Tag: 1994

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 1994: #28 Meat Puppets “Backwater”

<< #29   |   #27 >>

I first came across Meat Puppets care of the old MuchMusic late Friday night alternative music video show “City Limits”. I used to sit poised, close to the TV and VCR, and ready to hit the play and record buttons whenever KCC (and later Simon Evans) would announce an interesting or familiar upcoming video.

One night, and I’m not sure why I did, perhaps it was the interesting band name, but I recorded the video for “Sam”, a single off of Meat Puppets’ seventh and first major label album, “Forbidden places”. Of course, in an age before the Internet was in wide use and almost a decade before the establishment of Wikipedia, I had no idea that the trio led by Curt and Cris Kirkwood had formed in 1980 as a punk band and had released so many independent albums already, amassing a small but mighty cult following.

Upon repeat viewings of the aforementioned video, I formed an attachment to the song and the frenetic way frontman Curt Kirkwood delivered the verses, contrasted with his static facial expression in the video. I ended up purchasing the CD* used at ‘Hooked on Video’, my hometown’s only music store, which was located at the eponymously named Bowmanville Mall.

So I felt a little smug when the group attained a certain level of fame and notoriety a couple of years later when Kurt Cobain invited the Kirkwood brothers onstage to join Nirvana for the taping of their now legendary MTV unplugged performance and they recorded a handful of Meat Puppets covers together. “Backwater” was the first single to be released off the album “Too high to die”, the first bit of new material to see the light after that appearance, so of course it did well, charting higher and selling better than anything the band recorded, prior or ever since. Sure I was a bit of a jerk about all the bandwagoners but I didn’t seriously blame any of them because it was a pretty great tune.

Whenever I hear “Backwater”, I am instantly transported back to the summer of 1995, a whole year after its release. It had had lots of time to steep on commercial radio and was recognizable to many. I was working at the recycling division of the steel plant my father worked at**, a summer job he had arranged for me and that I had quit my favoured 7-Eleven post because it paid more. I spent the better part of the first month in that job picking up scrap metal from the ground around the division’s offices, a make-work project to keep me and the other student hire (we’ll call him Todd because I don’t remember his real name) busy until we had real work to cover off. I spent much of this menial time singing songs to myself and “Backwater” came up often and when ever it did, Todd would join in, doing his best mimicry of the Kirkwood vocals but sounding more like Bert and Ernie.

“Some things will never change
They just stand there looking backwards
Half-unconscious from the pain”

Sure, the song definitely had a more mainstream feel than the sound I had gotten used to on “Forbidden places” but it got its lure hooks into me quickly and never let go. It’s got raunchy guitars, a popping time keep, and a driving riff that would not be denied. It plays like a joyride down small town back roads in pickup trucks with lit cigarettes burning in the ashtrays and open cans of watery domestic lager sloshing in the cupholders. Definitely not my memories of glory days but it still spells warmth somewhere.

*I would, however, sell that same CD a few years later at York University’s music store for a few bucks when I needed some beer money.

**A job I’ve mentioned before.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1994 list, click here.

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 1994: #29 The Lightning Seeds “Perfect”

<< #30   |   #28 >>

Back when I was a young man, especially in the years just before, during, and immediately after my time at university in Toronto, I was a proverbial night owl. I would often stay up all night and only go to bed a few hours after the sun rose on the new day.

This behaviour likely had its roots in the job that I started the year after I graduated high school, working at the local 7-Eleven. I often worked the midnight shift because I was the new guy, was young, and appreciated the meagre shift premium. And often on those shifts, my good friend Bowers, who was also a late nighter, would pop into the store on the nights he wasn’t himself working at the paint factory, coming in during the wee hours to rock the Addams Family pinball machine, shoot the proverbial poo with me and whichever young lady was my shift partner on the night, and we’d walk home together when my shift ended around 7am. On those nights when we were both off work, I’d head over to his place and we’d watch movies all night in his basement over pizzas and beers.

During university, I had no lack of friends who also enjoyed partying late into the night, drinking, listening to tunes, laughing, and generally being ridiculous. On those later evenings, there was always a point where others would disappear off to bed and only the hardy few remained. Those were the moments where the decision was made either to pack it in or realize that you might as well wait to make sure the sun came up. Of course, it was usually the latter.

And when the sun did peak its bright rays over the horizon, it was magic.

It was pure perfection. The air was crisp. The streets were quiet. The skies were replete with a myriad of colours. It felt like the world belonged to you (and your friends) and nobody else. There was a joy. But there was also a sadness.

This song, “Perfect” by The Lightning Seeds, perfectly* encapsulates this feeling, this mood, this magic. Frontman and driving force, Ian Broudie puts into music and words exactly how we all felt in those moments.

“Now tomorrow’s here today
And yesterday’s today’s just fade away
Watch the morning chase the night
Rolling home, it’s getting light
Feeling sleepy, full of wine
Fall in bed, just in time.”

“Perfect” is track one on the Liverpudlian indie pop band’s third album, “Jollification”. It starts off with low level music already in progress, sounding off in the distance like a faraway bird, a shadow in the bright blazing sunrise. Then, the song proper starts, a jolt of life, that second wind, roaring guitars and dancing synth washes and a drum beat that matches the beat of your heart. The song feels bright and wistfully happy – a song of hope for a new day but sadness for the night we’ve lost.

*Sorry, not sorry.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1994 list, click here.

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 1994: #30 Beck “Loser”

#29 >>

I’m starting off this list of my favourite tunes of 1994 with an artist with whom many of you are likely quite familiar. In fact, you’re all probably more familiar with Beck Hansen (also known mononymously as Beck) than is this humble blogger.

I remember hearing this very track on alternative radio and watching the video on MuchMusic ad nauseum back in ‘94. I found it amusing at first, deeming the tune catchy yet quirky, but soon grew to dislike it, as well as the other single* that was being slogged from “Mellow gold”. The singles from his next album, “Odelay”, though they too were overplayed, rang more true for me and I purchased that album on CD. I very nearly became a fan after that, if it weren’t for the Britpop explosion that followed, dragging my tastes in a completely different direction for a time. Still, I paid attention when I heard his name spoken on commercial radio over the years that followed but it took catching him at Osheaga back in 2013 to finally hook me for good.

In truth, “Loser” was originally released as a single in 1993. It was released by indie label Bong Load Custom Records with a limited pressing and somehow got picked up by college radio stations along the west coast. Modern rock stations started playing it next and pressings quickly sold out. Our hero musician, who from his folk roots had always been indie at heart, found himself signing with a major label, DGC, to keep up with demand. They re-released the song in 1994 as a preface to Beck’s third album but first on a major label, the aforementioned “Mellow gold”. The rest, of course, is history. A dozen or so albums released, millions of units sold, Brit awards, Grammys, household name.

“You can’t write if you can’t relate
Trade the cash for the beef for the body for the hate
And my time is a piece of wax falling on a termite
That’s choking on the splinters”

In hindsight, this is a crazy tune and crazy that it became so successful. Beck mixes and matches with genres and sounds, throwing blues, folk, and hip hop into the meat grinder and cranking away. He’s got samples, a wicked drum machine beat, slide guitar, and sitar**. Above it all Beck is spewing nonsensical words at random in a rough hewn sing-speak that some have strangely compared to Dylan. By contrast, Beck has called out his own rapping prowess, which incidentally, is the real basis for chorus line that became like a clarion call for the so-called slacker image of generation X.

“Soy un perdedor
I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me?”

*I remember making the connection for a university acquaintance between “Beercan” and the artist that performed “Loser”, without realizing until later I was sounding arrogant and making her feel small. Not one of my finer moments.

**When I saw him at Osheaga, he had Elephant Stone’s Rishi Dhir playing the sitar on stage with him.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1994 list, click here.