Vinyl Vednesday 7/13/2011

[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. I’m moving in with my fiancée this week, which I commemorated last week by celebrating three of my parents’ records one last time. This week, I get all warm and/or fuzzy over three records that are near and dear to my special lady friend and I. As always, e-mail pelonej1@gmail.com with your own big finds!]

Records: PJ Harvey’s “Glorious Land” single (2011) on black, The Cure’s Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me (1987) on black, and The Promise Ring’s Very Emergency (1998) on black.

Place of Purchase: “Glorious Land” was an exclusive preorder from Recordstore.co.uk. That’s in England! Kiss Me came from Legends at the Plymouth Meeting Mall (R.I.P.). Very Emergency was an eBay find.

Thoughts: Michelle and I love the new PJ Harvey album Let England Shake. It’s just such a haunting, politically volatile record. Accordingly, I’ve been importing two copies of its singles (one for me, one for her) every time they pop up. “Glorious Land” is a particularly heavy tune – the lines “What is the glorious fruit of our? / Its fruit is deformed children” certainly sticks in my head. The B-side, “The Nightingale,” is quite good as well. It’s almost definitely about Florence Nightingale, so it fits England’s war imagery. But the lyrics are a little more atmospheric. As much as I enjoy the song, I get why it was left off in favor of more visceral material like “On Battleship Hill” or “The Words That Maketh Murder.”

Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me is a schizophrenic Cure record, which makes it a great entryway into the band’s discography. Jumping from pop to psych-rock to goth on a whim, it manages to be both a unique piece in their canon yet a solid overview of what the group did post-1985. Also it has “Just Like Heaven,” a.k.a the best loved Cure of all time. It brought Michelle to tears when we saw The Cure perform it live back in 2008. And really, why wouldn’t it? It’s a beautiful song. Frontman Robert Smith specifically wrote to seduce his future wife. And it worked! If you hate that song, you’re a jerk. Me, I’m going to hold on to the memory of Michelle being so moved by music that she wept.

Michelle is secretly a huge Davey von Bohlen fan. I’ve been working on turning her into a Maritime devotee. Every summer, though, is when I bust out the collected works of The Promise Ring, especially Very Emergency. It’s an ideal Jersey shore record, if for no other reason than for the song “Jersey Shore.” But Very Emergency is also appropriate overall. The tunes are catchy and breezy and fun, and they work regardless of summer setting. On the road, on the beach, at night; it’s just such a perfect record.

Man, I really hope none of these records gets damaged in the move…

Vinyl Vednesday 5/18/2011

[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: Marvin Gaye’s Anthology (1974) on black, The Promise Ring’s Boys + Girls seven-inch (1998) on black, and the We Do What We Want zine/seven-inch comp (2008) on black.

Place of Purchase: Marvin Gaye came from Repo Records in Philadelphia. Promise Ring was an eBay find. The Olympia punk comp was purchased directly from Matt Canino (RVIVR/ex-Latterman/ex-Shorebirds) via mail.

Thoughts: Marvin Gaye has been on my radar for a long time, but his massive discography always seemed a little daunting. I knew I wanted to start with either What’s Going On or Let’s Get It On, but the guy released so much music that I didn’t know where to go beyond the obvious masterpieces. I was crate-digging in Repo one day when I spotted Anthology, a triple LP greatest hits package from Motown that covers Gaye’s run from 1961-1974. It’s still missing some of Gaye’s later hits like “Let’s Get It On” and “Sexual Healing,” but based on Motown’s excellent similarly themed triple LP for Stevie Wonder’s early work, Looking Back, I knew the set would be the best entryway. Gaye’s list of styles and contributors is stunning; this triple LP showcases one gorgeous R&B classic after another, and I look forward to further exploring Gaye’s canon. However, that inspiration quote from O.J. Simpson in the liner notes is a little awkward.

The Promise Ring’s Boys + Girls is significantly shorter than Marvin Gaye’s Anthology, but just as perfect. Three tunes, 11 minutes. “Tell Everyone We’re Dead” opens the seven-inch; it’s one of my favorite TPR tunes. Frontman Davey von Bohlen always had a knack for cadence in his lyrics, and I love the line “I’m gonna grow wings / And sing / Amen I’m checking out,” and it’s not even the chorus. “Best Looking Boys” is pretty good too, gradually building into an infectious blend of needling guitar and vox. “American Girl [Version 02]” hints at the quieter, more experimental path von Bohlen would pursue in the 00s, but in ’98 it was just a mellow way to close out a great release.

While they weren’t together for long, the idea of Matt Canino (see above) and Chris Bauermeister (ex-Jawbreaker) collaborating in Shorebirds gave me chills. While I found their eventual full-length to be a little underwhelming, the group issued a string of great seven-inches beforehand. Their tune doesn’t disappoint, nor does Canino’s other band, Hooky. I thought Black Bear beat them both, though. “We Fight This With Our Flesh” simultaneously recalls Hot Water Music and Ugly Organ-era Cursive. Awesome.

Viny Vednesday 7/21/2010

[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: Big Black’s Songs About Fucking (1987) on black, The Glove’s Blue Sunshine (1983) on clear blue, and The Promise Ring’s 30° Everywhere (1996) on white.

Place of Purchase: Big Black and The Glove both came from Siren Records. TPR was an eBay find.

Thoughts: Sometimes I wonder why I listen to Big Black. I mean, I love frontman Steve Albini for his production work, but man is this a hateful album. I’d call it misogynistic if Albini’s goal hadn’t been to just spew as much hate, directed both inward and out, as possible. Yeah, the songs get poitical at times, like on “Colombian Necktie,” but the tune that sticks with me the most is “Bad Penny,” a self-lacerating number about being a shitbag. It packs these baiting lines: “I think I fucked your girlfriend once / Maybe twice / I don’t remember.” That shit’s raw.

On the opposite side of that spectrum is The Glove’s Blue Sunshine. Robert Smith and Steven Severin were both insanely prolific in their respective bands The Cure and Siouxsie and The Banshees. Smith even worked with The Banshees on and off during the ’80s (and helped them craft their big hit, a cover of The Beatles’ “Dear Prudence”). The duo also collaborated on this one-off album that’s very much in keeping with The Top and Hyæna, which is to say it’s super drugged out and blissful pop music. One of the things I always loved about Smith is that no matter how many drugs he consumed, his music never became so psychedelic as to be unintelligible. He still conveyed whatever emotion he needed lyrically and musically (Nihilism on Pornography, euphoria on Blue Sunshine). Smith wasn’t allowed to sing more than a couple of songs on the record due to contractual obligations, but Jeanette Landray fills in nicely with a voice reminiscent of Siouxsie herself.

30° Everywhere captures The Promise Ring before they were, ya know, the fucking Promise Ring. What I mean is that the production is a little too grainy and the hooks aren’t as big and awesome as what frontman and lead songwriter Davey von Bohlen would craft just a year later on Nothing Feels Good. But it’s still a solid indie rock collection (or emo, if you must). Besides, how catchy is “Red Paint?”

The Promise Ring - 'Electric Pink'

[NOTE: With my income down to nada, Picasso Blue is gonna feature some more reviews about older albums. Specifically, stuff that's missing from the Punknews.org archives. Or hey, feel free to e-mail me at pelonej1@gmail.com about getting your record reviewed. We'll see how long this lasts.]

“They totally peaked with Nothing Feels Good.”

“Very Emergency was way too poppy.”

“How come the Tanner kids don’t look Greek, like at all?”

Friend, do these quotes sound familiar? You’re hanging out, maybe thinking about grilled cheese, when somebody drops an ignorant remark – they hate post-’97 Promise Ring! FACT: If you replace “Very Emergency” in the middle quote above with “minorities” and switch “too poppy” to “stupid,” you would have a sentence that is not only racist, but grammatically incorrect. Your friends are a hair away from causing a race riot. You have two choices: 1) Find new friends or 2) Hit ’em in the face with the soothing sorta-emo indie pop rock sounds of Electric Pink! Guaranteed to make ’em even rethink Wood/Water! Maybe!

Housed within its metallic, some might even say electric, pink cover is four songs totaling 12.5 minutes. Three of ’em bounce with Very Emergency’s poppy energy, but with a tightness that the EP format specializes in. The title track opens with a simple bass line and frontman Davey von Bohlen’s lispy word play. “Please don’t press that we dress / high heels and loud shoes are a mess / step out with quiet feet / and now I’m pleased to meet / meeting is so hard to do when you’re dead,” goes one memorable verse. The song is pretty much fun from every angle – to-the-point rock riffs, a hummer of a chorus, and those previously mentioned fun rhymes ensure that much. Track two and Very Emergency holdover “Strictly Television” sounds like slightly more retro TPR, if only for its punkier drumming. Hooks are still big though.

The EP shifts for “American Girl (V.01),” a reimagining of the Boys + Girls cut. Though it’s faster and steadier than the original, it’s still the mellowest/slowest song of the bunch, cleansing the palate before “Make Me a Mixtape.” It’s well-placed. So is “Make Me a Mixtape.” Arguably Electric Pink’s catchiest ditty, its pop-minded wistfulness is enhanced nine years after its release. The mixtape was long ago left behind by playlists and CD-Rs, but its nostalgia factor just ups the ante on this, a song about asking a loved one to make a mixtape for a road trip. Like any good driving song, it’s fast-paced and catchy, with some crunchy riffs thrown in. Grown-ass man von Bohlen acknowledges that he’ll never again be 22 (something this 23-year-old knows as well), but that he wouldn’t mind having a mixtape with “something old and something new / something I said or that we did / that reminds me of you.” Later on he gets a little more specific with requests for Husker Du and “something the Cars did in 1982.” He’s even willing to take “Duran Duran Duran Duran” too, sung with such precious honesty. I’m thinking “Hardly Getting Over It,” “Shake It Up,” and “The Chauffer,” but there are probably peppier numbers to commit to tape. But hey, your stupid friends don’t like catchy songs, right?