Coursing Through The Wires #7
Continuing in the "free association" mode of recent editions...
- The one-song wonders of the world persist... my latest find being The Holy Ghost and their psychedelicious rocker Or Dead (mp3). It's not entirely fair for me to judge a band on the basis of five or six MP3s when I haven't purchased or spent significant time with any of their 3 full-length records (or the stray EP and singles) -- but I am working from what the band chose to share with curious pikers like me. For the most part, I see this sound as the death throes of early 80s angular postpunk stripmining ... the sound starts to get thicker and "shouty" (including bullhorn vox to open "Ghettobird" while still claiming some of the hip-and-trendy elements exploited years before by countless Crooklyn cognoscenti. Someday, a DJ 10-12 years younger than me will post a collection of MP3s cataloging the late 90s rediscovery of Gang of Four, much like Mike's recently-published Volume One of mid-90s "post-Fugazi wankery."
- Mike (and his new friend) also pointed me to this lovely photo of a rugrat gnawing on a well-worn copy of Paranoid. Is this a sign of good taste by the baby and parents, i.e. "ingestion is just another form of osmosis", or should I be offended at this apparent desecration of a much-loved touchstone?
The PFW trip down memory lane also led me back in a slightly different direction... to a sunny summer drive down Lawrenceville-Pennington Road (in the heart of Mercer County, NJ) when I was inspired to (but thankfully didn't) jam on my brakes immediately so that I wouldn't miss anything from whatever Peg was playing... this ungodly mishmash of whirligigs and carnival barkers and tribal drumming. What I thought was perhaps an on-the-fly mix turned out to be "Tattoos Fade," the debut single from the World/Inferno Friendship Society. Happily, the song hasn't lost a step (though I have, from the looks of the W/IFS web headquarters).
- Where the hell was I when Electrelane came on the scene? How did I miss the spoken shoutout to them in Saint Etienne's "Finisterre"? Yes, one might dismiss or disparage Electrelane as just another Stereolab wannabe, but damn if they didn't get it just right. The choir on "The Valleys" absolutely slays me. Check out this recent post at Shake Your Fist for some samples, or head promptly to the marketplace of your choice to obtain more complete examples of the wonder and brilliance.
And one "standard" review for this outing...
Totfinder -- Snocones 7" (My Pal God, 1994)
Totfinder was Josh and Tim, two students at Princeton in the mid-90s. (Paul joined for a Totfinder tour one summer, but I never witnessed the three-man version.) Josh has gone on to fame and (perhaps) fortune in French Kicks. Tim eventually put away his rubbermaid garbage cans and lunchbox-full-of-small-change and apparently is many miles away from the NY/NJ corridor. In retrospect, the music really strikes me as being a male-voiced corollary to Courtney Love (the band, not the psychopath)... except that instead of riffing on Highlights magazine, Totfinder was more likely to draw inspiration from Peter Tomarken and the 80s game show "Press Your Luck."
Listen to 201-C
Anyway, what reminded me of Totfinder was a recent Slashdot article (now featuring over 1200 comments) on Princeton Geology professor emeritus Ken Deffeyes. In Beyond Oil -- The View from Hubbert's Peak (Princeton University Press, 2001), Deffeyes, the son of an early Oklahoma oilman, argued the case for the impending exhaustion of oil reserves and the science behind determining the tipping point. According to Deffeyes' latest calculations, we have already extracted over half of the oil reserves on the planet. For the pessimists in the audience, Deffeyes goes on to predict that society as we know it will retreat to the Stone Age by 2025. I doubt that Josh and Tim are real tight with Big Oil, but I'd bet that the punchline of "201-C" is resonating through Texas and Saudi board rooms right about now.
If anyone would like 200+ Totfinder singles, I'm willing to negotiate...
Jon, I'll take them... a penny apiece....
SKM, you neglected to mention that you yourself were immortalized on the Totfinder 7".
Also, Mr. Solomon himself was also a member for a while; we even had rotating bassists at one point, as I recall. Ah the memories...
And finally, if Ken Deffeyes is reading this, I apologize.
Hey Tim... welcome aboard. Hope all is well.
Yes, as Tim notes, I was the B-side label to this fine single in my old "Wink Martindale" t-shirt (inadvertently continuing the game-show-host theme). How the time has flown...
how about the Brakes dropping Electralene name amongst the clamorous pursuit of other fly by nighters in "Heard About Your Band"?
Good Song.
I like cheeky.