Detail from a magazine advertisement, 1964
R.E.M., live performance of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game”
I can’t figure out what 1995 show this recording is from—it was briefly a staple of their live performance. But it doesn’t really matter, this is the killer take that, had they heard it, they should’ve put out on the promo 45.
The Chris Isaak song, according to Wikipedia, only became a hit after a David Lynch-obsessed DJ in Atlanta got into it through Lynch’s Wild At Heart. The Roy Orbison mode, which Lynch dipped into regularly, you would think would be a bit foreign for chronic mumbler Michael Stipe but he shows himself to be at least equally capable as Isaak in crooning the shit out of it.
Detail of a photograph in Life magazine, 1958
Tom Ewing writes in the Guardian of listening to Nevermind for the first time, in 2011.
We crave surprise: could there possibly be any left in Nevermind? A little, as it turned out. When I played it — finally! — what jumped out was Krist Novoselic’s bass sound and its constant malignant gravity, sucking songs down even as it keeps them brisk. It sounds, as it happens, very much like how I thought “swamp rock” might. I knew to expect a blend of ugliness and pop crispness, but I had to hear Nevermind to realise how little the two resolve, making the album sound alienated even from itself. I had some prejudices confirmed, too — the zombie lurch of Cobain’s singing is comfortably the weirdest thing about the record, and it seems a gloriously uncanny twist of rock history that it became so imitated. But I still can’t actually stand hearing it.
Advertisement for motor oil (detail), 1951
The Creeper Ohio tape Double Dwa? is one of the many buried treasures of the fertile Ohio scene of the ’90s. Jeff Robertson and Mike Rep’s collaboration paired oddball, stripped-down indie originals with an assortment of idiosyncratic covers (Tommy James’ “Draggin’ The Line,” “Little Bit o’ Soul,” and “In The Pineys” by their pals The Strapping Fieldhands). One of standouts is this cover of the 1966 pop-psych nugget “Little Black Egg,” by the Nightcrawlers. The creepy nursery rhyme is made even stranger in this arrangement. Robertson’s vocals are as endearing as they’re estranging: Double Dwa? is the rare thin, reedy twee indie that verges on precious but is never at all affected.
Mike Rep, whose own consistently excellent output from 1974–1997 is collected on Stupor Hiatus, is sorta the Chris Knox of Columbus: he has credits on records by Guided By Voices, Times New Viking, Bassholes, and Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments. The “produced by” credit, befitting the anti-production attitude, is LFW—“lovingly fucked with.” He chimed in on a thread somewhere about Creeper Ohio:
The cassette was also available as a CD-R from ORANGE ENTROPY for several years, but I believe it is out of print now. The CDR version was minus the song “Draggin’ The Line” which was removed because; a) R.E.M. did it in the Andy Kaufman “Man On The Moon” movie and b) we really didn’t do the tune that well anyway…. I could not get any labels interested in releasing this “Thinking Man’s Bubblegum” (as I like to call it) classic on vinyl or ‘real’ CD back in ’96. It remains one of my favorite projects and Jeff Robertson an woefully unappreciated wondrous talent. We had a great time making this.
(Their version of “Draggin’” is actually excellent.) The whole cassette here (and possibly only there). Thanks to Kellie for pointing this out.
Promotional image of Galaxie 500, 1990
From a Print magazine interview with Naomi Yang, bassist for Galaxie 500, Damon & Naomi, and a graphic designer:
I was studying architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, until I realized I was never going to be happy being an architect and dropped out to go on tour with Galaxie 500, and I always remember one critique in particular. The project involved designing a small building on a plot of land, and at my critique one teacher complained that my building and landscape just looked like “it had always been there“—there were no flashy design moves on my part. I took that as a compliment …
My father was a photographer, and so I grew up appreciating the power of the photographic image. I think I pretty much still do rely on the power of the photographs I choose to use. It kind of goes back to my Milton Glaser roots—those iconic images. Of the Galaxie 500 covers, if I had to choose a favorite I think it would be On Fire — I took that photo myself — I made a crazy contraption with my camera so that I could press the shutter and be in the photo and I really wanted it to look like a 60s Elektra records cover (Love, the Stooges, Tim Buckley). It was a moment when Bruce Mau was doing all those beautiful Zone Book covers—the colors of those covers were so amazing, unlike anything I had ever seen before, so I actually called him (I didn’t know him) and asked how he did it. He very kindly explained how he was substituting or adding a PMS color in CMYK printing, and so that’s the technique I used. I guess even at that point in my album design I was using things I had discovered via book design. The cover typography came from Solotype in San Francisco, which specialized in unusual wooden and hot metal display types from the 60’s and you could order custom typesetting from them—pre-computer all your type had to be ordered, and it was expensive, that’s why only the display type was done that way. I think they charged by the letter.
Advertisement for beer, 1950s
But the really strange thing is that there are lots of tunes lodged in this record. The tracks seem to have hidden reserves, pockets within pockets; they develop hooks in weird places. Sweetness suddenly emerges out of fuzzy slime, and startling emotions rise from merely cool ones. — Ben Ratliff, The New York Times (1 May 2011)
A nice write-up of my homeboy James Pants in the Arts and Leisure section of today’s Times. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 10 years since we were cutting up in the lunchroom at the Mac and rocking off of DAT cassettes and turntables at The Mercury, Flamingo Cantina, Empanada Parlor, The Back Room, The Electric Lounge, Velvet Patio, and other hole-in-the-wall spots in our native burg. People sometimes seem bemused by my enduring love for Austin, a sentiment that has everything to do with those adolescent adventures in the local music scene. As teenagers James and I roamed the city, hanging out at nightclubs, underground radio stations, house parties, and record stores. We crossed paths with a vaudevillian assortment of slackers and scenesters and amateur musicians. This was the city’s bohemia, a romanticized version of which surely lives on in my memory and, for better or worse, colors my outlook on contemporary New York, among other places.
Sometimes that Austin, a world I left behind before I actually physically left the city, seems like it was just a dream. Bohemias are fleeting things and once they dissipate it’s easy (and self-indulgent) to feel like you’re the only person who remembers the way things were. Some drunken old windbag at the end of the bar always hankering to tell the newbies about the good old days. Whenever I drive around Tarrytown or North Loop, I can’t help but remember the recording sessions we did there. When I’m in the “new” East Austin around 12th street I think about the concerts at Rosewood and Givens and Doris Miller. And I can’t go to a restaurant on South 1st without pulling into the ramshackle shopping center that once housed Rome’s dance studio, the place where rappers and breakdancers used to congregate after teen night at The Realm on Riverside. It can be exhilarating to sit and reminisce. But mostly it’s just alienating. You’re a slave to nostalgia and sentimentality, trapped in the prison of your own consciousness, and in your feverish sputtering about your salad days you fail to do the whole thing justice. You cheapen your memories. “Sure,” says the rookie, classic known-nothing know-it-all buying his drink, “heard that one before.”
In short, the things I used to do I don’t do anymore, as the saying goes, and no one knows what the fuck I’m talking about anyway. Nevertheless, I’ve gone on at some length here about remote experiences, and all I meant to do was raise a glass to an old running buddy. But this occasion really just makes me wanna say: Austin, stand up!
