Medialoper

Certain Songs #2180: Sedan Delivery – “In The Rain”

September 8, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Untitled
Year: 2020

. . .

September 21, 2019 was one of the best days of my life.

Why? Because it was dedicated to the recording of Sedan Delivery’s first album, entitled Untitled. It was a very very long road to get to this point, which we’ll discuss tomorrow, but the point was that we got to it. Sure, the recording session was all D.I.Y. — we did it in Joseph’s living room, which we dubbed “Parkwood Studios,” because it sounded fancy — Joseph had spent a couple of days making sure that all of the various wires for mics and headphones were ready to go, and I’d even come over the night before to dial in drum sound, but on the other hand, it was all D.I.Y., which is an ethos that we’ve always had.

Certain Songs #2179: Secret Machines – “Nowhere Again”

September 7, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Now Here is Nowhere
Year: 2004

. . .

One of the great lost singles of the mid-2000s, “Nowhere Again” captured me from the moment I saw the video on one of those “hey, here’s some new music” video programs on . . . shit, I don’t remember. I thought it was the 120 Minutes that was on MTV2, but that ended in 2003, so it must have been something else somewhere else. This is the problem with getting older.

Certain Songs #2178: Secret Machines – “First Wave Intact”

September 3, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Now Here is Nowhere
Year: 2004

. . .

“First Wave Intact,” the song on Secret Machines debut album, 2004’s No Here Is Nowhere captures nearly everything you need to know about their ambition to somehow fuse Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Can.

The first thing you hear is Josh Garza’s massive massive drums, doing a beat that earns the comparison to John Bonham’s on “When The Levee Breaks“, and after an initial guitar chord, it’s just that big-ass beat for a bit, followed by some big-ass biting guitar chords from Benjamin Curtis, which then drop away so that keyboardist/bassist Brandon Curtis can sing the first verse.

Certain Songs #2177: Sebadoh – “Flame”

September 2, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Sebadoh
Year: 1999

. . .

At least partially because Lou Barlow was now also working on Folk Implosion records was three more years before we got another Sebadoh album, 1999’s The Sebadoh. And not only was The Sebadoh not up to the standards of the previous two records, it was the last record by Sebadoh for well over a decade. So they maybe they knew it was time to pack it in for awhile.

That said, The Sebadoh had one undeniably great song: the droning, psychedelic “Flame,” which didn’t sound like anything else on the record.

Certain Songs #2176: Sebadoh – “Willing to Wait”

September 1, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Harmacy
Year: 1996

. . .

During the two-year period in between Bakesale and its follow-up, 1996’s Harmacy, Lou Barlow had a hit single. Not with Sebadoh, of course, but rather, his side project Folk Implosion inexplicably hit the top 30 with “Natural One,” — from the soundtrack of a film that could never get made today, Kids — which was slightly funky and groovy, but I never could hear the mass appeal of it.

And maybe that was why Harmacy was the most fussed-over Sebadoh record yet. I mean, by indie standards, of course: they were never going to be Massive Attack or Madonna. Luckily, Barlow was still writing high-quality songs, like “On Fire,” “Ocean,” and the utterly gorgeous ballad, “Willing to Wait,” which is on the short list of Prettiest Songs Ever Recorded, Gimme Indie Rock Division.

Certain Songs #2175: Sebadoh – “Skull”

August 31, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Bakesale
Year: 1994

. . .

Eventually — and around the same time, honestly — Lou Barlow figured it out just like Robert Pollard (sorta) did: you can still make a weird-sounding lo-fi album be consistently great by focusing on the songs, not the the goofarounds.

And so, Bakesale was by far the most consistent album Sebadoh had ever done, and that was probably because co-founder Eric Gaffney had left and bassist Eric Lowenstein’s songs were more in line with Barlow’s than Gaffney’s ever were. Barlow was never going to fully lockdown the songwriting, because that was at least part of why he left Dinosaur Jr in the first place (and to be sure, he’s had a pair of songs on all five of their great 21st century reunion albums), but his songs were still the reason to put on Bakesale. Or at least my reason.

Certain Songs #2174: Sebadoh – “Brand New Love”

August 30, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Smash Your Head on the Punk Rock
Year: 1992

. . .

To be honest, I’ve always had a hard time making heads or tails out of anything that Sebadoh did prior to 1994’s Bakesale. In theory, I approve of the prolific, lo-fi approach that Lou Barlow and his partners in crime took towards recording and releasing their music. But like the earliest Guided by Voices records, the chaff-to-wheat ratio was way too high.

Therefore, when I declare that “Brand New Love” is my favorite song from that early period, then please know that I’ve not come close to hearing all of the dozens of songs Lou Barlow released in that period. Especially since I came to it second-hand: I first heard “Brand New Love” via the cover which closed out Superchunk’s utterly dynamite early singles compilation, Tossing Seeds (which has at least three future Certain songs: the glorious “Garlic,” the hilarious “Slack Motherfucker” and their cover of the ubiquitous “Train From Kansas City.”

Certain Songs #2173: Seatbelts – “Tank!”

August 29, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Cowboy Bebop
Year: 1998

. . .

It was the early 2000s, just after we moved to Los Angeles for good in the early 2000s, and Kassia started telling us about this great anime series that she loved, called Cowboy Bebop.

Cowboy Bebop was the story of some misfit bounty hunters trying to eek out a living, and maybe even a life, in the year 2071, 50 years after the Earth was rendered basically uninhabitable by ~~climate change~~, a big space disaster — yet another piece of Sci-Fi that thought space travel would be ubiquitous by 2021. Of course here in the real 2021, space travel is only ubiquitous for billionaires, and the rest of us shouldn’t even be leaving our houses thanks to the anti-vax assholes.

Certain Songs #2172: The Screaming Tribesmen – “Igloo”

August 28, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Bones & Flowers
Year: 1987

. . .

The Screaming Tribesmen were a 1980s Australian band — which should be good enough to have some of you right there — who basically consisted of a singer-lead guitarist named Mick Medew and whomever he had playing with him at the time.

So far as I can tell — and honestly, all of this is so far as I can tell — they only ever released a single record in the States, 1987’s Bones and Flowers (released here in 1988, of course), and it even had a halfway big single called “I’ve Got A Feeling,” that was played on MTV, huge on KROQ and even made #8 on Billboard’s Modern Rock chart.

Certain Songs #2171: Screaming Trees – “Sworn and Broken”

August 27, 2021 by Jim Connelly

Album: Dust
Year: 1996

. . .

But after putting out six albums and six EPs between 1986-1992, it took four long years for Screaming Trees to return with another album, 1996’s Dust. And by 1996, the situation was totally different for grunge-identified bands, most of whom had either become massive stars; massive drug addicts, and in a lot of cases, both.

Had Dust came out in 1993, perhaps Screaming Trees could have capitalized on the momentum from “Nearly Lost You” and the post-cinema coattales of Singles. But it came out in 1996, and nobody gave a shit, though it did chart slightly higher — 134 to 141 — than Sweet Oblivion, it’s been consigned to the same pre-and-post Oblivion oblivion that the rest of their catalog has.