New Mix: Eleventh Dream Day

As far as single artist mixes go, this one's pretty incomplete, more of a narrow sampler than a fair overview of an artist. Chicago-based Eleventh Dream Day have been kicking around, on & off and in various formations, since the mid-80s, but this mix (and my interest in the band) focuses on their trio of great, guitar-driven albums from 89-93. Which means I skip their noisier, lo-fi post-punk early work and the series of more sedate, moody albums they've been steadily issuing over the past decade and a half. Leaving 80 minutes of sheer sonic joy, when bandleader Rick Rizzo was a force to be reckoned with.

EDD draw their sound in large part from the dark post-punk Americana of, say, Dream Syndicate, with raging leads straight out of the Neil Young & Crazy Horse songbook; dual guitar lines suggest hints of Television and early Feelies; the occasional blending of male/female vox also brings to mind X and jangle-popsters the Reivers. But the most obvious analogy is Yo La Tengo. Vocalist with a Lou Reed-infused sing/speak vocal style? Check. Petite wife on drums and occasional vocals? Check. Building rhythms culminating in screeching guitar solos begging for more volume than your stereo can muster? Check.

Their first solid album was 1989's Beet, and it's a doozy. Loads of killer tunes, and very little filler. "Testify" is bluesy and intense. "Bomb The Mars Hotel" is a delightful, boisterous tirade about blowing away deadheads, and, while I suppose I might be among the targets of such a purge, it's hard not to smile when Rizzo screams "No more dancing bears!" with twisted fury. And my favorite track's always been "Teenage Pin Queen," five minutes of slice-of-middle-America drawn from a roadside bowling alley, quiet guitar finger picking building to a stabbing frenzy and fading to a quiet coda. It's freakin' awesome, folks.

The band then peaked with 1991's Lived To Tell. Not a dramatic change from Beet, though the songs are even more consistently strong. Drummer Janet Bean gets a more pronounced role, bringing a bit of a pop sensibility to some of the tunes. There's also a bit more dramatic range, plenty of rave-ups but also some slower tunes where Rizzo's guitars have time to stretch out a bit. Hard to pick a fave here, though I'm partial to the one Bean vocal lead, the straightforward pop-punk "You Know What It Is," which sounds like a long lost Nuggets track as covered by Sleater-Kinney.

If there's any weakness to these two albums, it's the paper-thin production, with little low-end to be found (I have the original versions of the cd's; they were later reissued, but dunno if they compensated for this with any remastering). The production gets beefed up on 1993's El Moodio, the final album before they left their label and starting trying out some new sounds. This time, there's far more pop, far more bass, and some of the band's best work; on the flip side, the tracks are much more hit & miss (like later work), with a handful of slower tunes which meander a bit too much for my taste. Still, it's worth owning simply for "After This Time Is Gone," one of the great lost indie-pop tracks of the 90s. Shimmering, jangly guitars, Rizzo & Bean's vox intertwined perfectly, and an absolutely killer hook. Nearly as good is "Makin' Like A Rug," Bean's vocal spotlight, with a three-chord hook accented by a buzzsaw bassline and murder ballad lyrics to (literally) die for. "That's The Point" is another shot of punk-pop simplicity. A few other solid upbeat tracks reminiscent of the prior two albums as well, but, like I said, a handful of skippable tracks as well.

So there you go. You can probably find these albums in a cut-out bin somewhere, and you really need to check 'em out.

Drone Your Sorrows

Went on a mini-shopping spree lately, one of those expensive Internet runs where you pick up something you like, plug it into Amazon.com and other shopping sites to see what other discs people who bought that one are also buying, and next thing you know it's an hour later and you've got a half dozen cd's in the mail and you're nervous about the next Visa bill.

Kicked off this particular spree with Dos, the second (dos, get it?) album from San Francisco drone/garage band Wooden Shjips. And it's great, by the way. A mere five tracks, running 5-12 minutes each, blending Krautrock and psychedelia and good ol' crunchy garage band jamming into a throbbing package of sonic bliss. I'm particularly fond of the epic "Down By The Sea," which (as I'm not the first to point out) is a bit derivative of Yo La Tengo's brilliant "Pass The Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodkind" but, hey, good song to be derivative of; a basic Led Zeppelin-ish 3-note bass riff played over and over for 10 solid minutes, first topped by the band's usual hushed, almost indecipherable vocals, then a building guitar jam that makes you roll down the car windows and blow out your speakers. Oh, and the rest of the album is pretty fantastic as well.

So here's a little live Wooden Shjips to make your head explode:



Next up was Ambergris, a 2008 release from Minneapolis-based Flavor Crystals (alas, an import-only, so had to splurge). Liked this one just as much. Again, there's a definite Yo La Tengo vibe here (ok, I love Yo La Tengo, so I like to look for them in pretty much everything I listen to, so sue me), albeit the more mellow, dream-pop side of the band. This is headphone-friendly psychedelic mood music, pretty and lush and dreamy, without the harder-edge garage band sound of the 'Schjips. Late night music for sure. Though that's not to say it's hook-free, and some tracks are almost catchy. For the more traditional-minded of you out there, if you like pre-Dark Side Pink Floyd, you'll love this.

Here's a live take on "Guppython" from the album:



So once I ordered that one, Amazon told me I simply had to purchase the Black Angels' Directions To See A Ghost -- 2008 sophomore release from the Austin, Texas band who, as their name would rightly suggest, are straight out of the Velvet Underground playbook, but once again driven through with an unhealthy dose of psychedelic drone (and perhaps a chunk of the Doors). A little less original-sounding than the bands above (though I'm using "original" in a very loose sense for all of them), but it's still good sonic fun.

I know, you want to hear 'em, don't you?



Fourth & final purchase on this li'l buying jag, another one suggested by Amazon once I ordered the Black Angels & Flavor Crystals, was the 2006 self-titled debut album from L.A.'s Darker My Love. This one moved (slightly) off the steady drone of the other albums into Nuggets-derived straightforward garage band territory. Doesn't make you reach for the headphones, but you might shake your hips. As the name suggests, there's some bleaker-sounding stuff here, almost Joy Division-esque in spots, though it's still undeniably trippy, with overtones of the 80's Paisley Underground bands like Dream Syndicate here & there. Not essential, but a good, solid album.

But why trust me when there's a video on the ol' u-tubes?