On Failures:

Well, I've successfully failed to maintain an entry a day, a week, and shortly a month, it seems. It's not for lack of interest--it's now for serious lack of time. I've usually got chunks of one filtering slowly into a draft stage, but I've got a lot on my plate at the moment. Now, you're most likely not reading regularly anyway--I don't think anyone does--and indeed have no reason for this to affect your reading one way or the other, be you familiar, unfamiliar, or accidentally present. It is, however, the state of things. I intend to write as much as I am able, that simply seems to be, unfortunately, not an awful lot. That my collection's growth outpaces my writing isn't helping, of course. Still, Alejandro Escovedo's Real Animal has been spinning off and on for a few weeks as I attempt to get that entry together.

Keep checking in, I haven't abandoned ship!

Emperor - Prometheus: The Discipline of Fire & Demise (2001)

Candlelight Records ■ Candle064LP

 

Released October 23, 2001

Produced by Ihsahn

Mixed by Thorbjorn Akkerhaugen and The Emperors
Mastered by Tom Kvalsvoll and The Emperors

Side One:	Side Two:
Eruption Depraved Empty The Prophet	The Tongue of Fire In the Wordless Chamber Grey He Who Sought Fire Thorns on My Grave

I've only touched on black metal here once before, and that was a rather curious and unique example of the genre. Diabolical Masquerade are not at the forefront of most minds when naming bands that fit the bill for the genre--more likely, you will hear Immortal, Mayhem, Burzum, Darkthrone--and Emperor.

I picked this album up from the sadly defunct store Musik Hut in Fayetteville, source of not only much of my metal from years past (on vinyl or otherwise) but also of my "black X" collection, and even a few other oddities indicative of how odd that store actually was. It was intended as a metal/punk/industrial store, but did carry plenty of other and "normal" stuff.

As with much of metal (other than Morbid Angel and Decapitated, and a handful of others)--such as At the Gates--even the classics (like Emperor here) were introduced to me by a single soul, to whom I tend to give credit for most of my metal awareness. He and I still talk metal now and then, of course, but also the odd other chunk of music, since neither of us is married to it in exclusivity.

Eels - Shootenanny! (2003)

 SpinArt Records ■ spart 128

 

Released June 2, 2003

Produced by E

Reorded and Mixed by Greg Collins; A4, A6 by Ryan Boesch
Additional Engineering by Greg Burns, Alicia Guadagno

Mastered by Bernie Grundman; A6 by Dan Hersch

Side One:	Side Two:
All in a Day's Work Saturday Morning Good Old Days Love of the Loveless Dirty Girl Agony	Rock Hard Times Restraining Order Blues Lone Wolf Wrong About Bobby Numbered Days Fashion Award Somebody Loves You

The list of artists I've so far covered that I've listened to longer than Eels is relatively short and largely composed of the least surprising artists for me to have known for a long period of time.¹ I actually made my way into Eels fandom on the cusp of my freshman year of college, at the suggestion of my then-girlfriend, who owned Daisies of the Galaxy (in its infamously, hilariously self-censored version) and Beautiful Freak, both of which I owned before too terribly long after that, alongside their two closest temporal relatives: 1998's Electro-Shock Blues and 2001's Souljacker, which was still the most recent album at the time. A year later, this album was released, and you can bet, by then, I was picking it up right around the release date.

My Eels records are--somewhat shockingly--apparently the most valuable records I own. I don't own a ton (the others are the 2x10" Electro-Shock Blues and the last album, Wonderful, Glorious on the same format, but in a different colour, as well as End Times with its "A Line in the Dirt" 7" companion), but people will apparently pay a lot for them. It's less that it's shocking for quality or popularity, and more for the fact that it has felt more like the Eels crowd is shrinking than growing, so why they would remain so expensive when the audience is (I think?) dwindling, I don't know. Still, right now the only vinyl copy of this record listed at any sites I'd ever check to see if I want to pick up a record I can't readily find² is at one of three sites, and they start from $125 US. Yowza! That's almost ten times what I paid for it a decade ago!

Echo and the Bunnymen - Crocodiles [US Release] (1980)

Sire/Korova Records ■ SRK 6096

Released July 18, 1980

Produced by The Chameleons (Bill Drummond, David Balfie) and Ian Broudie (Tracks A4, B1)
Engineered by Hugh Jones and Rod Houison (Tracks A4, B1)

Side One:	Side Two:
Going Up Do It Clean¹ Stars Are Stars Pride Monkeys Crocodiles	Rescue Villiers Terrace Read It in Books¹ Pictures on My Wall All That Jazz Happy Death Men

¹Not present on original UK release, but included on a bonus 7" with early pressings

While Paul Westerberg's strange "side solo act thing" Grandpaboy is still echoing through my head at the moment, a mild spur toward writing here has convinced me to take up the reins and launch in again, after a good many weeks of just not feeling it and not wanting to half-ass it instead. Of course, that kind of approach can occasionally work, but this is intended to be a joyful thing, not a chore, and everyone I know wasn't even keeping up after I started slipping more toward weekly entries, so it isn't as if I've left a relative gap for anyone paying attention (PS: if I have, you should probably tell me. If someone else is interested, there's far more reason to stick to doing this more regularly!)

When I think of post-punk, my first thought is still pretty consistently of Gang of Four. It's not fair, of course: one of the things I even like most myself is the insane variance of styles and approaches bands that appeals to me most about the genre (and its sometime-close relative, post-hardcore). Echo & the Bunnymen kind of exemplify one of the far bounds of what I think of--mostly because they aren't a sound I think of at all. Much like The Boomtown Rats or the Talking Heads and punk,¹ I'm aware of the classification and even the justifications, but I think of them more as popular, familiar, readily grasp-able bands. Mainstream or pop, even--not in that bizarre, disparaging sense most use those terms in now, just in the sense of more familiar instrumentation and song-writing, even if with a clear identity. I can't pin down what it is that makes my brain draw the lines where it does, except perhaps to say that here I think it's the dominance of Ian "Mac" McCulloch's voice, particularly over Will Sergeant's guitar, but that's just a guess, as it's an instinctive thing.

Intermission IV [End of "D" Part 1, Or: Intermission MCMXXVII]

It has been much slower than before--my last intermission (not counting John's little deviant one) was four months ago. It's been a busy year suddenly--two new jobs, and more hours at one of them than I had at the one I started with when this blog started six months ago, a trip out of town, a new turntable, and a variety of odd occurrences in their own little ways have had their effects on my ability to keep this thing up-to-date. Of course, the addition of many records to my collection as I find new stores, make trips, and feel a collector's passion ignited isn't helping either. You may even notice I have seven artists uncovered in that collage above, and only two of them are singles. Some (Dead Kennedys) I've been looking for, some I've known for a while, and some I've been meaning to look further into than I have--and one was part of my large purchase of records from the Arctic Rodeo label in Germany.

It's a bit of a weird letter, D. It does tend to include an awful lot of metal--dark and death alone start with "D" so it does kind of fall to reason, even if only one of those bears out in my own collection of records. I wouldn't be averse to a copy of Death's Symbolic or Dark Tranquility's The Gallery, but the former has only received narrow European pressings, and the latter is not unreasonable for the various 2xLP etched incarnations, but is a lesser desire. A little more Dead Kennedys would not go amiss (Plastic Surgery Disasters, perhaps--skipping the copy of Frankenchrist I once saw was silly of me), and I occasionally ponder copies of Depeche Mode's Black Celebration and Deep Purple's Fireball when I see them. I could easily rock some Dinosaur Jr. or happily a copy of The Dismemberment Plan's Emergency & I ($75 and up! Somewhat lower and I might be watching it...). I've had an eye on Doomtree's self-titled release for a while, after stupidly passing up on it when it was released. Finding either Drive Like Jehu album would be cool, too--especially snagging a copy of Yank Crime that includes the 7" it originally did!

E's a short letter, unsurprisingly, with a whopping four artists hiding in it, only one of which might be surprising to people who know me--or, at least, unfamiliar. It does happen to contain my most valuable record of all, though--at least, based on what people will apparently pay for a copy!

If you feel like it, take a vote on the first artist to appear under that letter's umbrella: Echo and the Bunnymen, who may, at this point, be most famous for "The Killing Moon", which was already a single, but was also featured in the theatrical cut of Donnie Darko.

Drive-By Truckers - Go-Go Boots (2011)

ATO Records ■ ATO 0093

Released February 15, 2011

Produced, Engineered, and Mixed by David Barbe

Mastered by Greg Calbi

Side One: Side Two: I Do Believe Go-Go Boots Dancin' Ricky Cartoon Gold Ray's Automatic Weapon Everybody Needs Love Assholes The Weakest Man Side Three: Side Four: Used to Be a Cop I Hear You Hummin' The Fireplace Poker Where's Eddie The Thanksgiving Filter Pulaski Mercy Buckets

I came in to the Drive-By Truckers at a curious time: I was still working at Borders, and participated in the (extremely limited--about five stores) testing for vinyl sales. It was around 2008-2009, and the selection was largely limited, leaving me unsure of what actually led to titles appearing there. Certainly, it was a store in the Southeast (although a unique town within the state and region), and the Truckers do not suffer the absence of a following there. It did lead to my very mild introduction to Ryan Adams, which has served me well, though I didn't actually do anything with it for years. I saw our copy of DBT's 2008 album Brighter Than Creation's Dark. The art by Wes Freed was intriguing, and the title, too--I was reluctant, as I was still overcoming a lot of my resistance to "twang" in music, and the band's name was a dead giveaway for containing just that. At some point, I gave in and did pick up a CD copy of that same album, and found myself falling for it rapidly.

It wasn't long before I was going to see the band and buy all their albums--indeed, in 2010 I saw them play two shows on two concurrent nights, which was quite an experience. But the curious time is something that involves knowing about the band's history--initially responsible for a pair of interesting but often thought to be somewhat "slight" early albums (Gangstabilly and Pizza Deliverance), they really broke through and into their own with 2001's Southern Rock Opera, which addressed some of the issues that would in some way typify the band as both people and a musical entity--the "holy three" of frontman Patterson Hood's childhood in Alabama: football, via Bear Bryant, race politics in George Wallace, and music in Lynyrd Skynyrd. Some overlap, some confusion, some mixed signals and messages, all adding up to "the duality of the Southern Thing" as Hood wrote on that album. After its release, Jason Isbell joined the band and they released their most acclaimed pair of albums: 2003's Decoration Day and 2004's The Dirty South. To this day, many clamour for Isbell (now solo and successful at it, as I will prove here later on) to rejoin, even if only in brief or for a tour, or what have you, but he left after A Blessing and a Curse in 2006--and that's where 2008's Brighter Than Creation's Dark came in.

Dr. John - Locked Down (2012)

Nonesuch Records ■ 530395-1

Released April 3, 2012

Produced by Dan Auerbach

Engineered by Collin Dupuis

Mixed by Dan Auerbach and Collin Dupuis

Mastered by Brian Lucey (Magic Garden Mastering)

Side One:	Side Two:
Locked Down Revolution Big Shot Ice Age Getaway	Kingdom of Izzness You Lie Eleggua My Children, My Angels God's Sure Good

I always end up with mixed feelings about projects like this. Are people going to only buy it because of Auerbach, not knowing the good Doctor? Is the Night Tripper going to be lost behind the black fuzz of Auerbach, despite playing his very own keys? Does any of that matter at all?

I don't have an answer to any of those, especially the last question. I, myself, bought the album because of both of them. I've been into the works of Mac "Dr. John" Rebennack for years now--somewhere around college I piled him in with Leon Russell and Todd Rundgren--the solo artists from (approximately) the 70s who had hits, but ended up enjoying more "visibility" (audibility and not visibility, I should say...) in the works of others--Rundgren as a producer, Russell as songwriter and session man, and Dr. John as a muppet¹. More to the point, their sounds were unusual--but not so unusual as to be in the range of post-punk's occasional peculiarities or any similarly "extreme" experimentation. Nice home-brews of sound, reflecting personal musical pasts, cultural and regional ones, or some mix of both.