Black Lives Matter at Beer & Pavement
I couldn’t bring this blog back without at least addressing all of this [erratically motions in the general direction of everything]. Specifically, I’m talking about the current Black Lives Matter movement.
“Why would a blog about beer and indie rock write about race?” you might ask.
Let me reply.
I started blogging as a way to express myself. Now, I’ve veered here and there and back, but a constant part of that expression has been been my love and – shall I say – my need for music. It’s a somewhat niche obsession, but I love independent rock music. (I’ll address beer later.)
Any lover of rock n roll must at some point – willingly or begrudgingly – admit that rock music was appropriated by white people from Black culture. It’s fact. It can’t be denied. Some will try or simply ignore history, but most come around at some point.
I decided a long, long time ago that I was cool with this. I mean, it’s shitty that Elvis and every white dude after him have profited greatly from Black people, but isn’t that what white people do? We profit off the work of others, particularly Black people. We white people are the worst.
As I said, I was okay with rock music being Black music, not necessarily the stealing part. No one epitomized rock music for me more than Prince. For dudes 5-10 years older than I am, it’s Bowie, but for me, it’s Prince. Who could have heard “Little Red Corvette” or watched their first R-rated flick by the title Purple Rain and not want to be Prince or at the very least follow him to the ends of the earth?
In Prince, I found a performer that took on sexuality, race, the status quo… He was weird and he could play guitar like a mother fucker. I listen to primarily guitar-based music because of Prince.
I have not always been so well-versed or even comfortable with race and racism, but Prince opened me up to learn. Prince demonstrated that there was culture and perspective way beyond my nearly all-white hometown. Not only did I search out new and different kinds of music because of his influence, but I searched out film (Spike Lee) and books (Malcom X) to feed my appetite.
All this is due to Prince. Prince taught me about humanity and that included Black people.
I recently read that there’s a push to put up a statue of Prince in Minneapolis in place of Christopher Columbus. Yes, there is not already a statue of Prince in Minneapolis, his hometown and there’s one of Columbus. I was shocked to find this out as well. Hopefully, this is rectified.
On to more important things.
So, Prince was my gateway to weird guitar music, but he was also my path to being open to discussions of race and racism. Do I get it right? Usually not. But, as I explain to my children, we (white people) are all racist to some degree because we have benefitted from from racist institutions in some way or another. However, we have a choice to ignore this fact or do something to change it.
I’m trying my best to change it. I’m trying to change me and I’m trying to change the system, because it’s rigged, yo.
Now, there’s nothing all that insightful in this post. I’m just a white guy trying to do what’s right. I’m a white guy who recognizes the humanity of Black people and that they deserve all that we white people take for granted on the daily.
Now I’m just rambling.
Look, remember that if you’re reading this, you probably love rock music. Rock music is the music of Black people (along with hip-hop, jazz, etc.).
Or you’re reading this because you like beer. Apparently, having a beer with someone as you talk about important issues is a thing. Go here and buy some beer brewed by Black people. Then, donate to these organizations.
There. I covered beer and indie rock, but now I’ve got you thinking about race. Join me for a discussion in the comments.
#BlackLivesMatter
(I’m not fooling myself. 1-2 people will comment at most. This blog has been idle for two or three years.)
Archers of Loafing, Amirite?
I kid. I kid. Or as we used to say, JK.
After reuniting and then sorta not doing anything a few years ago, Archers of Loaf announced earlier this year that they had new music in the works. It seems they weren’t lying.
“Raleigh Days” is a fucking tour de force or something. It demonstrates the Loaf’s power and angular guitar play while just being a regular banger. Eric Bachman’s growl is a bit toned down, reflecting his longing to be able to sing or just speak well into the future. His performance reminds me of some of his rockier tracks in Crooked Fingers. The guitars, though, that’s pure Loaf, balls to the walls and all that. The real surprise might be the call-to-arms Rolling Stones anthem “Street Fighting Man.” Fuck. Who knew the Stones were political?
I don’t have this track on vinyl yet. It seems the pandemic has delayed Record Store Day, AKA middle-aged male xmas. Still, I’ll grab it once Record Store Day releases a vaccine. In the meantime, I preordered Loaf’s followup, “Talking Over Talk,” which might as well be about Zoom meetings.
And that’s not all Rona has delayed. I was supposed Archers of Loaf a week or two before everything shut down in Boston. However, the rising number of cases scared everyone enough to shut down every rock show though the rest of the winter and spring. I was supposed to see Loaf, Waxahatchee, Liz Phair, Parquet Courts, and Big Thief, but they’ve all been cancelled or postponed. Archers of Loaf cancelled their shows completely.
So, I sit at home, twiddling my thumbs, waiting for the Loaf to unleash something more than a few singles. I mean, the songs are good, but those of us who have been loyal Loafers (sorry) have waited a long time for this. Ever since they teased us with a sparse littering of shows a few years back, I’ve been waiting in grand anticipation of what they had in store for us.
I guess I’ll wait a bit longer. Now, put your masks back on, assholes, so I can back to live shows again.
(BTW, Archers of Loaf are not loafing nor are they loafers. I needed click bait. It’s been a minute since I’ve posted here.)
Image: It’s from my IG and it’s of a poster in my basement. The poster was given to me by Bob Hartzell at Augratin Press back in my COMO daze.
The Matador 100 Project: Unrest & Teenbeat 50 (Olé 024-025)
A whole lotta Teenbeat up in this post…
Unrest, the legendary DC experimental act issued a compilation of material through Matador and their label Teenbeat. The early tracks intended for this release were primarily of the b-side and rarity variety, including the band’s first album. They are rough and uneven, but one can find some cool moments in many of the tracks. The title of this comp is Fuck Pussy Galore (& All Her Friends). Pussy Galore, of course, was a James Bond character Unrest seemingly didn’t care for. Anyway, the bass lines are insanely schizophrenic, setting up the band’s signature sound as carried out by Bridget Cross in later releases. The covers included also provide a little bit of nostalgia for all the fucking Boomer bullshit were force-fed in the 80’s.
The vinyl fails to list about ten tracks included in the CD and cassette versions, according to the Teenbeat site. In fact, Teenbeat states that the vinyl version included just the tracks from the first album, no extras. According to the site, there were master tapes missing, some re-mixed.
Teenbeat 50 is a compilation of some highlights from Teenbeat’s first 50 releases. Unrest’s Mark Robinson, Phil Krauth, and Tim Moran started the label in Arlington, Virginia in 1984. Teenbeat was able to release so many recordings since they made only one copy of each early release to be loaned out to high school classmates. Much of the early material was Unrest practice session recordings. Teenbeat played an important part in the indie scene in and around DC (along with Dischord, of course). Their roster is a who’s who of the underground-turned-indie darlings.
The vinyl version of this comp included 16 tracks, two from Unrest. Highlights of the roster included Autoclave (Mary Timony!), Velocity Girl (a favorite during their Sub Pop days), and Courtney Love (the band, not the other one). It’s a much more polished collection than the record mentioned above. Some of the tracks sound downright professionally recorded (Hello, Bells Of…! Where have you been my entire life?) Plus, there are two(!) theme songs – one from 1991 and the other from 1985.
Putting out these two comps to what I can only assume was a wider distribution network for Teenbeat, Matador was able to not only promote one of the great underground labels of the era, but they were also able to place themselves among those early fledgling indies. The Unrest comp demonstrates a cacophonous creativity alive in the DC scene (and beyond). The Teenbeat 50 might still sit on a shelf, waiting for release had Matador not given it a nudge (or possibly funding/support). I don’t know this for sure, but Teenbeat’s site suggests the comp was supposed to be released the fall of 1990 and wasn’t issued until three years later. Either way, I’m glad it saw the light of day and found its way into Matador’s first 100 releases.
(Admittedly, this was not my best effort, but you were due a post. Hopefully, I can get another out much quicker.)
The Matador 100 Project: Railroad Jerk & Teenage Fanclub (Olé 022-023)
The next two releases in the Matador 100 come from what are two of the better-known acts of the early Matador roster. Railroad Jerk released “Younger than You” in the middle of 1991, while Teenage Fanclub released “God Knows It’s True.”
“Younger than You,” Railroad Jerk’s first 7″, is a raucous romp directed at ridiculing olds attending shows or something like that. The track feels messy and warbled, but a close listen reveals something more precise and on time. Railroad Jerk yell and twist their guitars, but it somehow comes together in a great cacophony. The b-side is the equally wild “Ballad of Jim White.”
I haven’t a ton to add to Railroad Jerk. I love rediscovering their material as I missed them the first time around. There wasn’t a lot of indie rock available in West-Central Ohio (where I grew up) in the early 90’s, especially Railroad Jerk’s brand of sloppy blues punk rawk.
Teenage Fanclub’s “God Knows It’s True” is a 1991 Matador 7″ previously released as an EP in the UK by Paperhouse in 1990. Don Fleming produced the record which is a cool bit of trivia, I suppose. The covers for the two releases differed in artwork and length. I have the US release by Matador with its illustration of swamp creatures. The UK version is created from some multi-exposure camera trickmulti-exposure camera trick. I assume it’s one of the band members.
The 7″/EP is the link between Teenage Fanclub’s Matador debut Catholic Education and their classic Bandwagonesque. The title track is one of unrequited love. “So Far Gone” continues the louder, grungier Fanclub as they began to insert the melodies they would be better known for in later releases. The EP version features two other tracks in “Weedbreak” and “Ghetto Blaster” as filler instrumentals.
A Note about the Discography:
If you’re paying attention, I’ve skipped some numbers. Matador numbered releases before they made it to market, which some did not. I’ve addressed this before, but it seems that old discography with all the non-releases has been taken down. Now worries. I’m only writing about actual Matador releases.
The Matador 100 Project: Mark Eitzel & Circle X (Olé 016-017)
Mark Eitzel is a legend few know. You may have heard of American Music Club and it’s doubtful you knew about Toiling Midgets. Still, Eitzel’s been around even if most are unaware. He’s the kind of poetic genius who won’t be remembered until he gets Nick Drake-like attention with a Volkswagen ad and smartly-released greatest hits comp sometime in the future.
That said, Mark Eitzel released an often ignored single on Matador called Take Courage. It’s so misplaced that Wikipedia thinks it’s a big Christian radio hit, not a key part of Eitzel’s discography. But I know it exists as I own a copy and am glad I do.
The first side features “On the Emblematic Use of Jewelry as a Metaphor for the Dissolution of Our Hopes and Dreams,” a simple track of nothing more than acoustic guitar and voice. This would the “Pink Moon” track for that hypothetical VW ad. The guitar picking is clear and true as a keyboard fills some space 2/3 the way through the track. The existential lyrics make this track a hidden gem a songwriter like Eitzel specializes in. Jason Ankeny’s AllMusic review describes it succinctly, stating, “…its lyrics traffic in stream-of-consciousness wordplay that nevertheless resonates on a profoundly emotional level.”
The reverse side features the similarly loquaciously-titled “The Ecstatic Epiphany: A Celebration of Youth and Beauty Past, Present and Future.” Side 2 is a slow, quiet, stream-of-consciousness track that demonstrates restraint and grandeur simultaneously. In a whisper-y drawl similar to Evan Dando or Tim Kasher, Eitzel delivers his continuous thoughts over some impressive instrumentation that climbs just beneath his low murmur. It’s hard for such a somber, quiet song to soar and comfort the listener, but for a master like Eitzel, it’s just another forgotten b-side.
Circle X were Louisville, Kentucky’s contribution to the No Wave scene of New York City just before and after 1980. The band bounced around a bit before releasing three singles with three different labels, “Compression of the Species” being the 7″ released by Matador.
On what appears to be the first non-black vinyl release by the label, “Compression…” is perfectly described as “menacing, sample-driven sludge” on their Louisville Hardcore page. The “other side” features similar pulsating drumming and shredding guitar riffs, but the vocals spoken much in the same way Slint delivers the words on “Good Morning, Captain.” Both tracks are challenging mind fucks that fit somewhere in the progression of No Wave’s never-ending story.
A note about the series and this blog…
I am going to do my best to keep both this series and the blog going. I don’t want to start over someplace else, because who starts a blog in 2017? However, I committed to the first 100 releases and it seems weak to stop without even making it a fourth of the way. So, with this post, I should get out three posts this week and/or next week that will cover about six releases. The next covers two 7″ records followed by an LP post. After that, we’ll see. I believe I may have to start buying some expensive records. So, stay tuned.
The Cult of Tree House
Lining up for that Kool-Aid.
Tree House Brewing Company is maybe the hottest brewery in craft beer right now. And they specialize in what is the hottest trend: the ultra-murky, extra-juicy New England IPA[1]. They recently made news by opening a new facility that welcomed some 4000 craft beer enthusiasts despite little-to-no advertisement.
And the beer is good. I’ve been lucky enough to either have folks deliver me some cans or twice have had the honor of standing in line for about 20-30 minutes for my allotment of ~8 cans of the hazy stuff. Kids all over are going cucko for these Cocoa Puffs.
The people of Tree House are pretty rad as well. They run a tight ship and are really easy-going despite the opportunity to go all Soup Nazi on their fans. They keep folks updated through their Twitter feed and can often be found answering questions on public Facebook groups obsessing over their canned goods.
The problem I have is not with Tree House, their people, nor their beer. The issue I have is with the Cult of Tree House. By this I mean that the endless number of Tree House worshipers and sycophants have made it hard to enjoy the hazy goodness from Monson Charlton.
Now, I’ve been around long enough to know that anything that’s hot has its annoyingly mindless followers. However, the Tree House devotees are another breed entirely. They reveal a side of craft beer I thought had died out over the years.
To find these followers, I joined a Facebook group of Tree House enthusiasts. This particular group does not allow trading which would be completely intolerable[2]. However, posts in this group revolve around how awesome Tree House is, how much better the Xth batch of a particular beer is than the latest version, complaints of some using mules[3] in order to increase their allotment, complaints about people who complain about mules, how every other beer on the market compares to Tree House, and endless pictures of fridges filled with Tree House brews[4], Tree House cans stacked like PBR’s in a frat house[5], or obligatory empty can next to favorite Tree House glassware with something akin to an Orange Julius[6].
How awesome is Tree House? Pretty awesome[7]. Did they reinvent beer and all other beer is really just derivative and equally inferior to Tree House? No, not even close. But don’t tell that to their fans.
This has all happened before. I remember when it was Pliny and dudes made the trek to Russian River while tricking their spouses with trips to wine country[8]. The annual rite of passage in attending Three Floyds’ Dark Lord Day was something on every beer nerd’s bucket ale pail list[9]. Or how about those of us checking off stops at one of Mikkeller’s seemingly endless bars around the globe[10]? And there’s many others.
The worst I’ve seen prior to moving to Western Mass was the annual mad dash for Bell’s Hopslam[11], an imperial IPA reeking of so much cattiness that some have sworn to have seen tiny hairballs floating among the carbon dioxide and yeast cells[12]. I wasn’t living in Michigan where I assume there’s enough Hopslam for every man, woman, and child to each have a case or two[13]. Instead, I was living in Missouri, a state still starving for a world-class IPA[14]. Every January or February, the rumors would start all over social media as to just when the Hopslam would arrive, who had it in bottles or on tap, and what the allotment would be. This was inevitably followed by complaints there wasn’t enough beer to go around, it wasn’t as good as last year’s[15], or people stockpiling the stuff.
Still, none of that compares to the bellyaching and simultaneous one-upmanship of the Tree House fans. According to these beer enthusiasts, Tree House makes the perfect beer which is the New England IPA[15]. All other beers are either “juicy” or not, but they all fail to achieve Tree House levels of juiciness[16]. Also, mules are great if it means I get more beer cans to collect but awful if I didn’t get my allotment of trade bait.
Tree House makes truly fantastic beer, but there is beer beyond Monson Charlton[17]. In fact, just a few miles away in Ludlow, MA, there’s a tiny brewery by the name of Vanished Valley making NEIPA’s as juicy as anything Tree House, Trillium, or Other Half are brewing these days[18]. Oh, and there are other styles out there as well. The market is flooded with nearly as many high-quality Saisons as IPA’s. Oh, and one can’t forget the inexplicable abundance of imperial stouts in the middle of summer[19].
And what about when the hype dies? What about when the next great style of beer reaches our taste buds? What about when the next garage-based, nano-brewery brews said beer style in such tiny quantities that beer nerds line up for miles[20] just to sample a taste or be told “NO BEER FOR YOU”?
I’ll tell you. There will be a new group of acolytes full of hyperbole and tunnel vision who will state their preferences as fact and obsess over one beer or brewery to the extent their spouses will leave them and their children will swear off beer forever[21]. Then what? It will all happen again.
All that said, I will continue to drink Tree House beers, but I won’t drink their Kool-Aid[22].
Notes:
1 I don’t know about the “juicy” part, but friends used to bump up the mouthfeel of their beers with some oatmeal in the mash. One side effect was that lighter-colored beers had a haze not unlike today’s NEIPA. I like the color, but it’s getting old seeing all these pictures of new IPA’s that look like glasses of Tang.
2 I find sporadic trading to be fun, but those “professional” traders out there who buy cases of beer only to trade most of them for whales and whatnot to be kinda boring. Plus, who has the time and resources to constantly trade beer? When does one find time to drink these beers.
3 No. No one is shoving cans of beer up their ass in order to smuggle beer across a border. The term “mule” in this instance refers to the significant others, domestic workers, and others who are asked to “purchase” another allotment of beers so that one person can double or triple their inventory.
4 I never understood the beer porn of endless shelves and fridges filled with so much beer one human could never consume it all without their liver failing instantly. Great. You have three cases of beer from one brewery of basically one style that coincidentally does not age well no matter how tight that can is or how cold you keep your refrigerator.
5 Really? Really. Grown adults are collecting beer cans and either stacking them like they did blocks as a toddler or lining them along the top of their kitchen cabinets. I helped build one beer can pyramid in college and promptly dropped that skill from my repertoire.
6 Yes, this was done on purpose. Julius is one of TH’s most popular brews. I actually don’t like it as much as their others, but it’s good. The reference also refers to the orangey/milky appearance of the beers as well as their fruit juicy flavors and smooth, creamy mouthfeel.
7 Not gonna front. This is the most inspiring brewery I’ve encountered in years and they happen to be on the forefront of a subgenre that’s overtaking the market.
8 I’ve never done this, but I mention it every time a trip to wine country is suggested. Honestly, I would try whatever IPA’s RR has on tap, but I would linger over and enjoy their sour beers even more obsessively.
9 Another thing I haven’t done, but its moment is in the past. I’ve stood in line for beer at 3T’s and I love what they do. I still have the bottle from the lone Dark Lord I’ve had, but that was enough for me.
10 I’ve been to two of Mikkeller’s Copenhagen bars and they were totally worth it. I’ve vowed to visit all of their locations whenever I visit a city where they have a bar. That said, I long for the day I dine and imbibe at their BBQ joint effort with Three Floyds, AKA War Pigs.
11 I don’t remember why I footnoted this one.
12 This is an exaggeration because hyperbole and essentialism are the most important tools when talking about craft beer.
13 Yes, craft beer everywhere, but no one can figure out how to supply Flint with clean water.
14 To be fair, there is tons of great beer in Missouri. Some of the IPA’s are even good, but that’s not what Missouri does best. Breweries in Missouri do everything well, not just one style. Nothing really stands out aside from Saisons and sours here and there, but that’s okay as a lot of good beer is happening there.
15 The New England IPA is a cloudy, orange-colored, fruity, somewhat not bitter version of the IPA that is all the rage. Check any brewery’s social media feed and they’re probably posting milky-orange beers with virtually no head and using terms like “juicy” or “hazy” to describe these concoctions. Also expect limited runs and long lines as no one seems to have figured out how to make this style in large quantities that have a shelf life beyond a few days. Still, when fresh, the NEIPA is an exceptional offshoot of the IPA.
16 The term “juicy” needs to die. I’m so over it and feel it’s overused. I recently noticed members of the aforementioned Tree House FB group describing every beer on a scale of juiciness when these beers do not feature the fruit juice qualities of the typical NEIPA.
17 Tree House has moved its main operation to Charlton from Monson. Google it.
18 Trillium is a Boston-area brewery doing what Tree House will be doing in a few years and Other Half is a Brooklyn brewery doing what Tree House was doing just a couple of years ago. Both are pretty amazing. I feel lucky to have somewhat regular access to all three if I want it.
19 Why is this? There are never imperial stouts on the shelves when I want them in the dead of winter. No. Most have been hitting the shelves this summer. Time to stock up, I guess.
20 And they will. Despite so many great beers on tap or occupying store shelves, craft beer enthusiasts only want what they can’t have.
21 Yes, I realize the hypocrisy of obsessing over a band (Pavement) in which I compare them to pretty much every other band and sometimes beers while calling out Tree House fanbois for the same thing. I’m just taking the piss.
22 Even then, I bet a Tree House Kool-Aid would be a hazy-ass hop bomb to end all hop bombs. In fact, I bet it would even be…dare I say juicy?
Where You Been
I noticed that it’s almost been a year since you last heard from me. Of course, there aren’t that many of you, so who cares?
You should know that I’m doing well in Western Mass. I’m back to homebrewing and trying a new beer almost daily. (Yay for summer!) I don’t go to too many shows these days, but I seem to have increased my record collection exponentially.
Teaching is still how I pay the bills, but I’m doing that five minutes from home instead 30 thanks to a move to Amherst-Pelham Regional School District[1]. Plus, the days are shorter. My hope is that I’ll find more time for this sort of thing (blogging). Who knows? We’ll see.
I may also have something up elsewhere that sort of got me writing again. It’s nothing much[2], but I’ll share it here once it’s up.
There will be no promises made as to how much or how often I will post, but I have at least 2-3 ideas for topics I’m itching to write. So, stay tuned…
Notes:
1This is the same school district that produced J Mascis, Uma Thurman (although, I suspect she was home-schooled or sent to some Buddhist private school), and the guy who played Marni’s drug-addicted husband in Girls.
2Like 650 words of nothing on what I’m listening to. Of course, it’s a start.
The Matador 100 Project: El Chain Gang (Olé 015, note about Olé 019)
El Chain Gang is something else. I didn’t see this one coming in the discography. A punk band formed in the 70’s putting out a 7″ EP on Matador in 1991. Of course, El Chain Gang had a long history in the NYC underground and just happened to be unlucky enough to get noticed in that time. There were some brushes with fame in the form of a minor hit on the British charts (“Son of Sam”) and the soundtrack for Mondo Manhattan.
“Kill for Your” is a double 7″ set with a fold-out flyer tucked inside the plastic jacket. The artwork is as gritty and old-school punk as the music contained on the four discs. Despite this being a rather raucous punk band, one can tell right away how “polished” they are in comparison to many of the other bands released to this point on Matador. Additionally, their slow-to-mid-tempo stomps help explain why they didn’t catch on in the New Wave and Hardcore scenes of the 80’s. This release is a bit of a tribute to the mileage they put on the NYC punk scene during that time.
A note about Olé 019: El Chain Gang also released a CD-onlyt EP on Matador 2 years later. However, since I am focusing this series on the first 100 vinyl releases by Matador, it won’t be included. Which fine by me as this isn’t really my thing, but I appreciate where this band sits in NYC punk rock history and am happy to own an artifact from that history.
A note on the Matador 100: My hope is to churn out a bunch of these short takes on early Matador releases. I have a pile of them to consume which gives me time to acquire releases by Shams, Bullet Lavolta, Toiling Midgets, and Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 among other bands I haven’t really explored. We’re really just getting started here.
The Matador 100 Project: Dustdevils’ Struggling, Electric, & Chemical (Olé 014)
Jointly released by Teen Beat in 1991, Dustdevils’ second Matador release was the Wharton Tiers produced Struggling, Electric, & Chemical. The Sonic Youth comparisons remain, but there’s a separation into something that sounds much more like future releases from Pavement. Of course, it doesn’t hurt Mark Ibold is the string between all these bands, but even he would admit he had little to do with any aesthetic any of the three groups produced.
The opening track was best described by Chicago Tribune’s Greg Kot, who for all I know just listened to said track:
The Devils’ 10-minute cover of the Fall’s “Hip Priest” is a mind-blowing masterpiece of corrosion and decay: A female voice clings desperately to a thread of melody; huge, ghostly edifices of sound emerge from the sparest guitar chords; drums and bass collide, fall back and collide again as if auditioning for a Cecil Taylor session. More noise and disruption follow, even a wretched blues, all reportedly recorded in a single bleary day.
It is a case of the cover being just as good or better than the original and the original was pretty damned good.
The second track screams of a Sonic Youth onslaught. Again, where other bands’ influence is apparent, Dustdevils certainly hold their own. With this record, Dustdevils firmly plant themselves in the annals of noise rock. From there, Dustdevils rarely let up. And when they do, it’s for fits of noise and distortion. This record sounds like it was from the 90’s but somehow remains fresh 25 years later.
A quick note about Ole-013: Toys Went Berserk’s last LP was set to be released by Matador but it never came to fruition. The Australian outfit put out the album on Aussie imprint Aberrant Records despite recording here in the States with Pixies’ producer Gary Smith. It seems unclear as to why Toys Went Berserk never released on Matador. I suppose it was in talks and Matador moved on with other releases and it just never happened.
On a side note, I am still doing this project. I gathered a few records to review but just haven’t had the time. I need to figure out where I am with the discography and get back to collecting so that I can continue putting out these posts. It’s not that I’m adding anything to the discography. I just wanted something to do and to find some way to honor my favorite record label.
The Matador 100 Project: Teenage Fanclub’s A Catholic Education (Olé 012)
I just missed the Teenage Fanclub bandwagon. That’s to say that I got into independent music right after the band’s major breakthrough release – 1991’s Bandwagonesque – rolled onto the scene. Of course, I was into label mates (Geffen) Nirvana, so it would be a couple of years before I would dive into indie labels like Matador and their infinite discographies. This was actually Teenage Fanclub’s third release and, as stated above, I missed the whole thing.
Luckily, I did get into indie rock and indie labels. And even luckier, I found time and enough income to go back through these discographies and catch up. This little blogging project helped me find Teenage Fanclub’s first (possibly) US release and now I’ve been fully introduced to 1990’s A Catholic Education.
Now, I have seen Teenage Fanclub in-person, once. They played with Bettie Serveert (also of Matador) at the Crocodile Club in Seattle in the summer of 1997. It was a great show and what I remembered about Teenage Fanclub was that they were a great bar band. This was sort of a thing in the early and mid-90’s among indie/alternative acts. Bands like The Lemonheads or Buffalo Tom had these catchy rockers that filled LP’s and setlists. They rarely disappointed as this is the kind of music one likes to hear at a bar or rock club. Sometimes they didn’t inspire if you didn’t pay attention. I honestly wasn’t paying attention as I missed them in my Nirvana days and was kinda over bar bands not named “Guided by Voices” in 1997.
A Catholic Education is a perfect example as to why I should have paid attention. This sludgy collection of rockers is a nice blend of that rocker aesthetic, a touch of pre-Nirvana grunge, as well as some nice melodies that have stuck in my head ever since this record arrived in the mail.
“Everything Flows” is a great opener, one that has wormed it’s way into my brain as I play those riffs over and over in my head. The vocals have that pleasant Evan Dando tone over a steady, mid-tempo rocker. This is followed by the familiar “Everybody’s Fool” – another mid-tempo pleaser. When “Everything Flows” isn’t running through my head, the refrains “I don’t fucking care…” and “I’m laughing at you all the time” from “Everything…” are filing the void. This was a pretty great start to the band’s LP output.
The title track doesn’t disappoint. The band must have also thought so as they included it twice, once on each side. I honestly haven’t listened to the two tracks side-by-side to tell you what the difference is. I feel like the second version is faster, more rocking, and lacking keyboards. Either way, one gets the sense Teenage Fanclub was getting feisty and political with their title tracks.
The rest of the album pleases as much as the first three tracks suggest they should. Things slow a bit a mope about with “Eternal Light.” There are two instrumentals called “Heavy Metal,” the second being the darker, more interesting version in my opinion. “Critical Mass” almost jangles while the rest of the tracks round out what is an excellent debut album.
The production is a bit mucky, but the sequence of tracks is super enjoyable. I would pay way too much to see the band play this record in its entirety and in the sequence on the vinyl release, not the CD.
I don’t know if Teenage Fanclub were hugely influential, but one can’t miss that this record released in 1990 certainly was doing all the things bands attempted over the next 5-10 years. I’m glad I dug this record up just for the cause of collecting Matador’s first 100 releases. It paints a better picture of the scene for me and helps prove that Matador knew what they were doing when they put our records by the likes of Teenage Fanclub.
Beer and Pavement 
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