Freedom Cruise “Sensational Gravity Boy”
Cradle Robbers “Sotto Voce”

Call it nostalgia or I dunno what, but I’ve been going back lately to the pleasant sounds of the Red Hot + Bothered compilation, part of the Red Hot Organization’s series raising money for the fight against AIDS.

This 1995 release was subtitled “The Indie Rock Guide to Dating,” which implies awkwardness and maybe a total catastrophe; instead, we got a neat set of pop songs from various underground-ish luminaries highlighted by a bunch of team-ups.

The pole position went to Freedom Cruise, a one-off conjoining of lo-fi luminaries Guided by Voices and alternative rock stars the Breeders.

For “Sensational Gravity Boy,” Kim Deal somehow ended up behind the drum set in an all-but-buried performance, but it’s kind of wonderful to hear a Bob Pollard song, in all its shambling, classic rock derived, pyschedelic word-shuffling glory, augmented by the cool tones of the Deal sisters’ backing vocals.

I find it a bit weird, but my favorite thing about this song is that processed guitar burbling out of the left channel. Pretty sure I hear at least a phaser and chorus on there, but there’s probably more; I wouldn’t be surprised if the guitar had been modified to shoot bubbles or something. It’s a tone of whimsy and possibility to me so it’s kind of perfect for a nonsense song about a boy who could fly.

Elsewhere on the comp, Lois Maffeo of the band Lois and Spinane Rebecca Gates, leading lights of the Northwest-to-D.C. indie pop scene (if you will), joined forces as the Cradle Robbers. On “Sotto Voce,” a Maffeo composition, they actually nailed the disc’s minor goal of showing off the sexy sounds of underground music geek culture.

The song’s quiet and simple, two soft voices, some sawed wood, mellow keboards. Quite apropos, actually, for tackling the subject of whispers in the night. But the Robbers have stuffed it so full with a messy range of emotion and experience–togetherness, disillusion, antagonism, playfulness, lust, faith–that it comes on sort of epic. Then, just when you think it’s over, they slay you with a wordless refrain.

Red Hot + Bothered at Newbury Comics.

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.)

Sugar “Your Favorite Thing” (fu:el)
My Blood Valentine homage as desperate plea from Bob Mould and his post Hüsker Dü buzzsaw pop outfit. That riff is gigantic, ironically happy sounding.

Sloan “Sugartune” (peppermint)
A veneer of shoegaze on this one too, but even on their first EP, Sloan’s a pop band at heart. In the inspirational vein, this song is ostensibly about itself (”I wrote for you a sugartune”).

The Jesus & Mary Chain “Some Candy Talking” (psychocandy)
The candy here is something a little more dangerous, as danger’s always been JAMC’s stock in trade. Hell, there’s even a “Waiting For The Man” nod (or dozen) in the song, if that’s not too on-the-nose. Genius use of a few minimal elements to give us that hollow, hungry feeling.

The Strangeloves “I Want Candy” (nuggets)
More of a bubblegum bamboozle than a red-blooded ‘Murican garage rock group, the Strangeloves still knew their way around a swingin’ tom groove accented by sax bleats. It’s a jingle, it’s a New Wave hit, it’s the wellspring of many things…

The Push Kings “The Girl Who Only Loves Candy” (far places)
Speaking of bubblegum, the Push Kings first struck me as indie rock’s answer to Wham!–and you know, for me, that’s a good thing. This warning against vice feels more like an ode to the things we gorge ourselves on. I’d pick out a favorite part–the big-riffed chorus, the disco bridge, the overdramatic breakdown, that thing about “beads of sweat on yr turquoise underwear”–but let’s just say the whole thing’s my favorite. Toothache sweet.

Wilco “Candy Floss” (summerteeth)
Wilco in pop production full-throttle, slathering on keyboards and harmonies. It takes Jeff Tweedy to write an homage to early-day Beach Boys that’s about doubt and reservation.

Mike Viola and the Candy Butchers “All I Have” (falling into place)
Straightahead power pop from the Bostonian who, it turns out, is partially responsible for the song from That Thing You Do. Don’t hold it against him though.

Sweet “Teenage Rampage” (best of)
Bubblegum don’t get much tastier than Sweet, and with a surprisingly long chewing life. They’re starting to bridge from their T. Rex-ier times to latterday Queen-iness here. I don’t know why, but the feeling that their revolutionary call to arms is pure hokum–this isn’t actually a live recording, is it?–is a big part of the charm. Too good to be kitsch, but in the neighborhood.

Echo & The Bunnymen “Lips Like Sugar” (s/t)
Somewhere I heard that, as a UVa undergrad, from outside his dorm Pavement prankster Steve Malkmus could regularly be seen in his room lip-synching to Echo & The Bunnymen and prancing around in front of the mirror. I don’t know about sidewalk voyeurs, but I’m pretty sure I’ve done the same to this song.

The Mountain Goats “The Recognition Scene” (sweden)
Lovers on the run! A daring candy heist goes awry! News at 11! (I want to say that the candy is just candy and that the problems–and there are almost always problems between lovers in Mountain Goats songs, especially if they’re on a road trip of any sort–are for an altogether different reason. But that “hot caramel/sticking to our teeth” bit makes me doubt my reading, and I’m not sure why.)

The Spinanes “Halloween Candy” (imp years)
Unsettling and softly seething, this song reminds that “sometimes sweetness is not what it seems.”

Rebecca Gates “Greetings From The Sugar Lick”

I wanted to share with you a solo performance of my favorite Spinanes song off my favorite Spinanes record, provenance unknown. On 1998’s Arches and Aisles, “Sugar Lick” is just this side of soul, organ-drenched and scorching. This version is stripped down, all ringing chords and husky fuck-offs/come-on. I’ve said before that Ms. Gates is incapable of the trite, and that idiosyncratic air, call it mystery, adds immeasurably to the feel of this song. All these years into my love for this track, I still can’t quite parse the plot at work here–it’s sad sacks, cheating hearts and maybe sex as weapon. There’s something heavy and just plain adult about the way she reads off her list of accusations against a faded barfly, then flips the script, proposition as defiant dare: “We’ll meet at yr house/have it all out/pull yr clothes off/let’s get this over with.”

Arches and Aisles at Target.

…in Flak Magazine.

…plus write-ups of “Lure And Cast” by Rebecca Gates, “Jenny & The Ess-Dog” by Steve Malkmus, “Anything You Want” by Spoon and “Ashes Of American Flags” by Wilco.