Tag: 1995

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Frank Black-O-Rama! #9: BLACK SESSIONS – LIVE IN PARIS

Frank Black
The Black Sessions – Live in Paris plus The Kitchen Tapes
1995, Anoise Annoys

If you were in the US and you wanted to keep up with Frank Black in the 90s, you had to buy a bunch of import CDs from Europe. In addition to the singles (most American labels didn’t bother with those at the time unless the band was a major cash cow), there was The John Peel Session EP from the UK in 1995. The next year, there was the Euro edition of The Cult of Ray, which included a second CD with four bonus tracks. Later still in 1998, was the first Frank Black and the Catholics album, which came out on the Belgian label Play It Again Sam several months before it came out anywhere else.

Eh, I didn’t mind. I thought that was cool, even if it cost me a few extra bucks.

Plus, it helped that most of this stuff was easy to get at the time. Not only were record stores more plentiful, but even some of the mega-chains were on a mission to stock every CD that they possibly could to fill their miles of rack space devoted to loss leaders and that’s how I was able to go to the blindingly corporate Best Buy in the shitty suburb of Mesquite, TX in 1996 and scoop up this UK live album.

Sometimes I miss the mid-90s. Then I remember how bad my hair was and am glad that we all moved on.

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Frank Black-O-Rama! #8: THE JOHN PEEL SESSION

Frank Black & Teenage Fanclub
The John Peel Session
1995, Strange Fruit

It’s a 1960s rock ‘n’ roll dance party! This fast and loud 4-song EP bridges the gap between screamin’ Frank Black and screamin’ Freddy Cannon. It burns up the dragstrip. It rips into old school sounds that Black tastefully hinted at in past moments such as his “Duke of Earl” cover for the 1993 Hello Recording Club EP and his own starry ballad “Sir Rockaby” from Teenager of the Year. It’s rough and wired with no synthesizers or UFOs anywhere.

The time was May 1994. Teenager of the Year was brand new. Black was in Europe doing promotional stuff. Like the Pixies several times before, he got invited to record a set for John Peel at the BBC, which is always cool, BUT… he didn’t have a band. He would soon have a band for the upcoming tour, but at the moment, no hay banda.

So he asked Scottish guitar pop heroes Teenage Fanclub to back him up. They said yes and everyone got together to bang out four exclusive tracks fueled by classic influences. It was a performance worth savoring enough that Peel’s own label Strange Fruit put it out on disc the following year.

The first thing you notice about it: NO Teenager of the Year songs. Not even any of the B-sides. What you get instead are two covers and two Black originals that hadn’t yet appeared anywhere else.

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Things I Will Keep #16: GEM, Hexed

My cracked CD case says “hi”.

Gem
Hexed
1995, Restless Records

Happy September, folks.

August will probably always be a slow month on this site. I write everyday, but in the drag days of late summer in Texas, my brain takes a vacation. I won’t repeat my rant from the beginning of my Jill Cunniff piece from last year, but I always spend the 100-plus degree days of August annoyed at everything. I make notes and write fragments for new articles for this site, but in my cranky, sweatball state they rarely feel like anything worth pursuing. If this was my job, I could work my way through this misery, sure, but this is not my job, so I can say “fuck it” with impunity and just not update for a few weeks.

Now, it’s mid-September and it’s still fucking hot (Texas), but the nights are getting more pleasant. The supermarkets have Halloween displays up. Changes are happening, however slowly. The leaves here haven’t yet changed color, but as the world around me slides back into routine, I feel myself receiving good energy again.

What I’m trying to say is that I’m in the mood for some for some killer back-to-school rock and Gem’s shotgun blast of a debut album nails it. Maybe none of these guys had been in school for awhile when they made it. Maybe main songwriter Doug Gillard had been in bands for about fifteen years at this point. Nevertheless, they still kicked up the kind of blare and had the kind of songs that, in a better world, would have shouted out of high school parking lots in 1995.

From the cynical, misfit kids, at least. The kind of kids who could hear a song like “Your Heroes Hate You” and it just confirmed what they suspected about the world already.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #25: BENEFIT FOR THE WINOS

Guided by Voices
Benefit for the WInos
1996, no label

With most bands, by the time you get to their twenty-fifth record, you might be done. Or at least almost done, even if you’re a maniac like me who counts EVERYTHING (singles, EPs, live records). Spring would turn into winter. They’d be well into their later years. Their State Fair years. Their Christmas album years. Their tell-all autobiography years. Their Celebrity Big Brother years. Their “arrested for drunk driving/ shoplifting/ domestic violence” years. Their “suing their old band mates” years. Their “getting into political arguments everyday on Twitter instead of working on new projects” years.

But this is Robert Pollard and Guided by Voices that we’re talking about and by THEIR twenty-fifth record, they were smack in the middle of their most celebrated period. I feel like I’m still only just beginning to talk about this man and this band and these records. We’re still in elementary school here. We’re still playing on the jungle gym. We’re still chewing on pencil erasers. We’re still awkward and farting in class while the other kids pick on us. We haven’t kissed a girl (or a boy, however you swing), yet. There’s still so much ahead and we don’t know shit.

So, it was June 2, 1995 and Guided by Voices were riding high. Every rock critic knew about them. Every insufferable indie rock dork had an opinion about them. Reviews might have been mixed here and there (as they always are for anything that’s interesting), but, overall, Guided by Voices were critical darlings.

EXCEPT in the band’s home town of Dayton, Ohio.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #24: FOR ALL GOOD KIDS

Guided by Voices
For All Good Kids
1995, no label

Guided by Voices have a bunch of live albums, folks. And we’re going to talk about ALL OF THEM.

Because I’m very serious about my Robert Pollard survey. Also, I don’t have anything better to do.

Here’s one of the first things that you need to know: Despite what a lot of sources say, including virtually every music database website, NONE of them are bootlegs in the normal sense. None of them were put out by some scofflaw with a tape recorder up his ass. These are all official records that just LOOK like bootlegs–and sometimes sound like bootlegs. There’s usually no record company mentioned anywhere. The covers are crudely assembled. Photocopied sheets glued to plain white sleeves are common. I’m talkin’ very stark, simple presentations, often with no track list even. Vinyl only, sneaked into mid-90s era record stores under cover of night and shadow. If you stumbled upon one of these in the bins back then, you might have thought “What the fuck is this?”

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #23: TIGERBOMB

Guided by Voices
Tigerbomb
1995, Matador Records

So, we’ve talked about how Guided by Voices went into a studio and recorded shined-up versions of a few Alien Lanes songs, presumably as offerings to the gods of radio, MTV, and licensing.

But then they (or maybe it was Matador’s decision) did something that I still think is weird and released those recordings only on vinyl, a format that was next to dead in 1995. Some cooler indie stores in cities or near universities still stocked it, sure. You could also get an envelope and buy a fuckin’ stamp and send a check or money order to Matador Records in New York City and get this in your mailbox six weeks later, okay (no Paypal yet, kids). The big chain stores though, where Joe Schmoe bought his music, had been done with it for about five years.

So, color me confused on what they were thinking here. Not that I take great issue with it. GBV’s vinyl-only releases motivated a shy young man named Jason to buy his first turntable in 1996. It was a year for me when every dollar was vital and a plastic $100 Sony from Sears was a major purchase at the time, but I did it. I was done with being locked out of the 7″s that I was reading about in magazines like Puncture and CMJ. When I learned that Guided by Voices had new vinyl-only releases, it became essential that I become equipped to play them.

So, I took the plunge. I bought a turntable and very quickly became a real freak for the needle.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #22: GUIDED BY VOICES / NEW RADIANT STORM KING Split 7″

Guided by Voices/New Radiant Storm King
“The Opposing Engineer (Sleeps Alone)” b/w “I Am a Scientist”
1995, Chunk Records

In the vast Sargasso Sea that is Robert Pollard’s body of work, there are remarkably few cover songs. My guess is that there are less than ten, but I don’t have an exact count. I could spend a few minutes researching the matter, but I’m not going to do that because these reviews are already geeky ENOUGH.

This 7″ offers one of those rare specimens. It’s one of those cute split-singles that indie rock bands sometimes do where they cover each other’s songs. You know the drill.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #21: MOTOR AWAY

Guided by Voices
“Motor Away” b/w “Color of My Blade”
1995, Matador Records

“Motor Away” is the song for all of the people who doubted Robert Pollard’s rock ‘n’ roll pursuits over the past ten years. All of the family members and co-workers who said that he was wasting his time. All of the people who thought that he should give up. All of the townies who felt that he was just dreamin’.

This song is for them and its message is simple.

Its message is “Kiss my ass, I was right, I did it.”

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #20: ALIEN LANES

Guided by Voices
Alien Lanes
1995, Matador Records

A part of Robert Pollard’s aesthetic that’s not often talked about is that he’s inspired by the world of record store bins. Endless miles of vinyl to flip through. Records that you’ve seen a million times. Records that you’ve never seen before in your life. Bad records, good records, weird records, records that you will never hear. Records that you wasted money on. Records that you would love if you heard them, but so far you haven’t bothered.

I think that Pollard, a devoted collector who still hits record stores all over the country when he’s on tour, imagines his own work in those bins and he considers it his job to put together something that catches the digger’s eye. He goes for mystery. He wants you to be curious about what the hell kinda record this is, whether you chance upon it in 1995 or 2045.

Thus the abstract collage art (Pollard’s own work) that doesn’t tell you much about the music. Thus the bizarre song titles. Thus the extra-long tracklists.

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Robert Pollard-Mania! #19: BOX

Guided by Voices
Box
1995, Scat Records

To me, music is about more than just the sounds that come out of the speakers. There’s the sleeve art and presentation, sure, but for a weirdo like me it goes beyond even that. Permanently linked to the music that I love are things such as HOW I first heard about that music and WHERE I bought it.

I still remember those rare amazing thrift store scores from back when I was into that sort of thing. I have fond memories of record stores that closed fifteen years ago. I’ll never forget listening to the local indie/underground radio show on Sunday night in Dallas (The Adventure Club on the old KDGE) in the 90s and writing down the songs I liked so I could buy the album the next time I had $12 to spare.

All of that is a part of “the music” for me. I still think that flipping through record bins and making decisions based on intriguing covers and titles is the #1 best way to discover music. I’m not saying that you’ll strike gold every time, but it’s more fun and more crazy and it puts more original thoughts in your head than streaming Pitchfork’s latest list of picks that are carefully selected to make them look still relevant.

Music for me is partly about the hunt. It’s about running into the inexplicable and unexpected all on your own and taking a risk. That’s how I’ve always done it, at least.

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