Submarine “Pollen”

I’m reaching back to the dorm room days here. That was a time of Anglophilia for me, at least partially out of lingering sentiment for a big summer love I’d had with a British woman (Where are you now, Becky C?).

Picking up the Volume mini-mag/compilation series on import was one way I indulged this tendency. It was a pretty reliable source for rare tracks by U.S. alt-rockers and introductions to U.K. NME faves, G-d bless their poor, doomed hearts, as well as the breathless hyperbole and cheekiness we expect from the Brit music press.

Submarine¹ was possibly my favorite discovery from that time. This English outfit combined the languor and softness of the slowcore pioneered by Galaxie 500 with the wallpaper/earbleed guitar of shoegazers like My Bloody Valentine. Pardon the pin-the-comparison-on-the-rock-band, but the one thing about their Volume interview I remember is that these guys pretty much copped to their influences, with maybe a nod to Amerindie freaks like the Flaming Lips.

A decade-plus later, the music still holds up for me. For instance, we have “Pollen,” off 1994 singles comp Kiss Me Till Your Ears Burn Off. It was the Volume track, the first song I heard by these guys.

Why it was relevant to me in 199_: The “I’m tired of always feeling the same” line spoke to my youthful ennui. (Don’t worry, guys, somehow I survived.) And its “I really wanna see you again” refrain made it the soundtrack to a semester or two of pinings for the aforementioned summer love.

But bittersweet nostalgia held aside, the song is trippy and epic, repetitive to the point of being meditative. “Pollen” has all these wonderful elements, and each would be enough in and of itself to sort of make the song for me.

I love the layers of stompbox guitarmageddon and the shy, mushmouthed vocals. Then there’s the melodic bass part that actually holds the arrangement together, a legacy of New Order bass hero Peter Hook passed down through Naomi Y. of Galaxie 500. The chimes, the whistling feedback that pops in prettily, the vaguely Eastern drone–this could’ve been a fussy, disjointed mess, but the pieces came together organically and instead it’s a gorgeous mess.

I actually spent a little more than my usual five minutes of Google research in prepping this post, because these guys have disappeared so completely that if I didn’t have the discs to show for it I’d almost think I imagined ‘em.

Thank garsh for Wikipedia, ’cause now I know that Submarine split up, then reformed more or less as Jetboy DC–who in turn disappeared even more completely with even less evidence of ever existing.

Main Submariner Neil Haydock may now be a chef. Bass fiddler Rob Harron apparently traveled back in time and became a silent movie star. Drummer Rob Havis (a.k.a. “Ponk” and no, I’m not kidding) soldiers on with something call Suns of the Tundra.

Shine on, you crazy diamonds, and thanks for two platters worth of insane beauty and psych rock power.

Kiss Me Till Your Ears Burn Off at Gemm.
S/T at Amazon.

The Mountain Goats “The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton” (Live)

OK, sorry that this week, maybe this month, has turned into PCR Featuring The Usual Suspects of Indie Rock. Maybe I lack imagination or maybe the holidays are making me return to my musical equivalent of comfort food. (A Sebadoh post can only be fast upon the heels…)

Anyway, archive.org says that back in 2002 my About page read, in part:

Please don’t blame the man, but PCR is more than partially inspired by John Darnielle’s zine, Last Plane to Jakarta, which really every one should read. I’m sure I’ll be talking soon about his most recent album under the Mountain Goats moniker, All Hail West Texas, probably the album that’s meant the most to me this year.

It occurred to me to follow up on this, since we’re almost at 2007. That’s about my typical turaround time on plans. So over the course of the next _____, from time to time I’ll come back to All Hail, a concept album made by one man, his acoustic guitar and an obsolete boombox, which nonetheless got me through and over my first real, major break-up. I’ll try to minimize the use of the phrases “tape hiss,” “yelp,” “frenetic strumming,” “genius,” but please don’t hold me to that.

The lead-off track, “The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton,” is a heartbreaking wolf disguised in novelty-song sheepskin. I mean, death metal is no laughing matter for Darnielle, right, but there’s a jokiness here… if I have to explain it, it’s not funny, right?

The story of Jeff and Cyrus, the duo who make up the eponymous and ultimately untitled band, is about how the world can beat you down. Or at least about how the powers that be in West Texas doesn’t see the greater good of teens indulging naive ambition–really, are there any death metal bands who can afford to travel via Lear jet?–and a little good old fashioned Devil’s Music–ah, those damning pentagram stencils.

But it’s mostly setup for the bitter prospect of revenge, the Moment that so often gives me goosebumps, Darnielle crying, “When you punish a person for dreaming his dream/don’t expect him to thank or forgive you.” What’s better is that it’s followed by instant catharsis, albeit a promise that I often doubt: “The best ever death metal band out of Denton/will in time both outpace and outlive you.” I can’t be so sure that Jeff and Cyrus will triumph. But I’m a cynic.

The closing refrain is, then, no joke, but as anthemic as the Goats get, an invitation to pump fists along with these young men cast aside by society. “Hail Satan, tonight,” indeed.

And you have the birth of a little masterpiece and fan fave. A note on the attached mp3, a recording made by someone else of the recent secret Mountain Goats show in Claremont, Cali: I’m generally very anti singing along with performers at acoustic shows, at least until they invite that audience participation (which, OK, Darnielle does around 1:40), but for the reasons enumerated above, the singalong–and the devil’s horn salute–are very very necessary.

Can I get a “fuck yeah”? I think I can.

All Hail West Texas at Target.

Spoon “Everything Hits At Once”

The radio got totally intolerable last night while I was driving home from work, so I needed a change. I put in Girls Can Tell, Austin rockers Spoon’s moody and marvelous 2000 return to the indie world after an ill-fated sojourn into the indifferent arms of Neglektra Elektra. I ended up kinda just listening to “Everything Hits At Once,” the album opener, on repeat. (Yeah, you got me, at first it was all about that “lights in traffic we become/on the way back home” line.)

I notice that I focus a lot on lyrics–which are easier to pick apart in that “what is a song but poetry set to music” way, especially for a words guy like me–to the exclusion of talking about the actual, you know, music. Sometimes it’s really hard to get past the rockcrit mad libs: [stock adj] [instrument] (e.g., “swirling organ,” “jangly guitar,” “booming drums”) or “sounds like [band 1] meets [thing 2].”

So today, one and a half instrumental things that surprised me about “Everything Hits At Once,” and one and half that didn’t.

The Trouble Tone: If you’d've asked me what the very first sound on this song is, I would’ve said, “Easy. The drums kick in, ‘bish-dum-dum-doo-dat.’ ” But really, a split second earlier, a really quiet synth drone comes in, and maintains that chord for the song’s first 30 seconds or so. (It might go on longer, but I lose it around the half-minute mark.)

That the presence of this sound is a revelation to me speaks to either (1) my listening so often on shitty computer speakers, (2) my habit of listening while distracted by some other task or (3) that hole in my head everybody keeps talking about.

Anyway, as the song gets going, the bass moves and some brighter keyboards alternate between a couple chords. But that static drone in the background hangs, somber, creating unease like the sound of distant sirens. It’s super-subtle, but it’s alerting yr animal brain that this isn’t necessarily a happy time coming up.

Dreamtime Solo: Britt Daniel, the main Spooner, has always had an inventive touch with guitar solos, at times ending up just this side of out–blasting minimal skronk or tearing off figures that are more rhythmic in character than shreddy or melodic. Solos become little detours and tangents in Spoon songs.

Elements of this approach translated to the mellotron solo, played by one of the dudes from Trail of Dead, that starts around 2:16. “Everything Hits At Once” goes all the sudden from being lean and dark to turning lush and weird and starry-eyed.

Skins: I love the way Spoon places the drums in their mixes. They’ve figured out a consistent sweet spot where you really feel and hear what the drums are doing, but they don’t overpower the song, while the overall sound remains streamlined and clutter-free. As a result, they’re one of the few rock bands who have sat out the overcompression/loudness wars but nonetheless make songs that can sit next to a hip hop track in yr party shuffle without sounding weak.

In “Everything Hits At Once” you get a steady, nuanced performance from sticksman Jim Eno. It sounds like a real drummer doing his thing in a room (this is rarer than you think), booms loud and clear enough to really move the song, and has accents that actually, you know, seem to accentuate the feel and meaning of the song.

(And OK, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks: I find the refrain “I go to sleep and think that yr next to me” to be a perfectly succinct encapsulation of the post-breakup desolate devastation blues as I remember them; and the concept of fading into the sea of rush hour cars as a kind of communion is mystifying.)

Please enjoy the computerized rotoscope magic of Divya Srinivasan’s video for this song. It’s got parts that are lean and dark and lush and weird and starry-eyed, so it’s kind of perfect.

Girls Can Tell at Target. (and at iTunes.)

Ted Leo “Under The Hedge” (Demo)

I’m kind of a Ted Leo/Pharmacists superfan, and I realized that a couple months into hacking away at this newfangled “blag” thing all the kids are talking about, I haven’t featured any music by dude.

He pulls off his Thin Lizzy/Jam/Elvis C./dubby vein of punk-inspired smart rock–not exactly a trendy endeavor at any point in the last decade or so–without being, to these ears, wholly derivative. His songs are catchy, and the POV of his lyrics show a guys whose head and heart are in the right place. And anyone who’s seen the live sweat knows Leo’s like the Hardest Working Man in Indie Rock. (Or is that damning with faint praise?)

So today we have the demo version of “Under The Hedge” (The Tyranny of Distance, 2001), provenance unknown but possibly nabbed from TedLeo.com in the past. In its nascent stage, it’s a bit slower than the harder-rockin’ album version, which I’d argue allows the song of the song to come through a little more. Everything else is intact, from the opening step-dancin’ riff to the big solo. I’m never 100% sure I’m totally getting Leo’s point, and maybe I’m copping out before I even get going here, but “Under The Hedge” nails, for me, that special crushed-out feeling.

The demo take is incrementally more tentative-sounding than the final album version, and what befits being crushed out more than butterfly-bellied doubt? Sometimes it feels like yr just talking yrself into it. But it feels like love, even (especially?) if it’s not returned. Sometimes you feel a little like a spectator. In this case, the metaphor employed, watching from the margins, hiding in the bushes, should be creepy and stalkerish. But the openness of the melody and the chime of the arpeggio in the verse makes it sound sweet.

The song also has the sense of rooting for someone who doesn’t see in herself all the wonder you see in her. (Make that “himself … him,” as appropriate.) The White Knight Syndrome lives on, expressed aphoristically here by Mr. Leo. Actually, this evokes a particular long-ago crush from me, in the bad old days. So as much as I know that the kind of infatuation described in “Under The Hedge” is a bad idea, it still feels romantic to me.

The Tyranny of Distance at Newbury Comics. (MP3s at iTunes and Insound.)

The Spinanes “Madding”
Lois “Rougher”
Mark De Gli Antoni “They Wave”

For those of you who enjoyed all or part of Sabado de Gloria week, I thought I’d close out with one more Elliott Smith-related post, here collecting a handful of guest vocal type situations.

Elliott harmonizes on the sultry, syrupy “Madding,” opener to Portland indie pop fellow-travelers the Spinanes’ 1996 record, Strand, maybe as a return favor for main Spinane Rebecca Gates’ backing vox turn on the recorded version of “St. Ide’s Heaven.” (Strand being a decade old reminded me again that I’m a grey old man. Hooray!)

Gates’ songwriting has always fascinated me. She’s got the same sort of personal vocabulary, and resistance to cliché, that I’ve been attributing to Smith all week. And she’s got a combination of mystery and forthrightness to her lyrical voice that, delivered in her own husky tones, is undeniably sexy. So as Elliott’s whispery tenor blends perfectly with saidsame dusk ‘n’ husk, we get an unsettling lullyaby, to someone who, inscrutably enough, has head afire but “I know yr tired.”

Also from 1996 is Lois’ “Rougher,” first track on Infinity Plus, recorded in Elliott’s Portland house and again featuring him on strums and harmonies. The band Lois is built around Lois Maffeo, a prime mover of the K Records scene who was in fact in a short-lived band with R. Gates (it all comes back around) and played for a while with Courtney Love (the band, not the train wreck).

“Rougher” is a bit of wistful acoustic pop. It’s shot through with the regrets and resignation of picking up the pieces after the break-up, but there’s a lightness to the chorus that gives the song a warmth and shine. And somehow two voices, two acoustic guitars, imply something bigger and fuller.

The oddball track in this post is from 1999’s Horse Tricks, the solo album by Mark De Gli Antoni, keyboard and sampler operator for once-upon-a-time NYC avant/alt/jazz-hoppers Soul Coughing. “They Wave” bops along on a minimal, glitchy groove, and then at the 1:50 mark (d’oh!) a sad, sweet and bizarre little piano tune fragment by Smith floats into the background of the mix.

I’m not sure what exactly to make of it. It’s less a “you got yr chocolate in my peanut butter” thing and more like “you got yr whiskey in my buddha rhubarb butter.” I’d imagine there was a plan here, but it feels a bit more like worlds colliding, and awkwardly. De Gli Antoni’s record was pitched as avant composing (it’s on John Zorn’s label), so maybe it’s simply beyond me.

Feel free to set me straight in the comments section, or just enjoy the strangeness.

Donate to the Elliott Smith Memorial Fund.
Strand at Target. (and at iTunes.)
Infinity Plus at Gemm. (and at iTunes.)
Horse Tricks at Newbury Comics. (and at iTunes.)