Thursday, October 12, 2006
Various - Standing with His Back to the Door
Various Standing with His Back to the Door 7" (Fringe-Weird, 1997)
Way back in 1998 or so I got a 7" for review at MRR by a band called the Spin Age Blasters, buncha tracks of warpy arty yelping and twanging, and gave it a smartass backhanded review because the band dared, dared!, to name themselves after an Electric Eels song. 1998 was pretty much the Year of the Eels for me and lots of other folks. Insufferable. That 45, which sounds alot better to me now (of course) is from the same twisted little Portland, OR, mini-scene that birthed this oddity, a multi-band comp EP that features lots of incestuous band-hopping amongst its contributors. That there is a KBD-esque feel running thru most of these tracks is obvious, but it ain't your momma's Freestone-style KBD they are mining, this is more like Peter Laughner worship at its most sincere, an unconscious proto-punk fumbling that comes off like mid-70s psych as much as anything else. A flag-waving garage aesthetic informs all these efforts, draping itself over both the art and the punk. The Stepford Wives most successfully channel the 'Eels Feel' here, definitive strum-n-stop, while the other bands modulate their volumes as they will, some of them being a tad more recognizably indie. There are three other tracks on here, sorry, get to work. I would've liked to have heard a stand alone 45 from most of the bands on here...alas.
The Fringe-Weird label didn't put out much, but it's all at least interesting. The guy behind these projects (who shall go nameless) later attempted his own terminal velocity experiment on one of the many local river-spanning bridges. The answer was No, you merely bust your legs. -Ryan W.
// posted by W/S @ 10:33 AM 
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Yes, we all went to LaSalle High School. 'Cept for Tony Masher, he was in prison in Indiana, he got out, now he lives here but he has a hernia. Brian Miller sleeps a lot these days, last summer he got high on Ambien at the Electic Prunes reunion concert and in the spirit of the 60s got nude and (according to some witnesses) started jerking off. The Prunes didn't mind though. Scott Riedel, works as an assistant football coach at our Alma Mater, he wanted me to join the Reuters but I thought he was a dick. Jason Dollar was in Meercaz for awhile with our friend Muslim 'Muzz' Delgado, but quit due to his own Jason Dollar circumstances.
We had other bands too, the Household Highs and Slan, but those bands didn't do much, the former because we sucked, the latter because of Brian's "equestrian hobby", he'll say it was because we didn't have adequate equipment, that's bullshit. Oh, and Karen has a child, she hates Brian. Despite all this non-sense, we are the COOLEST bunch o' fellas in the Rip-city.
Tage Savage
We had other bands too, the Household Highs and Slan, but those bands didn't do much, the former because we sucked, the latter because of Brian's "equestrian hobby", he'll say it was because we didn't have adequate equipment, that's bullshit. Oh, and Karen has a child, she hates Brian. Despite all this non-sense, we are the COOLEST bunch o' fellas in the Rip-city.
Tage Savage
And when I say 'we', I mean our little 'mini-scene'. As much as I wish I could say I was on that record, I was not but have went to school with/hung out/argued/goofed off/collaborated/shared equipment with almost everyone on that record.
SAINT JEAN BAPTISTE DE LASALLE
PRIEEZ POUR NOUS,
Tage Savage
SAINT JEAN BAPTISTE DE LASALLE
PRIEEZ POUR NOUS,
Tage Savage
I remember the first record got two reviews in MRR. One was from Ryan R., the other from . . . you. I hope you've come to terms with your chronic low-grade alcoholism as I have with my latent bridge-jumping experiments. Are you from Portland? How ever did you find out about this stuff? The truth is, (without wanting to come off like that Black to Comm guy), I still regard the Eels and Laughner as holy, and thru such faith our humble efforts were magnified. I have boxes of tapes adding up to several albums of original songs by most of the groups on the comps, and later ones too, all in the same vein but superior to that which made its muffled way onto vinyl. Since you remember the KBD days when remembering when it really meant something really meant something, I'd gladly send you some CDRs. magmagoblin@hotmail.com
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: 2:29 AM
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