Archives for March 2018

Certain Songs #1173: The Miss Alans – “Winona”

March 31, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Blusher
Year: 1994

One of the incredibly small cohort of Certain Songs that might or might not be about Winona Ryder, but were definitely called “Winona” and definitely came out on Zoo Records — the other, of course, being Matthew Sweet’s — it turns out that the Miss Alans were relatively early on what has been an ongoing trend.

They maybe have been behind Matthew Sweet, but they were definitely ahead of Beck, Soul Asylum, the Old 97’s and Ryan Adams, which may have been why Ron was initially against recording it. He clearly saw the future, which is now cluttered by songs about Winona Ryder, as I discovered by googling “songs about Winona Ryder.”

Certain Songs #1172: The Miss Alans – “Victoria”

March 30, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Blusher
Year: 1994

Oh yeah, “Victoria.” While it’s only my second favorite song on Blusher, it’s probably a contender for the greatest song The Miss Alans ever did. How in the hell “Victoria” didn’t totally and completely take over alternative rock playlists in 1994 is still beyond me.

Except, of course, for all of its charms, it really was’t a radio-friendly single: there was no chorus, and of course the entire last minute of the song was an instrumental rave-up and rave-down, featuring no vocals whatsoever. Hell, even “Marquee Moon” featured one last verse at the end.

That said, the version of “Victoria” that ended up on Blusher remains an marvelous gem of a psychedelic rock song: half Television and half the Velvet Underground, while remaining entirely The Miss Alans. Not to mention an absolute crowd-pleaser live, where the rave-up part went a full minute longer, because why the hell not?

Certain Songs #1171: The Miss Alans – “Big Parade”

March 29, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Blusher
Year: 1994

Blusher is my favorite Miss Alans album.

Their first and only major label release — on Zoo Entertainment, a subsidiary of BMG — it was their shot at having the same kind of success as comparable artists such as Belly or Teenage Fanclub, and if they ran the table, Matthew Sweet or The Smashing Pumpkins.

While Blusher didn’t come out until May, 1994, I remember having been given a tape of many of the songs from it almost a year prior — the major-label gears grinding even more slowly than the indies — and being struck by how big and calm it sounded, full of songs that knew where they were going, and didn’t mind how long it might take to get there.

Certain Songs #1170: The Miss Alans – “Mata Hari’s Butt”

March 28, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Single, 1993

While dormant in terms of releasing any new music to the world, The Miss Alans had spent 1992 slowly re-tooling their sound yet again, and “Mata Hari’s Butt” was the first flowering of that retooling. Not only was it their first release by The Miss Alans since All Hail Discordia, and really — since “Crushed Impalas” was originally a Hollywood Demo, their first true studio creation since Smack The Horse.

And as such, was an absolute transition record on multiple levels.

Certain Songs #1169: The Miss Alans – “Save It For Later (Wild Blue 03-30-1991)”

March 27, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Outtake from All Hail Discordia
Year: 1991

Throughout their entire career — though, naturally, more earlier than later — The Miss Alans sprinkled in a few covers during their live shows.

Obviously, doing covers is a really fun thing for a band that relies upon original material: you can break up your set with a somebody else’s song that shows where you’re coming from. Or maybe learn something for a special occasion, like Halloween or St. Patrick’s Day, for which The Miss Alans once played “And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda” at the Blue, with Jay on banjo. I don’t remember that at all, so it must have been a really good St. Patrick’s Day.

Then during the period where they were in L.A. trying to get a record deal and only had a single set of material worked up for the showcase gigs Kirk was getting them, they did an entire set of Neil Young covers — all of the usual suspects, which they then turned into long jams — which reminds me of something, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

Certain Songs #1168: The Miss Alans – “Big Black Gun (Wild Blue 03-30-1991)”

March 26, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Outtake from All Hail Discordia
Year: 1991

“Hey make some goddamn noise, alright?

“If you don’t make noise, they’re gonna think we did this in the studio and they’re going to go ‘oh wow man, that probably took like 100 years to do that and they suck.’

“People yelling: ‘BEER! FUCK!’

“BEER!

“OK, this song is called ‘Big Black Gun’

“It’s for my family over there.”

Certain Songs #1167: The Miss Alans – “I Love Airplane Noises (Wild Blue 03-30-1991)”

March 25, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: All Hail Discordia
Year: 1991

It is the height of music nerdery to speculate on great lost albums, but I know for a fact that there is a classic album that could have been made from the songs the Miss Alans wrote in the post-Smack The Horse era.

And in fact, if I had a time machine, the first thing I would do is travel back to 1991 and using my winnings from sports and lottery betting bankroll the Miss Alans in recording that al– OK, maybe that’s not the first thing I would do if I had a time machine. The first thing if I had a time machine, I would do is see The Who on all of their tours from 1968-1973, and Bruce Springsteen in 1978. Oh and Bob Dylan & The Hawks in 1966, The Clash in 1980 and Led Zeppelin in 1975.

Certain Songs #1166: The Miss Alans – “Coke With Fatty (Wild Blue 03-30-1991)”

March 24, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: All Hail Discordia
Year: 1991

All Hail Discordia was released on Duck Butter records, a local Fresno label run by Tim Biskup, then the drummer with long-time Miss Alans friends Capitol Punishment, as well as an artist who was already beginning to get some renown.

Kirk mentioned that they were recording a live album to Tim, and he immediately volunteered to release it, as well as design and hand screen the album covers to boot. Scott recalls working with Tim on those covers during the typically hot Fresno summer and Kirk still marvels at how simply it fell into place. Of course, the only reason they were able to do it was that they’d been released from their contract with Genius.

And that required the legal talents of John Hayes.

Certain Songs #1165: The Miss Alans – “Earwig (Wild Blue 03-30-1991)”

March 23, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: All Hail Discordia
Year: 1991

Kirk Biglione was worried about The Miss Alans. And while that was somewhat of a default state, in this case he had good reason.

Not only had The Miss Alans been basically neglected by Genius Records in terms of promoting Smack The Horse, Genius had rejected the demo tape that had the likes of “Big Hand on the 7,” “Otis Plum,” “Crushed Impalas” and “Angel Death Blues.” So not so much geniuses after all. In any event, while siccing John Hayes on Genius to try to get out their contract — more on that tomorrow — he realized that by the time they got another record contract, this particular period would end up being undocumented, as they would gravitate to their most recent set of songs for that album.

Certain Songs #1164: The Miss Alans – “Crushed Impalas”

March 22, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: All Hail Discordia
Year: 1991

Truck
Truck
Truck

It happened so gradually and organically that nobody was really aware of it at the time — as Jay has pointed out, everybody was too busy living their lives to have had any real perspective — but starting with the recording of Smack The Horse, The Miss Alans started to become less and less of a Fresno-based band, and more and more of a Los Angeles-based one.

It wasn’t like how, say, Mudcrutch packed their bags from Gainesville, Florida and moved wholesale to LA in the early 1970s — L.A. was only a three-hour drive from Fresno, and everybody was still young enough to drive home after a gig if needed — but more in the way that their base of operations shifted south as the 80s turned into the early 90s. So at least in terms of their professional lives they were becoming more and more Los Angeles-based.