(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)
Artist: Pixies Album Title: Come on pilgrim… it’s surfer rosa Year released: 2018 Details: 3 x LP, 180 gram, gold, 30th anniversary of “Come on pilgrim” and “Surfer rosa”
The skinny: We’re just a handful of days removed from the start of Ottawa Bluesfest, the local 9-day music extravaganza that I try to attend in some capacity every year and have been doing so in most cases for just over fifteen years. With my health issues this year, I’m certain I won’t be attending every night but I did purchase a full pass and there are a few bands performing that I am definitely going to try to see. Pixies is one of these acts and I’ve been spinning a bunch of their tunes in preparation. I purchased this special edition 3 LP box set collecting together “Come on pilgrim” and “Surfer Rosa”, two of the band’s first ever releases, a few years after it was released, when I found it while browsing Toronto’s Rotate This on a Boxing Day. Released in 2018 in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the former’s release, the three discs were pressed on gold vinyl. Included with the mini album and LP was the group’s first ever recording, a live performance from 1986. It was a great find all around and with the Boxing Day discount, a worthwhile purchase.
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 couple of posts ago, I initiated a new mini-series focusing on my favourite albums of 1990. I shared some words on the concept, the fact that 1990 was the year with which I started out this blog, focusing then, on its best tunes, and finally, providing a handful of album honourable mentions. So I’ll not blather on too much today for preamble. If you’re interested where I was musically and in life in general that year, have a looky-loo here. Otherwise, I’ll dig right into albums 10 through 6 of my list of top albums for 1990*.
Enjoy!
#10 The Northern Pikes “Snow in June”
The Pikes’ third and best-selling record feels inextricably tied to my DNA sometimes. It’s not one I listen to often anymore but whenever I do, it instantly transports me back to my teenaged bedroom, where listened to this cassette tape on repeat, constantly flipping sides, while playing hours upon hours of ‘Pool of radiance’ on my C64. It’s way more than just the ubiquitous CanCon classic, “She ain’t pretty“. There’s thirteen solid rock tracks that are tempered by folk leanings and varied in sound according to which of the three vocalists wrote and led the singing on each. Perhaps the nostalgia is strong here but I stand by my love for this album. It’s unfortunate that the Saskatchewan-based quartet couldn’t keep the momentum up for their next album.
#9 Jane’s Addiction “Ritual de lo habitual”
Jane’s Addiction’s second proper studio album was handed to me on cassette tape by a friend and fellow new initiate to the alternative music scene, calling it industrial and comparing the group to Nine Inch Nails and Ministry, both bands I was just getting into. Of course, Jane’s weren’t really industrial but they had that similar rage and wild sound and perhaps even more so in a sense. There’s so many great tracks on ‘Ritual’ and I’ve always thought that what set them so apart was that the songs are all slightly unhinged, as if the whole ship could all fall apart at any moment. This orchestrated chaos was what made the American quartet led by Perry Farrell so great but it was also their undoing**. They broke up at the end of the tour for the album, the finale of which also saw the group headlining the very first Lollapalooza festival.
#8 Sinéad O’Connor “I do not want what I haven’t got”
I remember buying this album on cassette tape as part of Columbia House’s 9 albums for a penny, way back in the day, and for the longest time, only listening to “Nothing compares 2 u” because that was the song I knew from my weekly viewing of the Chum FM 30. Once I moved past that one tune, though, I grew to appreciate Sinéad’s other material. I later migrated away from listening to her, not because of her infamous photo burning appearance on SNL or her outspokenness on many topics, but because my tastes took me in a different direction. However, I’ve since returned to this album many times over the last couple of decades. Sinéad was a great songwriter. Not just a lyricist but also in the way she created a sound, sometimes infusing Celtic folk sounds with funky drum beats and sometimes leaving it all bare, singing a capella and including her inhalations of breathe as another tool in her tool belt. Such a legendary voice and polarizing persona.
#7 The La’s “The La’s”
You’ve heard about one hit wonders, right? Well, how about one album wonders? The La’s were a five-piece Liverpool-based rock act led by Lee Mavers that were active from 1983 to 1992. They released a handful of singles throughout that time, including one of my favourite one hit wonders, “There she goes”, but only ever managed the one studio album before disbanding***. But what a great album it was. The self-titled debut is filled with short and jangly rock gems that dig their way into your head and root themselves in there for good measure, much like another act from that same England town. It’s another one of those great rock ‘what if’ stories. Who knows what a second record would have meant to the band and perhaps rock music as a whole.
#6 Concrete Blonde “Bloodletting”
Concrete Blonde’s third album was oh-so-close to breaking into my top five for 1990. Previously, the sound of the Hollywood-based, indie rock trio led by Johnette Napolitano was mostly pedestrian rock and yet, their following was meagre, being picked up mostly by the college radio kids. With “Bloodletting”, they ventured into gothic rock territory and surprisingly, found commercial success for the first time. I remember listening to this album around my wife at one point early on in our relationship and she was surprised that I was listening to a band that she knew. But this album is so much more than “Joey“. Every track is dark and haunting and full of soul and drenched with meaning for me. I could listen to this album all night long.
*With each album in this post, I’ve tried to choose a representative track that was not featured on my Best tunes list for 1990, partly to show the breadth of each and partly to avoid being repetitive.
**I’ve often thought that it could have been Jane’s and not Nirvana that broke alternative to the mainstream, had they managed to survive the touring cycle for this album.
***There were a number of attempts at reforming over the years but none have really stuck up to now.
Stay tuned for album #5 on this list. In the meantime, you can check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.
My (life in) music lists 