Vinyl Vednesday 1/20

[Vinyl Vednesday is a weekly feature about three favorite vinyl finds. It’s not meant to be a dick-measuring contest, but it kinda is. Since Picasso Blue just discussed the top 30 shows of the decade this week, VV will be looking at three treasured vinyl purchases from those concerts. E-mail pelonej1@gmail.com with your own big finds!]

Records: Dresden Dolls’ “Good Day” seven-inch reissue (2005) on black, Paint It Black’s New Lexicon (2008) on white, and Secret Machine’s Now Here is Nowhere (2004) on white.

Place of Purchase: The Dolls seven-inch was actually purchased at a show at the TLA that didn’t make the top 30, but since B-side “Night at the Roses” was such a pivotal part of my #16 concert pick – and since I got to ask pianist/vocalist Amanda Palmer about it after they opened for Nine Inch Nails (#14) – I feel like this seven-inch spreads across every Dolls show I’ve attended. Paint It Black’s New Lexicon was purchased at PiB’s show with Strike Anywhere at the First Unitarian Church (#22). Secret Machine’s full-length debut came from their North Star Bar appearance (#30).

Thoughts: I heard “Night at the Roses” at the first Dresden Dolls show I ever attended. It wasn’t like anything in the Dolls catalog, which turned out to be deeper than their self-titled studio debut let on. They mentioned re-releasing it at the time, and I knew I had to have it, although a live bootleg of the song from a fan site helped ease the wait. I got a chance to meet the band after they opened for Nine Inch Nails and asked Amanda Palmer about it; she said it would be coming out soon. Fast-forward a year or so, and I finally got my chance to own a physical copy of “Night at the Roses.” This was also the time is saw the Dolls twice in one day – once for a Y-Rock Sonic Session taping, and again for a full set later that night.

New Lexicon is the best Paint It Black release (so far). Yeah, I’m big on the two seven-inches they dropped last year, but the synthesis of punk and hip-hop, thanks to PiB’s collaboration with producer Dälek of Oktopus fame (and J. Robbins! I loves that guy!), is something that few folks have been able to achieve (I’m looking at you, Dee Dee Ramone). The band’s live shows live up to the records, too, as evidenced by their set with Strike Anywhere at the First Unitarian Church. PiB absolutely decimated the crowd. What really knocked me out, though, was having to interact with frontman Dr. Dan Yemin at the merch table. See, I’m not good when it comes to talking to my idols. Last time I spoke with someone in Paint It Black, it went so poorly THAT HE QUIT THE BAND. Oh, but how I wanted to own New Lexicon on vinyl (and The Philadelphia Sound compilation, featuring early PiB and Loved Ones frontman Dave Hause’s old band The Curse). So, I went in there, called Dr. Yemin’s band “zesty,” bought my stuff, and got the eff out of there before I acted a fool. Of course, I still ended up looking like a jackass when I ran into him at Repo Records like a week later and got my credit card declined. Even when I win, I still lose.

Oh hey, have you read Dr. Yemin’s blog, Songs to Learn & Sing?

I dig The Secret Machines. They make my kinda psych-rock. Even better, they’re cool dudes. They sold their own merch during their North Star show and, tempering my courage to the point of adamantium, I purchased a vinyl pressing of their first record, talked about how their second, Ten Silver Drops, was totally underrated (It is), and then got them to autograph my vinyl. I even asked new guitarist Phil Karnats to put pen to cover, even though he didn’t enter the band’s recordings until their self-titled third album. The show was pretty good, my friends and I got to talk to the band even more after the show, and the vinyl plays splendidly. I mean, it doesn’t compare to hearing “Nowhere Again” or “First Wave Intact” live, but it’s pretty close. Speaking of which, my favorite part about the album is probably the fact that, at 45 rpm, Reprise Records could only fit “First Wave Intact” on the first side of the vinyl. It just makes the song that much more monolithic.

Paint It Black - 'Amnesia'/'Surrender'

Folks, I am full-on crushing on Dr. Daniel Mathias Jebediah Yemin. Obviously, living so close to Philadelphia means he’s always been a punk icon for me, but right now, I’m in the middle of Yem-love. Dude’s original main squeeze, Lifetime, is opening for the Bouncing Souls this Sunday. I just listened to the entire Kid Dynamite/Armalite discography in like 23 seconds. Seriously, those songs are so awesomely short. And his other, other, other band, Paint It Black, is following up New Lexicon, the best hardcore record of 2008, with a pair of seven-inches/digital downloads. The first one, Amnesia, came out last June on Bridge Nine Records, while a second one, Surrender, dropped this week on Fat Wreck Chords.

I finally got back in the PiB game last week when I picked up Amnesia, and it does not disappoint. It’s a little retro for the band by default, since it lacks New Lexicon’s experimental hip-hop/electronic edges. But given that the seven-inch idea was meant to honor hardcore’s past, retro is fitting. Fans get five blistering, rage-tastic tunes on white wax. Opener “Salem” is a little slower than the average PiB track, recalling Black Flag circa My War in its fury towards organized religion (“My intelligent design? No submission!”). “Homesick” and “Nicotine” are more CVA-esque by comparison. Side B adds two more beatdowns. “Amnesia” segues perfectly into “Bliss,” forming a coherent side of desolate urban landscapes and staunch determination. “Bliss” adds a nice little guitar interlude near the end, hinting at the band’s range. Paint It Black has always been good at crushing skulls, but “Bliss” reminds the listener that the guys know their way around melodies too.

Amnesia cycles through five songs in less than 10 minutes. Surrender does four in less than seven. Opener “Sacred” is the closest the band has come to writing a Kid Dynamite-style song, featuring fast-as-frick hardcore/punk with a bit of melody, plus a bass solo to break things up a bit. But any possibility that Surrender was tailor-made to feature poppier songs for Fat Wreck is quickly dispelled by the other A-side song, “Worms.” It starts out fast and fuming before settling into a slower, more deliberate form of aggression. The band goes into the penultimate cut time, as Yemin foams like a mad dog while the rest of the band issues discordant blasts from their instruments on the downbeat. Things eventually shift back into a standard hardcore beat, but the whole song is so primal and powerful that it’s easily my favorite track on the EP.

The B-side switches gears again, as the 46-second “Cipher” amps the BPMs back up. Paint It Black has always venerated hardcore’s roots while simultaneously adding forward-thinking elements musically, and that applies to Surrender’s lyrics as well. “Sacred” skips nostalgia to focus on how far the narrator has come since his self-destructive days of youth, and “Cypher” takes a similar stance against the way things used to be, decrying “Fraudulent allegiances, cheap facades / Our father’s flags, our mother’s gods” before warning the old guard, “This could be the dawn of a brand new day / So get out of our way.” The title track ties the past (“No more shame for what’s underneath my skin / No more nostalgia for the face I wore when I was young”), present (“We try to decipher the truth from the lie/ There were bolder lines in those analog times”), and future (“And I think I know what you’re wishing / So I’m renewing my vows / No more giving up, no more giving in”) together into a mantra self-determination. “Surrender” is about anything but.

Surrender brings PiB’s 2009 track count up to nine, almost a full-length’s worth. While Surrender and Amnesia were conceived from a place of modesty – “We can’t think of a single hardcore punk band that has released more than three awesome full-length records, and we’re not nearly arrogant enough to imagine that we’ll be the first band to make that happen,” quoth the members – it’s clear that Paint It Black is still one of the strongest, boldest hardcore bands out there today.

And they copy the Smiths’ billing (“Dan Yemin: Voice, Andy Nelson: The Bass Guitar,” and so on and so forth) in the liner notes, which I totally geeked out over.