The Unblinking Ear Podcast 3/13/14

(Above: Austin's biggest attraction. Photo via Hearts Bleed Radio) I'm afraid this edition the podcast is being posted a week later than originally scheduled/planned due to circumstances in my professional life well beyond my control. However, since I'm not attending this SXSW fest (conference? showcase? synergetic business opportunity?) in Austin this week for the umpteenth consecutive year, you get to hear a collection of new music (and reissues) presented in a succinct, non-overwhelming capacity that will not leave you with an STD.

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The Unblinking Ear Podcast: Last Year in the Demo

(My near future.)

I celebrated my 34th birthday last week. Thus, it's my last year in the coveted 18 to 34 target demographic. This means that at this time next year this podcast will become totally irrelevant. It will more closely resemble on CBS procedural crime drama than a place to hear exciting new music. Better listen while you can!

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Matador Records: 20 Years is Two Decades

20 years!!! So many Matador memories. Going to CBGBs for the first time to see a Matador New Music Seminar showcase (and still having the Bunny Brains 7" to prove it). The finale of the label's 10th anniversary show where Jon Spencer joined Yo La Tengo onstage for a rendition of "Slack Motherfucker." The time Robert Pollard bought beer for my underaged self at Sideshows by the Seashore on Coney Island and was inspired to write "The Official Ironmen Rally Song" as I vomited over the boardwalk. (Note: one of the preceding statements is untrue.)

Matador has sometimes been the object of ridicule among less than enlightened music snobs, partially for their occasional dalliances with evil major labels Atlantic and Capital. Yeah, fuck them for making a profit and attempting to expand the audience of their artists. Truth be told, a few labels in history have discographies as adventurous, diverse and high in quality as Matador, and even fewer have been able to do it for as long. I don't think it's hyperbole to state that modern music would be very different if not for the label's influence. We all owe them a debt of gratitude.

To commemorate the label's anniversary, my colleague at Pop Tarts Suck Toasted put together his list of the Top 20 Matador Albums of All-Time. I'm not going to argue with his choices (though, being the contentious type, I certainly could) but it inspire me to create my own Mata-list. I was considering making my own list of their best albums but that seemed a little predictable and dull. Does anyone really care if I think the SF Seals' Nowhere is better than Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain?

So instead, I thought I'd present to you
The Top 10 Matador Records You Don't Own:

10 Yo La Tengo "Shaker"
I'm sure many of you own a good chunk of the albums Yo La Tengo have released on Matador, and possibly a few EPs and rarities collections as well. This seven inch was their first release for the label, arriving just a couple of months before the Painful album, and has unfortunately gone unnoticed by a lot of YTL fans. It's simply one of the finest songs from a band with too many great songs to count: a dark and menacing psych-tinged rocker blend that gives one reason to think the band was paying close attention to the material coming out of New Zealand's Xpressway label at the time. The band apparently thought quite highly of the song as well. They selected it as the first track on their Prisoners of Love career retrospective. Plus, the flip, a cover of Richard Thompson's "For Shame of Doing Wrong," aint bad either.

9 Come Eleven:Eleven
Probably the best album in the long career of Thalida Zedek (Live Skull, Uzi, Dangerous Birds). Teaming with Chris Brokaw, a brilliant guitarist whose work remains one of the underground's best kept secrets, probably helped. Together their guitars interlocked to chart dark and bluesy sonic territory explored by few before or since, with the rhythm section providing rock solid foundation and Zedek's raspy wail cutting through the maelstrom. Their surprisingly reverent cover of the Rolling Stones' "I Got the Blues" gave some clue as to a blueprint, but originals like "Off to One Side," "Sad Eyes" and "Fast Piss Blues" display a style and power that's utterly individual and totally compelling.

8 Bettie Serveert Palomine
There was brief period where it looked like Bettie Serveert might get swept up the the whole "women in rock" trend of the mid 90s. You have to wonder if a lot of people though singer/guitarist Carol van Dijk was "Bettie." In any case, it wasn't to be as the masses decided they'd rather listen to the insight offered by Meredith Brooks and Tracy Bonham. It's unsurprising as BS was far too subtle for the mainstream. A quick listen to the near-hit "Tomboy" provides evidence of that. Pop music often gets its potency from persona, immediate identification with the singer as protagonist. While blessed with a clearly gifted vocalist, the tune derives its power from the ensemble playing of the whole group, with subtle shifts in dynamics providing tension and release to frame van Dijk's warm and evocative voice. The band matches this feat throughout much of Palomine, and if their subsequent released never quite topped it, few bands have made an album as memorable.

7 Babylon Dance Band Four On One
This one takes some explaining. The Babylon Dance Band were one of the Midwest's earliest post-punk bands. After releasing a handful of singles the band split up and some members went on to achieve a modicum of fame as Antietam. In the mid 90s, for whatever reason, the original band reunited and recorded this album. Perhaps, there was just a sense of unfinished business, as this disc is more vibrant and immediate than anything Antietam did (to my ears at least). The band's unique combination of angular post-punk and subtle Americana underpinnings is surprisingly warm and moving, with singer Chip Nold sounding like Pere Ubu's David Thomas returning from the brink and forced to deal with human concerns. Had the band recorded and released this during their original run, one suspects that they'd be regarded along with Mission of Burma, the Embarrassment and Pylon as one of the greatest post-punk outfits the US has ever produced.

6 Railroad Jerk One Track Mind
Bios for Railroad Jerk jokingly(?) described the band as "industrial folk" but that description isn't that far off. Actually, it suffices fairly well for RJ's unique stew of New York noise, roots music and who-knows-what-else. Try to imagine the Voidoids jamming with the Band and you're maybe halfway there. The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion took a similar approach to deconstructing trad rock but while Spencer and co. may have gotten the accolades and sizable following, the truth is they never made an album this good.

5 Love Of Diagrams Mosaic
A much more recent release than most of the albums on this list, Mosaic never garnered as much attention as it should have. Nearly every time I'd play a song from it at one of my DJ gigs, someone inquired about who it was. And why wouldn't they? Aussie trio Love of Diagrams displayed rare musical empathy as players, creating a rich and nuanced sound that most faux-orchestral 7-piece indie rock outfits couldn't hope to match. And they rocked. Hard.

4 La Peste s/t
In their original incarnation, Boston's La Peste released exactly one single, the thundering classic "Better Off Dead." Their self-titled Matador release collections that single, and handful of demos and a 1979 live broadcast on WBCN. Taken together, they paint a portrait of absolute titans of US punk rock, on par with the Pagans or the Germs. Their songs are melodic and memorable, containing undeniable hooks and played with blinding speed and fury. Matador has released a handful of reissues during their 20 years, but this one is arguably the most revelatory and essential.

3 Bassholes Long Way Blues 1996-1998
Not even their best album (that would be the double LP When My Blue Moon Turns Red Again, released the same year on In The Red), this collection of home recordings is nonetheless one of the finest records of the 90s. Lo-fi before (or after?) that could be considered a selling point, the Ohio band rips through absolutely savage garage blues stompers like "She Shimmy Wobble" and "Turpentine" and it's not hard to imagine that they've had immediate contact with the fellow who tuned Robert Johnson's guitar. Others cuts, like "Angel of Death" and "Cabooseman Blues," are more quiet and intimate, which makes their profound weirdness all the more disturbing. It's tempting to claim to that the Bassholes two-man blues set precedent for the success of the White Stripes, but the truth is, despite Jack White's attempt to turn himself into some kind of living kabuki doll, the Stripes never recorded anything as nearly bent as this.

1 & 2 Silkworm Firewater and Developer
I've already written extensively about my love for Silkworm so doing so again would probably be awfully redundant. However, I will point out that these two records may well be the most essential in a discography that was consistently excellent and your record collection is incomplete without them.

A Young Person's Guide to Silkworm

It seems like 2 or 3 times a year I'll find myself immersed in Silkworm's discography, marveling at their greatness. Since I discovered the band in the mid-90s, I've been trying to convince anyone willing to listen that this is band worth their time and money. Silkworm is one of those odd bands that seems to inspire total indifference or absolute devotion. To put it more bluntly, not that many people like Silkworm but those that do like them a hell of a lot. In the band's nearly 20-year career, they certainly had opportunities to expand their audience, graduating from tiny fly-by-night labels to big-time indies Matador and Touch&Go. However, they've never reached the levels of popularity of some of their contemporaries like Pavement or Yo La Tengo, to name two bands who have somewhat similar approaches to rock music. Speculating why certain bands gain recognition while others don't isn't exactly my area of expertise, but suffice to say I tend to think it has more to do with timing and luck than talent. I've never found Silkworm to be terribly inaccessible, especially compared to some of the paint-peeling noise than finds an audience in indieland.

So what makes this Chicago-by-way-of-Seattle-by-way-of-Missoula, Montana band so special anyway? When talking about one of your favorite artists, you always run the risk of hyperbole, something I generally try to avoid but that might be impossible in this case. To my ears, Silkworm's songs represent the promise of indie rock fulfilled: folding the creative explosion of punk and post-punk into the rest of rock history. It makes a lot sense that the band covered Fleetwood Mac and Comsat Angels on either side of an early 7 inch. There's a tendency for fans, critics and musicians to cleave rock history into pre and post-punk. (Just take a look at the Pitchfork 500 if you don't believe me.) Silkworm are fans of Mission of Burma and the Band. They recognize the aesthetic value of each and take cues from both of them.

This isn't to say that Silkworm is some spot-the-influence pastiche band. Far from it actually, as Silkworm's influences are fully integrated in into their playing and songwriting. The songs of bassist Tim Midgett and guitarist Andy Cohen evoke a range of emotions from playfulness to dread but rarely do they evoke the pretense of cribbing notes from other bands. Their songs (along with, on their earliest records, those of second guitarist Joel Phelps) just sound so damn human, as if they couldn't be anything else but a couple of guys casually locking in and playing exactly what they're feeling right at that moment. I suppose that sense of humanity is what I find so appealing about the band. There's no whiff of pretension in anything Silkworm has done, not even a notion of them saying to each other "this is the type of band we're going to be." Furthermore, the band's lyrical worldview seems completely honest, documenting the highs, lows and everything in between of life with an attitude that often feels world-weary but never defeated. Somehow, they also find fully appropriate musical backing for any feeling they want to conjure while generally sticking with the standard rock instrumentation of vocal, guitar, bass and drums. That's no easy feat.

Of course, it helps that the band is comprised of excellent players. Midgett's fat bass lines and the precise but hard-hitting drumming of Michael Dahlquist provide a rock-solid foundation and Cohen is simply one finest guitarists to ever emerge from the US underground. He'll spit out solos that would make devotees of Yngwie Malmsteen blush from indulgence and yet somehow it completely works within the context of the band's ensemble playing . Silkworm were modest guys making glorious music.

Sadly, the band's story came to a tragic conclusion when Dahlquist was killed in a car accident in 2005. Realizing that it wouldn't be Silkworm without him, Cohen and Midgett retired the name but still make music together in Bottomless Pit.

Below is a small sampling of Silkworm's work. Keep in mind that the band released nine full-lengths and numerous singles and EPs so this is but a sliver.

First up is the only video the band made, featuring Tim Midgett at the height of his Matt Damon-look-a-like phase and a budget of what I assume is about 15 dollars:
"Wet Firecracker" (from Firewater)



Next two songs each from Midgett:
One of the great all-time break up songs "Couldn't You Wait?" (from Libertine) and "Slave Wages" (from Lifestyle):


And Cohen:
The stomping "Into the Woods" (from In the West) and the reflective, fatalist "Sheep Wait for Wolf" (from Developer):


Bonus! Silkworm along Pavement's Steve Malkmus played a couple of a benefit shows in the late 90s as classic rock cover band The Crust Brothers. Here's their terrific version of "Heard It Through the Grapevine" with Midgett on vocals:


Just one indication of the devotion of their fans is that there's been a documentary on Silkworm in the works for a few years. It has yet to be completed but the trailer is on YouTube. It features testimonials from fans of the band whose opinion you might respect more than mine (Malkmus, Steve Albini, Jeff Tweedy):



Finally, I should mention that Tim Midgett invented the formula for Musical Correctness, something every critic-type/music lover should have memorized.

The Unblinking Ear Podcast Part Deux

So the first Unblinking Ear podcast was a rousing success. It was downloaded a grand total of 19 times. For my second podcast I'd like to get that number up to an even 20 if possible. So if you didn't download the first one (which you still can, here), here's your chance to earn a special place in my heart while listening to some rather excellent rock n roll music.

Also, I may have figured out how to remove all the clicks my tongue and teeth make when I speak. Damn sensitive microphone.

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