Entertainment for the discerning indie geek
Published by the Telegraph Pioneers Of America: A partnership between Klang Industries and IndieCoRe
Telegraph Transmission Three: The Search For Spock - October, 1994
Tim Day missed his deadline, so his CMJ article will not be appearing in this issue. Check back next time. Sorry.
Mark Cornick, mscornic@vax1.acs.jmu.edu
Hey, look! It's a new issue of Telegraph and the last one was only something like six weeks ago! Oh, MY.
You may notice that the plaintext version of this TG has nicer formatting than the last few. Well, net.audience, the reason for this is that TG is now being edited as hypertext, and then created to plaintext. I'm going to be concentrating on the hypertext (WWW) edition in the future, adding more graphics to it & etc. However, the plaintext mail version will always continue to exist. The formatting may be a little strange - especially the names of LPs, which show up as underlined and/or italics in HTML, but unformatted in plaintext. I'm trying to find a workable way to fix this.
For those of you reaing this on WWW, you probably noticed that we have a new home on the Web at etext.org, who have hosted our FTP and Gopher archive for a while now. My departure from the Hopper project necessitated the move, but it actually works out for the best because now everything's in one place. Also, we are able to keep back issues in hypertext and plaintext formats.
Mail addresses are the same as before - mail Sean for subscriptions and me for everything else. Depending on what etext.org management does, we may end up with a mailbox on their machine, but we'll worry about that if/when it happens.
etext.org (as you may know) provides archives to many electronic 'zines. Other than Telegraph, you can find quality stuff like Armadillo Culture, SuperStupidSlambook and the ever-popular Screams Of Abel on etext.org. Take a look around!
Unfortunately, the price of progress is the 33% downsizing of Telegraph Pioneers Of America. I would like to thank Chris Karlof, who has capably archived Telegraph since its inception, for his services as Telegraph archivist. The new arrangement with etext.org has eliminated the need for an archivist. Chris will be continuing as Indie-List archivist, however. Thanks, Chris!
Well, I'm now settled comfortably back into Harrisonburg, Virginia, quickly becoming known for something other than poultry processing (Harrisonburg, not me), although I don't know what... Oh, yeah, right, the live scene. Believe it or not, folks, this little farm town has become a return stop for touring bands. In the four weeks I've been here we've hosted Eggs, the Coctails, Nothing Painted Blue, the Woggles and Pitchblende, for starters. Next up: Jawbox and Picasso Trigger. Later, Archers of Loaf. This in a place where, two short years ago, the only place to play was in somebody's basement. Wow, man. (Actually this sort of makes sense; a lot of JMU's students are from Washington DC or its suburbs, and have (a) pretty diverse musical tastes and (b) an expectation that there'll be something good to watch. It's paid off, I think.)
As I type this it's September 26, a Monday. This, of course, means that new major label releases will be out tomorrow. There's a bunch - R.E.M., Ween, Slayer (SLAYER! SLAYER! SLAYER! 6! 6! 6!), and many others, possibly including the long-delayed DGC reissues of Sonic Youth's Evol, Sister and Ciccone Youth: The Whitey Album. There is, however, one release that's being particularly hyped in these parts: the RCA Records Label Of BMG Music (that's the name of the label, check that used copy of the 700 Miles CD in any record shop in the USA) debut of Virginia's own Dave Matthews Band. Under The Table And Dreaming is its name, truly awful music is its game.
Let me say first that I have nothing against Dave Matthews (or his band) personally. Early in his career, he and his band played here at JMU and I thought he was a nice guy. I understand that he still is, in spite of his enormous, nearly-rock-star-plateau success. And some of his sidemen (particularly sax man Leroi Moore) are ace musicians. Ol' Dave may, in fact, be proof that nice guys finish first. He sold 74 gajillion copies of his DIY first CD, attracting the attention of various major labels and affording him the opportunity to hire Steve "Will Produce U2 For Food" Lillywhite to produce the new one. This tirade is not about Dave Matthews The Human Being.
It's about Dave Matthews The Musician. He's annoying. Lord, is he annoying. That voice! That whiny, nasal, whasisface-from-Live-(The-Band)-affected howl. Do a few whippets, grab your throat, and say the five vowels very quickly. This is approximately what Davey boy sounds like. Now let's turn to his band. They can blow jazz. They can rock. They can, in the words of Klangfellow Mike Gangloff, play some HOUSE ROCKING BLUES! Unfortunately, they've decided to do that H.O.R.D.E. Boogie. (I think the DMB even played some dates on the last H.O.R.D.E. insurgence. Wouldn't surprise me a bit. Of course, since I didn't go, I don't know.) This naturally makes Dave & co. popular with a bunch of people whose musical tastes I generally can't abide:
Well, there's very little I can do to deny Dave Matthews and band the mainstream success they will very likely achieve. I suppose I could cruise by the release party at Crossroads Concert Hall And Sports Bar (one of the few times I will say that "Trax" was a better name for this place) in Charlottesville tonight, and fire a flamethrower into the release party in progress. Advantages: Not only would this wipe out Dave, it would wipe out hundreds of his fans, and Shannon Worrell too (the less said about her the better.) Disadvantage 1: My friend Stephanie will be working there (her day job is at Plan 9 Records who's co-sponsoring the show) and would most likely be killed in the resulting inferno. Stephanie doesn't deserve to die. Disadvantage 2: This would make Dave a martyr. "Dave Matthews Died For Your Sins!" I don't think so. Disadvantage 3: Dying is a great career move. Ask Jim Croce, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison (why are all these guys named "Jim", anyway?) or you-know-who. Nah, as much as I'd like to, I can't do this. It's fucking futile.
So, anyway, when you see that copy of Under The Table And Sucking Slag Battery's Dick on the record store shelves, or when the Dave Matthews Band rolls through your town, think of me and what I've said, and go see another band instead. (No one else playing? Go read a book.)
Mark Cornick, mscornic@vax1.acs.jmu.edu
The vaguely definable shared experience we call "the indie scene" has a few notable characteristics. One is its dynamic state. The do-it-yourself ethic has been around for years, ostensibly since the Flamin' Groovies released the first widely successful DIY album back in 1968 or so. Of course, it took hold with the punk thing in the late 70s, and has existed in some form or another since. Lately it's become pretty fashionable, even. The DIY spirit that typifies the world of indie music inspires hundreds of bands yearly. You wanna play music, you go right ahead and make yourself a band. Indie folks have always been good at publicity, too; between the numerous large and small 'zines, word-of-mouth, and now Internet, it's not terribly hard to get noticed if you're doing something halfway decent. (Or something horribly wretched, actually, but that's another story.) People like seeking out new bands, and indie fans like to latch onto new bands that they like, much like fans of any other form of music.
The fact that no one's waiting on The Man to create their music career for them results in a lot of new bands competing for indie listeners' attention on almost a daily basis. At WXJM Radio, we get several 45s and dozens of CDs a month from bands we've never heard of. When you're presented with a bunch of new bands and end up liking a handful of them, it's inevitable that some of the bands you used to be into will take a backseat to your new favorites. (Don't say you don't do this. I saw those Duran Duran records in your closet.)
What happens to a band deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or does it EXPLODE? Could go either way. There've been a few bands that I thought were 100% Hot Shit who putzed out and are probably working at El Taco now. On the other hand, there've been some bands that I wrote off early on who've become big stars. (I never, NEVER would've predicted the success of Alice In Chains, f'rinstance.)
Okay, here's a look back at some bands/artists/records I was into a few years ago, and what happened to them.
So there you go; four bands that I thought were going to do big things. Courtney Love definitely had their day. Therapy? enjoy some limited success. Sexy Milkshake broke up before they could sell out. Sliang Laos hate each other too much to try. What's the moral of the story? I dunno. Some people make it, some don't. It's hard to predict.
Sean Murphy, grumpy@access.digex.net
NOTE: Before I launch into another "controversial" piece of writing, I'd like to make a formal apology to all members of the bands Scarce and Juicy and to Steve Silverstein for my factual errors in Telegraph #2. While I stand by my personal assessment of the music I saw displayed by Juicy on one occasion and the stories related to me by other friends whose musical opinions I value (i.e. they weren't doing anything remotely interesting or worthwhile on stage), the more derogatory remarks or insinuations were not specifically intended.
Specifically, I apologize for alleging that Juicy was "merely content" to mimic Bratmobile's style and devoid of any heart or seriousness. Additionally, my error in calling Joyce "a member of Juicy" was a substantial one, particularly for someone who 1.) has been informed otherwise in the past; and 2.) places a significant value on the factual accuracy of written material, as those who witnessed my editorial stint at the Indie List [and the overabundance of square brackets during that time] may recall.
DISCLAIMER: Any questions or concerns about the content of the following article should be directed to me at grumpy@access.digex.net. I do take responsibility for my writing, including its factual content, its potential pretensions, and some of its possible implications. Unintended inferences are the responsibility of the person doing the inferring, however, not mine. I would be happy to discuss individual points at greater length through private e-mail.
[ This would be a good time to remind everyone that opinions presented in TG are those of the individual authors, and are not necessarily my opinions, unless I wrote the text in question. If you have a beef with an author, take it to them, not me. - Mark ]
OK, enough of that. (Guess who's supposed to be studying for the LSAT but writing this instead...) Let's get down to business.
"What ever happened to... ?"
It's a nice song lyric, and a decent question to ask every once in a while. Perhaps just as important as the question, though, are the reasons the question exists - why things which seemed great/wonderful/huge just disappear sometimes. (Yes, rhetorical questions are a bad way to start essays, but nobody's grading this, so fuck it. It's an easy intro, at any rate...)
A couple days ago, I was listening to a tape I had made early in 1991, during my first semester as a "full time" college DJ. I didn't own any of the stuff I taped, though I wanted to have my own copies of each record (and I still do, oddly enough, after picking up all but 2 of the culprits). The stuff on side two was King Kong (Movie Star 7"), Ed's Redeeming Qualities (Ed's Day 7"), Superchunk (4 songs from the first LP), Dinosaur Jr. (The Wagon 7"), and King Missile (two tracks from "Mystical Shit"). [Side one was Funkadelic's Maggot Brain and although it's a wonderful album, it doesn't really enter this discussion - we all know where George Clinton is right now...] And Mark's "suggested topic" just hit me. What the fuck happened to all those bands since I made that tape, considering that I more or less don't care about what they do at this point?
First, a quick rundown of the bands:
Scorecard - 4 bands still active. 2 signed to major labels. 1 1/2 still marginally interesting (I think Ethan Buckler's still got a trick or two left up his sleeve if he picks up the damn guitar again, and I'll get back to Superchunk in a moment, but neither one rates a full band-point).
For 5 bands which seemed really exciting and interesting to me at the beginning of 1991, a "survival" rate of 35% isn't so hot. Of course, this may say more about my ability to choose good bands than anything else, but in 1991, I would bet that many other people were expecting good things from these same bands.
Superchunk is the most interesting case of the five, because they illustrate a phenomenon that I'm finally beginning to understand - the "singles" band. The Buzzcocks and The Jam were singles bands. Pet Clark was a singles singer. While full LPs from such performers can be entertaining in toto, more often it is a collection of specific songs that sparks the most interest. I listen to Singles Going Steady much more than I listen to A Different Kind Of Tension. For Superchunk, I think their true defining moments come in 7" doses - Slack Motherfucker, My Noise, Cast Iron, Mower, What Do I, Cool, Seed Toss, Precision Auto. For this reason, Tossing Seeds (and its inevitable future companion) has a place right next to Singles Going Steady (and the forthcoming Tsunami singles comp) in my heart - that's where the winners are, without it being an explicit "greatest hits" package. In a difference over the days of Pet Clark, however, it's not a label executive declaring "we need a hit single before we release an album" but rather a quirk of fate that makes this all possible. [I'm obvously going to allow for the occasional great song to slip by onto the LP format - Not Tomorrow being my favorite example for Chunk - but in general the LPs ride on the singles at best and bury them at worst.]
Essentially, some bands just aren't meant to make LPs. When they persist in doing so, they risk losing the attention of the people most inclined to like them. I don't think all the bands listed above were singles bands - Dinosaur wasn't, and King Kong's first LP was a cohesive, solid listening experience. Superchunk is a singles band (or rather, Mac is a single-writer - looking over his expanse of recorded output, I find it much easier to extract songs than full recorded units, from Slushpuppies to Wwax to my beloved Bricks to Portastatic.) Extended listening can become tiresome, and this isn't an effect of MTV or any other cultural phenomenon.
At the same time, there are numerous counterexamples to the singles band. MX-80 Sound LPs should be listened to in their entirety. The same is true for Antietam. Husker Du. (If you still haven't done this, listen to Zen Arcade, all four sides, in one sitting, preferably at high volume and with lots of caffeine accessible. It's a truly mindblowing experience to reach the piano interludes or the false end siren in "Recurring Dreams" and then get kicked back into the frenzy.) Rodan (R.I.P., and may all their individual musical endeavors in the future be as successful). Lots of jazz should be taken in full blocks - A Love Supreme, a significant portion of Charlie Mingus's stuff, Pharoah Sanders, Anthony Braxton, Eric Dolphy. I can't imagine listening to excerpts from Terry Riley's "Descending Moonshine Dervishes" or "A Rainbow in Curved Air" although the shorter of those two pieces is 18 minutes (the longer is 52 minutes). Ditto for Glass's "Einstein On The Beach" - a major part of the effect of the work is the saturation of repetition and arpeggiation.
What is the point, you ask? Well, perhaps bands should do some sort of self-evaluation every so often. They should look at what they've done, what they've been satisfied with, what has interested them the most. I'm not saying that a "singles band" can't make a coherent, satisfying LP. (Superchunk's first LP was a good one, not just because it had "Slack MF" and "My Noise" on it.) Bands should recognize their strengths, however, and while they shouldn't rest on their laurels, it's still worth knowing what you're good at and occasionally sticking to it or going back to it. Neil Young has tried a million and one different musical experiments, but every so often he takes the time to record with Crazy Horse. It's not always perfect, but the musical environment "Neil Young with Crazy Horse" is a known commodity where it's safe and certain types of songs will essentially "work," particularly the epic guitar stuff (though that ploy doesn't work on Sleeps With Angels). It's not just a gesture for the fans, it's not cashing in (unlike the "reunion" tours of late - why the fuck do we need a fucking Eagles tour with $100+ tickets at the box office?), it's a return to an accustomed, enjoyable musical expression.
So, I've rambled far off the intended path, come to no real conclusions, and wasted a significant amount of time (both mine in writing and yours in reading). I'm bound to come back to these ideas again (both "whatever happened to" and the idea of singles vs. lp bands) but maybe I'll have more coherent points to make next time. Maybe we can get a discourse going on the more philosophical aspects of music instead of x number of people spitting their thoughts into the wind.
Whatever it all means, at least there was music then that made a difference. Maybe there are a couple bands in the world which have had the plain goal of making one single and then disappearing, but if someone heard that single, then the band filled its role. Maybe I'm full of shit. These issues aren't changing, though - it's just the examples pulled or the circumstances under which they're revisited that vary, based on writers and their experiences. But if anyone out there has that Ed's Redeeming Qualities single, I'd still like to have a copy - "Lawn Dart" still makes me both laugh and cry and that's a good feeling to have sometimes.
Jodi Shapiro, jodi@dsm.fordham.edu
There are a lot of records in my room, my mom's house (taking up her closet space, she yells), my dad's house, my office. A lot of them haven't been played in a long while for one reason or another. Some are just unpacked from my last move (two years ago, if you must know). Some are truly forgotten and my kids will find them and say "Hey mom! You liked these guys?".
Then there's the ones that I can't get to because they're in my mom's house upstate (though I couldn't live without Tar's Jackson so I bought it on CD), and I didn't have a turntable until a week or so ago, so I didn't bother to bring them to my apartment. I fished it out of the garbage and re-wired some things. It works like new, and now I wish I had these four records with me:
There's lots more. Like a lot of people, I started really buying records when I was in high school. Nobody else ever liked what I liked, and if they did, they never admitted it. Lots of stuff I liked back then has stuck with me, and I eventually found other people who had those records too. Some of those bands are regarded as 'influential' now, which makes me feel sort of smug when someone says "Hey, these guys were really cool- -where was I?". I just sit there quietly and think about the day I went to the CBGB record canteen and bought it.
Mark Cornick, mscornic@vax1.acs.jmu.edu
I guess it was bound to happen eventually. Parntership For A Drug-Free America contributors Anheuser-Busch, manufacturers of a popular recreational drug called Budweiser, has realized what Taco Bell did a couple years back: that they better start marketing to that Generation X pretty damn quick!
The result: Bud Dry, one of the absolute worst beers I've ever had (and that includes Milwaukee's Beast), is now marketed as "The Alternative Beer." Jangle-pop radio commercials, win-a-trip-to-the-Reading-Festival contests, blah blah blah. Drink Bud Dry, they say, and you'll be a young, cool, totally-with-it alternadude/alternababe.
I'll approach this from several sides:
Mark Cornick, mscornic@vax1.acs.jmu.edu
Indie-List Communications Research (IndieCoRe, aka ILIJ) is currently seeking listings for IndieCoRe's Field Guide To The Internet. This joint IL/TG project will create a net-accessible list of indie-related resources on Internet: mailing lists, newsgroups, WWW pages, FTP archives, label/band addresses, etc. The purpose is twofold: (1) to help indie fans on the Net find new stuff to check out, and (2) to help the people operating these resources get some publicity. We seek your input - take a look through your hotlist and tip us off to your favorite indie net.stuff. We have a few stipulations:
If you'd like to have something listed, send the appropriate information to mscornic@vax1.acs.jmu.edu. We will continue accepting listings through the end of November.
Mark Cornick, mscornic@vax1.acs.jmu.edu
Earlier I mentioned that the next show to arrive in Harrisonburg (at the time that article was written) would be Jawbox with Picasso Trigger, sponsored by WXJM. Well, they came, they played, and here's what happened.
Opening the show were local hardcore heroes Maximillian Colby. Two old friends of mine, neither of whom I've talked to lately, are in the group. They played the sort of dense, heavy emo HC that's all the vogue around here lately. A little bit Gorilla Biscuits, a little bit Fugazi and a little bit just plain screamin'. Couldn't understand a word they said, but I enjoyed their set. (MC are releasing a record on California's Nervous Wreckids some time soon - look for it.)
I was planning on skipping Picasso Trigger - they've never really floated my boat, so to speak - but decided to stay and give them another chance. Their Southern-fried punk was OK but not memorable, except for the idiot stagedivers who knocked over two light towers. (WXJM's faculty advisor came to this show, but fortunately she left before the lights came down.) PT's best songs were the ones when singer Kathy pulled out a trumpet or trombone, but even then they just sounded like Geezer Lake on ephedrine. I dunno - they didn't fit very well with the other two bands and they had a bad attitude overall.
Jawbox - well, I like each Jawbox LP more than I liked the previous one, and apparently that pattern's going to work for live shows too. I saw Jawbox a few years ago (in between Grippe and Novelty) and thought they were OK. This time they were great. J. Robbins (gtr/vox) seemed a little tired (especially when chastising the afore-mentioned stagedivers) but Bill Barbot (gtr/vox) made up for it, taping his set list to a fan in the front row and cracking jokes throughout. Kim Coleatta (bs) was the most fun to watch, though - during the first few songs she had this goofy "Uh, how're we doing?" look on her face, followed by an equally goofy "Aw, thanks guys" look between songs. (She also jumped around a lot, like Laura from Superchunk - is this a female bassist's thing? Beats me.) Jawbox played several songs from their big-time LP For Your Own Special Sweetheart as well as a few songs from earlier LPs and a couple of new ones. They may be some huge rock stars now (I heard some high school kids went and got autographs) but they're as personable as ever, and they put on a fantastic set, Atlantic or not. (So all the people whining about them leaving Dischord can shut up. Now.)
Final count: Two great bands, one OK band, two light towers down, one stagediver injury, and the radio station turned a profit for the first time ever (at one of these shows.) Awesome.
(TG's cool stuff of the month)
Hmmm... tougher choices this time due to less influx of new music... lots of evenings spent with my trusty Mac and my stereo have led to a renewed look through my record collection...
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