Yamato (Where People Really Die)

The Van Pelt
Sultans of Sentiment

Or, as I call it, The Golf Album.


In stark contrast to other bands I blog about (*cough* the Brendan Benson one from last month *cough*), here's a band I knew nothing about until they were long gone. Maybe "long gone" is an overstatement, but I was at least four years late to the party. This was a recommended buy from a girl who deinitely was never my girlfriend, though I had wished that to be different at the time. Now she lives in Spain, and I'm back in my hometown. What does that tell you? People who knew of this album in the '90s were destined for greatness, that's what.

Every track on this album is a pleasure to me, though not all for the same reason. Some have great couplets or turns of phrase, there's the one track that has all of the party-talkin' going on in the background which I do not hate, and this track has useless, soaring background vocals. There's nothing quite like a high pitched "aaaaahhhh AAAAAHHHH" to set me off. Then it gets repeated, and again. YAY!

The Van Pelt eventually morphed into The Lapse, the Double Fantasy antidote to the clean pop found on here. The Lapse did have some great tunes, but it suffered from the fact that it was only two self-absorbed people (and lovers) trying to write songs, instead of four self-absorbed people.

I don't really know where Yamato is, or why people really do die there, but I do recommend trying to find it and reporting back to me your results.

Let's Call It Love

Sleater-Kinney
The Woods

I'm going to go ahead and call it. The Woods was my favorite album from 2005. All skronk and squeal, it was. Hell, I'm getting goosebumps just sitting here and listening to the first minute of the track. If you ever dismissed S-K as the band equivalent of several yapping dogs (which, at times, they certainly were), take a listen to this album. They found their niche just in time to break up.

This song is the l-o-n-g one on the album, clocking at approximately 11 minutes. You get all of the promised skronk right off the bat, with the guitar feeling more like it was pulled from a jam session at Emissions From the Monolith than from anyone involved in Cadallaca. Pure bliss for a noise-a-phile like me. You'll get the squeal, as well. I don't know that Corin Tucker really has another setting, but it's much more restrained here than on early releases. I mean, I went back and listened to Dig Me Out last year and God, what a difficult album to listen to. It's all screech all the time. But I loved it then like I love this album now.

The real highlight of this track for me kicks in at around the three minute mark. The track bridges from one section of dirge to another. In so doing, we are treated to the parts of S-K that were always its strengths. Janet Weiss' staccato drumming meshes with Carrie Brownstein's stuttering delivery of lines. All of the sudden, a song that felt like an uneasy hug from a distant aunt shakes you awake with the jolt of a triple espresso, but only long enough to make you realize that the gas leak is still going to put you to sleep, and soon.

Finally, I feel I must address something that has bothered me for years. I hated Sleater-Kinney as a live act. Now, I only saw them once, but it was just so bland. The set just never revved up like it should have. It just felt like they were stuck in idle all night long. Even when they closed with Fortunate Son from America's Best Ever Band(tm), CCR, with 50 people on stage, it felt like it was a chore of sorts to them. For someone that had, at that point, internalized their albums, it was a real disappointment to be treated, along with about 400 other people, as if we were something to be endured rather than appreciated.

I'm guessing that's not Janet Weiss in the photo. I remember that cover, but I don't remember who the previous drummer was. I'm sure it's not important anyway.
Extra bonus fun!!: S-K's wikipedia page is locked due to consistent vandalism, most of which seems to stem from someone who thinks they grew up too rich. Go check the history page.

Cherries/S.R.P.

Brendan Benson
One Mississippi

God, I love this album. For those keeping score at home, this is from the Virgin Release, not the Star Time International re-release. Yeah, I know I'm getting indier-than-thou on you (is that possible on a major label release?), but I will toot my own horn. I knew how good he was before you did, before Jack White took him on, before Saturn used his music in a commercial. Actually, Bert did, and he filled me in, but that's beside the point. For a time, whenever I saw this in a used bin (usually for less than a dollar), I would buy it and give it to someone, hoping he or (more likely) she would catch on. No one ever really did. Virgin dropped Brendan, and it was 6 years before he would release commercial ready songs again.

When I worked in a record store, we played this album into the ground. If it had been vinyl, the promo copy would have been smooth. Of course, it never translated into sales, but we tried. Actually, we just took the numerous promotional copies home for ourselves, as our manager forbade playing it anymore, but dammit, I enjoyed it.

Cherries here is the closing track. After a couple minutes of silence, the real finisher pops up. Genuine hidden track people! Now annoying for taking up extra space on my hard drive, but how were they to know a decade ago that CDs would never last? Cherries starts off softly picking a R.E.M. guitar lick. Well, it does. Something off of Murmur, If I remember correctly. Anyway, the comparison is shed rather quickly and the song dives into what had already become routine subject matter for Mr. Benson--the odd girl with whom he is in love. My favorite couplet describe bringing her home to meet mom and dad, but being wary because she may either smile or spit on them. You stay classy, Detroit ladies.

S.R.P. refers to Strawberry Rhubarb Pie, the hidden track that all musicians loved to surprise you with at the end. As with most hidden tracks at the time, this song is a departure from the rest of the album. But, unlike, say, Endless Nameless, where the track is an infuriating mess of noise and half-thought out ideas, SRP is a bluegrass romp that namechecks my home state. Now, I've never even seen a Strawberry Rhubarb Pie, but I'm sure it's delicious. SRP is, I believe, sung by Benson's muse of the time, one Miss Emma J. It's a fine closer, but come on, do I need a further minute of silence after the track as well? Boooooooo.

I guess today's lesson is that hidden, album ending tracks are a bane of existence for someone who just wants to dump his CDs in the computer and can't be bothered figuring out how to edit down the tracks. That, and I knew BB was awesome before you did, and I can sleep better because of it.

Le Roi

The Breeders
Last Splash

The song where I learned French is prononced differently. Seriously it was this song and Patrick Roy that led me to learn that the pronuncuatiom is closer to "wha" than "roy".

I do love this song. I love its lazy pace and fuzzed out goodness. Since this is not a dissecting of each song that comes down the pike, I'll skip any mention of the lyrics. Especially since I don't know what they are and I'm not about to look them up. I wonder though, is the use of French a held over affectation from being around Frank Black while in Pixies?

For me, the best part of having this song come up, possibly a decade after I last pulled out the CD, is the shimmering vibrations in the middle of the track. It's a song that's never in a hurry to get anywhere, and it fulfills that promise. The second "verse" mimics the first, not unlike Herman's Hermits, and then it's over. King 'Enery may have had a third verse, but I'll take a laid-back Le Roi any chance I get.