Vinyl Vednesday 4/13/2011

[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: Cheap Girls/Lemuria split seven-inch (2011) on gray marble, Decemberists’ “The Rake’s Song” Record Store Day seven-inch (2009) on black, and Paul McCartney & Wings’ Band on the Run (1973) on black.

Place of Purchase: Decemberists and Wings came from Siren Records in Doylestown. Cheap Girls/Lemuria was purchased via the Internets on Interpunk.com.

Thoughts: I’ve had an on again/off again affair with Lemuria. They dropped a couple of catchy indie pop/rock singles and an amazing split with Kind of Like Spitting, rendering me smitten. I saw them play in a church basement in Doylestown and fell in rock love. Then they dropped a full-length that was pretty solidly OK I guess. But it lacked bite. Then, and then, and THEN, they put out Pebble this year, and it was just about the cutest thing I ever did see. Sure, the songs were about breaking up and hating everyone, but adorably so. Lemuria’s split with Cheap Girls lets up on the bile a little bit, and it makes me just as warm and fuzzy. I am all about this band again. Cheap Girls deal in Lemonheads-esque indie rock as well, and their tune “Pure Hate” is mighty fine as well. I need to check out more of their stuff.

I’m not a big Decemberists fan. [SPOILER ALERT: I actually decided to sell off my collection for an upcoming installment of myPod.] But I am a big Nicholas Charles Elmer fan. Some would say too big. When Nicky Cha-Cha Elmwood told me he wanted to cover “The Rake’s Song” by The Decemberists for our power slop group Science Club, I said, “What? Oh, OK.” Later, when I was trading in a chunk of albums at Siren for credit, I stumbled upon a single for “Rake’s Song,” in a moment of profound serendipity. “This is the thing with the thing,” I screamed in the clerk’s face, who then gave me the album for free. The song is a pretty catchy folk-rock ditty that I think we could really drrrty up. My favorite line is “I was wedded and it whetted my thirst / Until her womb start spilling out babies.” This one’s for you, Swelmer. We are going to throw so many babies at our shows.

Encouraged by my purchased of Ram, I decided to check out arguably Paul McCartney’s biggest post-Beatles album, Band on the Run, with his group Wings. Reviews I’ve read called it the album were McCartney proved he could still write hits. While this seems true at times (How do you not see “Bluebird” on the tracklist and not think of “Blackbird?”), overall I’d say the record feels more like a continuation of what McCartney was doing on Ram, which is turning out agreeable acoustic pop songs that occasionally recalled elements of folk, yacht rock, and ’70s rock in general. While it’s got a little more cajones on tracks like “Jet” and “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five,” the record most strikes me as another example of how McCartney is better than 99 percent of all twee bands. I still like John Lennon and George Harrison better though.

Lemuria and Mikey Erg at the Barbary

The fates conspired to keep me from arriving at the Barbary Sun., Jan. 16. But since Lemuria and Mikey Erg! (of Ergs! fame) were playing, my girlfriend and I braved the freezing temperatures and used some creative driving to get around the fact that the block of Frankford Ave. the venue sits in was closed. See, indie act Lemuria just dropped a mighty fine record by the name of Pebble. It makes me feel warm inside even though a lot of the songs are bitter. And Mikey Erg is on track to be revered as one of the greatest songwriters of all time ever and forever, like the Burt Bacharach of punk.

Ah, but the fates, they are cruel. They tried to demoralize me with the opening act, Byrds of Paradise. These Byrds dealt in lo-fi punk as only a Brooklyn band can. Their sound is fuzzy, murky and occasionally cool. But their lyrics about breaking up were boring and too on-the-nose. Frontman Jared Jones kept asking the sound guy to adjust the vox. Given that Byrds’ style depends on sounding like ass on purpose, that seemed silly. Also silly: When bassist Brenden Britz’s instrument stopped working, so he settled for stumbling around the stage with a dazed look. Byrds of Paradise had an off-night, but the kids seemed content with their sloppy brand o’ punk.

After an interminable wait, Mikey Erg took to the stage with a guitar and treated the crowd to solo renditions of Ergs! tunes. He ranted about Queen for a little bit before launching into “Introducing Morrissey,” one of the group’s best tracks. While some of the songs suffered from a lack of band dynamics, like “Books About Miles Davis” and “Anthem For a New Amanda,” it was still neat hearing Ergs! tunes one more time. Considering some of the songs were release posthumously, like “Amanda” and “Encyclopedia Self-Destructica,” it was a real treat.

I noticed something about the Ergs!, though. All those super fast, catchy songs about heartbreak are straight up depressing when slowed down with the lyrics forced to the front. Still, I got to hear “Running, Jumping, Standing Still” one more time. Erg also threw in a couple of new tunes, one from a split with Lemuria’s vocalist/drummer Alex Kerns on Asian Man Records and one from an upcoming Paper + Plastick release. Both were in the traditional pop-punk vein and should rock balls upon release.

The few new tunes Mikey Erg introduced fit in with his general sound. The same can not be said for Lemuria. The group made their name with catchy, cute songs about making out. Pebble is not any of those things – it’s slower and sadder. Wisely, the band chose not to play too many new songs, and the few tracks they busted out clashed greatly with the old material. “Hours,” from their split with Kind of Like Spitting, got the biggest reaction of the night, but then new tune “Gravity” sucked the energy right out of the room, for example.

Still, the new songs sounded great live, even if they do seem to come from a different band. The tracks off of Get Better sure succeeded, with opener “Pants” going over hugely. Lemuria is in a transitional period, but there’s no denying the energy between vocalist/guitarist Sheena Ozzella and Kerns. The duo, aided by a touring bassist, drew from the crowd and dished out amped up, poppy indie rock over and over for about a half-hour, with Ozzella headbanging quite aggressively. The audience in turn thanked them by dancing and, on one occasion, diving off of the Barbary’s tiny stage. Ozzella and Kerns were humble and funny the whole time; ask them about their “comfy punx” group sometime.

After a solid set, Lemuria bowed out to applause. I visited the merch table and then hit the cold head on.

Lemuria - 'Pebble'

Lemuria’s new album Pebble is strangely compelling. I can’t get comfortable with it, but as soon as I turn it off, half the album gets stuck in my head. The Buffalo indie rock group masquerading as a punk band certainly circumvented expectations on Get Better, but here they truly emerge as an altogether new band.

It shouldn’t be so surprising though. Lemuria stopped writing in the Superchunk-meets-Discount vein a couple of years ago, as Get Better marked their transition into softer indie fare. But Pebble straight up rewrites their sound. I like it a lot, but just about everything that drew me to Lemuria – Sheena Ozzella’s vocals and raw guitar, the overtly sexual lyrics that bordered on Prince levels, the pop-punk fringes – is gone. Well sort of.

Here’s what the band does differently this time out: Ozzella and drummer Alex Kerns share the mic more, so much so that Kerns takes over the album during the second half. The lyrics are less sexy and more bitter, although maybe it’s best that Lemuria avoids topping songs like “The Origamists” (Sample lyric: “Today we never put on our clothes / We tried to set a record / We came close”). Oddly enough, the instrument that stands out most is the bass, which is the one thing played by a session guy, Kyle Paton. Still, J. Robbins’ production provides a healthy, hearty heaping of low end.

The music oscillates between indie and slight post-punk. I’ve always enjoyed Lemuria’s lyrics because of the angles they take. New tune “Different Girls” is about staying faithful on the road, which is an old rock ‘n’ roll trope. But Kerns turns out a sarcastic series of lines that should confirm all of his lover’s fears before Ozzella reminds “It’s in your imagination of course.” It’s kind of douchey, kind of catchy. Other tunes switch up gender roles, like “Bloomer,” while others offer up great lines, like the put down “Gravity will destroy,” directed at a homewrecker, from “Gravity.”

Even without prior awareness of Lemuria’s songs, it takes a while to adapt to Pebble. It’s really catchy, but it makes you dig to find the hooks. A lot of people in the punk community have already written it off as boring, but these songs shine. Yeah, Lemuria is a different band, but they’re still a good one.