phantom,” “Body Electric,” “Adrenochrome”) & really take me back in time in a pleasant way.  Though it sounds incredibly like 1983 (when most of the songs were recorded), to me it sounds like 1993 & when I master time travel this might be the CD to take me back to that summer.