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Foreign
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welcome to the Accelerated Culture Podcast. A sonic journey through the vibrant and revolutionary sounds of the 1980s and 1990s, and now 2024 Webby honoree for best Indie Podcast. I'm Lori, along with my co host, Scott Free. And in this podcast we explore how new waves stormed the airwaves in the early 80s and and gave way for the rise of alternative music in the 90s. Find us on the web@acceleratedculturepodcast.com.
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Greetings. Welcome back to the Accelerated Culture Podcast. I am your co host, Scott Free.
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B
And I'm Laurie. What's up?
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A
Well, we have been talking for a bunch of episodes about how we are coming to the end of 1992, and with this episode we are ending it. And although there are a lot of albums that we could talk about, well, we're ending 1992, at least as far as this podcast is concerned. So this, much like we did at the end of 1991, is an episode that we like to call and the
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B
rest, good year 92. I'm looking forward to this. We've got some interesting picks here, and as usual, Scott, you've come up with some bands that I've never even heard of.
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A
You know, I like to keep it weird, and 1992 made that easy. There was some weird, cool stuff coming out and a lot of things could fit under the alternative label and a lot of things became classics. Or in the case of this episode, the catch all, some stuff that maybe didn't get recognized as classics that maybe should have. Yes.
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B
Before we get into the meat of the episode, Scott, we should probably mention to our listeners we've kind of slipped into a once a month kind of schedule. It sounds like we're going to continue to do once a month for the duration of the summer. Is that correct?
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A
That seems right. There's a lot going on. And while we know that you all devoted listeners have a lot of hours to fill with your commutes and your work and your sauna.
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B
Hi, Jeff.
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A
Saunas and the like. Sauna, yeah, sure, sauna. You know, there's a lot going on out there in the world and we're going to go out and do more of it, but we'll be back here monthly with plenty of music and commentary, so we'll still be around.
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B
All right, so in the past month, Scott, what have you seen? What have you done?
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A
Oh, wow. So, so much. Many bands. A couple festivals in Chicago. It was a terrible name for a festival at the Salt Shed, Warm Love, Cool Dreams, at which I saw Pixel Grip Tortoise Chicago, Legendary. How do you describe them? Experimental. Math, rock. Groovy. I don't even know. So good. Chicago band, Tortoise, the Jesus and Mary Chain. Yet again.
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B
Oh, this was the show that the Psychedelic Furs had to bow out of, wasn't it?
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A
I will say that's true, but I wasn't aware they were supposed to be at it.
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B
Oh, I thought they were.
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A
Then also Courtney Barnett, who absolutely killed it. Just this last Sunday night. Before that, saw Archive at Subterranean. Amazing show. And then one that I've been wanting to talk about since late April, Thomas Dolby at the House of Blues. I've been wanting to see Thomas Dolby for years. Had seen clips of and reviews of past shows of his where it's just him, keyboards, drum machines, samplers and sort of live creating his tracks on the fly. So I was really excited to see this at this House of blues show on 4 20. It was called Iconic 80s Recollections. And I have such mixed feelings about this show. So Thomas Dolby, people know him, of course, from she Blinded Me With Science and maybe to a lesser degree Europa and the Pirate Twins, one of our submarines. But a whole storied career and many albums after that. Some really good stuff in there. That said, he has also been a music technologist. He was one of the first to do online music algorithmic based suggestion engines where. And actually myself and our good friend Dan Brown, he and I actually worked for him through a. Through a web design company that we were working on in the early days.
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B
Oh, wow.
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A
Yeah. And so he's a pioneer in a lot of ways. In more recent years he has been a professor of music at Johns Hopkins University School of Music. He has been working with undergrad students apparently, and then has access to the symphonic orchestra that the college has. And he was very excitedly talking in this show at the House of Blues, but swearing the entire crowd to secrecy on this project, which I think is not how secrets work about how he was writing a symphony. And his symphony was review slash reminiscences of the 80s and the new wave and related music of that era. And so he asked the crowd excitedly if he could debut some of this symphony to them. And of course the crowd, made up of Gen Xers and even a little older, excitedly assented to this. And what happened from there was a medley of 80s tunes that rapidly morphed one into the other in a way that was both fascinating and horrifying.
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B
Oh, I had to look up the last time I saw Thomas Dolby Live. October 7, 2011, with my buddy Lalo. That was a really neat show. It was at a very small venue and it was just him and his synth, and he was as much a storyteller as he was an artist.
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A
Yeah. Which he did in this show, too.
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B
Yes. And was regaling everybody with stories behind some of the songs, like Europa and the Pirate Twins. There's a story there about a girl that he used to love. Yeah, but. Yeah, please continue. Okay.
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A
So he proceeds into this symphony medley of new wave and pop tunes and, like, opens with a live looped on the fly mix of New Order's Blue Monday, which was not what I expected as the first song at a Thomas Dolby show. He then does his own song, evil Twin Brother, which then sort of morphs into the Police's Bring on the Night. His own song, the Flat Earth, from the EP of the same name. And it's amazing. Ep. Really psyched to hear that. But then not a lot of people know this, but they should. Foreigners song. I've Been Waiting.
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B
Oh, yeah, he played on that.
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A
Yeah. The sort of lilting, ethereal, keyboardy intro that starts off that song and goes throughout. That's Thomas Dolby, a very young Thomas Dolby. So he launches into Foreigners I've been waiting, which morphs into Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb, which morphs into Running up that Hill and Sledgehammer and Here comes the Rain and Sign your Name and little Corvette and Billie Jean and naive melody, this must be the place. And then his own song, I love you, goodbye. And as each song comes in and the crowd's like, oh, I know that song. The. They start clapping. And I was just having flashbacks to being a kid and seeing these very old people on PBS clapping along to oldies on the Lawrence Welk show. And it's like, is this where we are as Gen X? Are we now stuck in this nostalgia trap? Like the generation before was going to see the Four Tops and the Temptations, but none of the original members still in the band with the Motown review are we stuck in a nostalgia trap. And Laurie, are you and I perpetuating that nostalgia trap with this podcast, we're old. Oh, right. I guess maybe that's it.
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B
But yeah, no, I was thinking about that because somebody had pointed out when Happy Days, the sitcom aired, right, it took place in the 50s and it aired in the late 70s, so the equivalent show right now would be taking place in the early 2000s.
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A
Oh, there's no need for that kind of talk.
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B
So that's. That's weird. That he was playing all these other people's songs. I mean, I get songs that he composed or performed on, but that's a little peculiar.
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A
Yeah, I mean, he's framing it as a symphony about the 80s. Not about his career, but about the 80s. But it's just becoming this pop hits review in a way that just made me deeply uncomfortable. But it was more uncomfortable at just the crowd. Just like, yay, I know that song. And clapping along and it's like, oh, man, we're old people. That's what's happening. I have a few shouts out, especially because of the aforementioned warm nights Cool Dreams shows at the Salt Shed. Just wanted to give a shout out to Eric at Roam. Eric is a partner and agent at the Roam agency that represents a lot of very cool artists. Ran into him there, hadn't seen him in years, but just wanted to say, what up, Eric? To Shelley at the Salt Shed, who hooked us up with some VIP action, and to Scotty at do312. Thanks for the hookups, all y'.
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C
All.
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B
All right, well, we are picking up, I guess, for lack of a better word, the remnants of 1992 stuff that we didn't want the year to pass without at least giving a mention, you
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A
know, and the rest, not all of the albums that have gone without mention, but some ones that we feel like should be highlighted. They're going to be some ones that you're going to be like, what the hell? You got through 1992 and you didn't talk about this one. There might be reasons for that. There may be another album by that band coming up in 93 or 94, and we're like, we're gonna wait for then, right? Or, you know, if we were to spend two weeks or a month recording an episode on every noteworthy album in the year, we would be doing this until the2040s.
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B
Well, Scott, I will let you start us off then. The first band that you chose, I had never even heard of.
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A
You are not alone in that one. Okay, so the first band is basshead and their 1992 album, Play with Toys. Basshead was an alternative hip hop group, although everything in that can be questioned. All right, so alternative hip hop, for starters, it's just kind of hip hop. You can hear it in the beats.
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C
It's.
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A
Yes, But Michael Ivy, the brains behind Bass Head, he was a student at Howard University in Washington, D.C. and he had a four track recorder, home studio, and recorded this album. Now, this might seem like it is so small time that it doesn't rise to the level of this podcast, but the work that he made. This 1992 album, play with Toys, made a lot of critics lists. It got on the radar despite humble home studio recording being picked up and distributed by a very small record label at first, Emigre Records, which you may recall the name Emigre as a design magazine and font foundry. In the early 90s, a couple Dutch guys spun off a record label and they did not go huge. But eventually Basshead's record got picked up by Imago Records. It all kind of comes together. The aforementioned Eric from Rome Agency, his wife Amy at the time worked at Imago Records and turned me on to this album way back then. Shout out Amy, how we doing? And yeah, it is a weird little album. It's not Mainstream Hip Hop 1992. We're firmly in the golden age of hip hop and it's nothing like the hip hop of the time. For starters, there's guitars and drums and a bass. There's Michael Ivy, the songwriter, lead singer, who is singing much more than he's rapping and kind of doesn't rap at all. But there is also then a DJ who inserts scratches and produced beats. And it is just a strange sort of hybrid. This is the same time where other alternative hip hop acts are making the scene, most notably among them, De La Soul. But whereas De La Soul had the Daisy revolution and a sort of thoughtful positivity and upbeat thing, Michael Ivy is a depressed college student going through a breakup, sad about the state of the world, violence and the media. And this album touches on all of those topics poignantly, weirdly, sometimes hilariously, but always with this sort of low key, smooth but drunken but depressed delivery that you kind of just have to hear and not a lot of people did. Let's cue up the first track, Brand New Day.
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B
Yo, so what's been up with your girl, man?
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C
My heart feels like it's been. Come from back into the game, buying drinks, silly dates
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B
before you get into this one. Scott. So this is my first time hearing all of this. The first thing that this reminded me of when I heard this song. G Love and Special Sauce.
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A
Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. Although G Love had swagger and bravado that this guy definitely doesn't have. And, you know, he's playing a part to some extent. But it's also a very confessional album where, yeah, G Love is, yeah, strutting around the stage and talking about how he's cool and this guy is definitely not feeling like he's cool. And it makes for, I don't know, it makes for a compelling album.
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B
And his delivery reminds me in some ways of tricky. I know we talked about tricky with Massive Attack, but that kind of dispassionate. What's the word I'm looking for here? Just laid back, kind of slackerish almost.
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A
Yeah, like somnambulistic. I don't know, like sleepy sleepwalky. But yeah, I mean, it is such a laid back delivery that you can actually hear the depression in his voice. Right. And this song, Brand New Day is the first of two tracks towards the beginning of the album where he is explicitly dealing with a breakup with his lady. You know, I've been listening to this album since it came out. We are looking at, you know, 38 or however many years, and I always thought there were three distinct guys, three different voices on the album. There is Michael, the protagonist, the main vocalist. And then there's this sort of laid back guy who sounds like a sleepy Bootsy Collins type sort of the cool guy, or Chong to Michael Ivey's Cheech. And then a more uptight, what's. What's the Fresh Prince's brother's name?
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B
His brother.
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A
Cousin, rather.
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B
Oh, Carlton.
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A
Carlton, yes. There's a Carlton. Uptight, square sounding guy on the album. I only today, as I was doing my final research on this, read that this is just Michael Ivy using pitch shifting to make himself into three different voices on the album. Which makes a ton of sense. But anyways, the protagonist talking about being down because of the breakup with the girl. The sort of laid back Chong to his cheat talking about, you've got to consider the positives, man. And yeah, talking about what he can do now that he's broken up with the girl. And it is a ridiculous low stakes list of I can be just as sloppy as I want to, I can go wherever I please, that sort of thing. But yeah, you can hear that throughout this song. He's trying to convince himself that he's okay. There's one point in particular in which the other voice, responding to everything he says, sort of stops the song. The other guy says, since you and your girl are going through the breaks, why don't you give me one? And the song launches into a quick collage of the major hip hop sample beats in rapid succession. Or the breaks, right? You and you're going through the breaks, gives the breaks. I don't know. It's just a really fun self aware meta album. I mean, hell, even the end of this first song, Brand New Day, ends with that's it, let's go to the next song. And to me, you know, I love a good meta concept. I love a good meta joke. And this album is very full of those. He knows exactly what he's doing and he's winking at you the whole time, even when it seems like he's just fully depressed. Okay, There are a couple different modes on this album. Yes, the sad breakup, but then there is the more socially aware. There was one track called the Evening News that is really about local news and if it bleeds, it leads. But this next track that we're going to play for your listening pleasure or endurance, wherever you're at with this is the title track from the album Play With Toys.
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C
So what were you, you little girls and boys. But we're in this m world. Just play with soul. Playing with souls and just playing with soul.
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B
I almost didn't believe that this was the same band. I mean, this is just a completely different sound.
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A
Right. And like it leans harder into the hip hop, but still with those guitars, let's be perfectly honest, Michael Ivey is not a guitar virtuoso by any means. These are relatively simple. Sometimes arpeggios or sometimes very basic chords. But this track leans harder into the hip hop, more straightforward hip hop beat. It's a little harder and it's a lot darker, right?
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B
Yeah, yeah.
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A
And then there is that piano line that is simple but haunting. One of the things on this track and the album in general, but this track in particular, boy, he is not afraid of reverb. The lyrics on this track are almost incomprehensible because he's got so much reverb on it. Yeah, it's mixed on a four track recorder. So, you know, your sound quality isn't necessarily the super slick high production that we're used to with a lot of the alternative mega hits that we've been covering. But he's leaning into that. He's going with the big reverb. He's mixing himself right in with the music. But the title track is about urban gun violence. The toys are guns. And there are points where you don't necessarily have to hear all of the lyrics, every word of the lyrics to get what he's talking about. A sort of sonic collage bit along with that piano line where there's children on the playground and gunshots and screaming and, you know, it's not subtle, but it's powerful to me at least.
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B
Okay, so I have three things that I want to throw in here. Again, I've never heard of this band prior to this episode, number one, Basshead. The name isn't that somebody that free basses crack cocaine.
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A
That is a crack smoker. Yes.
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B
Okay, interesting.
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A
He was not himself. But again, where the album is deeply personal, it is still rooted in hip hop of the time. And he has a self deprecation that plays throughout the album and down to the identity of the band. Yes, Basshead using the language of hip hop, but subverting hip hop and making it into something else.
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B
Well, and then that explains my second point. I had been reading that later in their career, they.
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A
It gets so weird.
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B
They became like a Christian band, right?
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A
Ish. At first. Yeah. All right, so the first follow up album where this album talked a lot about alcohol, the next album talks more about weed. And then the next album he starts talking about spirituality and questioning Christianity. But that was enough to get him pretty fully lumped in with Christian artists. And then he sort of embraced that. So I'm not saying you need to listen to Bass Head's entire catalog or as they later became known, DC base head or bass head 2.0. Really. The first album, Play With Toys, just as a college home studio project, is really the high water mark, strangely, but it works in its own right. It works on its own terms. And no, you haven't heard of it, but not nobody heard of it. I have referenced some of the albums that we've Talked about in 91 and 92. NME's Best Albums of the year. This album made the top 50.
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B
Oh, wow.
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A
Right. And critics who heard it, generally speaking, loved it. Not everybody heard it, but when you hear it, you got to admit it's got something.
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B
Okay, so then the third point, this is really more for our listeners. As I did with the 1991 and the rest episode. I've put together a Spotify playlist. The link is in the show notes so that you can listen to these songs. However, these first two songs by Basshead are not on Spotify. Quite frankly, they're not anywhere.
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A
Yeah, under the radar. This one, I have the CD if you want to borrow it. Listeners write to this podcast and we'll work it out.
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B
No, please don't. Please don't. Yeah, like the old Netflix when you used to get the disc in the mail like that.
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A
Yep. Yeah, well, we'll start the whole music rental service. It's old school. People, people will love it.
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B
So anything else on Basshead?
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A
I think that's plenty. That's more than Bass Head has been talked about in 35 years, probably.
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B
Well, the next song was your choice too.
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A
Okay, so the next selection is one that is a lot more widely known and a lot more beloved by alternative music aficionados. It's the 1992 debut album from space rock, dream pop, shoegaze, psychedelia powerhouse Spiritualized. The album was Laser Guided melodies. The song that I have selected to represent that album is track nine, Shine a Light.
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C
Sam. Oh, man.
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A
This is one of those albums that I did not insist that we devote an entire episode to because there's an upcoming album by this band, ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in space that we will definitely need to pay closer attention to and devote a whole episode to. And as is always the case with a lot of these bands, multiple genre labels apply to them. Space rock, dream pop, psychedelia, shoegaze. It has all of that. And this band, man, they are so good. Spiritualized is formed out of The Ruins of Spaceman 3, an English band throughout the 80s which had two frontmen, one, Jason Pierce and Peter Kember. The two could not get along. The band splits up and Jason Pierce takes much of the band with him and creates this new outfit, Spiritualized. They release some singles in 1990-1992. Swap out a few players here and there until you get the laser Guided melodies lineup, which is the aforementioned Jason Pierce, Spaceman 3 bassist Will Carruthers, 1 Mark Refoy. Refoy, I don't know, on guitars, Kate Radley on keyboards and vocals, who it should be noted at this time was Jason Pierce's girlfriend and one Johnny Mattock on drums. And the album that they create with Jason Pearce as the primary songwriter. And throughout the course of Spiritualized. The only permanent member of Spiritualized is a beautiful, ethereal, sometimes groovy and sometimes heavenly album. This track Shine a Light, I think really does exemplify the the style that this band came up with. And it's really gorgeous.
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B
So I'm curious, having read the lyrics, is this another religious band?
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A
You know, I've seen this particular track described as 21st century gospel. I have never gotten the impression that they are a Christian band in any way, but they don't shy away from, well, spirituality. Although the band, it should be noted, took their name from an adaptation of the text on the back label of a bottle of booze.
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B
Oh, really? Because it's like when I'm tired and all alone Lord shine a light on me and when I'm lonesome as can be Lord shine a light on me. And I even found where somebody had translated the lyrics into Hebrew, which I thought was interesting.
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A
Oh, that is interesting. Yeah, a little bit on that song note. So, like, it starts and for the first three minutes is, you know, this sort of ethereal space rock slash shoegaze thing. A lot of reverb, the guitars doing simple line arpeggios. But then at 3 minutes, 7 seconds, it changes a little. Baritone sax comes in, which is not a typical shoegaze type instrument. Right, right. I'm a sax player, so I'm here for it. Then a minute or so later, the 420 mark, something starts building and it's these swirling textures of guitar effects pretty much straight out of the my bloody Valentine playbook. And by the time we get to the five minute mark, it is a freaking maelstrom of beautiful but weird noise over that lilting guitar groove thing. And the horns, at 6:32, the beat and the groove drops out and now it's just 45 seconds of absolute noise and then falling action. And I think it really does sort of encapsulate a lot of what Spiritualized can and will do in their career to come.
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B
Oh, very cool.
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A
Chicago music critic Jim DeRogatis called it one of the most enchanting psychedelic rock albums ever. It was also listed in the 1001 albums you must hear before you die book. And NME listed it as one of the best 10 shoegaze albums ever.
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B
Oh, wow.
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A
And puts it right up there with My bloody Valentine. So, you know, it's in. They're in good company and they're a really good band.
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B
Okay, well, you know, I love me some shoe gaze, so I will definitely have to dive a little bit more into their catalog.
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A
You will dig this one and look forward to. Ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in space. And you'll probably recognize a couple of those tunes once you do hear them.
- [32:06]
B
Okay, well, Scott, you picked the first two albums. You actually picked two songs off of the first album. So the next three songs are me. The first one that I would like to play from 1992 is off of the fourth studio album by Manchester band James. The album is called seven and the song is called born of frustration.
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C
All this frustration I can meet all my desires Strange conversation self control has just expired all an illusion Only in my head you don't exist who don't need a shrink for an exor.
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B
Okay, so, Scott, it's no secret, you know, how much I love James.
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A
You do love James. I also love James. We went to the James show together last fall, I want to say.
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B
Sounds about right.
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A
And you know, I have loved James from way back in the day. I Remember first hearing James on The Sire Records 1987 compilation album, just say yes.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Lot of good stuff on there. But, yeah, early single Yahoo was featured there. Their 1989 big single, Sit Down.
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B
That's a good one.
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A
Great one. But I feel like this track was a big breakout single for them, Right?
- [34:02]
B
Yes. Actually, it was released as a single on January 20, 1992, and it did go to number five on the US Alternative Airplay chart.
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A
That's pretty big. And in no small part, I feel like that can be chalked up to a good groove and good songwriting. Yes. But the big thing that I think made this song stick, Very compelling.
- [34:30]
B
Yes. Tim Booth, the lead singer, practically yodeling. Yes. And I tried. I can't do that. I. My voice does not do that. So the entire album, 7 is fantastic. But Born of Frustration to me is almost like a personal anthem. I love the lyrics especially. Especially Don't Need a Shrink or An Exorcist. That is just some brilliant, brilliant songwriting right there.
- [34:57]
A
Yeah, for sure.
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B
The album, as I mentioned, was called Seven, but it was their fourth album. I don't know for sure, but I think the reason it was called Seven is because at the time, there were seven members of the band. Tim Booth on vocals, Andy Diagram on trumpet and backing vocals. Dave Bayton Power on drums and percussion.
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A
So very English.
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B
Jim Glenny on bass, Saul Davies on guitars, violin, backing vocals and percussion. Mark Hunter on keyboards, Larry Gott on guitar.
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A
And, you know, you will recall when you and I went to see the James show last year, they do not shy away from having a whole lot of people on stage. This is a big, big old band, and they lean into that. It's a lot of people making a lot of sound.
- [35:46]
B
Well, and a lot of energy, too. I mean, I know we commented in a previous episode, after you and I had been to that show, Tim Booth literally climbing up onto the balcony, not taking, like, stairs or anything. Climbing the wall right up onto the balcony. Do you remember that?
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A
Oh, yeah. And that guy's gotta be pushing 60 at this point, right?
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B
66 years old. I don't know where he gets his energy.
- [36:13]
A
Oh, dang. Pushing 60 and then some.
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B
Yeah. He's got a very youthful spirit, and I really appreciate that. So.
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A
Absolutely.
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B
I haven't really gone into a lot about the history of the band because, Scott, when we get to 1993, I would like to devote an entire episode to their next album Laid for sure. And then our listeners can listen and I can go into a little bit more about the history of the band and why James and Tim Booth mean so much to me.
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A
Absolutely. Why else is born of frustration? So excellent. Any last thoughts?
- [36:49]
B
It's the whole package. It's the lyrics, it's the yodel scream, whatever you want to call it.
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A
Big horns, the sing alongable.
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C
Da da da da da da
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A
Yep, Got a lot.
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B
It's an earworm, you know, you hear it and you can't get it out of your head.
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A
All right then.
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B
Okay. So another album from 92 that I chose. And I don't know if you're as familiar with this one because I've never heard you mention it, but you probably know it.
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A
Scott, I know the band. I recall the album. This was not a track I knew.
- [37:27]
B
Okay. The band is called the Lemonheads. The album is called It's a Shame About Ray. Now that was their fifth studio album, but that was really their breakthrough. There were some big songs on the album that many people know. The title track, It's a Shame About Ray, they did a cover of Simon and Garfunkel's Robinson, but that was not on the original release. They re released the album to add that song because of the popularity. And then there's this song, a little bit lesser known track. It's called Alison's Starting to Happen by the Lemonheads.
- [38:09]
C
She'd shake it up Was hard to make out now it's playing the street I couldn't couldn't save myself Found my life for recipe I never looked at her the this way before but now she's all I see Allison started to happen Allison started to happen Allison started to happen to me it's so mesmerizing.
- [38:39]
B
In 92, the band consisted of Evan Dando, who's the lead vocalist. He's got a very distinctive voice.
- [38:46]
A
And the guitarist, charismatic lead vocalist, who I recall the music press at the time. Yeah, the Lemonheads were making, pardon the pun, headway, but Evan Dando seemed poised to be a breakout alternative rock star.
- [39:06]
B
He did. And actually, I'm kind of surprised that that didn't really happen. Yeah, he's gotten into some recent trouble that I'll talk about in just a second. But the other two band members on this album were Juliana Hatfield.
- [39:20]
A
Really?
- [39:21]
B
Yes. She's playing bass and backing vocals. So she had replaced the band's previous basis. This is the only album that she's on prior to this. You may remember, Scott, the Blake Babies. That was her big band soon thereafter,
- [39:36]
A
The Juliana Hatfield 3.
- [39:39]
B
Yes, yes. Great debut album. And maybe we'll talk about that in a An upcoming episode. And then David Ryan on drums. All right, so then, as I mentioned, the band's cover of Mrs. Robinson was added to the re release of the album. It was not on the original album.
- [39:56]
A
And well added, because that was a banger.
- [39:59]
B
I like the one that we chose here. Allison Starting to Happen. I like it a lot. It's a shorter song in the style of, like, Pixies, you know, it's like a minute 55. It's about a crush, I guess.
- [40:13]
A
Yeah.
- [40:14]
B
She'd shake it up Was hard to make out now it's plain to see I couldn't cook to save myself Found my life a recipe I never looked at her this way before but now she's all I see no one's heard her last name I ain't asked so who am I to blame? So he doesn't even know the girl's last name?
- [40:36]
A
If I may.
- [40:37]
B
Yes.
- [40:38]
A
The couple lines of lyrics that I just dug the imagery on. She's the pebble in my mouth and underneath my feet she's the puzzle piece behind the couch Made the sky complete Allison starting to happen and then Allison's starting to happen Allison's getting her tit pierced Allison's growing a mohawk Allison starting to happen to me yeah, that's my
- [41:02]
B
favorite part, too, at the very end.
- [41:04]
A
It's like if Jim Ellison of Material Issue got kind of cocky and got an attitude and stopped being quite so timid and PG about things, right?
- [41:17]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [41:19]
A
Like Material Issue and Jim Ellison. This is power pop. But it's dirtier, right? It's a little. And I mean that in a couple senses, it's a little more lo fi and it's a little sleazier, which, you know, it's 1992. Both of these things are very welcome.
- [41:39]
B
Well, and then that kind of brings me to the very recent controversy with Evan Dando, which I'm sure you've probably heard about.
- [41:46]
A
Oh, no. What'd he do?
- [41:49]
B
He apparently exposed himself on camera to a female fan during a Zoom chat and was pleasuring himself.
- [41:59]
A
Oh, no. He's getting Louis CK on it.
- [42:02]
B
I guess so. So apparently he checked himself into some kind of rehab or counseling after that. And a few other women have come forward, too, with some disturbing stories about Evan's behavior, which is really a shame.
- [42:16]
A
Yeah, it's a shame about Evan.
- [42:21]
B
I see what you did there. Yeah.
- [42:23]
A
I gotta think somebody else in the music press beat me to that one, but yeah.
- [42:26]
B
Yeah, probably. All right, so that's all I have on that one.
- [42:30]
A
That's plenty. It's a good track.
- [42:32]
B
The next album that I chose from 92 was the sugar Cubes Stick Around For Joy. They released this, their third and final album, in February of 1992. And there were some big hits. There was gold, there was hits. And then there was also this one, Leash called Love.
- [43:00]
C
He controls you. You shoot to him and before he gets to you, watch out for he's threatening.
- [43:37]
B
So I'm curious, had you heard this one before?
- [43:39]
A
Scott, we called Love. No, I had not.
- [43:42]
B
Oh, okay.
- [43:43]
A
So, like, I'm gonna go ahead and admit that when the Sugar Cubes broke onto the scene back in, I want to say, 1987 with the debut album Life's Too Good, I was fascinated but baffled by this band. I mean, obviously Bjork's. And I love this. My girlfriend Kate actually met her, and she was backstage at a Bjork show in New York. She was coached that, in fact, her name is pronounced Bjork. It is not Bjork, and she is amused by Americans mispronouncing it. Although she says most often Americans mispronounce it as Bajork, but it's in fact Bjork. Anyways, she's obviously got an amazing voice and also so weird. Like, sometimes she's whispering and then growling and then straight up Scream singing. It's so strange. And the like, it works. And from their early singles On Life's Too Good Birthday, I want to say great stuff. Second album. It gets weirder when Einar Orns starts vocalizing more.
- [44:54]
B
Yeah, I think it pronounced Einar.
- [44:57]
A
Einar.
- [44:58]
B
Einar.
- [44:59]
A
Or such a weird delivery where he's like. I said, sometimes Bjerg is like Scream singing sometimes. He's just always yelling.
- [45:09]
B
He's like the Icelandic version of Fred Schneider.
- [45:12]
A
I'll go with. Oh, yeah, that makes it make so much more sense.
- [45:16]
B
I mean, Fred schneider from the V52s. There's definitely some similarities there.
- [45:20]
A
Absolutely. But then he takes up a higher profile on their second album, and it worked less well for me. But on this album, on Stick Around For Joy, the appropriate title big single hit was way more accessible. It's got this jangle shuffle groove and Bjork's somewhat more conventional singing style. Einar does come in with some rapping, strangely, but. All right.
- [45:46]
B
I said, ouch. This really hurts. Yeah, weird.
- [45:49]
A
So weird. But this track opens up feeling kind of like a Pixies song.
- [45:56]
B
Okay.
- [45:57]
A
Big drum kit, big driving bass line. Now, controversial opinion. Once you get the guitars and the keyboards, production wise, this feels a lot like late 80s, early 90s rush.
- [46:13]
B
Oh, hell no.
- [46:14]
A
Oh, you're wrong.
- [46:15]
B
Oh, hell no. Do not even go there.
- [46:18]
A
I'm telling you, I can play you tracks that it's like, okay, that's very similar. Okay, your track code, what do you got?
- [46:25]
B
This song specifically is about a woman trying to break free from an abusive relationship. It starts off, you know, you love him, you want to make him happy. He loves you. He wants to humiliate you. But then it gets darker. He's a bastard, you should leave him. Paranoid manipulator. To hell with him. He's dragging you on a leash called love. And then the verse that I just played for our listeners. He controls you. You should do him in before he gets to you.
- [47:00]
A
It's kind of dark, going straight. Burning bed.
- [47:04]
B
About what, 10 years after the Burning Bed?
- [47:06]
A
Something like that, yeah.
- [47:09]
B
So this song wasn't released as a single from Stick around for Joy. It was released in 1992 as the only single from their dance remix album, it's in It. The dance version actually was Sugar Cube's only number one single on the US Billboard Dance Club Play chart. After this album, the band broke up. They all kind of went in different creative directions, and Bjork released her debut solo album, which I'm sure we'll probably get into at some point because that's a really good album, too.
- [47:47]
A
Oh, I gotta think so. Yeah. Okay. So we can move it along to the next album then. I picked this one. People hear the name of this band and they think, to the first big singles by this band. And for some people, it works, some people it doesn't. That does not give the full picture of this album. The band is Faith no More and the album is Angel Dust. Now, for the song that I picked as emblematic of the album, I picked one that, actually, I may have some regrets. It's a little bit more familiar in that it feels not that out of place. On their previous album, the Real Thing, everybody knows the big tracks from the Real Thing. In particular, Epic, which was you want
- [48:38]
C
it all, but you can't have it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [48:44]
A
Fine song, sure. Falling to pieces as well. And, you know, when Faith no More came out, between the very prominent kind of hard bass player in a band that had both hard rock and funk tendencies, and this weirdo, charismatic, bouncing around lead singer with these funk rock tendencies, people thought, oh, this is just a Red Hot Chili Peppers knockoff. Now, the aforementioned charismatic lead singer, Mike Patton. He had been playing in his high school band, Mr. Bungle, still active in that band to this day. And the earlier album, the Real Thing had been written and largely produced and performed already, just without vocals. He was recruited by the band to come in, writes the vocals and lyrics, and Epic is a big hit. Falling to Pieces is, I think, the superior song. But that gets them noticed, right? They go into the studio to record the follow up, Angel Dust, and a lot of people at the time thought that this album was career suicide.
- [50:00]
B
Huh.
- [50:01]
A
Because it is so all over the board. I like a band that is not afraid to get eclectic and genre jump. I am a huge Ween fan and there's some similarities with the insane quirkiness of Ween and with Faith no More, but Angel Dust is, by many critics, considered to be a bizarro masterpiece. Again, I kind of have the regrets as to which song we picked. The song that I picked feels a bit throwback, but at least it will feel familiar. So it can get people used to the idea of Faith no More and then hopefully they will be willing to jump into Angel Dust in all of its weird glory. Let's just take a quick look at the big single. Midlife crisis.
- [50:55]
C
Me life cr. Down through the family tree. Your perfect yes is true. But without me you're only. You're only your extra weighted heart attack.
- [51:35]
B
So this is the first song that you have picked, Scott, that I actually knew, at least from this episode.
- [51:41]
A
Fair.
- [51:42]
B
My first husband had the cassettes in his car.
- [51:46]
A
Oh, wow.
- [51:47]
B
I would have heard it around 93.
- [51:49]
A
Sure.
- [51:50]
B
And he used to. It's used to drive me freaking nuts. He would turn the car stereo volume up as loud as he could, but he had a really crappy stereo. The one that came with the car. It wasn't like anything special, so it would distort. It was so loud that you could hear the distortion.
- [52:10]
A
There's just no point in that.
- [52:11]
B
I know, I know. But it's a good song. And at the time, I thought it was about menopause. Yeah.
- [52:17]
A
You see the title, Midlife Crisis. And there are certain lines in there where it's like, oh, yeah, it's about a midlife crisis. Including the end of the first verse. My head is like lettuce. Go on, dig your thumbs in. I cannot stop giving. I'm 30 something. And then the chorus, sense of security, like pockets jingling. Midlife crisis suck ingenuity down through my family tree. Okay, it's a little all over the place, but okay, maybe it's about a midlife crisis. But then you get to the next verse. You're perfect. Yes, it's true. But without me you're only you. Your menstruating heart it ain't bleeding enough for two. It's a midlife crisis. And there you start to see. Okay, maybe this song isn't about the singer, about Mike Patton, the lyricist. And it should be noted, whereas he came in as sort of a hired gun for the previous album, the real thing here, Mike Patton was very much involved in the songwriting as well as then the lyrics and being the frontman. And in interviews, he revealed that this song was in fact, not about his midlife crisis, as he says, he's only 30. This song was actually about Madonna.
- [53:32]
B
Yeah, I read that too. And that. That blew my mind because I. I never would have made that connection.
- [53:37]
A
You wouldn't put it together. But yeah, he was more saying that especially because at the time, she was everywhere. Like, she had already been the Material Girl and blown up, and now she was just in your face constantly. And Mike Patton did not particularly love her work, but also her sort of outsized Persona, hypersexuality. To his mind, he's like, this chick is going through something, man, and it's playing out in front of our eyes. And thus midlife crisis.
- [54:15]
B
There were also some very interesting samples in this song. Now, they weren't songs that I recognize, but like that in the middle eight.
- [54:24]
A
Yeah. Oh, oh, I didn't realize at all. That starts from the very beginning and plays through. Is that sort of subtle, slightly off kilter, stompy, clappy percussion thing going?
- [54:37]
B
Cecilia?
- [54:38]
A
Yeah. Simon Garfunkel again.
- [54:40]
B
Yeah, yeah. It's kind of underneath the drums, but it's there.
- [54:44]
A
Yup. And the other one that I definitely recognized from the first time I heard it, there's a instrumental breakdown in the middle near second half of the song with this sort of scratched whistling that. That's off the Beastie Boys Paul's Boutique track called Thief. So. Yeah, that. Again, a huge Beastie Boys fan. I heard that. I'm just like, oh, these guys get it right. As I said, this song is sort of a training wheels introduction to Faith no More, specifically Angel Dust. The album gets way weirder at times, it's almost thrash. And at other times, much like you had on It's a Shame About Ray, the addition of Mrs. Robinson. This album also had a later addition to the album that was also a cover. And of all things, like, think about that song you just heard. Think about the other Faith no More songs you hear. The later edition cover to this album was a cover of the Commodore's Easy Like Sunday Morning.
- [55:45]
B
Oh, yeah, I remember that.
- [55:46]
A
And it was a hit. Not so much in the U.S. although it was, I think, their biggest single in the us but internationally it was kind of a big deal. And it's so unlike so much of the rest of the album. But everything on the album is so much unlike everything else on the album. The album also ends with an instrumental accordion based cover of the theme from Midnight Cowboy. Like, these guys are not afraid to go all over the board, but really commit to it. And yeah, Angel Dust, if you haven't heard it, and I'm gonna bet you haven't, you should. Don't listen to it on a cassette on a car stereo so loud that it distorts and irritates your wife into hating it. But, yeah, do give it a listen because Angel Dust is an amazing album.
- [56:39]
B
Yeah. To be clear, I didn't hate the album. I hated the fact that he would turn it up so it distorted. You know, as we're talking, I'm starting to think that Faith no More might have been like a proto new metal band. You know, later we'd see like Limp Bizkit and we'd see like, it's like a fusion of rap and heavy metal. And I think maybe Faith no More might have been one of the first artists that actually started doing that.
- [57:08]
A
I am willing to sign onto that in that we had that scratched Beastie Boys thing in there and they have the heaviness. I'm not willing to sign onto it in that I hate most of the new metal that came out of the late 90s era. I think this is better. And yes, they did plant some seeds that people grew into these monstrous, twisted trees of corn.
- [57:40]
B
Clever, clever. Okay. Oh, I did get to see them at Riot Fest one year and it was weird because they were all wearing white. All white, which is absolutely not what I was expecting.
- [57:54]
A
Yeah, no, that's great though. They're great band. Mike Patton is a crazy skilled songwriter and so all over the board that he has multiple bands, each with very distinct and very weird character.
- [58:09]
B
Another hard hitting in your face band that released an album in 92 was Ministry, one of my favorites.
- [58:19]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [58:20]
B
The album was called Psalm 69, the way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs. That was their fifth studio album. Now, I didn't like it as much as the previous album. The Mind is a Terrible Thing to taste, but this song got a lot of airplay among me and my friends. Jesus built my hot rod.
- [59:22]
A
I want to love you. First off, I want to say that I Loved Ministry from the get go. I loved the With Sympathy era, their Trojan Horse debut album that got them noticed enough that they could transition into their goth industrial synth pop and then straight up industrial so gradually that people barely noticed. But like, yeah, the catalog of their earlier stuff that has a much more synthy feeling, but you can see it get harder and harder as time goes on. I wanted to tell her and work for love Every day is Halloween all day Nature of love Then you get a mind As a terrible thing to taste Thieves burning inside so loved them from the beginning, but watch the timeline go on and they just get darker and darker, more and more menacing, more industrial, more and more heroin because, dear God, did Al and the crew do a lot of heroin. But they got better. Then this gem comes along with all of its just. What the fuck? Glory to it. And the making of this song is a story worth telling.
- [60:41]
B
Hysterical. Yeah, yeah. So doing that dig a ding dang a dang a dong ding dong, yeah. That is actually Gibby Haynes from the Butthole Surfers.
- [60:55]
A
All right, so this comes from Dan McIntosh at Song Facts. And this is Al Jorgensen talking about the lead up to and recording of Jesus Built My Hot Rod. That was the most insane song ever. First of all, Warner Brothers gave us a $750,000 budget to do our record. We of course, shot it all up into our arms and didn't have a single song to show for it. They were freaking out. So on Lollapalooza 1, the Butthole Surfers played and Gibby Haynes was in town.
- [61:24]
B
They were on the very first Lollapalooza tour in the summer of 91. And if you were around back then, you might remember it wasn't a destination festival the way it is now. It was actually a full touring festival.
- [61:36]
A
Yep.
- [61:37]
B
And after the Butthole Surfers performance, Al Jorgensen of Ministry invited Gibby Haynes to Wax Tracks Recording Studios. He had a song that he and the band had been working on this kind of speed guitar thing, but they had no ideas for lyrics, so they asked Gibby to come up with some lyrics. Now, Gibby was drunk off his ass, like literally falling off the stool while he was singing. Everything that he sang there was improvised, and by all accounts, it was just an absolute hot mess. And then eventually he fell asleep. But somehow Al Jorgensen was able to take those recordings. It took him about two or three weeks, and he was able to edit it together and make something somewhat cohesive. I mean, as cohesive as ding a ding dang a dang a dong Ding Dong could possibly be.
- [62:32]
A
Okay. So then, yeah, picking back up from Al talking about this, and then we sent Warner Brothers that. And they had to figure out if they wanted to double down and give us another 750,000 bucks or whether they wanted to cancel the whole project. Like, get rid of these guys. They're useless because we were. We were useless. The story doesn't even end there. So they doubled down and released Jesus Built My Hot Rod, which to this day is still the hottest selling single in Warner Brothers history.
- [63:01]
B
Oh, wow.
- [63:02]
A
But they knew that to make their money back, because they'd already put about 1.5 million into us, and. And we got one song. By the end of it, we finally got our act together and created an album. But this first song was a complete accident. This shows the power of record companies because they hated it. They were like, what is this? This is stupid. I thought we hired Ministry. Instead. We got this bing, a bang, a bong, bing, bing, bing, bing. You know, this hillbilly stuff. And they hated it. But it started selling, surprisingly.
- [63:33]
B
Now some people have actually compared it to. To Surf and Bird by the Trashman. I buy that it leans towards rockabilly, which is unusual for Ministry. I don't know of any other songs they did that kind of lean that way. Now, the single predated the album. The single was actually released November 5th of 1991. As I said, it was on the album Psalm 69. The other big single from Psalm 69. Actually two other big singles, NWO, which sampled George Bush. Not George W. Bush. George Bush.
- [64:06]
A
H.W. bush.
- [64:07]
B
Yes. And Just One Fix, which, if I'm not mistaken, included William S. Burroughs, which I still. I know I've said this before, Scott. I would love to do an episode,
- [64:20]
A
the all Burroughs episode.
- [64:22]
B
Yes. Yes. I think it would be absolutely amazing.
- [64:25]
A
All right, let's do it.
- [64:26]
B
Okay.
- [64:27]
C
All right.
- [64:28]
B
Another band that was everywhere in 92 that you could not get away from was L7. You remember them, Scott?
- [64:36]
A
I do. I was not a huge L7 fan, but I respected their work. And this is a fine, fine example.
- [64:44]
B
So they were big on what was called the riot girl scene. And there were some really, really good bands associated with that. I'm sure we'll probably be going into some of those other bands in future Episodes. Their third studio album was called Bricks Are Heavy. It was released on April 14, 1992. The one song that was a big hit off of that album is not representative of their work at all. And that is when we pretend that we're dead. You could not change the radio in 1992 without hearing it. However, the song that I'm going to play from this album is one of my personal favorites, and I think it's more representative of what L7 could do. The song is called Shit List.
- [65:42]
C
You've made my shit work. All the ones helping me out for the one to feel my head Laying down all the square tail get me fit. You've made my shadow.
- [66:14]
B
All right, what you got, Scott?
- [66:16]
A
So I will admit that I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to L7 when they were breaking out. Like, I respected it, but it just didn't hit with me. I knew ladies my age in college who felt like this album was their answer to all this testosterone fueled rock that was coming up at the time. Even if grunge was a different flavor of testosterone fueled rock, still, it was very much a man's game. So between L7 and the breeders and Hole, this was sort of the ladies reclaiming. And, you know, this is as much grunge as it was riot, girl. Although they resisted both labels, from what I understand.
- [67:01]
B
Yes. Actually, the album Bricks Are Heavy was named to Rolling Stones 50 greatest grunge albums of all time and Loudwire's 30 best grunge albums of All Time. So you're not alone in classifying that as grunge.
- [67:17]
A
That said, I did not own a copy of the album. I heard, you know, as you said, I heard Pretend We're Dead a lot, but I did not get a whole lot deeper into it than that.
- [67:29]
B
Okay. This song in particular really speaks to me. And you have to kind of keep in mind that in 1992, women expressing anger and frustration in music really was unusual. Right. Women were singing about love, and, you know, women were expected to behave a certain way. And then here comes Danita Sparks, the lead singer on this song. When I get mad and I get pissed, I grab my pen and write out a list of all the people that won't be missed. You made my shit list. And I'm like, yes, I feel this, you know? And of course, it was in one of my favorite movies of all time, Natural Born Killers.
- [68:13]
A
Sure.
- [68:14]
B
And to this day, I cannot hear the song without seeing Juliet Lewis kicking ass in the diner. You know, it's a good fucking song. It's a good band. And L7, while not my favorite band of the period, definitely very notable.
- [68:32]
A
Yeah, they hit hard. Respect.
- [68:35]
B
Okay. Bricks Are Heavy only peaked at number 160 on the US Billboard 200, but it did peak at number one on the heat Seekers album chart still respectable. Yeah. So, you know, there's a good segue there probably to. To your next choice, Scott.
- [68:54]
A
Yes. This is one of those albums much like Bass Head at the beginning that I feel like requires at least two tracks for you to get the full picture of the album. And this is a band that, you know, we like here at Accelerated Culture. The band is Sonic youth and the 1992 album was dirty. I picked two songs from it to give you a couple different flavors of Sonic Youth. Let's start with one that hopefully is timely. Youth Against Fascism.
- [69:30]
C
Another can of worms, Another stomach turns, yeah, you get a burn. It's a song I hate. It's a song I hate. You got a stupid man, you got a Ku Klux Klan, A fucking battle plan. It's the song I hate. It's the song I hate. A sea hat and squirt A year in adventure a year Fascist Tour
- [70:14]
A
okay, so as I said, we've already talked about Sonic youth during episode 43, Sonic Youth's goo. But you know, we like to give a little bit of the history of the band. And since we've already done that, we can do what we've done once before. A little segment we like to call previously on Accelerated Culture was formed in 1981.
- [70:39]
B
Initially, Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon started working together. Thurston Moore, guitar player and vocalist. Tim Gordon, bass player, guitar player and vocalist. They teamed up with Lee Ronaldo, who was another guitarist and who could also sing. And within a few years, after a revolving door of short term drummers got Steve Shelley as the drummer who would stick with them for the duration.
- [70:54]
A
So now you know everything you need to know about the history of Sonic Youth. You know, this is your standard Sonic Youth lineup on Dirty. Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Lee Ronaldo and Steve Shelley. On this particular track, Youth Against Fascism, we also add on additional guitars Ian McKay of Minor Threat and Fugazi fame. So got their hard indie rock bonafides all in order here. And it's Youth Against Fascism, as we've talked about in the past on the Goo episode. You know, Sonic Youth, they are willing to get poetic, they are willing to get angry, they're willing to get, you know, they write the lyrics. They're not necessarily always going to change your life, but the vocals are really just part of this overall sonic assault. That Sonic Youth can be just another layer of the texture. But it's Youth Against Fascism and they are not afraid to get specific in their targets. Right?
- [72:07]
B
Oh yeah, can I read Some of
- [72:09]
A
the lyrics I wish you would.
- [72:11]
B
Okay, Black robe and swill. I believe Anita Hill judge will rot in hell. It's the song I hate it's the song I hate.
- [72:21]
A
It's taking a little longer for that judge to get to hell to start rotting.
- [72:27]
B
Oh, but he's on his way. I mean, he's just representative of everything that's wrong with the Supreme Court right now. And then a little bit later, yeah, the President sucks. He's a war pig. His shit is out of luck. It's the song I hate it's the song I hate. So that obviously is again about George H.W. bush.
- [72:47]
A
Yeah, you got a stupid man, you got a Ku Klux Klan, your funky battle plan. It's the song I hate it's the song I hate. A sieg Heilan squirt. You're an impotent jerk. Yeah, a fascist twerp. It's the song I hate. Are the lyrics angry for? Sure. Are they a little. Maybe juvenile for a guy, Thurston Moore, who is at this point in his late 20s also. Sure. But you know, it's the feeling, it's the rage, it's the hatred of fascism. You know, I'm here for it.
- [73:23]
B
Sonic Youth were antifa.
- [73:25]
A
They were early antifa. Well, antifa's been around as long as there have been fascists to be against. But yes, sonic youth, a 90s version of Antifa. And then I know that you, as we talked about Sonic Youth's goo, you tended to like the Thurston Moore heavy songs less than you liked the Kim Gordon. So Sonic Youth songs. So my second song from Sonic Youth, Dirty is a Kim Gordon track. Drunken Butterfly.
- [74:13]
C
A new pleasure is mine. I love you, I love you. I love you. What's your name? I love you, I love you, I love you. What's your name.
- [74:37]
B
Here? Yeah, I do. I like this one a lot. This is a good one.
- [74:43]
A
Yeah, it's short. It's hard. It's so very Kim Gordon. Is she a classically trained, clear voiced note hitting soprano vocalist? She is not. Does it matter? It does not. She's got the feeling, man. She loves you. She loves you. She. She loves you. What's your name? A recurring theme in this episode and
- [75:09]
B
even the title, Drunken Butterfly. Right. So it's like the social butterfly at the bar or at the party who just had way too much. And I can't hear this song now without picturing that one photo from the meme where it's a guy and a gal very clearly intoxicated at a festival and the girl's like saying something to them and pointing. You know what I'm talking about.
- [75:30]
A
I do. But there's also the other one where the guy, the meathead guy, is yelling into a brunette woman's ear and she is just staring off into the distance, like looking trapped and broken.
- [75:41]
B
Oh, okay, great. Okay.
- [75:44]
A
But yeah, the lyrics again, not going to change your life. And really the verses in between the choruses. Eh, whatever. I love you, I love you, I love you. What's your name? That's the gist of the song and it's great.
- [76:03]
B
Oh, it is.
- [76:04]
A
I was unaware of a video to this song that was the product of a fan contest on MTV where people had to make a pitch for why they would get to make the fan video. Look this one up. It is amazing. Sonic Youth, Drunken Butterfly. It is a three minute thrashing puppet show. Sonic Youth only appears in this video as sock puppets. Oh, it's so good.
- [76:35]
B
I do remember this video. I do remember it.
- [76:38]
A
The camera's zooming in and twisting and the puppets are just going for it. But like, they're pretty decent puppets. They've got guitars, they're playing slides on the neck of the guitars, making noise. High quality, 90s kitschy, grungy, lo fi, whatever. It's good, it's good.
- [76:59]
B
Check it out, check it out.
- [77:00]
A
Yeah, Puppets rock, man. I don't have a ton more to say about it other than Dirty is a great album. If you like Sonic Youth, you're going to love this album. If you like, again, really clean, clear, quality singers, this might not be the album for you. If you don't like distortion, you don't like feedback, you don't like noise, definitely not going to be the album for you. But if you can like some organized noise, it's a good album.
- [77:31]
B
So the next choice, Scott, is also yours.
- [77:35]
A
The next album is by an artist who had been making music since the 70s and had changed directions quite a few times. He was a crooner troubadour who started in folk and was singing torch songs in a cabaret style and. And then got a little more experimental. And then in 1992 he released a classic in Weirdo. What the hell Rock. It's Tom Waits's 1992 album Bone Machine and a character driven rock anthem from that album, Going Out West.
- [78:42]
C
Giving it away. I wanna do what I wanna do.
- [78:55]
B
The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club.
- [78:59]
A
Right? Yeah. This song may or may not have been featured in the movie Fight Club. I'm not allowed to talk about it, but yeah. Tom Waits has always had a penchant for characters. Songs sung in the voice of and telling the story of a character that is not Tom Waits.
- [79:24]
B
Well, for one example we talked about in a previous episode, Primus, Tommy the Cat. Sure. And he was the lead vocalist on that one. And you can really see the character coming out. That was episode 48, Primus, sailing the Seas of Cheese.
- [79:40]
A
Great one. You know, he's known for songs from the 70s like Christmas card from a Hooker in Minneapolis. Off his album Swordfish Trombones, there's a song called Shore Leave. He's a sailor on shore leave writing a letter to his lady back home. He's a storyteller. And on Bone Machine he took what had been in the past his piano playing, crooning style. But in that gravel smoke damage, whiskey damaged voice of his takes it in a really weird direction. Lots of strange percussion, some marimbas like he had been using back in Swordfish Trombone, but noisier made out of junk. He apparently found as he was recording this album at Prairie Sun Recording Studios in Cotali, California. He had found in the cellar these old cement rooms in the cellar of the studio. They have since been dubbed the weights rooms. He said of these rooms. And I'm not going to try to do the voice, but I'm getting a little gravelly. Anyways, I found a great room to work in. It's just a cement floor and a hot water heater. Okay, we'll do it here. It's got some good echo and it really does help explain some of the sound of this album, this song, the entire Bone Machine album. The album is profoundly weird. I have mentioned in the past that my good friend Rabba would oftentimes pick me up in his car and drive around and make me listen to an album. Tom Waits. Bone Machine was one of those albums. What's up Rabba? Thanks for the reco. It didn't take at first. His voice is so weird. He is such a strange cat.
- [81:29]
B
Oh, I love his. His voice is so sexy.
- [81:33]
A
I mean he is a character himself and it shows in every character, every Persona he takes on. But yeah, this particular track, going out west, it is a self serious guy on the fringes who has decided to go to Hollywood and become an actor. And he is quite convinced he is going to be a star.
- [81:57]
B
But you know, that's interesting because also in 1992 he played Renfield in Bram Stoker's Dracula. And by the way, he is my absolute favorite Renfield of all time. He plays that role so perfectly. And then a few years after that, he was Dr. Heller and mystery Men, which is another one of my favorite movies.
- [82:16]
A
I freaking love Mystery Men, man.
- [82:18]
B
Best superhero movie ever made. And I will take that to my grave.
- [82:23]
A
That's the hill you'll die on.
- [82:24]
B
Yes.
- [82:25]
A
Nice. Yeah. I was a fan of the comic long before it became a movie. I was so psyched when it became a movie and was so psyched to see Tom Waits in it. The lyrics on this one, he paints such an amazing character sketch. I'm going out west where the wind blows tall Because Tony Franciosa used to date my ma. They got some money out there, they're giving it away. I'm gonna do what I want and I'm gonna get paid. I know karate voodoo, too I'm gonna make myself available to you I don't need no makeup I got real scars, I got hair on my chest I look good without a shirt. Like, this guy knows what he's about. He is sure he's gonna be a star. I'm gonna drive all night gonna get some speed I'm gonna wait for the sun to shine down on me I cut a hole in my roof the shape of a heart and I'm gonna go out west where they appreciate me.
- [83:22]
B
Hollywood.
- [83:23]
A
And like, with that huge, crunchy guitar, those big banging drums, like, it is a testosterone fueled man's anthem. And it is a delusional man's anthem. It fit perfectly in Fight Club, right?
- [83:41]
B
Yes. The first scene where they're going into the bar, right?
- [83:45]
A
Going down to the basement of the bar that they have managed to sneak their way into, more or less.
- [83:52]
B
Yeah.
- [83:52]
A
Lose, lose. Yeah.
- [83:54]
B
It says, Lou. I'm fucking Lou. Yeah. Now that's a movie I absolutely love. And it's such a shame because it's been ruined for me.
- [84:04]
A
Has it?
- [84:04]
B
Yeah.
- [84:05]
A
But, well, it's like people who didn't get it.
- [84:07]
B
No, it's not even that. I mean, when I started watching it, it was recommended to me by a woman in a video store. And I'd never heard of it.
- [84:15]
A
Okay.
- [84:15]
B
It was really kind of under the radar. Now everybody knows it. Everybody's talking about Red pill this. And, you know, it's kind of become this movie that the Incels and the proud boys have kind of latched onto, which is absolutely not getting the meaning at all.
- [84:30]
C
Right?
- [84:30]
A
Well, yeah. Just because the wrong people don't get it doesn't make what it was not right. On the other movie that goes into this category is Starship Troopers.
- [84:41]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [84:42]
A
On its face, appears to be a rah rah, jingoistic pro military thing. It's actually a scathing satire.
- [84:51]
B
Right.
- [84:52]
A
People are like, well, that wasn't what the original book was supposed to be. It's like, no, but it's what Paul Verhoeven made the movie be. And it's right on, man.
- [85:00]
B
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [85:02]
A
So, anyway, we digress.
- [85:03]
B
Good choice on this song, though. This one wouldn't have even been on my radar, even though I knew it. Yeah, and it's.
- [85:09]
A
It's a weird one in that, like, is Tom Waits an alternative artist? I mean, he was never mainstream. Like, somebody singing torch songs on a piano in that voice was never a mainstream artist, but he'd been at it for, you know, 20 years at this point. So he was always sort of a weirdo fringe artist. He was coming closer to mainstream with it. But this was another one of those albums where maybe people heard this song and they're like, okay, I can get into this. And then they heard the rest of the album. They're like, what the hell am I listening to? It's a weird listen. It's a hard listen. It's got big payoff. Highly recommend sewing machine. But if you just want the one track, yeah, you're going to, like, going out west.
- [86:04]
B
All right, so, Scott, we each picked five albums. However, you picked seven songs, which was a little unfair.
- [86:12]
A
One of them was for you.
- [86:14]
B
Well, okay, when you phrase it that
- [86:15]
A
way, like the Kim Gordon tracks. View a Kim Gordon track. You're welcome.
- [86:20]
B
Okay. All right. Well, thank you for that. But I did want to throw in one as an honorable mention. So even though I've had my five albums, hi. By the Cure, 1992. It was their most successful album commercially. If you've listened to the podcast before, you know we love the Cure. And the song that I chose was not Friday.
- [86:45]
A
I'm in Love.
- [86:47]
B
No. Oh, my God. There's a reason why I don't like that song. And it's unfair, I think, to Robert Smith and to the rest of the band, but I associate it with somebody, and that somebody is not somebody that. Yeah, I'll tell you sometime, Scott.
- [87:08]
A
All right.
- [87:09]
B
Offline. But, yeah. So the song I chose was the first single off the album, and this is called hi.
- [87:22]
C
When I see you sky as high as I might I can't get that high but how you move the way you bus the clouds Makes me want to try. Well, I see you.
- [88:08]
B
It's a sparkly, bright, sweet love Song. You know it's impossible to stay in a bad mood when you hear this.
- [88:16]
A
Well, 22 year old me would beg to differ. Like, yeah, well, I'm not saying that the Cure and Robert Smith don't get to be happy, but when I was a 22 year old college student, I was totally saying that the Cure and Robert Smith don't get to be happy.
- [88:37]
B
You wanted more pornography or head on the door, right?
- [88:40]
A
Yeah. I like it dark, I like it gloomy. I like the whine. I like it to be Robert Smith despairing a little bit. That said, even when Robert Smith is happy, he does manage to express that happiness through some dark imagery, which the depressed goth kid in me still appreciates.
- [89:04]
B
Okay. Any examples that you want to mention or.
- [89:07]
A
No, I do have that. Yes. And when I see you happy as a girl that swims in a world of a magic show it makes me bite my fingers through to think I could have let you go. So it's like, it's sweet. And he's saying he's glad he didn't let her go, but the thought of having possibly thought about letting her go in the past makes him bite through his fingers. Right, let's see here. And when I see you happy as a girl that lives in a world of make believe, it makes me pull my hair all out to think I could have let you leave. Like, it's like he is just beating himself up at the thought of losing her, even though he has her. So he manages to turn the happy song weird. And I appreciate that. Robert Smith.
- [89:58]
B
Okay. The song reached number one on the US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. The album Wish, coming off of the success of 1989's Disintegration, which, by the way, episode 36, still one of my favorites, the Cure's Disintegration.
- [90:18]
A
I believe it was my very first episode with this podcast.
- [90:21]
B
Yes, it was. It was. So anticipation was very high when this album came out. As I said, it was the most commercially successful album that the Cure had debuted at number two in the US over the years, there were some changes in the Cure's lineup. The album Wish featured Robert Smith, as usual, on vocals and six string bass and keyboards, Simon Gallop on bass, Pearl Thompson on guitar. This was the last album featuring drummer Boris Williams, and it was also the first album featuring Perry Bamonte on six string bass and keyboard. Now, prior to this, Perry had been a roadie for the band. Now he was a member of the band.
- [91:08]
A
Nice. Good work.
- [91:09]
B
Yeah, good on him.
- [91:10]
A
One last bit on this. I will say, my brother and I have talked about this album at length over the years, and it's usually in the context of Fried Am In Love, but also to some extent, high. It's like Robert Smith got on Prozac and the depression went away, and he made a much happier album. Although there is a letter to Elise, which is more in that darker disintegration mode. It's just jarring. Sometimes when you think you know someone and all of a sudden they get happy again, you can't begrudge them it, but it's just like, I don't think I know you anymore, man.
- [91:46]
B
Well, it was just like when REM Did Shiny Happy People.
- [91:50]
A
So. Yeah.
- [91:52]
B
Okay. Well, that brings us to the end of 1992.
- [91:55]
A
We made it.
- [91:56]
B
Yes. So we've agreed that we're going to try and do episodes once a month, and instead of every other week for
- [92:03]
A
a while, we'll be back in the winter, especially when we all need more stuff to listen to.
- [92:09]
B
Okay. So we are going to do our next episode on Chicago legends Smashing Pumpkins and their 1993 hit album, Siamese Dream.
- [92:21]
A
It's very exciting.
- [92:23]
B
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. All right, well, thank you for listening. Thank you for your patience while we got this episode out. It's a goodbye from me, Lori, and
- [92:31]
A
from me, Scott Free. We'll see you back here in a month.