Random Record Revisit:

Majesty Shredding – Superchunk [2010]

   Didja ever have a favorite band that you just loved and loved and loved and then one day they put out a new album and you’re just “over them?” Superchunk became that band for me.

   I was turned on to the Chunk by Mr. Dunnigan in 1994. We spun side 1 of Foolish a lot at Chaz Dunnigan and hen I spun it a lot more at home. The next four records became staples in my little red truck [1990 – 2000] and little black truck [2000 – 2010]. I put on a lot of miles back in those years so there was a lot of Chunking going on. Despite the fact that the band went on deep hiatus from 2002 to 2010. That was fine – 2001’s Here’s to Shutting Up was as perfect a record as the band ever made. So it was a surprise when the Leaves In the Gutter EP appeared in 2008, a single in 2009 and finally an album in 2010.

   My initial excitement at the idea of Majesty Shredding turned to indisposition. While the kick off song Digging For Something fed my Chunk jones with a feel of Shutting Up, the second cut My Gap Feels Weird was just not for me. Musically it harkens back to the early 90s but I just don’t dig a lyric of “my gap feels weird.” Rosemarie is pretty stock mid-tempo Superchunk. Crossed Wires [the first single] is pure Superchunk power pop, which is to say pretty power pop until you get to the middle eight / bridge where they tend to go somewhere that a “normal” [i.e. popular, radio ready] song would not go. Slow Drip would fall under that same umbrella. Fractures In Plaster is a good slower track – nice little lead guitar lick 00:06 – 00:17. The kind of thing that keeps Superchunk off mainstream radio. I think it’s Jim Wilbur on that one. [Mac and Jim are just listed as guitars, no “lead.”] Learned to Surf was originally on the Leaves In the Gutter but this version [or remake] is heavily compressed and lacks the jangly charm of the “single” version. Winter Games is more mid-tempo Chunky goodness. Rope Light is more back to the roots Chunk. Hot Tubes feels like an out take from the late albums Hello Hawk [1999] or Here’s To Shutting Up – not that that’s bad!

   If you ever ask yourself [or ask me] “why revisit records haven’t heard in a while and obviously aren’t missing?” Everything At Once is your answer. I had completely forgotten this song. It starts off with some ambient noise, then breaks into some Chunkian chording under some simple “whoo hoo hoo hoos”s for a couple of choruses and the goes into a typical Mac McCaughan vocals – usually buried in the noise so that you feel them and get sounds more than real words – but then the chorus comes up: So here’s a song about nothing / And everything at once / All the minutes and the months / Nothing and everything at once.” Then there’s a little instrumental break, then some more whoo hoos, an extended chorus, a little middle eight action, another swing through the whoo hoos on through the four minute mark and then a fairly fast fade out. I mean there’s nothing more I can say. It’s power pop for the “alternative” crowd and it’s just a slice of musical heaven.

   The “bonus tack” February Punk is another 2:46 of early Chunk roots. I forget if this was a download track with the single or maybe from buying from Merge directly. The player just went to the next album in the queue, 1991’s No Pocky For Kitty and February Punk just fits right in there.

   I can think of many reasons why this didn’t become a hardcore favorite but number one is going to be that it came out in 2010. By 2010, I had a CD player in the car and I do not play these factory CDs in my vehicles – well not very often. By that time, I was focused on making my car mix CDs [8 Track Years, Walkman Years and FM Flashback] and rarely listened to whole albums anymore. Honestly, I still don’t listen to whole albums anymore, in the car or otherwise. I don’t recall ever loading Majesty Shredding into my work MP3 player either. It just kind of fell off of my radar pretty quickly.

   Secondly, I just lost interest in the band. I think that happens to lots of bands after a decade or so. With exceptions of source – R.E.M. seemed like a band that didn’t repeat a lot of things so their records always seemed fresh. But most bands kind of found their formula and kept doing what they did.

   Majesty Shredding is not a bad album but it just feels like I’ve heard it all before. So if I’m in the mood for some Superchunk, I’m obviously going to go back the ones I already know and love.

   Field Of Dreams is on – maybe it was already on the schedule being that it is the end the “summer” but likely it’s a tribute to James Earl Jones. Of course Jones’ soliloquy on baseball stands as one of the truest statements on America’s yen for nostalgia and simpler times even as we tear down our grandfather’s life’s work to build Mc Mansions and freeways.

   If I was in those bleachers in Field Of Dreams, my seats would be the bleachers on the first base side at Watt Powell Park. It’s Charleston West [by God] Virginia circa 1976. The AAA [International League] Charleston Charlies are hosting their major league sponsor, my beloved   Pittsburgh Pirates.

   We got to see some future major league talent roll through Charleston. The 76 team had pitchers Ken Macha and Doug Bair, shortstop Craig Reynolds, catcher Steve Nicosa and outfielders Miguel Dilone and Tony Armas. Pitchers John Candelaria and Kent Tekulve and outfielder Omar Moreno had been with the Charlies in ’75 and were now with the big club. Going from a big astroturf collusion like Three Rivers Stadium to the rinky dink confines of Watt Powell with the B&O just beyond the outfield and the mountain as a backdrop must have been quite a change. But it’s only one game and it’s only half an hour by plane or maybe six on the bus back to Three Rivers.

   The Bucs were chasing down the wrong end of the state Phillies for the NL East title – they would ultimately end up 9 games back of the Steve Carlton, Larry Bowa, Greg Luzinski and Mike Schmidt led Phils who lost the pennant to [ugh!] Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine. The Reds would sweep the Phillies in the NLCS and the Yankees in the Series to complete the only perfect post season in the League Championship era.

   But back to the game. Me and Dad are on the wooden bleachers, maybe second row. And I’m seeing my heroes – Willie Stargell, Dave Parker, Frank Tavares, Al Oliver playing in our little burg! Of course I have my glove and we almost caught a foul ball off 2^nd baseman Rennie Stennett bat – it hit the guy just to our right and he managed to hang on to it. And I wandered down to the bullpen and got Larry Demery to sign his baseball card.

   I don’t remember much else, which is why I’d like to go back. Any box score I had would have been erased and erased as I needed scorecards for dice baseball [NOT Strat-O-Matic, just a simple two dice game me and my cousin Hal would play]. Always the Reds versus the Pirates. Always. I knew those two line ups cold.

   I didn’t know it then but the Pirates would end their affiliation with the Charlies that winter. Shortly after the opening of the 1977 season, we moved to Arlington, TX anyway. American League baseball? Well, it’s the only game in town. And those late 70s / early 80s Rangers teams were colorful and entertaining to say the least. Bump Wills, Toby Harrah, Jim Sundberg. A couple familiar names - centerfielder Al “Scoops” Oliver and pitcher Dock Ellis came to town for a spell. Evenings on metal bleachers that had been baking all day in the Texas sun? Yes, please! On the other hand we got to see other great players of the era – George Brett and the Royals, Reggie Jackson with both the Yankees and the Angels.

   But one night – to be 9 years old again. The smell of the hot dogs and popcorn, the feel of the well-worn wooden bleachers with no backs, me and my dad just enjoying a game. Yeah, I could do that

 

   “The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball.

    “America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.

   “This field, this game -- it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.

   “People will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.”

 

   Amen.