(1997)

Kill Rock Stars

[1996.04.09] unwound - repetition

CD, Kill Rock Stars - KRS 261

Photo by Jason Funk

BRATMOBILE // YOU'RE FIRED [LADIES, WOMEN AND GIRLS, 2000]

Record that plays over and over There's a kid in the story below Trying to stay up and awake His running love of crimson and clover The needle should've worn it away A long time ago Everything around here happens so slow 'Cause no one needs to know

Daily Listening, Day #77 - March 17th, 2020

Album: Dig Me Out (Kill Rock Stars, 1997)

Artist: Sleater-Kinney

Genre: Indie Rock, Punk Rock

Track Listing: 

"Dig Me Out"

"One More Hour"

"Turn It On"

"The Drama You've Been Craving"

"Heart Factory"

"Words And Guitar"

"It's Enough"

"Little Babies"

"Not What You Want"

"Buy Her Candy"

"Things You Say"

"Dance Song '97"

"Jenny"

Favorite Song: "Heart Factory"

no super long post about song content or anything today, elliott smith is amazing.

your favorite indie artist’s favorite, & is very responsible for how the scene is today!

fun fact — The song “Punisher” from Phoebe Bridgers’ album of the same is written about elliott :)

anyway, attached as usual are song lyrics i really like from the song & an image. have a good day all :)

song: “The Last Hour” by Elliott Smith on ‘From A Basement On The Hill’ (2004)

Mikaela Davis & Circles Around the Sun — After Sunrise (Kill Rock Stars/Jealous Butcher)

Photo by Matthew Reamer

The Grateful Dead cast a long shadow over this free-jamming, fusion-funk collaboration, which sprinkles sparkly harp dust over 1970s synth boogie. Harpist Mikaela Davis is likely best known for her work with Bob Weir. She has also played with Bon Iver and the Punch Brothers and made this lovely alt-country solo album. For its part, Circles Around the Sun came into being when guitarist Neal Casal needed an instrumental band to play incidental music for the Dead-celebrating Fare Thee Well concerts in 2015. Casal died in 2019; John Lee Shannon now plays guitar, while Justin Kreutzmann (son of the Grateful Dead’s Bill Kreutzmann) is on drums.

Given those extensive links, you might expect After Sunrise to lean into a hippie folk good time groove, but while the vibes are sunny, the sounds tap into Tangerine Dream-ish synth prog. “Gloaming Way” starts in pristine, pretty harp figures, a sun-dappled, folk-rooted reverie. However, it’s only about a minute before the aesthetic shifts, a 1970s boogie arising from syncopated guitar and harp, laid atop big blasts of synth. It’s a percolating mix, expertly played but resembling sitcom sound-trackery. “Moonbow” likewise dusts blurting funk with trebly harp star dust, an uneasy meld of porno-thrust and dream sequence. If you like Stanley Clarke’s gleaming, futuristic funk or Emerson Lake & Palmer’s technologically enabled arena rock, you might enjoy this. It’s a little too clean and muzaak-y for me.

The set closes with a long, live performance of “Language,” the title track from Circles Around the Sun’s fourth full-length, which gives you a sense for this band’s loose, vibe-y conjunction of disco groove and intergalactic riot. Davis’ harp careens over pop-locked syncopation, leaving cascading trails of silver on surreal washes of tone. It sure doesn’t sound like the Grateful Dead, more like an instrumental Earth Wind and Fire or “The Hustle” on a lot of acid. Not my bag, but maybe yours.

Jennifer Kelly

excerpts from maximum rocknroll (1993)

(1997)

a blue heron; ink and watercolor

last nine day’s listening:

various - dr. demento presents the greatest novelty records of all time: the 1960s

chokehold/left for dead - split

talib kweli - quality

that dog. - old lp

various - smithsonian folkways presents foodways

various - 7.x7”

various - rock stars kill

paul williams - classics

While I was primarily more of a hardcore punk/Thrash kid at the time, I dug many bands that orbited the “grunge” label and many of those bands were either female fronted or were composed entirely of women. I saw L7 play countless times and they always brought 100% to their performances. I saw Hole, Heavens to Besty, Babes in Toyland, 7 Year Bitch, and on and on and on (not to mention other bands mentioned in this piece, associated more with the riot grrrl scene like Bratmobile, Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, etc.). I’m glad to see that the history behind “grunge” is being corrected and that the women involved in the scene, once marginalized, are being given proper credit for their part in crafting and shaping that scene and it’s subsequent influence on musicians. Of course, the problems of sexism and misogyny persist (hello the overturning of Roe) and the contributions of women to the fields of art, science, and the like continue to be downplayed, the gradual process of corrections like this are welcomed as they give a more accurate portrayal of history as it actually happened.  A friend, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, found an anthem in Scrawl’s ‘Your Mother Wants To Know’. I’m not sure anyone I know found equally meaningful sentiment in Nirvana or Soundgarden or Pearl Jam (although I dug Nirvana and Soundgarden FYI and just revisited badmotorfinger, a record I haven’t listened to since it came out in 1991. It’s good.) Ps. As a quick aside, I forged a long relationship with the Kill Rock Stars label which carried some of the weight of the Seattle scene. While I was there for the release of Pottymouth and the first Bikini Kill EP, I stuck around for bands like Born Against and Universal Order of Armageddon (just to name two). I also dug many of their compilation albums. I still remember digging the Turbo Tune’s sampler and getting into Two Ton Boa’s song ‘Bleeding Heart’ (which still rocks  y’all). 

<1993.04.20> VA - Stars Kill Rock

CD, Kill Rock Stars - KRS-207

GRAVY TRAIN!!!! // GHOST BOOBS [ARE YOU WIGGLIN?, 2005]

Gazoyngas aplenty Back pains she had many For such knockers hooters funbags boys were not even ready!