fataal Flaw

Fatal Flaw

I wish that I could be

Some special someone to you

Someone more than just another one

Just anyone you sort of know

But I could not, I would not

I dare not take a shot, a chance

On something that could be

Mysterious, adventurous, grand and magical

Because the twins of pride and fear whisper to me

That I cannot take another crack in my heart

faves 96 97

Favorite Albums By Year: 1996 / 1997

They” say as you get older, you lose interest in some things as you “grow up / mature” and life takes you off into new directions like, love & hope & sex & dreams – you know, marriage, children, soccer practice, PTA. And for most of you this may be true. But even without these things to distract me, I found myself less interested in NEW music. There would always be things that caught my ear but by and large I began seriously digging into the past. Any of you who knows me knows I have a great love of the later 60s and 1970s music. I just dug further back into the things that J. Michael and Tracey recommended and the offshoots and contemporaries. Plus the reissues / remasters started coming out and I spent a lot of cash re-buying a lot of things: the Stones, Led Zeppelin, Frank, Rory, etc. So I decided to end this little exercise here at my 30^th birthday. Not that there weren’t things that came out after then that I didn’t love – it just becomes less of a challenge to write about one or two good records non-compilations] that I got say in 2000 [Ryan Adams’ Heartbreaker, Harold Budd’s The Room].

I hope those of you who read any of these enjoyed my twist on things. It was a little but challenge, a whole lot therapy for me.

Chaz  7/4/2020

1. Being There – Wilco

This double disc set [though it would have fit on one – maybe Jeff Tweedy didn’t want to overwhelm his audience with a 19 song disc even if 10 of the songs clock in under 4 minutes, 8 of them under 3 and a half] runs the gamut of what might be called Cosmic American or Americana. A lot of country tinged stuff, some straight ahead rock [the trio of Monday, Outta Sight (Outta Mind) and I Got You (At the End Of the Century)] and folk and electric folk [The Lonely 1, What’s the World Got In Store?, Someone Else’s Song, Far Far Away]. The long songs that kick off each CD [Misunderstood on disc one, Sunken Treasure on disc 2] have great basic songs that slip into breakdowns, mash ups and soundscapes that will come back on A Ghost Is Born. Again, on both sides of a 90 minute tape [with a smattering of songs from 95’s A.M.] it would gt into my player and stay for a week at a time.

2. Down On the Upside – Soundgarden

At first I wasn't sure about this one. It’s different again from Badmotorfinger or Superunknown was. But a few repeats and I fell in love with this one, too. I mean it’s still Thayill, Cornell, Cameron and Shepherd. They’re just stretching themselves out a little bit. Apparently the move away from the heavy sounds of BMF and Unknown was a boe of contention with Thayil and the rest of the band.  Lord, there’s even acoustic guitars or dobros or both on Dusty and the great Burden In My Hand.! But there’s still chorus of Ty Cobb [which sounds influenced by Ministry’s Jesus Built My Hotrod] : “ Hard headed, fuck you all / hard headed, fuck you all / Hard headed, fuck you all / Just add it to the hot rod death toll.” Unlikely to get played on the radio but gets the blood moving! Which is followed by the slowly turning Blow Up the Outside World. They would delve deeper into the psychedelic swirling on Applebite, and a little differently with the layered guitars and Chris Cornell’s Leslied vocal sections on Tighter & Tighter, more straightforward on Zero Chance, Switch Opens and Overfloater. This one has its share of in your face punishers to go with Ty Cobb – mostly Ben Shepherd keeping the band honest – like Never Named and An Unkind. Unfortunately, only about 1/5 of the people who bought Superunknown went with this one – your loss – and the ones who did said it was too long, though it clocks in about 5 minutes shorter than Unknown. I guess it’s all in whether you like the album rr not.. But as enjoyable as the album is up to the last song – that lost song feel like an unfinished one – a strange and sad note to end on.

Writing about the record’s 20^th anniversary, Sterogum noted “The combination of the dust and the psychedelic lends Down On The Upside an autumnal tone — it’s music composed of burnt oranges and yellows flaring out one more time before expiring…. Down On The Upside is a more personal comedown album, a little note from one voice at the end of a major movement in American rock music, but not a definitive conclusion. It’s quiet even when it’s screaming, the muted document of a band shuddering apart.” They did break up for a little over a decade, apparently long enough for wounds to heal issuing the very good King Animal in 2012. They stayed busy for a few years but then troubled singer Cornell took his own life. A great talent lost.

Favorites 1997

1. Stranger’s Almanac – Whiskeytown

I remember this well. I was in the wedding of my friend Kelly. Hot as a Texas July day can be we stood for pictures in front of the church. in black tuxedos. Then there was a couple hours break before the reception. Several of us headed to Jim’s apartment to cool off with a cool one. Then Brother N8 showed up with this disc. Another one of those records I fell in love with from the first spin. Falling alongside Jeff Tweedy’s Wilco blending country and rock and with a tough of Appalachian folk. Ryan Adams songs with Caitlan Cary’s harmonies and fiddle like some modern day Gram and Emmylou [see Inn Town, Houses On the Hill, Losering]. When Whiskeytown choose to rock as on Yesterday’s News and Waiting To Derail it’s a lot like Wilco or Uncle Tupelo. But two of the most powerful songs on the record are the country tinged 16 Days  with more great harmonies and soulful [ala the Stones I Got the Blues] Everything I Do. Ryan Adams would kill the band after 2001’s good but not great Pneumonia.

2. Love Songs For Underdogs – Tanya Donelly

While I knew Belly’s song Feed the Tree, I had no idea – still really have no idea – about Throwing Muses. Maybe that's something I need to explore soon. Anyway working the record store one day I saw this title and I was like “well, I’m an underdog, let’s throw it in.” Especially because I think women sing better than men. And I stumbled across a gem of a record, one of my favorites of the decade. This is an album of mostly good power pop underneath Donelly’s airy vocals. Here’s an example, the opening cut Pretty Deep. Listening to me try to sing along with those super high vocals has got to be a scream. Fortunately I spend a lot of time driving alone. 

Fves 1996

Favorite Albums By Year: 1995

1994, 1995, 1996 all seem to run together in similarity. Working two jobs for a bit, the industrial soaps place by day, Forever Young three nights and Saturdays; drinking with the Lonely Hearts Club on the weekend nights, watching the shows and videos and endlessly spinning the tunes,  making and erasing memories, self medicating to quiet the pains of loneliness, emptiness, fears and  rejections and sometimes bad choices or choices left unmade that become waving goodbye as people move on. [Speaking only for myself of course.] Sometimes venturing to the close by bar for a change of scenery, sometimes to Dallas to experience live music. But it all runs together in the haze of misspent “youth.”  These are the days I refer to when I say “I used to drink a little bit.”

1. A Boy Named Goo – The Goo Goo Dolls

Sometimes when you have a favorite band that is off the popular radio [the Replacements, the Goo Goo Dolls, R.E.M., X, Superchunk, etc.], a band that you and your friends know about and you’re all like “God, why hasn’t anyone heard of this fantastic fucking band?!?!” and then they get popular and all of a sudden you hear your little cult band on the radio and see them on MTV and shit you start to resent the people who never heard of them before THAT SONG as fakers and trend following cows. And you crow about how you’ve been a fan of the band since back when and how you bought their new record the week it came out and you and your crew were playing it before somehow the rest of you herd following ass clowns found them.  Then you hate the band’s next record and wish them doom for having sold a few million records. This is called being a music snob. And the Goo Goo Dolls is one of those bands. Like I said in the 1995 records, Superstar Car Wash was a record I blasted and blasted and blasted on the many hours driving a lot of places in these hazy years. Played it loud for maximum effect and ruined my ears forever. When A Boy Named Goo came out I placed them on the flip side of a good ol’ 90 minute tape and blasted them back to back [at max volume, etc.]  driving all over the place – one of many back to back tapes that got played to death along with the old Aerosmith / Faster Pussycat [see 1989’s favorites] and the Replacements All Shook Down and Don’t Tell A Soul records. Sonically, the album doesn’t differ much from Superstar only this time Johnny Rezeznik didn’t call Paul Westerberg to write lyrics having come up with Name on his own.  Name of course broke the band and led to disillusion and all of that which would follow. But still, Goo is a damn good record. 

2. Here’s Where the Strings Come In –Superchunk

Even more perfect than side one of Foolish, Strings cycles between the hyper [Hyper Enough, Yeah It’s Beautiful Here Too, Detroit Has A Skyline] to the medium tempo-ed but hypnotic [Silver Leaf And Snowy Tears, Sunshine State, Green Flowers Blue Fish] and the combinations of the two [title track, Certain Stars]. Bu the highlight of the album – besides the great guitars of Mac McCaughan and Jim Wilbur and the always great drumming of Jon Wurster – is the seminal ‘Chunk track Eastern Terminal. 

3. Letter To Laredo – Joe Ely

Mostly known as a roadhouse favorite from Lubbock who easily straddled the borders of country and rock & roll, on this one Joe Ely unleashes an album full on Texaana, deeply influenced by the border and featuring flamenco guitarist Teye. [Also featuring the spare but perfect backing of drummer Davis McLarty and bassist Glenn Fukunaga and the multi-talented and fellow Lubbock native Lloyd Maines.] Ely wrote or co wrote 8 of the 11 songs. The covers include one by fellow Flatlander Butch Hancock [She Finally Spoke Spanish to Me, sequel to his She Never Spoke Spanish To Me – spoilers: in the end “Adios” was all she said], one by obscure Corpus Christi born Bruce Gambill and one by Tom Russell – the tale of a Carlos Saragosa and cockfighting rooster named Gallo Del Cielo and… well you gotta hear it. Then there’s Saint Valentine, driver of a red Continental with a head light out and a dent in the side… In his essay in the booklet, Joe Nick Patowski says [Ely] “sings of distance, about rivers and ranches, of smoldering passions and sad laments of faraway longing and unrequited love. He sings of journeys that take him from the High Plains of West Texas to dark and mysterious flamenco bars in Andalusia Spain… And more than once he can be seen and heard chasing hearts and souls south across the Rio Grande.”

Also of Note: Another great year for compilations: Look What I Did!: the Joe Walsh Anthology, Funk On Fire: The Mercury Anthology [Ohio Players], Just What I Needed: The Cars Anthology, The JB’s: Funky Good Time, the remastered Best Of Badfinger, 20 Good Vibrations [but only 19 are essential] Their Greatest Hits [The Beach Boys]. Also a killer, the Dead President’s Soundtrack with the long takes of Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes I Miss You, Barry White’s Never Gonna Give You Up and Isaac Hayes The Look Of Love. For that ALONE this is worth the price! [And who can forget cloud eyed Chris Tucker dead with a needle in his arm while Al Green plays on Soul Train? ] Also the collection Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac Live At the BBC – a whole double disc set of blues, rock & roll and a touch of soul from way before their money making years with Buckingham and Nicks.

Faves 1994

Favorite Albums By Year: 1994

1. Amorica – The Black Crowes

Although I would not see the Crowes until April of ’95 [in the old Bomb Factory, which is now just a part of the new and vastly improved new Bomb Factory - save yourself the hassle of the floor and buy GA Balcony], the Crowes released MY favorite album Amorica late in 1994. It should have been a huge hit. Unfortunately, the Crowes shot themselves in the foot from the get go, choosing a cover that was a close up of a 1976 Hustler magazine cover which shows a woman’s short and curlies sticking out of a bikini bottom. Which instantly got the album banned from the hot big box stores like Best Buy, Wal Mart, etc.  How many thousands of sales did the Crowes cost themselves there?  The second problem being the lack of a memorable single – certainly nothing like Twice As Hard, Hard To Handle or Sting Me. There’s a handful of more acoustic songs – [Nonfiction, Cursed Diamond, Downtown Money Waster], some really wonderful bordering on pretty songs [Ballad In Urgency, Wiser Time and the crystalline Descending with the most beautiful and amazing piano work by the late Eddie Harsch] , the great [but too long for a single] She Gave Good Sunflower… and the remaining weirdness of the not really Southern Rock nor Faces, Humble, Rolling Stones inspired rock and roll that had driven the first two albums. Gone, A Conspiracy and High Head Blues are not exactly songs you hum along with, although one can certainly tap your toe to High Head. Me, I can take some weirdness and adventure in my tunes, you know. One of the other things I enjoy about the\is one is the lyrics. “I hate myself / doesn’t everybody hate themselves / I scare myself / then I tell myself it’s all in my mind / so I let the poison go / because I always know / it will be there for me.’ [Cursed Diamond] “Have mercy baby, I;m descending again / Open your eyes babe, cause this time it’s sink or it’s swim / No sermons on ascending, no verdicts on deceit / No selfish memorandum, no confusion for me” [Descending] “I like to dress up like a jury / To eat like a king, to poke fun at the clergy / To talk like dirt, to love you like tar / But never fall in too fast with my north star” [Nonfiction]

I could do without Downtown Money Waster, too – the Crowes certainly had plenty of material having scrapped their work on the Taller project [later released as part of The Lost Crowes]. The cover of Taj Mahal’s Chevrolet that serves as a B-side would have fit just great right there. But the boys were drifting into some weirdness capped [no pun intended] with a party / jam session fueled by strippers and psilocybin mushrooms. This drifting which would take guitarist Marc Ford deep into a hole and eventually out of the band for a while and leave the rest of the band adrift into the uneven Three Snakes And One Charm.  But that’s still a year or two off. Reviewing the album for it’s 25^th anniversary, Albumism decalred “What’s special about Amorica is not simply the introduction of a more diverse songwriting idiom. What’s special is that this is really the only time the Crowes nailed this diverse palette and created a unified piece in which the flow of energy from one song to the next feels managed—like the energy flow of a great live show—to create a forty-five minute ebb and flow that makes musical sense.”

2. Superunknown – Soundgarden

While I was turned off by the lead single Spoonman, [even though I like adventure in my music – till don’t care for it] I still dove into Superunknown just for being the next Soundgarden record. And it is a great record. Almost 4 million copies sold in the U.S., I guess a lot of people agreed. Another unlikely single Black Hole Sun pushed this album into a stratosphere of popularity. I prefer the swirling guitars of My Wave, the sludge of Mailman [akin to Slaves And Bulldozers from Badmotorfinger], the Sabbathness of Superunknown and the Soundgarden-ness of Head Down, Limo Wreck and Fresh Tendrils. But two of the latest songs on the album, the mud trolling down the mountainside sludge of 4th Of July and the slowly building Like Suicide [NOT about suicide says Chris – according to Livewire, he was “sitting in a basement writing when he heard a thump and went outside to discover a broken-necked, mangled bird that had flown into his window. "My last ditch / Was my last brick / Lent to finish her" refers to the brick he used to end its suffering. Another fun fact — a "murder" is a group of crows.] are two of my favorites. I’ll say again as I said when he passed – Chris Cornell was a true talent and we lost one of the most interesting writers and onf of the greatest singers of a generation when we lost him. I hope you found your peace, Chris.

3. Foolish – Superchunk

As recently noted, My non-Facebooking friend Jim Dunnigan was a record store brat of sorts. He would seek out some bands that people had never heard of, ones that I'm not sure how he had heard of in those pre-internet days. Superchunk was one of those bands. And Foolish was one of those records.It grabbed me from the first time Jim dropped the needle on it and soon headed to some little shop of Arkansas Ln. in Arlington to grab a copy. If there was an Alternative to what was mainstream, then this band definitely fell into that description. It had hooks and pop sensibilities but just enough "wrong" sounding to keep it from being Popular. One of those bands you'd see on 120 Minutes and maybe hear on your local college radio station but nowhere - and I mean NOWHERE else. Frankly, I really don’t think I’ve listened to the second side more than a dozen tiome – that first side is so perfect. Foolish is not their best but it was my introduction.

4. Down Out Law -   Kevin Kinney

The lead singer of drivin’ ‘n’ cryin’relased a couple of solo albums ion the early 1990s – the Americana-esque MacDougal Blues in 1990 and this one man, one guitar [mostly acoustic] record in 1994. Of the two, I like this one better. It’s a fun record, relaxing, not too demanding. I used to put the tape in when I was tired of all of my other loud things or sometimes just tired. How can one not love an album that has a line like “Listen for the hidden messages, beware of prophets dressed like gas station attendants”? [Shindig With the Lord] Like some early Dylan or Springsteen’s Nebraska, Down Out Law is full of characters. Drifters [Down Out Law], the Milwaukee [or Cedar Rapids or Wichita or Omaha] dwelling cousin of Springsteen’s New Jersey leaving My Hometown in Midwestern Blues, the Last Supper and all that implies in Shindig With the Lord, the Vietnam veteran in Tell Him Something For Me… the beautiful Bird. The closer, A Beatnik Haight Street Kerouacian Rip Off In E is just what it sounds like, a quick coffeehouse style rap over a walking bass line -  hilarious if you get it, puzzling if you don’t. But the premise is summed up in Epilogue: “A full cup of coffee, a full tank of gas, an open road and a real good idea is all you’ll ever need.” 

5. Monster – R.E.M.

A return to electric music was probably the last thing anyone expected from R.E.M. But like Neil Young, R.E.M. never did what was expected of them. Tremolo heavy guitars abound, but there’s also the U2 Discotheque like King Of Comedy,  the Neil Young-ish feedback laced Strange Currencies and You and the Stax soul in reverse of Tongue, And of course Let Me In, was Stipe trying to reach out to Kurt Cobain who was supposed to go to Stipe and start laying down demos for the next Nirvana record – but cancelled at the last minute and…