Better Than Nevermind : No. 6 - Mercury Rev - Yerself Is Steam

Mercury Rev - Yer Self Is Steam (Beggars Banquet)

From Buffalo, New York of all places, comes one of the best psychedelic rock bands of all times and one of the best psychedelic records ever made. Here, I’m cheating a bit because although I had listened to it at the college radio station, it wasn’t until the following year that I had my hands on the CD (the Columbia reissue). As many people -- well, not that many actually -- who experienced early Barrett-era Pink Floyd and thought everything after Meddle was lame hippie easy listening, Yer Self Is Steam starts slow but soon the steam locomotive derails in a full freakout, right during track 1 Chasing A Bee. Acoustic guitar and flute (Suzanna Thorpe) are contrasted with bursts of electric screeches and colorful deep bass lines over mumbling and singing, until only the flute and soft dissonant chords remain, setting the tone for the whole album. You are definitely sucked into someone’s weird dream. When Syringe Mouth starts, one expects to hear Neil Young jamming with the Floyd within the chaotic and vertiginous virtuosi, as we are slowly being hypnotized thanks to a low rumble and excellent staccato riffs while the madness of dual voice (crazy/spoken) prevails; Flaming Lips have definitely found new rivals. The shortest song of the album, Coney Island Cyclone, offers the (bitter)sweet(est) acoustic guitar and jangles, aiming for a dreampop angle while keeping both feet in Dino Jr. territory. The locomotive gathers even more steam of the bong type on Blue and Black, with the main vocalist intoning a baritone (almost like Pete Steele) with quiet strumming before the song erupting in a frenzy of piano and keyboards as ethereal as can be, although the whistling and the David Thomas-esque high pitched mumbles are as unsettling as a shaved Britney Spears; dreampop becomes nightmare pop and the steamship goes back down to Earth (or another planet, not sure). The centerpiece of the album, Sweet Oddysee Of A Cancer Cell T' Th' Center Of Yer Heart, starts with bursts of distortion and ethereal jangles, but after a few jagged turns of interlaced bass and drums, the locomotive becomes a juggernaut that suddenly stops to gather even more steam and launching itself in a disorienting rollercoaster swirling in THC laden clouds among crackling feedback mandalas. What…a… trip. Who needs drugs, when you have music like this, man? But the ride is not done yet! Frittering starts with acoustic strumming over a bit of electric guitar doodling until the deep bass kicks in along a church organ. The drum pushes the song forward and the distortion now envelopes the singer’s nasal declamations as the whole sonic mass slowly devolves into a jam and your ears are numb. There is a weird interruption, Continuous Trucks And Thunder Under A Mother's Smile, which sounds like an excerpt from one of Red Krayola’s freakouts, and the train goes on the rails again, first with a bit of flute and an ominous bass riff while the wind blows. The soundscape enters psychedelia again with subdued guitar strumming and barely audible mumbling, sparse drumming, and Sleepy Rivers slowly builds up with demented vocals as the overall sounds slowly becomes louder and louder. The flute becomes dissonant, the percussion intensifies without release, and every few minutes the guitar steers into short bursts of solos and the voices become ghostly and otherworldly. The music only erupts at the very end with the voices and the flute blending into a howl, the screeching of the guitars covered by the drums until only a Chinese erhu remains. The Mercury Rev locomotive has ended its journey. We are no longer dreaming, but at the doorstep of another musical world.

Better Than Nevermind -- No. 5 : Jesus Lizard - Goat

Jesus Lizard – Goat (Touch & Go)

By Zeus almighty the rivers of ink and pixels I could write just on that album, let alone the band… I won’t go into the details of how they were discovered but let me at least say that Jesus Lizard is one of the best live bands I have seen in my life. The tightness the efficiency of the rhythm section, the downright craziness of the vocalist; everything is batshit insane with JL live. The follow-up might also be their masterpiece but, after hearing the second song, Mouthbreather, for the millionth time, what is a slightly weird person hearing insane music to do? From that point on to the very last second of side two (yes, I still have the LP, in much better condition than the CD mind you), I just wanted to climb the walls, chew my right converse, punch my neighbor in the groin, tear out Celine Dion’s hair and… well you get the idea. Then Comes Dudley opens with throbbing bass and incisive guitar lines, enough to make you wide-eyed, but when David Yow starts hollerin’ like a mad preacher, you keep wanting for more. Nub slashes your ear with slide guitar then more demented vocals and a rhythm section that pounds relentlessly your heart and guts, while the ‘melody’ slithers like a cottonmouth in a fetid swamp you’ve just now realized are standing in, right up to your nostrils. Speaking of which, the following track, Seasick, has Yow increasing the doses of melismatic insanity, repeating “I can’t swim” over and over while the nauseating interplay of guitar and bass gets you dizzy. Flip over (hey I said I had the LP) and Monkey Trick starts like side A with a throbbing bass and brooding drums until the cutting of the guitar are caught up with a scream by Yow after some mumbling. There is no real climax but rather a bubbling of high pitch shredding that serves adequately as a guitar solo after the song veers to near quiescence and the last intelligible lyrics (An Irish bloke/A child is choked) are uttered before the other solo, a series of madman shouts. Karpis lets Mac McNeilly shine a bit more throughout the song, this time as if the drums and the vocals are a call and response. JL goes dangerously close to voodoobilly with South Mouth, and a doubling of the vocals creates the creepy effect of having not one but two demented preachers trying to eat the mike while mumbling stuff about acting sometimes like animals and sometimes like little girls (a predication on republican politicians?) and the song refuses to end throughout the starts and stops that are surgery precise. For me, the record should have ended with track 4 of side B, Ladyshoes with its low key guitar and bass, and unhinged vocals, pounding drums, with an interlude of mumbling and jagged guitar lines. However, it is Rodeo in Joliet that really ends the ordeal with a disjointed bacchanal of high pitched squeals (both guitar and vocals) and superb drumming until Yow exhales the last sounds as if exhausted. So am I, but I want to go back again. And so will you.

Better Than Nevermind -- No. 4 : Honeymoon Killers - Hung Far Low

Honeymoon Killers - Hung Far Low (Fist Puppet)

How did that one end up on my list I haven’t the slightest clue. The cassette I had was obliterated by a 8-track adapter after being played to death and the copy I had made is nowhere to be found (someone liked it more than I do). I think the most probable reason is the collaboration of Jon Spencer on that record, a musician I started following in Pussy Galore and didn’t let up until the end of the 1990s while he was in his Blues Explosion. The record starts with Mad Dog, a rave-up, as dirty and bluesy as possible, that gets derailed by the wild drumming of Russell Sims. The guitar interplay and mangled vocals recall The Cramps but shredded through a blender of hisses. The second song has tortured vocals that sound like a crying child or a distorted harmonica, and after skipping on a blues motif gets straight to rave-up until we’re unsure if Spencer or Teel is on vocal duties. Mr. Big Stuff goes back to dirty blues with a throbbing bass to the forefront. The real centerpiece of the album is the 7 minute Vanna White (Goddess of Love)/You Can’t Do That, which unfurls like a very (very) drunk seventies era Rolling Stones boogie which pauses almost ineptly, only to restart again in rave-up and guitar interplay. Quittin’ Time slows the tempo towards a more mud-soaked delta blues approach, before twanging and squeezing instruments helicoidally, the guitars twisting around a drum motif that is more jerk and tear, a strategy which would be later applied in Blue Explosion. Devil’s Jump focused on the music and could be the most ‘traditional’ number of the band, with percussive strumming and marching beat, until the end is twisted out of form à la Pussy Galore. Tanks A Lot is more of a rocker but adds congas and Fannie Mae goes back to the voodoobilly roots of HK that winds up and down but never lets up, with the next short bursts – Scootch Says and Something’s Wrong -- bringing the listener further into the black wall of noise that is simultaneously groovy dissonant and dirty, which only maybe Sonic Youth or Band Of Susans can do better.The album ends on puns on song names, one by Hooker (Madwoman Blues) where we finally hear the raucous and wonderfully unintelligible vocals of the bass player, Lisa Wells, and another by Zeppelin (Whole Lotta Crap) that end with maximally distorted vocals, bass and guitars added to the stellar pounding drums by Russell Simms.

Never has messing around a studio sounded so disgustingly perfect.