Pixies, Elvis Costello, and finding a hoard of tapes where you least expect to

No. 1300: Pixies - Bossanova

I started buying cassettes back around the early ‘90s, which was when I first started really getting into music. Nirvana, U2, Pearl Jam—all the pretty big alternative stuff at the time, plus the beginnings of my eventual interest in metal with bands like Alice In Chains and Helmet. But at some point, maybe when I was around 13 or so, I rooted around in boxes of things left under beds or in closets in our house and found a bunch of tapes my brother left behind after moving out. Most of them were dubbed copies of things like New Order’s Low-Life and The Jesus and Mary Chain’s Automatic, which are both still favorites of mine, plus the Cure live rarity Curiosity (should have kept that one!) and a few legit copies of things like Camper Van Beethoven’s Key Lime Pie (still need to pick that up on vinyl if I ever run across a copy) and this, Pixies’ Bossanova.

I’m not entirely sure where I’d slot this in the band’s discography; it’s neither 1 or 2, which are either Surfer Rosa or Doolittle (depending on which day you ask me—still don’t have a copy of Doolittle, which feels like a failing on my part). But I have a fondness for Bossanova that has a lot to do with its idiosyncrasies. It’s a very weird album. In some sense, it feels as if the band was kind of throwing things at the wall and went with whatever stuck, and what stuck is very weird but very good. 

Here are some examples. The very first song is a surf instrumental called “Cecilia Ann,” and it’s a cover—and not of a song anyone would ever recognize in a million years. Basically, the story as I understand it, is engineer Steve Hoffman (whose website forums have a LOT of opinionated people on the topic of audio fidelity) was putting together a compilation of surf tracks in the late ‘80s and snuck on an extra song that he recorded under the name The Surftones, which was intended to sound like a classic surf song from the ‘60s. But Pixies’ version rips, however odd a choice it might be.

OK, then there’s the second song, “Rock Music,” which is an aggressive rock song that finds Black Francis shouting “Your mouth’s! A mile! Away!” over and over again. There’s a song called “Stormy Weather” where all of the lyrics are “it is time for stormy weather.” There’s a sweet ballad that closes the album called “Havalina” where most of the lyrics are just the title, and it was written about a javelina, a wild desert pig. There are also a few songs about aliens (Trompe Le Monde has a few too—there’s a definite X-Files streak to some of their songs.)

But there’s a few songs that absolutely rip, too, like “Dig For Fire” or my favorite, “Down to the Well.” Plus “Velouria” is an all time great Pixies single. So all this taken together makes it an odd one, perhaps, but the weirdness of it all kind of makes me appreciate it more. And it’s all because I found a tape in a drawer one day. Rating: 9.3

Listen: “Down to the Well”

No. 1301: Elvis Costello and the Attractions - Blood and Chocolate

With an artist like Elvis Costello, you find that there’s always more albums you probably need to revisit (or listen for the first time — I think I missed a few in the ‘90s). For as prolific as he is, Costello has few records you could really call bad, and the one that most would point to is 1984’s Goodbye Cruel World. Also your opinion of 2003’s North will likely depend on how much you enjoy Elvis Costello singing jazzy torch ballads. But when you’ve released a few dozen albums in your lifetime, that can be a lot to keep up with.

This is me admitting I hadn’t actually listened to the entirety of Blood and Chocolate until somewhat recently. I knew “I Want You,” that sinister song of obsession that could out-menace “Every Breath You Take” (though just barely—they’re neck and neck!). But the last album that Costello recorded with the Attractions (before they mostly reunited in the 2000s as The Imposters) is one of their best. Costello strikes a great blend of the raucousness of the band’s earlier records with a kind of Dylanesque songwriting style—see “Tokyo Storm Warning,” which if you kicked up the tempo a little could probably fit in on Bringing It All Back Home. And there’s a kind of rowdy, fun spirit to the whole thing that you hear when Elvis is at his best. 

Also, in terms of the packaging of the record, this is an odd one. Then again Costello has a tendency to mess with those details (see: The title of Imperial Bedroom being unreadable). The labels, instead of reading “Side One” or “Side Two” say “Flanko Unu” and “Flanko Du.” And Costello (which is already not his real name!) is credited as “Napoleon D

ynamite,” which I assume is where the movie got its name? (Just looked it up actually and the filmmaker said it’s a total coincidence, and that if he had known the name already existed in some form, he would have changed it. But hey, an accidental tribute isn’t so bad.) Rating: 9.2

Listen: “I Want You”

No. 1302: Bolt Thrower - Realm of Chaos

There are two types of metalheads: Metalheads who love Bolt Thrower and those who don’t. (And then hundreds of subcategories, because metal is complicated and nerdy as hell.) But I’m firmly one of the former, and I find that those who likewise love Bolt Thrower are just a lot more fun to be around. For starters, Bolt Thrower (who split up in 2016, one year after the death of drummer Martin Kearns), are antifascist as fuck. That should be a prerequisite for any band, of course, but in heavy and extreme music you’d be surprised how quickly you end up sliding down that slippery slope. (That said I’m also sympathetic to the idea that maybe you shouldn’t get mad at every band who maybe played a show with a band that played a show with a band that maybe used to have some right-wing dipshit in it. We’re all adults here.) But also, why be coy about it? Being against fascism should be the default position! And yet… 

That said, musically, you have to be on board with their aesthetic, which is just a big ugly cloud of distortion. This isn’t tech-death. It’s just a big slab of noxious guitar smog, definitely death metal but at least a little crust punk and sludge metal. (Or proto sludge? See the Kylesa album below.) What’s hilarious about Realm of Chaos, a classic album by any measure, is that it’s basically just one non-stop onslaught of chaotic roar. There’s groove, there are riffs, but if you look at the record, you can’t even really make out where the track separations are! It’s hilarious, honestly. 

But this album rules. And if you agree, then we can probably be friends. Rating: 9.3

Listen: “Realm of Chaos”

No. 1303: Kylesa - Static Tensions

So like I mentioned with Bolt Thrower, their sound seems to have been influential on certain strains of sludge metal years later, specifically Savannah, Georgia’s Kylesa. Kylesa are a band that I got super into while they were around, and then they split up around 2016 or so and that was that. Which is a bummer—Laura Pleasants has released singles with a couple new bands and guested with a bunch of other artists but nothing full-time as of yet. (ETA: Just learned they’re doing reunion shows with Nausea’s rhythm section, so hey, Kylesa’s back! Wooo!)

Nonetheless, Kylesa is a little like if Baroness listened to a lot more Bolt Thrower. Sold yet? It’s enough for me. Their best record for my money is Spiral Shadow, but Static Tensions is a great runner up. From the opening roar of “Scapegoat,” they’re off and running, just galloping with a fury, and it’s hard not to feel energized by it all. But they’re even better when they swirl in some psychedelia, like on “Unknown Awareness”, where more melodic leads take over. This album blew my mind back in 2009 and it remains one of my favorite 21st century metal records. Suffice it to say when they reissued it a few years back, I required a copy. Rating: 9.1

Listen: “Unknown Awareness”

No. 1304: Antena - Camino Del Sol

One of the things that simultaneously keeps me determined to write about music as well as lamenting the shrinking of great music writing (and music writing in general) is that I’ve discovered so much amazing music because of it. Not all of the records I write about on this newsletter/blog/whatever necessarily fit that description, but a lot of them do, and in a lot of cases, I can remember where I read about them.

Take Antena. I’m pretty sure I found them through FACT Magazine’s list of the best albums of the ‘80s. FACT is defunct, but for a long time they were a breath of fresh air in the landscape of online music publications because they dug a little deeper. While they were perhaps more oriented toward electronic music overall, they covered a wide spread, and while Treble is aesthetically different than what FACT did in a lot of ways, I often look to them as a way to do it that bucks the norm in a fun and interesting way. 

Anyhow, Antena was a group they wrote about that immediately made me have to seek them out. A somewhat obscure French-Belgian group, Antena bridged the gap between Young Marble Giants-style minimalist post-punk and the lush lounge-pop that Stereolab would eventually evolve into. It’s glorious. Songs like “Bye Bye Papaye” and “Camino del Sol” are stark and sleek, not overproduced, but they feel lush all the same, the kind of thing you’d want to hear while sipping daiquiris at the beach. Numero Group reissued their very short catalog on this two-LP collection, but if I’m being honest, I mostly just listen to the first disc. It’s only 15 minutes long and basically perfect. Highly recommended. Rating: 9.0

Listen: “Camino Del Sol”

No. 1305: Q and Not U - No Kill No Beep Beep

In my college years, my taste for a more diverse palette of sounds expanded considerably and I found myself listening to a lot more jazz, hip-hop, soul, and music released in the ‘60s and ‘70s in general. (Side note: I made a series of mixes during one unemployed summer in which each one comprised a selection of songs from that year, starting with 1963. I think I was employed by the time I got to 2002, but I can’t say for sure.)

And yet, I still listened to probably more noise rock and post-hardcore than anything. Q and Not U were one of my absolute favorite bands during their brief time together, and my favorite album of theirs is Different Damage, which for reasons I don’t fully know, I don’t own. But I do have their debut, which also rips. No Kill No Beep Beep has one of the absolute best Dischord post-hardcore songs of all time, “End the Washington Monument (Blinks) Goodnight,” with a kind of low-key groove and a finger-tapped main riff. Most of the album is a lot more frantic than that, though, and some of the wilder tracks like “Little Sparkee” scratch an itch that a lot of contemporary bands don’t, really. And yet, my listening habits and tastes have evolved a lot since then, so I don’t listen to stuff that sounds quite like this as much (and part of that is not that many bands are making records that sound like this right now — maybe it’ll have a comeback!). 

Since the group broke up, Chris Richards has been writing about music for the Washington Post and I’ve enjoyed his writing a lot (his review of a Paramore concert made me regret not trying to go see them). Though I did, at the time, disagree with him about Arcade Fire’s Reflektor, wherein he said there were too many bongos and that they probably had boring sex lives. To be fair he said he hoped that they didn’t, but rather that’s just what the album suggested to him, but also on that note: Fuck Win Butler, he can go to hell.

I saw Q and Not U maybe four times while they were together—once at Coachella, once at the Mira Mesa Epicenter (RIP) and once at the Che Cafe, all of which were great, even Coachella, despite the heat and the fact that it’s not the ideal venue for a punk band. The last show I saw of theirs was on Election Night 2004 with Ted Leo, which seemed like exactly where you’d want to be on that kind of night, but things got sort of tense as the night wore on and it looked like Bush was going to win, plus there were sound problems throughout the night and the student volunteer doing sound kind of gave up halfway through. So… didn’t go great. Not the best last show to see them on, but they hung out afterwards and were very gracious regardless. I’m not one to say bands need to reunite—sometimes it’s best to leave things where they were—but I’d take one more Q and Not U show, definitely. Rating: 9.1

Listen: “End the Washington Monument Blinks (Goodnight)”

No. 1306: Rolling Stones - Big Hits: High Tide and Green Grass

One of the very first records I ever bought was Rolling Stones’ Aftermath, a record that at the time I considered one of my favorites (though it’s dropped several spots) because it started to see their transition into psychedelia (however brief it was) as well as featuring more baroque, folky songs like “I Am Waiting” and “Lady Jane,” two that I continue to love in spite of or perhaps because of how different they are than most of the Stones catalog.

But that record is an interesting bookmark in the band’s body of work, as it feels like a dividing line between their earlier bluesy, garagey, British rhythm and blues records and the meatier rock records that would come to define their career. (Like Sticky Fingers, which remains my favorite Stones album to this day.) But you really hear the difference when you listen to Big Hits, which compiles a dozen of their early singles, which seemed like a necessary purchase on my part (used at Plan 9, a frequent refrain around these parts) rather than being a completist about the early years. (I mean, they’re fun records but if I’m being honest I’m mostly just in it for “Satisfaction” and “The Last Time,” still great songs even after the thousandth time). 

And hey, those two songs are here and they’re awesome. Have you listened to “The Last Time” lately? That’s a damn riff, I tell you what. But there’s plenty of other goodies here, “19th Nervous Breakdown,” “Time is On My Side,” “Not Fade Away.” No, a lot of it doesn’t have the nuance and drama and complexity of records like Let It Bleed, but a good rock song is a good rock song. You know what most of this record sounds like, I’d wager, and I’m sure you have fun listening to it, just like I do. Rating: 9.1

Listen: “The Last Time”

***

Bonus: Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You (which I no longer own)

I’m adding a bonus record this week because I wanted to talk about it at the time, but after a couple years, I no longer own this album. I think I’d generously describe myself as a Big Thief skeptic. I remember a colleague about five or six years ago said they were the best band in America or something along those lines. I wasn’t sure who he was referring to at first, but when he said Big Thief, my only response was: “Oh…”

Friends, I do not believe Big Thief is the best band in America. I do not think they are a bad band, however. But they’re a band that frustrates me to no end. When I first heard songs like “Mythological Beauty” I thought, OK this is alright. Then I heard “UFOF” and thought, hmmm, kind of Radiohead-y, pretty cool? And “Not” really blew me away. But part of the problem is, particularly in the latter case, I’d listen to the rest of Two Hands and most of it paled in comparison to that song. It might be a matter of expectations here; I want them to just GO for it all the time, and they do that maybe 10 percent of the time. Enough that it’s satisfying when it happens, but frustrating in the gaps in between.

But I kinda-sorta changed my tune when I heard Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You. For starters, “Simulation Swarm” is a fantastic single—catchy, great lyrics (especially Adrianne Lenker’s verse about her estranged brother), cool guitar solo. Good stuff! And they get into weirder territory with “Time Escaping,” which has some homemade mute effects on their guitar strings that give them this kind of weird microtonal harmonic effect that’s just this side of noise rock. And there are other songs like “Little Things” that turn up the fuzz and have more energy. I even like some of the softer acoustic songs.

OK, but the part where they frustrate me? Still happens here! I don’t know how “Spud Infinity” ended up on Pitchfork’s best songs of the year in 2022 when there were 19 better options, but it’s easily one of their dumbest songs. (I guess people like that Lenker rhymes “Wishes” with “potato knishes” but uh… the novelty wears off fast.) But there’s also just a lot of cozy warm-blanket whisper indie pop stuff that I really don’t like. (If I’m doing cozy, I typically go with jazz or like Nick Drake or something.) So I find this a half great album and a half not great album. Which I guess for a while was fine with me, but last year I ended up selling it on Discogs. 

Ultimately I had to be honest with myself: I’m not a Big Thief guy. And it’s best to recognize that and be OK with it. 

Oh and the rating is like an 8, I guess? It’s pretty good just… sigh.