Liner Notes 27.Oct.2022

A look back at Yo La Tengo's Painless record, the new release from Dry Cleaning, and a whole lot more!

Oct 27, 2022

Early 90s indie music was marked by a lot of bands burning bright & burning fast.

They came, they rocked, and they imploded. Often in spectacular fashion. Some never to be heard from again. Others climbed out of the wreckage of one band and went to form a new one with a new sound. Meanwhile, Yo La Tengo was always there, steady as ever and churning out records.

They were content to be your favorite band's favorite band.

That's not to say they didn't have issues or skipped their own evolution. Before releasing their 6th record, 1993's Painful, they downsized from a quartet to a trio, played hopscotch between labels, and went through bassists at a Spinal-Tap level pace.

That all changed with Painful.

The band had settled in with bassist James McNew (actually his 2nd record with the band), and he'd gone from "new guy" to an integral part of the group. They were settled in with Matador as their label as well.

That steadiness is reflected in the record itself. Previous YLT records had a bad habit of bouncing between walls of fuzz and something akin to folk rock. Appealing yet inconsistent. Ira Kaplan's vocals could verge into a bratty/sneering style. He hasn't lost his edge, but they've evolved into a more, if not congenial, then conversational style.

One of YLT's hallmarks is that any song feels like it could be remade in a dozen different ways. Much of Painful continues that tradition-see the two wildly different versions of "Big Day Coming" as exhibit A- but it also feels fully fleshed out.

The first lyrics we hear are "Let's be undecided," but Painful is a decisive statement record of a band fully formed. One hitting its stride and never looking back.

Favorites: From a Motel 6, Big Day Coming (Second Version), I Heard You Looking

Below the jump for paid subscribers:

A look at Dry Cleaning’s new record
The rise and fall of SST records
Post-punk form (checks notes) Mason City, Iowa?
A new exhibit honoring the Sound of Philadelphia
And tons more! Check it out!

Other Reviews

The Bishop’s Daredevil Stunt Club- “Vanishing Point”

An unwieldy band name giving the best/worst named emo bands of the early 00’s a run for their money and a sound that owes more than a nod to groups like Cheap Trick and The Cars, “Vanishing Point” is a 4-song homage to the B-horror films of the late 80s.

Given the timing of this edition, that’d alone make this worth a look—I’m not above spinning holiday-themed records. But here’s the thing; the songs all stand up well on their own. There are plenty of front-and-center vocals and a good deal of fuzz, but the hooks are never too far away. Making a themed record and doing it well are usually two different things. Not this time. The Bishop’s Daredevil Stunt Club threads the needle perfectly.

Why Bother?- “Lacerated Nights”

If you’ve ever found yourself sailing the waters of the Great Corn Sea (aka northern Iowa), you know that there’s often not a whole to do (going to Casey’s for breakfast pizza doesn't count).

That’s certainly true of Mason City; bands can focus on making music without distraction. Why Bother? have taken this to the next level. Lacerated Nights came out just weeks after its predecessor. They'd already followed it up in the time it took to get on my radar.

The record is industrial-grade post-punk, with doses of nihilism and sneering in equal measure. Sometimes reminiscent of DRI, sometimes of your favorite synth-goth band. The opening track, “Anything To Get It,” sounds like a schlock-free version of the Misfits. It only gets better from there.

(Shoutout to Ryan at Crow’s Nest for turning me on to this)

Dry Cleaning- “Stumpwork”

Last year, I rated the London band’s debut LP New Long Leg, as my favorite record of 2021 (FWIW, it beat out Japanese Breakfast’s “Jubilee” and Lily Konigsberg’s “Lily We Need To Talk Now.”).

Ten(ish) months later, I find myself a little apprehensive getting ready to spin the band’s follow-up, Stumpwork. That’s not specific to the band- I always feel that way. As if I’ve somehow set a bar for the band, they can never eclipse.

Dry Cleaning can be an acquired taste, with vocalist Florence Shaw’s monologues riding on a wave of the band’s colorful sounds. A lot of bands try this. Most crash and burn. But it was one of New Long Leg’s strengths, which continues here.

If New Long Leg had a downside, it was the band’s tendency to occasionally slip into the background. As if they were merely setting a backdrop for Shaw. On Stumpwork, the band has caught up to Shaw and stays on equal footing throughout.

The result is a collage of words/sounds that, on paper, don’t look like a good match but on the record mesh perfectly.

Do you have any thoughts on these? Any records you think I should review?

What I Heard

The list of records I was able to listen to in full this week. Doesn’t count playlists, stuff in the car, etc. There are occasional repeats. There is rarely a theme.

A couple this week came from you, and I am always grateful for that.

Blondie- Parallel Lines
Rickie Lee Jones- Pirates
Rickie Lee Jones- S/T
John Cougar Mellencamp-The Lonesome Jubilee
The Ventures- Hawaii 5-0
Steely Dan-Aja
Tropical Fuck Storm-Goody Goody Gumdrops
Talking Heads- More Songs About Buildings And Food
Hall and Oates- Big Bam Boom
Green/Blue- Paper Thin
Bad Brains- S/T
Red Rockers- Good As Gold
Bob Mould- Body of Song
Bruce Springsteen-Tunnel Of Love
Paul Young- No Parlez
Alex Kozobolis- Somewhere Else
Terra Pines-Downbeats
Graham Parker & The Rumour-Stick to Me
Camper Van Beethoven-Key Lime Pie
High Vis- Blending
Steve Turner- A Beautiful Winter
Tom Petty- Damn The Torpedoes

B-Sides

The Beastie Boys’ “Check Your Head” is being reissued on vinyl for its 30th anniversary.

The illest MF’ers from here to Gardena are having their classic 1992 record reissued through Vinyl Me Please and their record of the Month offerings.

“Released 30 years ago, Check Your Head proved that the Beastie Boys were capable of breaking new ground in hip-hop for the third time, and launched singles like ‘So What’cha Want,’ that entire bands could build their career on,” reads a statement from VMP. “As forward thinking in its construction today as it was 30 years ago, the opportunity to do a AAA reissue of this album was an honor for us at VMP.”

Ultimately, SST will be remembered as a dynamic powerhouse in exposing people across the country to a wide variety of alternative music. But that legacy will also have a downside.
"Unfortunately," Ruland said, "that legacy is going to be tarnished by the label's business practices and the fact that so many of its artists left the label or sued to get the rights to its music back."

Everything is ephemeral.

Many “birthplace of” locations have long been bulldozed in the name of progress. Now it’s Denmark Street in London’s turn.

Many hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of construction later, there is still a street of musical instrument shops, plus new venues and production facilities, plus a “radical new technology-driven marketing, entertainment and information service housed in a super-flexible, digitally enabled streetscape”, plus much else. There will be “busking points” and clubs. The Astoria has gone, but a new 600-seat theatre called @sohoplace is on the way, on a site next to where it stood.