Demo Joe #2: Cringe vs. Kramer

Today, Demo Joe turns his attention to John Salvo and his band of noise-mongers Cringe. For those unfamiliar with the name John Salvo, he was the owner-operator of Jello Tree Studios in Spokane in the 1990s, where he recorded many dozens of great local bands, from Cause and Clabberhag to Motherload and the Makers. He also led the volatile and punishing noise trio Cringe (think ’80s Butthole Surfers meets ’90s Amphetamine Reptile). Sometime in 1995, Cringe hit the road for a U.S. tour, culminating in a recording session with Mark Kramer at Noise New Jersey. Kramer was the impresario behind the great indie label Shimmy Disc, which released albums by Ween, Daniel Johnston, Damon and Naomi, Gwar, King Missile, and many others (including my favorites Dogbowl and Uncle Wiggly). He was also a founder of Bongwater with Ann Magnuson and a prolific solo artist and producer (he produced all of Galaxie 500’s albums). So it was kind of a big deal for Cringe to work with Kramer. Only, based on what I recall of John’s recounting of his experience, Salvo was disappointed with both the experience and the results. Kramer was largely absent during the session, and the recordings he “produced” were cacophonous but flat, lacking that sinewy punch that Salvo had so well captured on his own recordings of his band. Nevertheless, the three songs on this tape – “Nerve Test,” “Rock Star Bathtub Suicide,” and “Witches Brew” – are an interesting document of a good band that never got its due.

Demo Joe: Robert Roth and Jim Carroll

I recently started contributing to a Facebook community page called the Northwest Demo Tape Society in which contributors unearth and spotlight old demo cassette tapes from Pacific Northwest bands and musicians both known and unknown from the 1980s and ’90s. I once sat on a pile of such demos, also from bands both famous and obscure, but lost track of most of them years ago. As luck would have it, though, I still have a few in my possession, and I’ve been pulling them out one at a time from an old shoebox and writing a brief posts on Facebook. It’s been a worthwhile exercise so far, fun to revisit the music made by young, upstart bands and musicians (most of whom have long since gone quiet) as they were just making their first recordings—or even established ones introducing rough drafts of songs that would blossom into something remarkable. Rather than limit my posts to Facebook, I thought I would share some of them here as a new series called Demo Joe—named for the demo tape review column I wrote for The Rocket. Please note that the posts you read here have been edited, updated, or even expanded since originally appearing on the Northwest Demo Tape Society page.

For today’s post, we feature a tape of demo recordings made by author and punk icon Jim Carroll with Seattle psych-rock explorer Robert Roth (and his band Truly), who met up in a Seattle studio in 1994 to record two tracks, “Falling Down Laughing” and “Dirge Song.” “Falling Down Laughing” would be re-recorded for Carroll’s final album, 1998’s Pools of Mercury. While Roth is credited with writing the music, neither he nor his Truly mates—Hiro Yamamoto, ex-Soundgarden, and Mark Pickerel, ex-Screaming Trees—appear on the album. Carroll’s and Truly’s original recording of “Falling Down Laughing,” however, remains unreleased. “Dirge Song,” meanwhile, later became “Hairshirt Fracture,” which was remixed and issued by Kill Rock Stars in 2000 on the five-song EP Runaway, Carroll’s swan song.

As I recall, the Carroll–Roth connection originated with Rosemary Carroll, Jim’s ex-wife and Truly’s attorney. Carroll mentored Roth as he was writing the lyrics of Truly’s 1995 masterpiece Fast Stories … From Kid Coma, and he co-wrote “Repulsion” on Truly’s sophomore LP, Feeling You Up. In 1998, while touring in support of Pools of Mercury, Carroll reconnected with Roth for a show at Seattle’s Crocodile Café, with Roth joining Carroll and company on guitar. Three songs recorded from that night were included on the Runaway EP, including a live rendition of “Falling Down Laughing.” In the weeks leading up to that show, I convinced Roth to do a Q&A with Carroll to be printed in The Rocket, the magazine I was editing at the time. And that’s how I came into possession of the very tape I’m highlighting today—a generous gift from Robert Roth himself.

For more about Truly, and to purchase a 25^th anniversary digital edition of Fast Stories … From Kid Coma (a vinyl reissue said to be coming soon), visit their Bandcamp page. To venture down the vast and expanding rabbit hole of the Northwest Demo Tape Society, go here.

Golden Smog: Summer with the Radar Bros.

Summer is once again upon us, and I can’t think of a better soundtrack for these lazy, hazy, sun-burned days than the music of Southern California’s Radar Bros. The long-running (though currently dormant) psychedelic band led by singer-guitarist Jim Putnam conjures images of sunny, smog-veiled skies; weedy, parched earth; wide, open spaces, and cool, breezy evenings across a remarkable if not prolific output of albums, which include And the Surrounding Mountains (2002), Fallen Leaf Pages (2005), The Illustrated Garden (2010), and Eight (2013). Radar Bros. are not sunshine pop, however. Theirs is not a happy, sunshiny kind of rock and roll (more pastoral, post-Syd Barrett Pink Floyd than neo-Nuggets psych). Many of their songs—particularly “Papillon,” “Rock of the Lake,” “Warm Rising Sun,” and “Lake Life”—are dreamy, surreal, and laidback—but they also have a weighed-down quality to them: a profound melancholy, a current of sadness and unease that moves beneath the glassy, rippling, tranquil surface. And it’s this aspect that makes the Radar Bros. summer sounds so evocative and affecting right now. These are days of high anxiety: coronavirus, isolation, recession, George Floyd, national unrest, White House fascism and racism, and so on. So even as we bask in the radiance of the summer sun, we can’t fully escape the reality of our difficult surroundings. None of this is to say that the Radar Bros. are a summer bummer. They’re just striking a heavy chord with me—and the juxtaposition of beauty and decay that I hear in their music just sounds so right, right now. I feel an affinity for the Radar Bros., and I carry their songs in my head and heart as I begin to settle into this summer of weirdness and uncertainty.

From the Archives: What Deaner Was Talkin' About — A Conversation with Ween's Dean Ween

Photo credit: Danny Clinch

This one goes back a few years, 21 in fact. In 1999, I interviewed guitarist Mickey Melchiondo, better known to the world as Dean Ween (aka Deaner), he of the wonderfully strange and remarkable band Ween, which he co-founded with Aaron Freeman, aka Gene Ween, aka Gener, in the 1980s. Two years prior to this interview, Ween had followed their landmark Chocolate and Cheese album with a psychedelic masterpiece: the nautically themed The Mollusk, a record that today remains a wonder to behold. In the ensuing 21 years, Ween released several more records (including White Pepper, Quebec, and La Cucaracha), toured a bunch, disbanded, reunited, and went back on road. For his part, Dean Ween went fishing, reconvened Moistboyz for three albums, built a studio, and forged two full-length recordings with his Dean Ween Group. All this was still unknown and undefined when Deaner and I chatted by phone in 1999. At the time, Deaner was vacationing in Florida, getting in some golf and fishing before he and Gener and the rest of the band would embark on a summer run of headline dates across the U.S. to promote Ween’s rowdy, hodgepodge live album Paintin’ the Town Brown. A version of this Q&A appeared in TheRocket, in advance of Ween’s sold-out show on Seattle’s waterfront.

Deaner: How’s it goin’?

Pretty good. You’re down in Florida?

Deaner: I’m down in Florida, yeah. Gettin’ rested up before we go on the road. It’s so damn hot back at home [in New Jersey].

And it’s cooler in Florida?

Deaner: [laughs] No. But at least there’s like a pool and the ocean. I get to be a bum for a week and then we rehearse for a week.

So is this tour in support of Paintin’ the Town Brown?

Deaner: Kind of. That record is more of an excuse to go on tour. Summertime touring is great. It’s the best time to tour. Originally, we were supposed to go out with Medeski Martin and Wood this summer and that fell through. And then this came about. The live record wasn’t even … I mean I don’t know if you know the tale of the live record. What it was supposed to be and what it turned out to be was kind of two different ideas altogether.

What was it supposed to be? What I read was that you guys were just gonna put it out through your website.

Deaner: Yeah, that’s exactly it. That was the deal. There’s been a whole lot of trading of Ween MP3s and all that stuff online. A lot of it was started by us. There’s a lot of audio on our website. A lot of the tapes were like kids having like audience tapes, 90^th generation of copies of our demos. Over the years … I don’t particularly enjoy listening to live Ween tapes very much. I’d get like maybe one or two tapes per tour. I’d ask our soundman because he tapes every single night.

Oh, he does?

Deaner: Yeah. We’ve had the same soundman, Kirk Miller, for a really long time, pretty much since the first album came out. So it was really hard to find [good material]. I knew where a lot of the stuff was. Compiling the rest of it was sort of a bitch. We asked Elektra if we could sell it through our website and they were like, “Sure, cool.” We sent it to them, and it was all pretty much set. We had compiled it. We hadn’t mastered it, but edited it, and put the whole thing together. And they just sort of stepped in and said, “We changed our mind; we’re putting it out.” It started off as something that we figured a few thousand people would buy through us, like the people who really, really wanted it. But it’s still cool. It doesn’t really change the content of the record. We didn’t redo anything because Elektra was putting it out.

That’s the thing, it might have sounded different had you intended on doing a live record through Elektra.

Deaner: I don’t know that we would have gotten the idea at all. It’s kinda cooler for that reason. It’s a pretty shameless record.

It sounds like a compilation of bootlegs with varying degrees of recording quality. I think it’s hilarious that on the cover you’ve got a sticker that trumpets: “Featuring a 26-minute version of ‘Poopship Destroyer.’”

Deaner: They asked us what we wanted on the sticker, and we thought that was pretty funny.

I wonder if it’s tempted any buyers. Do you think anyone bought the record for that song alone?

Deanr: It’s kind of excruciating actually. It’s funny that that’s the centerpiece of the record.

What does a Poopship Destroyer look like?

Deaner: The Poopship is more of a concept, a state of mind. I think it’s the crux of Ween in general. “Poopship Destroyer” is just an expression of that.

So it’s not destined to be ride a Disneyland?

Deaner: No, no, no. It’s like when we attain that “Thing.” It is a vessel, but it’s not a big poop schooner.

So when’s the next record coming out?

Deaner: Our next studio album?

Yeah, I read that you’re almost done with a new studio album?

Deaner: Sort of. We’ve really been procrastinating badly. We started writing for it when The Mollusk tour ended. We already had a couple things laying around, but then we started working on it last spring. And then last summer we rented a house in Maine, just me and Aaron. We were up there for two weeks. We brought all our studio equipment up there, and we recorded up in this house on this little private island. It was like this little island in the middle of the harbor with a long causeway. Ours was the only house out there. That was cool; we got a lot done up there. Then we came home and rented the same house we did the Mollusk in, on the Jersey Shore, the one that we flooded out. It’s all renovated and fixed now. We went back there and we were there this winter. Then we took a break. Aaron’s a father now. So when his daughter was born, we knew when the due date was, so we stopped a few weeks before that. Then we kind of laid out for Christmas. After Christmas, we started working again, back in New Jersey. So we have a lot of stuff, but we haven’t pulled it all together. In the past what we’ve done is taken those recordings, mixed them and called it a record. But that’s not really our intention with this next album. I think we’ll probably go into the studio immediately following this tour, and we’ll do what we always do: we’ll pick 20 songs and work on those and put it out. I really don’t know when. We’ve had a lot of different things happen, you know with the record. We were going to have … at one point we talked to Todd Rundgren about having him produce it.

What happened with that?

Deaner: We just decided against it. He wants to work in Hawaii, where he lives. So we basically have to go to him and work out there. Which sounds all cool and all, but it just didn’t seem really practical. But we kept talking to him to hear his ideas about it.

Is Todd a fan?

Deaner: I really don’t know. Not from talking to him. He’s not like that. He’s not about like, “You guys great.” He wanted to talk about the ethics of music or what lies at the heart of good music. He was pretty out there. He was on tour with Ringo Starr while all this was happening. He was on the Ringo tour in San Diego playing guitar. But to answer your question, I don’t know [when we’ll make the album]. We certainly have the material at this point, but we’re just lazy. We’ll get around to making it sometime pretty soon.

Can you tell us about the new music, what it’s like? And are you playing any of it on this tour?

Deaner: We’ve been playing it out. We haven’t done a lot of gigs since we stopped touring for The Mollusk. We’ve done a handful of random gigs here and there. We’ll definitely be playing some of it on the tour. I don’t know how much. Right when I get home [from Florida], we’re gonna begin—we’re really gonna be getting down and rehearsing.

Can you describe the personality of the new songs?

Deaner: I don’t know. It’s a lot of different ideas so far, kind of like before. It’s really a lot of stuff. Until we choose, I don’t know. It’s kinda early to say. A lot of people think that we do like concept records. Obviously with the country record [12 Golden Country Greats, 1996], we were writing for that record—we were trying to write country music. But in general, like even with The Mollusk, you just start doing it and you get on to a thing—may something you’re listening to during that period. You never really know until a long time after the fact. There’s a lot of shit going on [with our new music], typical Ween.

I noticed that you made The Catholic Digest. Are you aware of that?

Deaner: Wow. What’s it say?

I don’t have it in front of me.

Deaner: What is it anyway?

The Catholic Digest, it’s like Reader’s Digest for Catholics, but with a watchdog component that warns readers about “sinful” things like music, movies, Ween.

Deaner: What’s it say? Is it a magazine or a book?

Hang on; I’m pulling it up. I was going to ask you if you consider that a remarkable accomplishment or high compliment. Oh, it’s actually Catholic Parent, and it’s a bimonthly magazine out of Huntington, Indiana. Here’s what it says regarding the Chef Aid album. [Editor’s note: Ween had contributed “The Rainbow” to the South Park TV show compilation album, Chef Aid, in 1998. Quote from Catholic Parent missing from interview transcript.]  

Deaner: Oh, yeah, I have seen it. I did see that. [laughs]

I think it’s hilarious that it’s in your press kit.

Deaner: I don’t even know what they put in there.

So I’ll ask you: is it an accomplishment to make Catholic Parent?

Deaner: I don’t know. I don’t want to jinx myself. I guess it could be. It’s cool and all.

I just think it’s funny. You should pitch them to do a Ween cover story.

Deaner: We’ve said shit that’s far crasser than [“The Rainbow”]. We could send them to our entire back catalogue.

The first time I saw Ween live, you opened for the Foo Fighters at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. It was just you and Gener and a tape deck. [Editor’s note: Jawbreaker opened the show.]

Deaner: I remember that. That was the night their guy [presumably a Foo Fighters representative] got arrested in the parking lot for smoking weed. [laughs]

The crowd didn’t seem to like you at all and started heckling. What was awesome was that you dedicated “The HIV Song” to them. You didn’t seem to mind the adversity.

Deaner: First of all, there’s nothing bad that hasn’t been said about Ween. We have pretty thick skins. Back in the day, there was just the two of us and a tape deck. We hadn’t really done that in a really long time until the Foo Fighters tour. But back in the day, we obviously weren’t headlining anywhere. We were always opening for bands. And we did some really hellish [shows]. We opened for the Ramones and we opened for Fugazi [at City Grardens in Trenton, New Jersey]—that’s probably the most famous one. We opened for Fugazi … and we got booed by the entire 1,200 people. They threw like everything at us that wasn’t nailed down: like gum and spit, sodas and beer, and fucking cups and change. And we were just kicking so much ass. It’s like we were in some like highly, heavy drug phase at the time. It was like 1990, and I think we were all sorts of fucked up. But we were totally kicking ass. So I kinda got used to it. By the time we got to headline our own gigs and play for people that actually liked us—I don’t think [the rejection] ever wears off. In general, we try not to open for people because we like to play too long. We can’t do our thing in 40 minutes. Opening for the Foo Fighters was kind of like riding a bike: you fall right back into getting heckled. [laughs]

What was funny was your reaction to the audience’s heckling. You were like, “Is that all you got?”

Deaner: Ah, you know. Whatever. We’d always rather that people enjoy it. We’ve never really enjoyed people fucking screaming at us. I guess only you can determine whether you’re suckin’ or not. I know exactly how bad we can suck. We can be horrendous.

How’s Jimmy, by the way?

Deaner: My dog? He’s fine. He’s here, actually. We drove him down in the car.

What’s his breed?

Deaner: He’s like a border collie and a lab.

How long have you had Jimmy?

Deaner: I’ve had Jimmy all the way, actually, since he was a puppy. He’s probably 9-and-a-half or 10 now.

Was he the inspiration for “Fluffy.”

Deaner: Jimmy? [laughs] I don’t know. Aaron wrote “Fluffy.” I don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.

What’s the strangest record you’ve heard all year, new or old?

Deaner: I don’t know what the hell it’s called, but I saw it on VH1 or MTV a couple times. It’s on Capitol. It’s with that dude talking the whole time … with the positive affirmations. You know that song?

Not at all.

Deaner: It’s like, “Try and do one nice thing every day. Work on improving ….” I’m sure whoever reads this will know what I’m talking about. “Fear nothing. Every day, do one thing that scares you. You can’t get anywhere in life without risk-taking.” It’s all like positive affirmations. It’s a four-minute song, really over-the-top instrumental in the background. It’s a new song. I’m sure I’ve heard something weirder than that. I mean, it’s not weird. It’s just interesting, something different finally, you know?

[Editor’s note: Deaner’s talking about Baz Luhrmann’s “Everybody’s Free (to Wear Sunscreen)” (1999), which was based on a 1997 column written by Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune.]

Do you have a pretty huge record collection?

Dean Ween: Yeah, it’s pretty big.

What kind of things do you look for?

Deaner: I buy all sorts of things. I listen to too many things to kind of answer that.

Do you spend a lot of time in record stores?

Deaner: I’m kind of over that phase in my life—that record collector idiocy. I actually buy CDs through the Internet now, through Amazon and CD Now, you know on a whim. I’ll be sittin’ there and I’ll think, “Oh, shit, I want to hear this,” and I’ll go to the site and just order something. I love getting stuff in the mail.

Where do you keep the “title belt” from Chocolate and Cheese album cover?

Deaner: Nobody really knows where it is. It’s kind of a sore point in our band. The album’s artwork happened in different phases. The people who coordinated the artwork for us hired the photographer and someone did casting for the model. We just saw proofs of whatever. We never even actually had our hands on the belt, ever. It was never in our possession. We had never even seen it except in the photos that we looked at. And no one really wants to say [what happened to it]. We really tried to find it after it was all done, in like the six months following the release of that record. No one really wants to say where it is. I know somebody knows where it is…. The people that were involved with it just fed us a bunch of bullshit basically.

The guy who made that belt was the guy who made the heavyweight title belts. It’s a guy in North Jersey. It was cast in bronze or brass or however the hell they do it. And this guy made it; it was like an actual belt with rhinestones on it.

Keep checking eBay.

Deaner: It’s gonna a pop up on Sotheby’s auction block someday for $50.

I hear you’re a Bruce Springsteen fan.

Deaner: Oh, sure.

We have evidence. Next door is Backstreets. Are you familiar with Backstreets? [Editor’s note: Backstreets is the “official unofficial” Bruce Springsteen fan club, which was started by The Rocket’s Charles R. Cross and which shared offices with The Rocket until 2000.]

Deaner: Uh-huh.

We’ve got a photo of you holding an issue of Backstreets magazine.

Deaner: Oh, really? I don’t remember doing that. That’s awesome. I mean we’re Jersey, you know? I’m from Trenton.

So are you hitting any of the Boss’s upcoming shows? [Editor’s note: This is noteworthy because Bruce Springsteen had just reconvened the E Street Band for the first time in a decade (although they did record together briefly in 1995) for a full U.S. tour.]

Deaner: I don’t have tickets yet, but I’d like to.

Of course, you’ll be on the road by then.

Deaner: We can catch him somewhere, I’m sure. He’s doing like 12 nights at Giants Stadium or the Meadowlands.

Let’s get back to bootlegging and live recordings and downloads. How much stuff is in your vaults? How do your demos and stuff leak out? Do you guys leak it?

Deaner: Well, I don’t really want to say. It happens different ways. A lot of the stuff that’s online … the stuff I put up on our site is generally Real Audio files. You can listen to them, but you can’t download them; you just stream them. But then “the kids” found a way—or some kids made an application that just steals them. So, everybody got those. We put up some MP3s from time to time. The record company doesn’t really like that—streaming audio is one thing. But a lot of the stuff out there, I really can’t say. There’s a lot of stuff out there on the web that I have really seriously wondered where people got it from. We honestly had nothing to do with it. Typically, we’re pretty guarded with our tapes and stuff. We’ll make a recording and will maybe give it to a friend of ours so he can listen to it—like one of our close friends from home, from New Hope. And then maybe he dubs it for somebody we don’t know and then it’s just out there. It’s amazing. There’s a lot of stuff online, like the Moistboyz stuff that I did with my Moistboyz partner [Dickie Moist], that I don’t even have. I wouldn’t know where to begin finding them; I’d have to go into my closet and find old tapes. And with Ween, it’s even more so. It’ll happen all the time. Aaron will call me and he’ll go like, “Dude, I’m gonna send you a file I downloaded.” And it’ll be a Ween track that neither of us have, that we just forgot about. It’s really interesting how the size of the world shrinks because of the Internet. All it takes is one guy to get his hands on it, and if it’s the right guy, everybody will have it. It’s good for us, too, you know? It’s a way for us to put music out there if we want people to hear something and we don’t want to go through all the channels.

What’s going on with the Moistboyz?

Deaner (aka Mickey Moist): Not much. We didn’t really break up or anything like that. It’s just that my partner in the Moistboyz, Dickie Moist, he moved to New Mexico. That kind of stopped it. He just got married a couple weeks ago, back in Jersey, and I was in his wedding party. He’s living out there now; it makes it really hard [to have a band].

Can you think of the strangest show you’ve ever played or the most surreal experience you had this year?

Deaner: People ask me that a lot. There’s been many. The one I was talking about before is a memorable one. It most definitely gets an asterisk next to it. But it wasn’t strange; it was just hate, the power of hate raining down on Ween. I can remember so many horrible things, you know—little snippets. On the Mollusk tour, we came on stage in Jacksonville Beach and we were about to start the first song and a girl in the front row was lactating. She lifts up her shirt and sprays milk all over us. We hadn’t even played a note yet and [she sprayed] milk all over my Adidas and the legs of my jeans. Dave [Dreiwitz], the bass player, was just standing there looking; we were looking at each other just totally horrified. [laughs] She was just cackling at us. That’s probably the weirdest thing that ever happened without us even playing a note. … I don’t know what the hell that was. Mostly I’ve seen a lot of bad things happen at our gigs. In Columbus last year, two guys got into a fight in front of me and one guy grabbed the other guy and bit off his ear, Tyson style. The cops came, arrested him and took him to jail and everything—right in the middle of while we were playing.

Speaking of fighters, does Muhammed Ali get royalties for the use of his famous rant at the end of “Powder Blue”?

Deaner: It’s no longer on that record. Only the initial 10,000 copies had it, and then they made us take it off the record. So if you have one—I don’t—hold on to it. It was never supposed to be on there. We did it and then we asked permission, and they said, “Absolutely not; take it off.” Someone, accidentally or on purpose, sent in the wrong master [to the pressing plant], and the initial run had it on there. If you have one, hold on to it; that record has sold at least 700 copies. It’ll probably be very easy to find.

Let’s talk about your sense of humor. I know you guys address this all the time. Do you think your sense of humor gets you guys into trouble, to the point where people think that you’re a gimmick or because you have a sense of humor you guys are a joke band?

Deaner: Uh, yeah. Rather than give you some long-winded answer. I think that’s exactly it. I think it’s really funny—it’s not funny; it’s kind of fucking pitiful. That is just the way it is. It’s nothing new that Ween gets dissed. It’s basically how it’s always been. Ween gets nothing. People would rather listen to fuckin’ Tonic. [Editor’s note: Does anyone remember Tonic?]

David Berman, Silver Jews and Purple Mountains, 1967-2019

"Like a message broadcast on an overpass, all my favorite singers couldn't sing. All my favorite singers couldn't sing." Goodbye, David Berman. You were my favorite singer who "couldn't sing."

Super-misogynistic-expialidocious!

Herb Jeffries (name misspelled on the cover), Devil Is a Woman (Golden Tone, 1957)

No, I'm pretty certain the so-called devil woman who inspired the conception and delivery of this red-hot piece of trash was not actually a woman, but a group of men, who, were there any justice, never enjoyed the company of women (or licked their boots) again.

The Devil and Robert Johnson

Sic him, hellhound! Robert Johnson reincarnated.

I wonder if this asshole made a deal with the devil, too. Judging from his astonishing travesty of recorded music, this Robert Johnson probably blew the stop sign at the fabled crossroads and kept right on trucking to Squaresville or whatever shithole flea-market stage would have him. Or maybe this is thee Robert Johnson—reincarnated and forever doomed to haunt the junk store record bin with his goofy-ass smile, regrettable haircut, and dumbshit Chuck Berry-style pose. Maybe, just maybe, you shouldn’t fuck around with the devil. 

Moldy Oldies: Ransacking My Archives

Camaro Hair: Rye Coalition's 2003 magnum opus

I just unearthed a pile of record reviews I had written for the metal magazine Revolver back in the early 2000s. You know the magazine, the one whose covers regularly depict a motley crew of metal marauders scowling menacingly at you from the grocery aisle. It's all pretty silly. But who am I to judge? I actually wrote for the magazine for a few minutes, thanks to my old friend and colleague Nina, who was an editor there and who kindly gave me an opportunity to earn a few bucks writing reviews (and by few bucks, I mean a few; the pay was meager). As for my reviews, they're pretty short and they generally survey forgettable records by equally forgettable and now forgotten bands. 

So here are a couple of them, starting with Jersey Girls from Rye Coalition, a band that previous to this record, I had actually liked. They made some wonderful noisy post-hardcore in the 1990s, even teaming up with the almighty Karp for a split EP, before going full butt rock for the 21st century. I guess Dave Grohl produced one of their final recordings. Never heard it; can't say I was interested after subjecting my ears to Jersey Girls. 

The second review covers an album by the New Zealand neo-garage rock band D4. Who, you ask? Yeah, I don't remember either. 

Rye Coalition Jersey Girls (Tiger Style CD-EP) Two Stars
Modern, retro-minded bands typically celebrate and revisit banner rock years like 1977 or 1967, but not, say, 1981. Until now. On its new EP, New York’s Rye Coalition erects a rousing, albeit cheeky, tribute to the year of feathered mullets, combs in back pockets, and white Pony high-tops. From the CD’s cover art—an airbrushed mural of a cherry-red Camaro caressed by a bikini-clad vixen—to the sleazy anthems that bookend it, “Jersey Girls” is Rye Coalition’s campaign to put the cock back into rock. Some songs show Rye Coalition toying with a volatile mixture AC/DC and Jesus Lizard, but mostly this EP serves as a tribute to guilty pleasures and self-parody. –Joe Ehrbar

The D4 6Twenty (Flying Nun/Infectious) Two Stars

Were it not for the Swedish Invasion or America’s so-called rock revival, the D4 wouldn’t arouse much interest outside the dingy bars of its native New Zealand. But garage rock is this week’s flavor, and as such second-rate bands like the D4 are getting first-rate hype. To be fair, the D4 is a solid combo; its live show as intoxicating as a 12-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon. And while the quartet’s 6Twenty wields righteous rumblers in the lusty “Ladies Man” and the barn-storming “Invader Ace,” too often it sounds derivative and cliché. Stacked next to albums by the Hives or White Stripes, 6Twenty lacks the spark, charisma, imagination, or even balls to get the job done. Is it any wonder the album’s fifth track is titled “Running on Empty”? –Joe Ehrbar

Fantasies of a Country Clown

File under Comedy/Fantasy: Miserable Moe Bandy's 1979 vinyl turd, It's a Cheating Situation.

Sorry, Moe, but you're dreaming. That said, I doubt your sister (or right hand) will mind.

For the Birds (and Goodwill Bins): Cock Robin

At the height of the 1980s cock rock phenomenon emerged cocks of a different feather, the inimitable, though short-lived synth-pop sensation COCK ROBIN. Owing nothing to the sausage fest sounds of Hollywood's Sunset Strip, this American band had to cross the Atlantic to achieve cock stardom. And achieve it they did, if only for a boner's duration.

Wretched Records and Crappy Covers: Both Sides of the Covenant Four

And the Grammy for Most Laughable Use of a Picnic Tablecloth on an Album Cover goes to...

Wretched Records and Crappy Covers No. 89

"GOODBYE, JANNA."  - Jesus

Fat Stevens

Following the photo shoot for Swedish folk singer Cornelis Vreeswijk’s homage to Evert Taube, the six-string acoustic cradled in the sweaty embrace of Cornelis’s ample, unburdened loins required months of intensive counseling and a full refinish. So traumatized was the guitar, nicknamed “Raggmunk” after Cornelis’s favorite potato pancake recipe, he (yes, it's a he) never played the same again. Some say that the humiliation Raggmunk was forced to endure at the hands of a hack photographer bent on transforming his subjects into steamy sex symbols caused Raggmunk to lose his will to carry a tune. Nevertheless, the guitar remained close with his owner, Vreeswijk, often spending many hours with him on the couch—not playing, though, but watching their favorite films, Lee Hazlewood’s Cowboy in Sweden and Torgny Wicket’s Anita: Swedish Nymphet. And when Vreeswijk succumbed to liver cancer in 1977, Raggmunk mustered the strength to perform an elegy to his mate at his funeral. Appropriately, it was a meditation on the song “Nudistpolka” (no translation necessary) from the infamous Cornelis sjunger Taube LP (“sjunger” means “sings”). It was also Raggmunk’s last performance. As he downstroked the final chord of his poignant tribute, Raggmunk did so with such cathartic force that his strings snapped, filling the mouse-quiet cathedral with a ringing cacophony of profound sorrow. Raggmunk then collapsed on the altar, just a few feet from Vreeswijk’s coffin (a reinforced refrigerator box), his neck breaking off in the process. Sobbing, Cornelis’s brother, Gard, scooped up the broken and now deceased Raggmunk and placed him tenderly in the cardboard casket atop the corpse of his brother. Luckily for Raggmunk, this time Cornelis was wearing pants.

Yes, this is a work of fiction. No need to get upset.

Cat Fancy!

Wilco dropped a surprise free album last week to the delight of dad-rockers everywhere. I love the band's choice of cover art, although I don't love it as much as the cover of Gas Huffer's Just Beautiful Music from 17 years ago. I prefer the music on Gas Huffer's record, too, but I've always been partial to this defunct Seattle garage-punk band, plus I only just started listening to the Wilco album. (I'll give Wilco's latest opus some more time to make itself at home in my fatherly middle-aged brain.) Anyway, seeing Wilco's new Cat Fancy-approved record only makes me miss Gas Huffer even more. Perhaps one of these days I might work up the energy to pen a fitting tribute to the band. I doubt I will, though. I have a hard time writing about the things I love; my mind just gets constipated with incoherent thoughts that never quite mature into anything of use. So for now I'll just say that if you haven't huffed from the potent catalog of Gas Huffer, there's no time like the present now to start. Begin your journey with 1991's Janitors of Tomorrow (Empty) and keep right on trucking all the way through the band's final album, 2005's Lemonade for Vampires (Estrus).

Wretched Records and Crappy Covers: Summer Sausage Edition

Summer is here, ladies and men! And Michael Henderson (known for his electric bass work with Miles Davis, among other more notable accomplishments) has waxed up his ... um ... surf board and is expecting you to join him (and his junk) for a little summer frolic and fun on the beach of Lake Flaccid. Won't you come? I love that this masterpiece is titled Slingshot. I guess it could have alternatively been called Packin' Heat or Holster or Banana Hammock or Summer Sausage Fest or Low-Hanging Fruit Cocktail or Love Cradle or P-Junk or Strapped On. Yeah, Slingshot seems to do the trick. By the way, there's a tune on this record called "Geek You Up." Not quite sure what to make of that. I suppose I could have listened to the song, but why spoil the mystery?

Digging into the Past: My Stephen Malkmus Profile

I wrote this story a little over 13 years ago for a music website that lasted all of three months. My reason for posting it today is simple: I’ve been listening to Stephen Malkmus’s solo output quite a bit lately. And his self-titled debut has long been a summer friend. So there. Please enjoy, my three loyal readers.

THE SOLO YEARS

Stephen Malkmus Finds New Life After Pavement

By Joe Ehrbar

During a recent phone interview, Stephen Malkmus confesses to me that he’s watching “The Dating Story,” listening to Bach, and strumming a guitar “all at the same time. And I’m talking to you.”

So I’ve got your undivided attention, I joke.

“Yeah, I’m paying attention,” he assures me, though his tone suggests otherwise. This, after another Malkmus confession: he’s sick of talking to reporters. “I don't know if [giving interviews] sells records,” says the former Pavement singer gone solo. “If it does, that’s good, but I don't think it does. Do you think it does?”

Um … no? (Not that I care about helping Malkmus hawk his new record, although I’m well aware that he wouldn’t be talking to me otherwise.)

“I’ve done so many of them already,” he says wearily. “I’ve been in like every single magazine." Some might think his complaints to be trivial and vain. Malkmus himself might even agree—if he didn’t have to discuss Pavement’s break-up or the possibilities of a Pavement reunion every time the phone rings. Such is the case when the singer of the one of the 1990s’ most beloved and important rock bands dissolves the group and goes solo, as Malkmus has done with the release of Stephen Malkmus, an album recorded with fellow Portlander musicians drummer John Moen (Maroons, Dharma Bums) and bassist Joanna Bolme (Minders, Jr. High), also known as the Jicks.

Pavement’s break-up isn’t broached during the 20 minutes of this particular interview partly to spare the singer from having to repeat himself. But if you haven't heard already, the Pavement split was caused by a combination of strained relationships among band members, withering enthusiasm and cooperation, and poor communication. With regard to a future Pavement reunion, Malkmus says anything’s possible. “I’m not saying that we won’t reunite for a ‘Monsters of Indie Rock’ stadium tour in 10 years,” he recently told Revolver magazine.

Obligatory interviews aside, Malkmus has taken to his solo career a rejuvenated man. He’s all grown up and able to articulate his vision just fine on his own. This couldn’t be more obvious on his self-titled debut. Loose, airy and seemingly more direct, Stephen Malkmus recalls the spirited recordings Malkmus made with Pavement circa Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain (1994). The difference is that songs are shorn of their scruffy lo-fi curls; they're spiffed-up and polished. Yet, even with the semi-glossy new look, the music is no less compelling.

There’s room for everything under the radiating sun of Stephen Malkmus. It has its straight-no-chaser rock (the Lou Reed-esque “The Hook”), its tender ballads (“Church on White”), and its daydream musings (“Trojan Curfew”). Best of all, it’s rife with that wry Malkmus nonsensical wit served up on a deadpan, as exemplified in “Jo Jo’s Jacket,” where Malkmus sings, “I’m not what you think I am/ I’m the king of Siam/ I got a bald head/ My name is Yul Brynner/ And I am a famous movie star….”

One of the album's highlights, “Jo Jo’s Jacket” nearly got the ax, says Malkmus. “I wasn’t going to put that song on the record,” he explains. “I just started babbling in the studio. Then I had that first line, and we came back a month later and I’m like, ‘I still like that,’ you know? Those lyrics are definitely made up on the spot; they’re not changed. Normally, a lot of things are made up on the spot, and then you alter them. But I sort of like how it sounds—yeah, it’s a cool song.”

Indeed, Malkmus is in a playful mood throughout the album, taking risks with his singing, guitar playing and arranging, and having fun with some of his most inspired narratives yet. And it all had to do with recording an album under the right conditions.

Unlike Pavement’s studio finale, Terror Twilight, whose sessions were fraught with intra-band tension and had the band paired with fastidious studio wiz du jour Nigel Godrich (Radiohead), the conditions under which Stephen Malkmus was written and recorded were much more casual and relaxed—in spite of the fact that his first record post-Pavement has subjected him to more scrutiny by fans and critics than ever. “There was no pressure,” Malkmus insists. “It was great.”

Malkmus attributes much of his studio triumph to bandmates Moen and Bolme and producer Jeff Saltzman—all of whom played a tremendous role in the album’s creative process. “You have to make sure you’re around the right people,” he says, “because the wrong people can lead you astray. You get soft.” The fact that all parties involved reside in the same city as opposed to being scattered across the country—which was the case with Pavement—also helped matters. “That’s why this one feels this way,” Malkmus says. “It helped that everybody knew the songs [before recording them].”

Stephen Malkmus only showed up in record stores a month ago, and yet the singer/guitarist is already eager to start working on new material with the Jicks. He’d also like to resume work with the Silver Jews, a band led by Malkmus’s long-time friend writer/poet David Berman. According to Malkmus, working on the last Silver Jews album, 1999’s American Water, was what initially inspired him to abandon Pavement. “American Water is a great album and that was one of the reasons I wanted to get out of Pavement,” he says. “I had so much fun doing it that I wanted to do something like that, you know. Not that my album is like that, but I wanted to get on a roll sort of like that. It was done fast and furious. There’s talk of doing something in August, but we’ll see.”

Until then, Stephen Malkmus expects to spend the next several months on the concert trail performing songs from his debut. And if you must know, Malkmus says Pavement songs will indeed be on the set list. 

Pin the Singer on a Pinto

You know you’re in trouble when your record label believes so much in your new album that they slap a Ford Pinto on the cover. Named for the Jim Croce hit song that country singer Tony Booth turned into a hit of his own, Workin’ at the Car Wash Blues may not have been the product of Booth's actual experience slathering suds on Pintos, Pacers, Gremlins, and the like; however, Booth was no doubt singing these blues for real after this 1974 album stalled in the bargain bin.

Reggae Fever

I’ve always been fanatical about music, and that fanaticism goes way back—all the way to when I was a toddler and my parents would send me off to slumberland to the Beatles’ “The Long and Winding Road.” When I was 4, I remember sitting at the breakfast table anxiously waiting for Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy” to come galloping from single-speaker kitchen radio. A few years later, I pestered a radio station’s request lines with pleas for the Knack’s “My Sharona.” (That power-pop juggernaut had me so spellbound that I vividly recall a fourth-grade me weeping in the “way-back” of the family station wagon because my dad swiftly changed stations when the emphatic opening chords and funky bass line of “My Sharona” announced themselves on the radio.) When I was 11, I slept almost every night with my Sears radio-cassette player beneath my pillow and recorded broadcasts in hopes that when I woke the next morning, sore neck and all, the tape would contain “Back in Black” or “Crazy Train” or “Stairway to Heaven” or even “Heaven and Hell.” Shall I go on? Sure, it’s my blog….

As I grew older, my passion for music only intensified, and the lengths to which I would go to hear or acquire new music only grew more extreme—even ridiculous. Remember that in the ancient times of the mid to late 1980s, when I was coming of age, discovering or getting your hands on music could not be done instantaneously with a simple mouse click or tap on a phone screen. So imagine the challenge a teen with no money or driver’s license faces when he’s bewitched by a song he heard on a scratchy-sounding radio broadcast and there’s no easy way for him to get his hands on a recording without resorting to some pretty comical measures. And in 1988, this is exactly what I had to do to track down a fairly obscure album by a local reggae band called Boom Shaka. (Silly name, I know.)

I became enamored of reggae music as a high school freshman, and for the ensuing four years it served as my everyday soundtrack. I was introduced to the genre by my friend Tim, a high school junior who drove the neighborhood carpool to and from school, Pasadena to Los Angeles—a 36-mile roundtrip in gridlock traffic; plenty of time for reggae's deep bass vibrations and soulful melodies to assuage the anxieties and insecurities of my high school existence. Tim had a sizable record and tape collection—and the taste, knowledge, and zeal to go right along with it. I had no older brother, so for the next two years until he graduated, I adopted Tim as mine. Every day, Tim’s brown VW Rabbit rattled with rhythmic pulse of everything from Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer, and Steel Pulse to U-Roy, Dillinger, Ini Kamoze, and Yellowman. While I suffered through high school to get the education I needed, in Tim’s Rabbit I relished the musical instruction I sorely wanted.

In Southern California, where I grew up, reggae music was more accessible than it was in most places. Half the record stores had dedicated, albeit small, reggae sections; public/college radio stations aired weekly reggae music programs; and the midsize venues and amphitheaters in the L.A. area (I was too young for clubs) regularly stocked their summer lineups with some the genre’s bigger names and festivals (UB40, Steel Pulse, Burning Spear, Jimmy Cliff, Reggae Sunsplash, et al.). Tim exposed me to all this. He also told me about KCRW’s Sunday afternoon reggae show, “The Reggae Beat,” hosted by the legendary DJ Roger Steffans, and showed me copies of a magazine by the same name, also founded by Steffans.

Best of all, Tim introduced me to Poo-Bah Records, a record shop housed in a tired-looking dirt-brown bungalow in a gentrification-neglected part of Pasadena. Since its opening in 1971, Poo-Bah’s had been an institution, an indie record store that was close to everything and near nothing at all, a hidden gem in plain sight (on the corner of Walnut and Wilson), a dilapidated sanctuary for various species of music lover—hippies, punks, jazz freaks, rockers, etc. In these waning days of the vinyl record, Poo-Bah’s bins overflowed with just about everything, except the crap you’d hear on mainstream pop radio. Which meant Poo-Bah also had a fat, thoughtfully curated reggae section. Anytime I had some money, you would find me there thumbing through the stacks.

Following my freshman year of high school, I got my first summer job, pushing papers (and removing staples) as a file clerk for $4.50 an hour. At last, I had some disposable income, income I could happily dispose of toward amassing my own reggae record collection (records, by the way, I still own today). Every Wednesday—pay day—my work buddy, Tony, would drive us to Poo-Bah during lunch so that we could dutifully surrender our paychecks. Eventually my mom tried to bar me from bringing new reggae albums into the house (my theory at the time was that she was either frightened by the sight of dreadlocked Rastafarians adorning their covers or worried that I’d end up selling pot from my bedroom; really she just wanted me to save my money), so I would stash my new LPs in the garage until it was safe to retrieve them later. When that tactic ultimately failed, I switched to cassette tapes, which, while not as appealing as records, could be easily concealed in my pants pocket.

More often than not, I was broke, but I could still satisfy my jones for new reggae sounds by taping the local radio broadcasts. One show I never missed was “Reggae Revolution,” which aired Tuesday nights (or Wednesday mornings) at 1 a.m. I preferred this show to KCRW’s “Reggae Beat” or KPFK’s Saturday afternoon show, “Sounds of Jamaica,” because it was on KROQ, and KROQ was a commercial station. Meaning, its transmitter was a blowtorch to the public/school stations’ matchsticks—meaning, I didn’t have to keep messing with the antenna for static-free reception. I also favored “Reggae Revolution” because I had a connection, albeit a tenuous one, to the host, having met him when he DJed my friend Tim’s high school graduation party (Pato Banton was also there). “Reggae Revolution,” whose name I would later crib for my own college radio reggae show at Gonzaga University, was an hour-long program that featured a mix of classic roots reggae, the latest dancehall sounds, as well as tunes from the area’s local talents.

As you might imagine, one in the morning is a long time to stay awake for the opportunity hear a dozen or so songs. I was not a night owl, so to keep from dozing off, I’d swallow a handful of No-Doz, which would wreck my stomach well into the next day and obliterate all chances of getting the rest I might have gotten between the show’s conclusion and my alarm clock’s rude intrusion four hours later.

So there I’d be, just like the 4-year-old me, listening to “Reggae Revolution” in the dark of night, nervously anticipating the hour’s 12 songs as the rest of the house lay silent with sleep. If just one song reached through my crappy headphones and rattled my eardrums with its sublime frequencies and fat-bottom bass, it would all be worth it. Sometimes that song would never come. You’d hear the requisite Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, ’80s production Steel Pulse, crossover hits from Pato Banton and Aswad, a dancehall track or two, and some American-made crap with phony Jamaican accents. But sometimes Roberto would spin a song so incredible it would stir me from my groggy state and trigger a welcome jolt of adrenaline. Sometimes its origins would not be from Jamaica, or Birmingham, England (another reggae stronghold). Sometimes it would come from a local singer or band. At the time, Babylon Warriors and Swelele ranked among my favorites.

Then one September night in 1988, along came a rockers-style song called “Wicked Man” by an L.A. band dubbed Boom Shaka, whose singer bore a distinctive baritone both biting and smoky-smooth, somewhat reminiscent of Gregory Isaacs. Who the hell was this? I wondered, a surge of caffeinated excitement coursing through my body. His was a voice that cut through the din atop a vibrant laid-back sound unmoored to the lyrical clichés of genre (i.e., obligatory references to ganja, generic complaints about Babylon/“the system,” love for Jah). Or maybe it was, but to my naïve ears Boom Shaka sounded authentic, unique. So much so that I was already mentally filing their debut LP, Creation, between my Black Uhuru and Burning Spear records. Now if I could only get my hands on the actual record.

Eager to hear the song again, I rewound the tape as soon as the broadcast concluded. “Wicked Man” still captivated me. Again I rewound the tape. A few hours later as I lay on my bed in the jittery netherworld of No-Doz semi-consciousness, my feelings for the song remained undiminished. Armed with the knowledge that the band’s album had just been released, I had to get it—and fast. That same day, preferably. And I knew exactly where I could find it.

This is where my music obsession takes an even tighter turn toward the ridiculous.

It was the middle of September, which made it cross-country (running) season. Which meant practice every day after school—long, punishing runs in the late-summer Southern California heat and smog. Coming on the heels of an all-nighter, that afternoon's practice would be its own special hell. But, as luck would have it, it would be a city run from my school’s L.A. campus west along Venice Boulevard. And up that road a few miles away sat Ashantites, a tiny record store that dealt exclusively in reggae music. If any shop in L.A. had Boom Shaka’s Creation, it was this one.

Getting to my destination wouldn't be easy. Besides exhaustion, I was nursing a painful abdominal muscle pull. Also, we runners weren’t allowed to deviate from the route to, say, take a shortcut … much less shop for records. But I was determined to get my record and would use my ailing physical condition to unhitch myself from the pack: I’d let my fellow runners drop me so that by the time we were a few miles in I could duck into Ashantites undetected. After, LP securely in my possession, I’d link back up with the team a couple blocks north as they made their eastbound return along Pico—albeit keeping a safe distance behind so that I wouldn’t be seen schlepping a record as I ran.

My plan worked. Hot, hurting, and gasping for breath, I stammered up to Ashantites’ storefront and hustled inside—lest I be spotted by any stragglers who may have gotten a late start or by my coaches trailing behind in a van (which they did periodically to safeguard us from the “mean streets” of Los Angeles). Inside, before I could be soothed by the air conditioning and perfume of incense, I made a beeline for the counter, behind which the owner, a diminutive woman whom I would later befriend, sat reading. “Boom Shaka. Album. Creation,” was all I could muster. She pointed over my left shoulder to the spot on the wall where it stood prominently displayed on a shelf along with the other new releases. I grabbed it, handed her a sweat-dampened wad of cash, apologized, and then hurried out, prize in hand.

The whole transaction took less than a minute. 

Outside, I cut up a side street and stood for a few minutes, watching for my returning teammates to intersect a block up as they raced back along Pico. When runners finally started crossing, they were no longer a pack, but a stream of smaller groups and lone suffering souls who had been thinned out by the withering pace and heat. After about five minutes, I started my limping, lopsided run back to campus. Unpleasant as it was to run with an aching side and a 12-by-12-inch cellophane square of hot sweat beneath my arm, I was stoked. I had my record.

When I got home that evening, I tore off the cellophane, pulled the black shellac from its sleeve and dropped it onto the turntable of my cheap Emerson stereo. There Creation remained, in heavy rotation, for the weeks that followed. 

Today, I’m hardly as obsessive about acquiring new music, although I do hit up the same Goodwill store a couple times a week in search of discarded treasure. I still own that Boom Shaka album, as well as the second version issued soon after the original with extra tracks. But until recently, I hadn’t listened to the album since spinning it on my college radio show more than 20 years ago. While I was pleasantly surprised by the undeniable catchiness of its songs—chief among them, the aforementioned “Wicked Man,” “Never Be Alone,” and the title track—I was disappointed to discover how dated and overproduced it sounded—which was characteristic of 1980s reggae. That’s not to say the record doesn’t hold up; it just doesn’t hold the same appeal. But how could it? My tastes have changed, my ears have changed, I have changed. Still, I must admit that I was a bit bummed: I guess I was naïve to think that listening to Creation all these years later would rekindle some of that magic I felt all those years ago, lying in bed, when I heard Boom Shaka for the first time.

Note: Events detailed in this post are as I remember them; I make no claim to historical accuracy. But it's all true.

Wretched Records and Crappy Covers Again: One More Wicker Man

Oh, Danny Boy! Sharp-dressed in his wicker nest.

Discovered another Wicker Man hiding on an old SD card. I snapped this pic last year, and I now regret not saving Danny from the oblivion of the Goodwill junk bin. I just have too many damned records. You may recall that I blogged about 1970s album covers festooned with wicker chairs a few months back (original post here). I'm just sorry for bringing Danny late to the party. At least he's fashionably late.

The Virgin Suicides

The Living Stones, four singing sisters and their poorly conceived suicide note.

Taking their lives might have been the most selfless act the Living Stones could have made to atone for this inept stillbirth of gospel music. The girls’ pastor, who just happened to be the album’s producer, thought the title—Take My Life—spoke of the sister act’s commitment to Christ. He learned just how horribly wrong he was when, a few weeks after the LP’s unsuccessful launch, he discovered their headless bodies lying in a bloody heap on the basement floor of the parish community center. Just as they harmonized in song, the siblings synchronized their exit with a simultaneous hanging. However, their choice of heavy-gauge low-E guitar strings as nooses proved to be a rather unfortunate—and messy—decision. The strings didn’t just snap their necks when pulled taught, they ripped their heads clear off. Melba’s wobbled some 20 feet down the hall before coming to its final rest just outside the men’s room door, a wavy trail of crimson occupying the distance between head and body. One positive outcome in all this was that it served as the inspiration for the soundtrack that in turn inspired the movie that in turn inspired the novel The Virgin Suicides. 

This is a work of fiction.