#everyrecordiown

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 839: Judas Priest Stained Class

The AOTY-list season serves as a reminder that I haven't checked out nearly as much new music in 2024 as I have in years past.

I feel a little guilty about it. Being a musician, I'm a big believer in staying connected to current artists and their work. At the same time, it's impossible to keep up with the constant stream of new music, and I can't help but feel that one of the ways we're failing artists in this current age is by only giving their work a single cursory listen.

It's fleeting fandom. There were no shortage of great albums that came out this year that I streamed once online and thought "this is really good... I need to listen to this more" and then promptly forgot about. Buying vinyl has always been my way of making sure I dedicate time to REALLY listening to an album, but with as much as I've toured these last two years, I've had to scale my purchases back because I'm simply not home enough to listen to my collection and I'm already slacking on investigating records I bought in 2023.

So I didn't buy many albums that came out in 2024. But that doesn't mean I wasn't listening to a lot of music. In particular, I listened to A LOT of early Judas Priest.

My Judas Priest fandom is a relatively new thing. I've sat on a copy of Screaming For Vengeance for ages, but it wasn't the right entry point for me. But starting sometime around late 2022, I started falling for Sin After Sin. This was the combo I was lacking in my life: good riffs, '70s production, a dash of prog-rock ambition, some sinister undertones, and big choruses. Rob Halford's vocals had always been a bit of a dealbreaker for me as I'm not much of an operatic metal guy, but reading his memoir opened my mind and ears to his approach.

Stained Class is Judas Priest's fourth album, released in 1978. Much like their other '70s albums, there is still an obvious debt to Sabbath and Zeppelin (check out the "Whole Lotta Love" riff in "Saints in Hell"), but Halford out-sings both Ozzy and Plant. Maybe it's because Halford was still a closeted gay man and trying to fly under the radar, but he never seemed to have the larger-than-life persona of Ozzy and Plant. Instead, he put all his effort into treating the voice like a third guitar, helping steer the musical direction of the band while hitting the growling lows of a power chord and the squealing highs of a pinch harmonic.

While I still put Sin After Sin at the top of my Judas Priest list, Stained Class isn't far behind. While never quite hitting the same heights as tracks like "Sinner," "Raw Deal," and "Dissident Aggressor," Stained Class also doesn't lose its momentum with ballads (barring the possible exception of "Beyond the Realms of Death," which is such an obvious influence on Metallica's "Fade to Black" that I think we can safely disqualify it from the ballad designation despite it's delicate verses and slow build). It's a solid record from start to finish, best played at a high volume, but also completely satisfying on a phone speaker while you're barbecuing in your backyard.

Whether it's the amphetamine-fueled hard rock of "Exciter," the sleazy strut of "White Heat, Red Hot," the galloping angst of the title track, the anthemic power of "Invader," or the sinister '70s Sabbath riffage of "Saints in Hell," Stained Class is entertaining from start to finish, and reveals more nuances and embellishments with every listen.

I can't even say how many times I listened to Stained Class in 2024, but it's yet to grow stale or boring. If anything, my appreciation for it has only grown with every spin. And while I could've arguably held back on it and carved out more time for new artists with new albums, I like to think that finding a 46-year-old subversive rock album and latching onto it with an obsession bodes well for any freaks and weirdos that put out records in 2024 hoping their music has a shelf-life beyond this December.

[madalinaeb]

Happy Birthday to the man that helps me occupy my brain 😍 Happy Birthday , Brian ! @bubblegutz ❤️ w/ @russiancircles @sumacbandofficial #books “#EveryRecordIOwn “ (at Richmond Upon Thames, Surrey, United Kingdom) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bz_AkLzFA0k/?igshid=1t8b9m4y5pgq4

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 843: Blood Incantation Absolute Elsewhere

This is one of my favorite albums of 2024.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I wasn't really vibing with most of the albums that dominated the year-in-review lists. But one notable exception was Blood Incantation's Absolute Elsewhere. The Colorado death metal / prog outfit managed to not only land on top of nearly every major metal outlet's list, they also managed to win over critics and fans in decidedly non-metal camps. A band that appeals to the snobbiest kvlt gatekeepers AND the P4k and NPR crowds? How is that even possible?

I'll admit, I had my reservations. I loved Starspawn and Hidden History of the Human Race, but I found myself mostly returning to the former while neglecting the latter. I really enjoyed the stylistic departure of their Tangerine Dream-esque album Timewave Zero, but I found the combination of kosmische music and death metal on their most recent EP, Luminescent Bridge, to feel a little too ham-fisted and incongruous. I either wanna vibe out to ethereal synths or I wanna punch holes in the wall to death metal, but I’m not sure I really wanna do both across the span of an EP.

Sometimes stark contrasts work and sometimes they don't. I wasn't feeling it on Luminescent Bridge, but it works on Absolute Elsewhere. The curveballs come quickly. The album starts with two minutes of ripping epic death metal before diving into an extended passage that sounds like a dubbed out version of a quiet ISIS part overlayed with Richard Wright synths and David Gilmour guitar leads. After four minutes of tripping balls, we get the harsh toke of a heaping dose of old school death metal riffage.

Absolute Elsewhere continues to constantly shift gears, vacillating between their ambitious brand of death metal and blissed-out ventures into pastoral prog rock and sublime analog-synth ambience. Why does that juxtaposition work better here than on Hidden History and Luminescent Bridge? Maybe they've just got a better knack on navigating polarities? But I'd also argue that Absolute Elsewhere is just more... fun. The riffs are stronger. The mellow parts seem more deliberate and confident. Something about the record seems less serious and more willing to embrace absurdity, while never letting down their mystic facade or sacrificing their power.

Prog can often feel like homework. Death metal can often feel like an exercise in virtuosity. Kosmische music can often feel like it isn't tethered to a concrete idea. On Absolute Elsewhere, Blood Incantation avoid all those pitfalls and crank out a record that's both heady, visceral, and, if you can believe it... catchy. That's quite the accomplishment.

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 845: Jack White No Name

This is one of my favorite albums of 2024.

I've never had any strong feelings about Jack White. I won't change the radio station if The White Stripes come on, but I've never actively played one of their tunes. I own a used Raconteurs LP (mainly because I love "Level"), but that's the only music of his I've ever bought. I appreciate everything he's done with Third Man Records and I admire his dedication to doing his own damn thing, but I get a little leery of rock n' roll musicians that ascend into the mainstream. Sorry, I'm a Gen Xer and the suspicion towards successful musicians is a tough one to shake after being raised on the SST mantra of Corporate Rock Sucks.

So imagine my surprise when I Shazam'd some heavy lo-fi garage rock tune at a shop in Seattle and discovered it was a song off the new Jack White album. The next tune they played was great too. I Shazam'd that as well. Same album. Fuck. Apparently I like Jack White now.

And you know what? Every song on No Name is a banger. "Bless Yourself" could be a '90s hardcore song. The guitar solo on "Rough on Rats" gives me goosebumps. The street preacher oration on "Archbishop Harold Holmes" should drive me nuts, but apparently I've finally fallen for White's old timey charisma because when he sings "and if you are suffering a strange sickness-ah / and someone is blocking up all of your success-ah / you need to see me right away so I can fix this"... well... it just hits the spot.

So there you have it. I guess I'm a Jack White fan now. Please shoot me if I ever start wearing pinstripe suits on stage.

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 827: Shellac 1000 Hurts

This is a long and tough one, so I'll spare your timeline and force you to make the jump.

On February 21, 2001, one of my husband's closest friends was murdered by a man named Michael Gargiulo. She was stabbed 47 times.

Not surprisingly, my husband does not share my appreciation for slasher movies. I still feel like an asshole for dragging him to a midnight screening of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre on my birthday years ago. I was an idiot for not realizing that someone who lost a loved one in a brutal act of violence wouldn't find a film recreating that kind of violence entertaining.

"I don't enjoy the sound of people begging for their lives," he told me after the movie. I can't blame him. Even music with "tortured" vocals tends to get an immediate "can we listen to something else?" from him.

Transgressive art is a weird thing. People will always be drawn towards art that's shocking, forbidden, or taboo, but I also assume most people have a line they don't want crossed. I love Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but I hate Cannibal Holocaust. As far as music goes, I have a much easier time ignoring the cartoonish violence of death metal than I have sitting though music laden with brazen sexism or homophobia in the lyrical department.

Content aside, art gets even trickier when the artist's life comes under scrutiny. Again, I assume most people have a line they won't cross. You might not have an issue listening to Michael Jackson, but you would probably have a major issue listening to an artist who assaulted a member of your family. Or maybe you do have an issue listening to Michael Jackson. Maybe you also have an issue listening to an artist because of their political alignments. And maybe you have an issue with an artist simply because of something they've said in the past. There's no shortage of music out there, so why give your attention and money to assholes? On the other hand, artists are human beings, which means they've inevitably hurt someone in the course of their lifetime, so if we blacklist every artist who's ever done something hurtful, we're eliminating art from our lives. Everyone has a line, but I think any rational individual understands that the line will vary from person to person.

I've been thinking about transgressive art a lot since the passing of Steve Albini. The public overwhelming seems to mourn his loss, but I've seen a few people weigh in online with some valid criticisms: he was in a band called Rapeman; he said some sketchy things about child pornography in a zine back in the '80s; some of his lyrics reflected racist elements of society without taking a clear stance against them. Albini addressed these incidents later in life, acknowledging that though he was not advocating for the kind of behavior he was portraying in his art, the ambiguity that made his songs feel dangerous could also be construed as promoting or celebrating the subject matter.

By the time Albini got around to forming Shellac, he seemed to have shed the dodgiest parts of his confrontational persona. That said, I know a few people who take issue with Shellac's most popular song: 1000 Hurts album opener "Prayer to God." True to the title, the song is a literal prayer to God asking for the Almighty to kill the singer's cheating lover and her partner. It's essentially a murder ballad without the actual murder. Or maybe it's more in line with The Beatles and Elvis singing "I'd rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man," except in Albini's case the majority of his ire is aimed at the male lover. It's a visceral song, and while it might feel cathartic for someone who's been betrayed by their romantic partner, it might feel too harrowing for someone who's actually dealt with a potentially dangerous jilted ex.

I played "Prayer to God" for my husband once. He wasn't a fan. To be fair, I don't think Albini's brand of minimalist tone-scrutinizing math rock was ever gonna be his cup of tea, but the lyrics certainly weren't going to help. Consequently, I reserve 1000 Hurts for times when I have the house to myself.

And ultimately, I would hope that his reaction to Shellac would be the kind of response we'd see in people who take issue with Albini. Simply put, it wasn't my husband's cup of tea, but he didn't try to convince me that I shouldn't enjoy it. Yes, Albini dealt with some ugly and uncomfortable themes, and by his own admission he took some of it too far. But his music was both a reflection and a reaction to the things he saw around him. Just as the slasher films of the '80s were a reaction to the era's conservative bent and puritanical attempts at censorship, so were Albini's songs (particularly with Big Black) a rebuttal of that decade's benign soft-rock FM radio staples, PMRC campaigns, and right-wing fundamentalist attempts to whitewash the media.

Much like those slasher films, Big Black has aged with an unexpected patina. Yes, there is something still "dangerous" about it, but that danger seems less rooted in pushing back at "the establishment" and more like it's picking at the wounds of the most vulnerable and injured parts of our society. Given even a minimal amount of context, I'd think the average person could appreciate its attempts to say "no, this world isn't perfect and we're not going to pretend that it is," even if those attempts are admittedly a little ambiguous and sloppy at times. But that kind of context doesn't arrive as a disclaimer on the album packaging, so its reasonable to understand how someone could find Big Black's unflinching first-person villain profiles to be a little problematic.

Consequently, I completely understand why someone would take issue with Big Black's "Jordan Minnesota" or Shellac's "Prayer to God." On the other hand, I want art to be uncomfortable sometimes, even if that unease is unintentional. There's no shortage of art out there that aimed to be progressive but aged to show the inherent biases of its time. Just consider the contingent of people wanting to change the racist language in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I'd argue that sometimes the shortcomings, biases, and outdated perspectives in an artist's work are as much a statement on the times as the actual subject matter.

Everyone has a line. And for a lot of folks, Albini probably crossed it a few times in the course of his career. For me, listening to Big Black or Rapeman or Shellac is like watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre---I don't need Steve Albini to explain his lyrics anymore than I need Tobe Hopper to explain that we shouldn't cut people up with chainsaws and turn them into human barbecue. But Albini also dealt with minor horrors that impacted a far greater percentage of the population, and that's something he had to reconcile and acknowledge later in life. For me, his charity work, fierce advocacy for marginalized people, and willingness to stand up to bullies in public forums offset any of his early artistic missteps, but I also understand that making art about human suffering is always going to elicit pain from people who have endured those particular trials.

Everyone has a line.

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 848: thirdface Ministerial Cafeteria

This is one of my favorite albums of 2024.

As a teenager in the '90s, hardcore was the center of my universe. It was my "third place," my community, my peer group. I may have been born a decade too late to see bands like Minor Threat, Bad Brains, and Black Flag, but I was alive to see bands like Assück, His Hero Is Gone, Angel Hair, and Swing Kids.

I don't know if it was a matter of age or the evolution of the scene, but it was hard to stay as excited about hardcore as I grew into my twenties. Maybe I was shedding some of my teenage angst or maybe my ears just needed a little more diversity. As I wrote here five+ years ago, I don’t feel like I left hardcore, I just feel like hardcore dug in its heels and set up camp somewhere along the journey while I was ready to keep exploring, and every so often I have to run back and check in on it. 

Hardcore is having a moment these days. In the '90s, a "big" hardcore show in Seattle drew 200 people. Nowadays we see bands like Turnstile and Knocked Loose play to thousands of people. I'll admit, that makes me happy. I'm stoked that the next generation has their torchbearers. But I just didn't connect with GLOW ON and You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To. Every year my musical palette expands a little bit and every year I find more of the resourcefulness, community, passion, and progressive politics that initially drew me to hardcore flourishing in other musical genres.

But then a band like thirdface comes along and I get stoked on hardcore all over again. The Nashville four-piece's sophomore album Ministerial Cafeteria is a whirlwind of powerviolence's frenzied tempos and abrupt shifts paired with old school breakneck power chord riffs and noise rock's exploratory racket. It's like if Infest, Negative Approach, and Young Widows had a baby. It's tight, well-recorded (by drummer Shibby Poole, also of the incredible Yautja), and absolutely unrelenting across its 20-minute run time. Bonus points for singer Kathryn Edwards running the awesome all ages DIY venue DRKMTTR.

I never wanted to be an old jaded hardcore kid, and thirdface helped me stave off that cynicism.

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 846: Pale Endless s/t

This is one of my favorite albums of 2024.

I don't know much about Pale Endless outside of what's written on the OBI strip of their debut LP. It's a duo based out of Seattle. The instrumentation consists of drums and synths. The vibe reminds me of a minimalist Zombi, or the more colossal and electronic end of Mogwai's output, or a heavier late '70s Tangerine Dream. It's cinematic, ominous, and powerful.

This record came out on SFI Recordings, which is currently one of my favorite newer record labels out there. They focus on synth-based music, offering up pastoral ambient albums, foreboding imaginary soundtracks, kosmische worship, new age homages, and electronic drone-scapes. Bonus points for small-run tape and vinyl editions of their offerings (this Pale Endless LP is limited to 300 copies), all featuring hand-screened artwork.

I'd also highly suggest scoping out the Somafree Institute album SFI put out this year, which would've gotten it's own place in my favorite albums of 2024 posts except for the fact that my friend Andrew plays in the band and I'm trying to not play favorites with friend's records for this series.

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 844: Darkthrone It Beckons Us All

This is one of my favorite albums of 2024.

At this point I'm pretty much on board with anything Darkthrone releases, even if the last three albums (Old Star, Eternal Hails, Astral Fortress) haven't exactly been the most exciting entries in the Norwegian band's canon. They've slowed down and leaned into this sorta minimalist proto-doom style that just isn't as harrowing as their '90s black metal output or as invigorating as their '00s crust phase or as fun as the NWOBHM twist of their '10 albums. But they're still solid albums to spin while tinkering around the house and I consequently get a lot of mileage out of them.

While I don't expect to hear another Panzerfaust out of Darkthrone, I've enjoyed collecting their twenty+ studio albums and watching the gradual evolution of their style and approach. Some records hit harder than others, and that's okay. If anything, their three album streak of "fine but not fantastic" just makes a solid record like It Beckons Us All even more exciting.

We get a little bit of the whole Darkthrone spectrum here. There's some straightforward punk moments, some unabashed classic metal moments, some nods to their earliest death metal years, and the general black metal patina that's remained constant over the last 30+ years. It comes across like an overview of their career, a best-of of their various approaches.

Ultimately, what I love about Darkthrone is that I get the sense that Fenriz and Nocturno Culto are just gonna continue to crank out a record every year or two until they're too old to pick up their instruments. They're just genuinely stoked metal fans and eternally curious about what kind of music they can churn out of their limited arsenal. There are no frills. There are no lofty ambitions. There are no rules. It's just simple, stripped-down heavy metal made by lifers.

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 840: Adrianne Lenker Bright Future

This is one of my favorite albums of 2024.

I love the American singer-songwriter tradition. But my love for the genre isn't so strong that I'll fall for any simple folk or country song. On the contrary, the older I get, the more particular I get about Americana. Yes, I love the Woodie Guthrie adage about only needing two chords and how the rest is just showing off. Yes, I stand with David Berman's statement that "all my favorite singers couldn't sing." I don't need an artist to reinvent the wheel with a simple 1-4-5 chord progression and a verse / chorus format. But does the world need another song written around the same handful of cowboy chords we've heard a thousand times before?

I guess the trick in the 21st century is to somehow take a very established tradition and to inject yourself into it in such a way that your songs feel comforting and intimate while also somehow making the listener see the world (or themselves) a little differently. And there are fewer and fewer artists able to do that. Really, it's been years since a singer-songwriter has put out a record that's hit me as hard as Adrianne Lenker's album Bright Future.

Lenker has an established career as both a solo artist and as a member of the folk indie outfit Big Thief, but both were completely new to me as of 2024. Perhaps this album sounds differently to someone steeped in her past work, but for me, it sounds like a collection of twelve songs that have gestated in an artist's repertoire for an entire lifetime. The songs are primarily centered around Lenker's voice and acoustic guitar. There's some piano, some strings, some electric guitar, and some vocal harmonies to round things out, but Bright Future is ultimately an album centered around a loan figure singing their songs against a sparse backdrop.

The songs are very much rooted in American folk music, though Lenker sounds like someone who is as happy with the unadorned approach to the singer-songwriter approach (see "No Machine") as she is with slightly more adventurous studio embellishments (see "Fool"). But Bright Future shines because Lenker's wavering and lilting voice, nimble but modest instrumentation, and simple storytelling are thoroughly captivating in their own right, and her decision to err on the side of leaving things naked, frail, and exposed gives the album greater dimension than if her arrangements were buried in studio magic.

Lyrically, Bright Future touches upon the heavily-tread subjects of love and heartbreak but provides a fresh prospective on the vulnerability and sacrifice that comes with it. There's also a healthy dose of recollection on a troubled childhood, but it's framed more as a relatable obstacle to intimacy as opposed to the more common reveling in personal trauma we've heard in a lot of modern indie / underground music from the last decade. Rather than basking in psychological damage, Lenker addresses her struggles as if they're a universal experience, another part of life that we must simply deal with if we're to move forward.

And ultimately, what makes Bright Future so powerful is that it conveys a sense of joy and hope despite life's inevitable losses and pain. Lenker's music generally relies on major chords, with the crucial minor thrown in for emotional weight. And that sonic balance between light and dark perfectly suits the emotional timbre of her stories. It's an album that celebrates love and happiness by occasionally referencing the harsh inverse experiences.

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 836: Minutemen What Makes a Man Start Fires?

I'm chronologically bouncing all over the place when it comes to writing about Minutmen. Buzz or Howl was where I found my entry point. The Punch Line was where the band started. Double Nickels is their definitive release. But now I'm bouncing back to their second LP, 1983's What Makes a Man Start Fires?

Though Double Nickels cemented Minutemen's place in the American punk / indie canon. I imagine the band would still wield a significant influence on the modern musical underground based on their 1983 output. What Makes a Man Start Fires? and the subsequent Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat EP both capture a band that evolved from the jittery outsider song vignettes of their early years into the tightly wound, musically adventurous, emotionally-varied material of their peak years.

Over the course of 18 songs in 26 minutes, Minutemen whip out their own distinct and enigmatic version of punk irreverence ("Bob Dylan Wrote Propaganda Songs"), slacker stoner indie rock ("Fake Contest," "Life as a Rehearsal"), mathy funk ("Beacon Sighted Through Fog"), proto-post hardcore ("East Wind/Faith," "Plight"), melodic anthems ("99," "The Anchor," "Sell or Be Sold"), and a slew of uncatagorizable weirdo song bursts ("Split Red," "Polarity"). Whether you're focusing on George Hurley's unorthodox octopus-armed drum patterns, Mike Watt's full-fretboard bass lines, or D. Boon's grease-fingered riffs and esoteric stream-of-consciousness lyrical commentary, there's always something interesting happening in the songs. No moment is wasted and no part is dragged out for a measure too long.

In some ways, What Makes a Man might be Minutemen's best album. It has the frantic energy of their early years while leaning into some of the more exploratory and developed songwriting of their later years. And at 26 minutes, it's considerably easier to digest than their double album opus. Of course, a big part of Double Nickels' beauty is its ambition and scope, but if you're really just trying to make initial sense of Minutemen's sound and method, this LP might be the best place to start.

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 838: Minutemen 3-Way Tie (For Last)

I remember reading an interview with Mike Watt in Thrasher Magazine where he said that fIREHOSE broke up because they had learned how to write songs together. The implication was that there was power and magic in the band navigating the creative process together, and once they'd found the path of least resistance, the band stagnated. Revisiting the final Minutemen studio album, I wonder if Watt felt the same way about 3-Way Tie.

Minutemen didn't break up. They simply ceased to exist when singer/guitarist D. Boon passed away in a car accident in December 1985. But Watt had already mentioned that he was frustrated with D. Boon's then-interest in writing more conventional rock songs.

Much like their masterpiece Double Nickels on the Dime, 3-Way Tie has its vinyl side allocated to different band members. Only this time, drummer George Hurley is left out of the equation and the sides are allocated to Boon and Watt. Boon's side kicks things off with a series of protest songs done in a straightforward mid-'80s college rock vibe. They're some of Minutemen's most accessible songs in term of structure and having vocals at the center of attention, though they lack the restless energy and exploratory tactics of their early years.

Watt's side is slightly more adventurous and in keeping with their initial focus on instrumentation and the musical interplay between the members. So perhaps there was still a spark there in terms of searching for new methods and approaches to their song craft. Despite Boon and Watt's deep friendship, there was also a brotherly tendency towards fighting and bickering (as illustrated in the album art for Buzz or Howl) that likely kept the band on its toes and in a state of creative flux.

Perhaps that friendly feud was enough to keep Minutemen going had Boon not tragically passed away, but I do feel there is a similarity between the final Minutemen album and the final fIREHOSE album. They both feel confident but constrained. Well-rendered but a little underwhelming. Competent but complacent. Minutemen remain one of my favorite American rock bands of all time, and 3-Way Tie plays a valid role in the arc of their work. But there's also a part of me that wishes we could've seen the band come out on the other side of their foray into more straightforward rock n' roll so they could venture off into some new weird territory.

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 824: Shellac At Action Park

I'm still wrapping my head around the news that Steve Albini is no longer with us.

I first heard Big Black on a mixtape my friend made me back in 1992. The song was "Jordan Minnesota." It was mean and ferocious and sounded like nothing else I'd heard before. I went out and bought the Hammer Party CD that compiled their earliest EPs soon after. It was a tough listen, but as was so often the case in those pre-internet / teenage years of the early '90s, if you plunked down your allowance money on a CD of "difficult" music, you didn't give up on it after a cursory listen. I stuck with it until those "difficult" songs eventually became anthems of teenage alienation.

There was another interesting angle to the Hammer Party CD: there were extensive liner notes that outlined the band's operating strategy. They were a DIY band uninterested in the music business. They were principled. They were nerdy, unassuming looking people. But the music they made was scarier than any metal band.

Big Black songs were almost always written from the villain's perspective. They were unvarnished narratives about unsavory characters. "Jordan Minnesota" was about a child molester. "Seth" is about a racist. "Columbian Necktie" is about a drug cartel hitman.

Terms like "incel" and "edgelord" didn't exist back then. But there was definitely a streak of impotent male rage and deliberate controversy in Big Black's music. In recent years, Steve Albini made a point of acknowledging those attributes in his music and apologizing for his role in elevating a culture of targeted mean-spiritedness. I think it was a noble gesture on his part, though I thought it was always fairly obvious that Big Black wasn't glorifying the behavior of the characters in their songs. It was about making art that acknowledged the awful side of humanity. Rather than sweeping the ugliness under the rug, Big Black dragged the creeps into the spotlight and shouted "look at these fucking assholes."

If Big Black defined high school, Shellac helped define my college years. The lyrical subject matter was less antagonistic, but the music seemed colder. It was sparse. Austere. Deliberately scaled back to the point of seeming mechanical. The bombast of Big Black was replaced by the tension of Shellac. At this point, you knew what Albini was capable of, but now he was the poker player who was keeping a straight face and playing his cards cautiously.

By the time At Action Park came out, Albini was a person of note outside of his bands. I remember reading his article in Maximum Rock N Roll on major labels and how the promise of riches really just meant other people in the music industry taking a slice of the artist's budget and eliminating any chance of future royalties. His engineering credentials were already legendary, and his recording philosophy played a major role in shaping my own attitude towards making records.

Russian Circles have recorded at Albini's studio half a dozen times at this point. And while we've never worked with Albini at the board, he was often lingering around the building, working on sessions in the other studio or puttering around working on things. He was exactly like you'd expect him to be. Smart. Opinionated. Quick with a sharp reply.

He was by no means infallible. His assessment of Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville back in 1993 was pretty gross. He's made a point of vocalizing his regret over naming a band Rapeman. But considering that he's been a firebrand for over 40 years, I'd say Albini did a fairly good job of ruffling feathers while sticking up for the downtrodden. He was a man of artistic ideals and principles who managed to stick to his guns while shaping the industry around him. He was an artist who was able to develop and evolve his sound over the course of several decades while also retaining the initial vision and spark in his work. He was impervious to fads yet somehow always relevant.

RIP Steve. You were one of a kind.

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 837: Minutemen Project Mersh

Minutemen followed up their expansive and adventurous 2xLP “art album” Double Nickels on the Dime with a record of diametric aims. Project Mersh is a 22-minute EP that explores the question of “what would a Minutemen pop record sound like?”

Much like the sardonic “#1 Hit Song” off Double Nickels, the Project Mersh EP flaunts its flagrant accessibility in its title. “Mersh” was the band’s slang for “commercial,” and as the album art jokingly suggests, the EP provides an approximation of a commercialized version of the San Pedro trio. But Minutemen’s idea of “commercial” in the pre-grunge / alternative-explosion era of 1985 is still fairly entrenched in the underground rock sound. Punk artists like Hüsker Dü and The Replacements were making records that same year that were arguably even more accessible than Project Mersh and they were doing it without preempting their new material with self-deprecating titles.

Sure, “The Cheerleaders” has a more subdued vibe than their earlier material, but it’s still a pretty pointed anti-war track. “King of the Hill” demonstrates that D. Boon could actually belt out a strong vocal melody, but beyond that there isn’t much about the song that makes it more “mersh” than what audiences hear on Double Nickels. And yeah, there’s a Steppenwolf cover thrown in there too, but there was a Steely Dan cover on their previous album, so…

Ultimately, Project Mersh sold about half as many copies as Double Nickels, so the hit song strategy they joked about didn’t go as planned. But you know what? I LOVE Project Mersh. What it lacks in the unorthodox charm of their previous records they make up for by writing catchy, hummable, endearing and enduring tunes.

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 835: Minutemen Double Nickels on the Dime

If I were to lose my entire record collection in a fire, the first albums I would replace would be Miles Davis' In A Silent Way, Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St, Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks, and Minutemen's Double Nickels on the Dime. Of all those albums, Double Nickels has been in my life the longest.

It wasn't the first Minutemen album I owned (that would be the Post Mersh Vol 1 compilation) nor would it be the first Minutemen album that I really fell in love with (that would be Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat), but it's the album that best encapsulates and captures all that I love about Minutemen.

With 45 songs at a runtime of over 80 minutes, it's a very dense album. As the San Pedro trio was fond of explaining, this was their "art album," which presumably means they were straying even further from the punk formula of their SoCal peers. Bassist Mike Watt ditched the pick and started playing with his fingers, nudging the band into funkier territories. Guitarist D. Boon revealed an aptitude with his instrument only hinted at on previous recordings and established his place as one of the greatest players in the punk scene. Drummer George Hurley slowed the tempos and leaned into the groove. There is very little on Double Nickels that sounds traditionally punk, unless you look back to the guitar dexterity of Television's Marquee Moon or the stabby rhythms of Gang of Four's Entertainment! To further confuse things, there were covers of Creedence Clearwater Revival, Van Halen, and Steely Dan on the album, and they blended in seamlessly with the original material.

It was a lot to process as a 15-year-old punk back in 1992. Minutemen had been big with my peer group in Hawaii, but I'd moved to Washington over the summer, and none of the punks or skaters I knew on the mainland gave two shits about the band. The "cool" factor for the band had disappeared in the move. But there was still something fascinating about Double Nickels, even if the music felt a bit unapproachable.

There was almost a kind of separate culture that surrounded Minutemen. Their vernacular was strange... a combination of SoCal surfer-speak, trucker slang, working class drawl, and literary sophistication. Their lyrics were both topical and cryptic. The incorporation of Raymond Pettibon illustrations in their album art added another layer of tension, mystery, and irreverence. They had a blue-collar aesthetic with a political bent and an art-minded approach. There simply wasn't another band that looked, sounded, or exuded the same aura as Minutemen.

There were Easter eggs hidden all over the album. Watt had just read Ulysses and seemed intent on mirroring the book's layers of meaning and sly humor (there's even a song called "June 16th" in homage to Bloomsday). The album title was a poke at Sammy Hagar's "I Can't Drive 55," with "double nickels" referring to the 55 mph speed limit and "the dime" referring to Highway 10, which leads into their hometown of San Pedro. The album cover, an homage to Kraftwerk's original Autobahn album art, captures Watt in his car with the speedometer at a steady 55 while the highway sign for the 10 is seen through the windshield. The sequencing of the album was an homage to Pink Floyd's Ummagumma with each member getting a side of the record to curate at their will and with all the remaining songs allocated to side D.

The music was a riddle in and of itself. Songs like "#1 Hit Song" and "Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing" seemed to reinforce the album title's criticism of pop music's banality while basking in contradictions, such as the puzzling decision for Boon to drop a blazing guitar solo in the latter after singing "if we heard mortar shells, we'd cuss more in our songs and cut down on guitar solos." There's the intensely autobiographical "History Lesson pt 2" but also the self-referencing diss track "One Reporter's Opinion." The ominous and odd-timed "God Bows to Math" segues into the country two-step of "Corona." Hurley prioritized the clatter-and-scat of "You Need the Glory" as the opening to his side of the 2xLP over the power anthem of "Themselves."

And there were the lyrics to parse out. What's a punk kid supposed to make of lines like "me naked with textbook poems / spout fountain against the Nazis / a weird kind of sex symbol?" Or "the world was wrong and I was forced to march in line / but it felt like handcuffs / machines disregard my pronouns?" One moment it's "no hope / see, that's what gives me guts / big fucking shit / right now, man," but then it's "let the products sell themselves / fuck advertising / commercial psychology / psychological methods to sell should be destroyed."

I eventually made a commitment in November '92 to listen to Double Nickels in its entirety every day of the month. It was partially an endurance test. Could I do it? But it was also an attempt at deciphering what I was hearing. Surely this must all make sense somehow. And here I am 34 years later, still intrigued, mystified, and engaged by the album. I still hear something new every time I listen to it. There are still more in-jokes, references, and nuggets of wisdom to glean from it. It's a work of art that requires patience and attention, but it's also just a straight-up piece of celebratory joy and working class angst.

There's an entire world embedded in Double Nickels. It has its own language. It's own philosophy. It's own musical logic. It's own humor. It's own cultural reference-points. And it continues to be a world I want to visit on the regular.

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 834: Minutemen The Punch Line

Minutemen are one of my favorite bands of all time. But it didn't start out that way.

The San Pedro trio were active from 1980 to 1985. Consisting of best friends D. Boon and Mike Watt on guitar and bass (respectively) and joined by George Hurley on drums, Minutemen churned out hundreds of songs in their half-decade lifespan. Though they were very much a part of the American punk scene (and the first band after Black Flag to have records out on the seminal SST label), their sound was much stranger and more complex than their peers. The "punk" label certainly applied to their politics, their DIY spirit, and their short, jarring, adrenalized songs. But the three chord fury, sloganeering, and speed-centric template that typified early '80s punk was noticeably absent.

Somehow, Minutemen had developed a bit of a following in my hometown of Kailua, Hawaii in the early '90s. All the skaters and punk kids at my high school were into them. Granted, this maybe meant eight people total were fans, but those eight people were all in agreement that Minutemen were A BIG DEAL. So I did what every freshmen looking to fit in with the cool upperclassmen did... I listened to their music. I got the Project: Mersh Vol. 1 compilation that combined the first two Minutemen albums---The Punch Line and What Makes a Man Start Fires---and dove into their music over a Christmas break vacation to visit my grandparents in Colorado.

It was a lot of driving, and Project: Mersh Vol. 1 was one of the only CDs I had with me on the trip. Had I heard the music prior, I would've undoubtedly left the CD at home and picked something a little more in line with my then-current notion of punk---something like Minor Threat or Bad Religion. But I was stuck with Minutemen and I had to learn to make sense of it.

The songs on The Punch Line are short. Only two of its eighteen tracks are longer than a minute. There isn't much in terms of conventional song structures. No big catchy choruses. None of the meaty hooks of hardcore. The guitar-playing is jangly and sparse instead of thick and aggressive. The vocals seem more spoken than sung or shouted. There were moments that seemed a bit more in line with my idea of punk---the uptempo "Games" and "No Parade," for instance---but those moments were fleeting, and they almost inevitably segued into some strange, seemingly disjointed bass and drum jam with some vaguely political monologue on top. I didn't get it.

But I stuck with it, initially out of a lack of other musical options and later out of a mixture of curiosity and tribalism. After all, the cool kids liked it, so there must be something to latch onto there, right? And while that might sound like an embarrassing admission, it really shaped my relationship to music.

Pop music is crafted to be instantly appealing, but it also tends to be very shallow. It's music designed to appeal to as many people as possible, and in order to do that, it has to resonate with people who aren't particularly adventurous. I often think of music as another language, and pop music is essentially the communication-equivalent of a platitude. It's obvious and its meaning has been washed out from over-saturation. But something like Minutemen? It was far less obvious. You had to sit with it. It was more like a private conversation with a fascinating stranger. Maybe at first you had no idea what they were even trying to say, but the more you listened, the more you wanted to hear.

I'm not even embarrassed to admit that I stuck with Minutemen because the cool kids liked them. There were artists they loved that I never bonded with. But Minutemen contained some particular mystery and magic that kept me coming back. I've owned The Punch Line for nearly 32 years, and every time I listen to it, I feel a bit more connected to it. Hell, it's hard to even hear the dissonant skronk I initially gleaned from this album. This, as far as I'm concerned, is the what punk sounds like.

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 833: Minutemen Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat

My friend Tom gave me Minutemen's Post Mersh Vol. 2 on cassette for my 15th birthday back in 1992. Along with our friend Frank, Tom and I played in a punk band in the small beach town of Kailua, Oahu. None of us really knew how to play our instruments, but that was okay. Someone at my high school had told me "if you want to learn to play bass, listen to Mike Watt." So I'd begun scoping out Watt's bands: fIREHOSE, Minutemen, and Dos. Coincidentally, Minutemen had no idea how to play when they started either. They famously didn't even know about tuning their guitars when they started out and thought you just tuned them to a tension that felt good on the fingers.

Some of Minutemen's early works were a bit impenetrable for me at that age, but Project Mersh Vol. 2, which combined the Buzz or Howl EP with the Project Mersh EP, clicked right away. It certainly helped that Project Mersh was deliberately written to be accessible ("mersh" being slang for "commercial"), but I was more drawn to agitated songwriting on Buzz or Howl. The atonal truncated skronk-punk that typified their early records like Paranoid Time and The Punch Line was still on display on songs like "Dream Told By Moto." And there were the strange improvised jams like "Dreams Are Free, Motherfucker" and "The Toe Jam." But these forays into disjointed funk and free jazz were offset by certified rockers like "Self-Referenced," "Cut," and "I Felt Like a Gringo."

My favorite track, however, was "Little Man With a Gun In His Hand." I have a distinct memory of listening to that song on my walkman while biking across town after finishing my shift at my summer job. The sun was low in the sky and I was cruising down a long hill on an unpopulated stretch of road between my work and my house when the instrumental break with D. Boon's descending guitar line came on. It was one of those moments where the music inadvertently served as the perfect soundtrack. I'd been pedaling my bike like mad, driven by the adrenaline of the song's punk energy, and I'd hit the downhill section where I could just cruise right at the calm breakdown before the final crescendo.

That August my family moved to Washington State, and I'd listen to "Little Man With a Gun In His Hand" frequently over the course of my first year there. It was an antidote to the dark gray Northwest winter. Every time I listened to it, I was transported back to a warm Hawaiian summer evening, biking across town with my headphones on.

So much of my listening habits now are a matter of trying to find a good balance between familiar music that transports me to a moment in my past and discovering new music to bond with new memories moving forward. For me, a big part of record collecting is about having a physical object that ties you to a time and place. And while I certainly need to be better about letting things go, there are records like Buzz or Howl that have such a rich and vibrant memory associated with them that I could never bear to part with it.