Blast From The Past will return to its regular schedule next week. A storm knocked out internet service where I live, and my home network isn’t connecting to the internet. We’re snagging wireless from somewhere, but the internet conks out sporadically and the connection is slow. Once I’m moved into my room at school next week, Blast From The Past shall return with a very, um, SPECIAL selection. You’ll just have to wait and see!
Whoa, is it Wednesday??? Remember last week when I said I wasn’t going to let the day take me by surprise? Well, I lied. Now, here at last, is this week’s Blast From The Past, where I assess albums that have acquired the appellation “antique.” Last week I heaped hogsheads of hurrahs on Hefner’s 1999 gem “The Fidelity Wars.” This week we turn back the dial a tiny bit to the year 1994. Like 1997 after it, 1994 was a great year for music. Think about it: Weezer’s blue album, Pavement’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, and The Divine Comedy’s Promenade all saw release in 1994. Yet those weren’t the only monumental things to happen to music in 1994, because it was with John Henry that college-rock crown princes They Might Be Giants ditched their drum machines in favor of a full backing band.
Evidently, the kids in the liner notes were none too happy about this change. They hold banners that declare “death to” or “down with They Might Be Giants,” and toss around a human skull on whose forehead is written “THEY.” It eerily foreshadowed the mixed critical and fan reactions the album received upon initial release, though over the years it has grown on many a fan (Our dear webmaster Tsuru included, if I recall!) But what was the reason for the lukewarm reception? The triumph of drum man over drum machine to which the album’s title alludes? Couldn’t be. The full band only serves to enhance the wonderful sounds of “Snail Shell,” put the pedal to the metal in “AKA Driver,” and make “The End Of The Tour” sound like it could fill a stadium.
Was it the lyrics? Can anyone deny that “Sleeping In The Flowers” shows that John Flansburgh has an incredible knack for writing love songs for nerds? Or that “Spy” deftly turns its suave narrator into a hopeless romantic when he realizes that “you will never understand me / because I have a special job?” Or that the faux-spiritual “O Do Not Forsake Me” is at once a humble homage and clever lampoon?
You know what it was? This album had to follow Apollo 18, which for my money is one of the best albums of the 1990s. I can imagine that the public, after the perfection of that album and after hearing the news that the Johns were recording with a full band, would expect nothing short of a masterpiece. John Henry is by no means a masterpiece, and it contains its share of less-than-perfect tunes such as the lyrical mess of “A Self Called Nowhere” or the just not very interesting “Extra Savoir Faire,” or the throwaway “Window.” Whether or not this was a result of the pressure to make another Apollo 18 I do not know. Either way, I find that though John Henry is far from perfect, the glaring imperfections are what make it so engaging.
My friend “Francis,” to whom I introduced you last week, has a fascination with “flawed albums.” Mostly, these consist of debut albums that are just simply not as good as their other works. These guys know what I’m talking about:
While not their debut, John Henry marked a debut of sorts: that of the three guys backing the Johns, and like Pablo Honey was for Radiohead, this is a beautifully flawed debut. After all, They Might Be Giants, but they’re only human.
John Henry:
01. Subliminal
02. Snail Shell
03. Sleeping In The Flowers
04. Unrelated Thing
05. AKA Driver
06. I Should Be Allowed To Think
07. Extra Savoir-Faire
08. Why Must I Be Sad?
09. Spy
10. O, Do Not Forsake Me
11. No One Knows My Plan
12. Dirt Bike
13. Destination Moon
14. A Self Called Nowhere
15. Meet James Ensor
16. Thermostat
17. Window
18. Out Of Jail
19. Stomp Box
20. The End Of The Tour
Blast From The Past will return to its regular schedule next Tuesday. I hope.
Whoa! Is it Tuesday already? Man, I need to get better at not letting such things take me by surprise. But yes, it’s Tuesday, and that means it’s high time for another installment of my (hopefully) weekly feature “Blast from the Past,” where, amidst the flood of shiny new music, I dig in the dust for something a little less new, but not necessarily less shiny. Last week I fawned over Elton John’s 1973 masterpiece Caribou, now well-aged and relegated to many a bargain bin. Today, we fast forward to 1999 for an album I have yet to find in any record store:
One of my college friends, whom I shall refer to as “Francis,” and who infrequently posts in the society as Gnaeus, has a car. This in itself is not a big deal, but when you go to a school where only around 10 to 20 percent of the student body has a car on campus, a friend with a car is a friend who’s a star (See what I did there?) As a result, “Francis” is the one who drives my friends and me places (whether it be the nearby Taco Bell at 2 AM or a Magnetic Fields concert an hour away.)
Being a fellow music buff, “Francis” would agree that no drive, no matter how short, is complete without some music playing. Consequently, passengers of the giant Buick Rendezvous that he drove were treated to a treasure trove of obscure but wonderful music, and it was on one of these mixtapes that I first heard the sweet sounds of Hefner’s The Fidelity Wars.
The song in question was the brand-name-dropping rocker “The Hymn For The Cigarettes,” where lead singer Darren Hayman worries over how compatible he is with his lady-friend: “How can she love me / if she doesn’t even love the cinema / that I love? / What does she feel / if she doesn’t have the feeling / that I have in my fingers?” Hayman agonizes over charging guitars. Other songs from this album found their way onto “Francis’” mixtapes as well: the wonderfully clichéd chorus of “We Were Meant To Be” became a car-wide sing-along, and the somber, frustrated “I Stole A Bride” was always enough to turn ears away from a conversation.
But what of the band behind the songs? The Fidelity Wars was Hefner’s second album, after Breaking God’s Heart (another stellar record) in 1998. Fidelity Wars was followed by We Love The City in 2000 and Dead Media in 2001, after which the band went on indefinite hiatus. Darren Hayman went on to form The French, who released one album in 2003, Local Information, before going on hiatus themselves. Hefner reunited briefly in 2007 to perform at a “Keeping It Peel” tribute show, in honor of one of their biggest supporters, John Peel.
So without further ado, I urge you: Check out The Fidelity Wars. It is more than worth your while.
The Fidelity Wars:
01. The Hymn For The Cigarettes
02. May God Protect Your Home
03. The Hymn For The Alcohol
04. I Took Her Love For Granted
05. Every Little Gesture
06. Weight Of The Stars
07. I Stole A Bride
08 We Were Meant To Be
09. Fat Kelly’s Teeth
10. Don’t Flake Out On Me
11. I Love Only You
Hello, TSURURADIO readers! Allow me to introduce myself: I am Harrison, known on the forums and elsewhere on the internet as wasoe. In addition to my occasional contributions to TSURURADIO, I am a member of the blog community at Bonded By Madness, and maintain my own music blog, Indie Fux.
Now, I believe I should say a few words about this feature: Blast from the Past spotlights an album not from the current year. It could be anything from a 1960′s garage rock record to a 2009 release that many blogs and critics missed. For the inaugural installment, however, I have chosen a criminally underrated gem from 1974, Elton John’s Caribou: Read more »
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