Vinyl Vednesday 9/29/2010

[Vinyl Vednesday is a weekly feature about three favorite vinyl finds. It’s not meant to be a dick-measuring contest, but it usually turns out that way. E-mail pelonej1@gmail.com with your own big finds!]

Records: Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm (2005) on black, The Hadituptoheres’ Wild City Honest Dancing (2010) on maroon marble, and the Pulp Fiction soundtrack (1994) on black.

Place of Purchase: Bloc Party came from eBay. Hadituptoheres was mailed to me for review. Pulp Fiction came from Disc World (R.I.P.) in Conshohocken.

Thoughts: I have this stupid habit of doubling up on vinyl and CD for records I love, and I sure do love Silent Alarm. I got it extra cheap on eBay since it’s missing the bonus Dim Mak remix 12-inch, which I honestly don’t miss. I have a bevy of Bloc Party singles, and I rarely listen to the remixes (although the Streets’ version of “Banquet” is pretty good). Silent Alarm is great on its own, a nervous British indie rock/post-punk collection of anthems about longing and/or dancing and/or getting high. It reminds me a lot about being young, and it’s weird thinking that this record came out five years ago. In my memory, it’s still a relatively recent release, and my girlfriend and I are still making out to “This Modern Love” for the first time.

I rarely keep promos lately. I’m trying to scale down my music collection, so I don’t feel like holding on to records that I only kind of like. Wild City Honest Dancing is an exception; this album packs a solid garage rock punch in the vein of many a great Detroit band. And the vinyl sure is perty.

It’s an unfortunate coincidence that I picked the Pulp Fiction soundtrack the same week that Sally Menke, Quentin Tarantino’s editor, passed away, but here goes. Music has always played a key role in Tarantino’s films, and attitudes towards his music selections tend to mirror attitudes towards his movies in general: Is he honoring or ripping off obscure works? Either way, he has great taste. Pulp Fiction is all over the place musically, and beautifully so. It packs funk/soul (Kool & The Gang, Al Green), original rock ‘n’ roll (Chuck Berry, Dick Dale & His Del-Tones, who perform “Misirlou,” which you probably know as the Pulp Fiction theme. You know the one, with the guitar part), and even some country courtesy of Ricky Wilson and Dusty Springfield. Sprinkled throughout the soundtrack are the most popular lines from the movie. “Royale with cheese.” “Zed’s dead, baby.” And of course, the “Ezekiel 25:17” speech by Samuel L. Jackson.

The Hadituptoheres - 'Wild City Honest Dancing'

Thanks to this thinger called the Internets, doing a limited pressing of a record doesn’t really mean a whole lot anymore. Sure, Detroit’s The Hadituptoheres put out only 200 hand-stamped copies of their album Wild City Honest Dancing on colored vinyl, but they’re also giving the album away for free online. The album is thus obscure yet freely available to everyone.

Which is just as well, since Wild City Honest Dancing packs 12 raucous garage rock jams a la the (International) Noise Conspiracy or fellow Michiganians The Stooges, with a dash of the Von Bondies’ blues rock (before Jack White punched all of the talent out of Jason Stollsteimer). The record captures what must be a pretty intense live set, complete dirty guitar licks, thudding drums, and shredded vocals.

The joke behind the Hadituptoheres’ name is that they’ve had it up to here with rock ‘n’ roll as of late *buh dum bum pish!*, and to that extent, the record is something of a throwback. Topics covered include drinking too much, ladies and drinking too much around ladies. The music could have come out anytime from America’s rock history over the last 60 years, and it probably would’ve gotten the same small pressing. This band does not indulge in solos, over-the-top instrumentation, or lyrics about hobbits. They just go out and rock through all the chords they know.

Of course, that means that while the songs successfully kick out the jams (motherfucker), it also means the tunes blur together, never get too deep emotionally, etc. Side A is a white hot burst of destructive fury. Side B is… more of the same. The band does this sound well, but it’s worth noting that A) it’s very surface level and B) they probably won’t be able to keep this style fresh for long. But then again, the songs are generally about living the moment. There’s little point in chiding the Hadituptoheres for delivering an energetic set of songs, and free ones at that.