Record Store Day, Part One: Drone Missives

It’s statement to my inability to be in the moment that I’m only getting around to Record Store Day - held back in April - here in mid-August. I’d say it was because I had a life, but you already know I don’t.

It was a beautiful spring day, but I waited on line like all the other nerds for the right to spend time in a small dank crowded space. After twenty minutes or so, that right was granted by the nice young man at the door, and I did my best to maneuver between the aisles without being noticed and pegged as someone’s dad.

I typically visit Other Music to check out their very respectable Used CD section, where I act like the musical Statue of Liberty, taking other people’s rejected records. What I forgot was that on Record Store Day, they move that old crap out of the way so they can make some real money.

With vinyl. Lots of vinyl. Well I’m not interested! My turntable is in the basement and I only play the old records when I got down there. So get this: the old geezer clings to his CDs and doesn’t want to go to that new fangled format - vinyl. The irony is not lost on me.

So the selection was limited (meaning limited to regularly priced items that a cheapskate like me would be unwilling to buy) and although I did my usual pick up of five possible buys, I also did my usual put them all back because none of them quite made the grade.

But then, at the last possible second I made a snap decision.

The Clean Anthology

I thought the chances were good that I’d love this record since it was exactly a year before that I’d gotten their record Vehicle at this very same store during last year’s Record Store Day. That album sounded great right off the bat, lit up my springtime and had amazing staying power..

Some anthologies aim to provide only the best songs of an artist. Others try to paint a fuller picture, showing all aspects of an artist’s development, phases and styles.  This one is of the latter variety, which makes for a great overview, but perhaps a less successful sit up and listen record. At least at first.

That first impression confirmed that I already had many of their finest moments on Vehicle both as a great record in and of itself and with its bonus cuts of live versions of some of the best things from Anthology. I feared that I already had everything I’d ever need in Vehicle, and Anthology would prove superfluous.

So it took a while for this one to work its magic.

Goofy amateurs, they start out crude - the bright opener "Tally Ho!" could have been brighter if they just played it faster - slowly finding their way to their sound. But by cut three the awkwardness drops away and what's left is the droney slight weirdness that is the Clean. Thank god for that strumming guitar and those driving drums.

Each track is it’s own little droney world, so this is not as good as Vehicle for active listening, but excellent for doing things around the house.

And they just wear me down. Track after track (46!) of sometimes raw, sometimes sweet guitar. It’s all quite modest, really.  In attitude at least. And a little more appealing that the screech and yawl of Kleenex/Liliput -

that other forty something cut retrospective I got a couple of years ago.  

None of them great singers, the Clean are at their best keeping things going, mid-tempo or faster.

I really admire how they manage to unearth so many of these little nuggets of sound. I’m not always convinced there’s an actual song behind each one but that’s okay.  

I do recall some of them like I would from a half forgotten dream that nonetheless leaves me uneasy. I guess that counts as a bad dream and maybe even a bad memory. But it makes for good music.

Peaking at the beginning of the second disc with - what else? - highlights from Vehicle, where the guitars are sharpest, the singing the most impassioned and the tunes the most balanced. The quality begins the trail off slightly after that, just like it had built up over the preceding CD. As the second CD goes on they get more conventional and when the go weird it just doesn't have the same zing of the first CD. Not bad,  mind you but you do notice some drop off.

So it's a fuller picture of the Clean, warts and all.  Not with the concentrated  power of Vehicle but a nice leisurely tour through their history both before and after that lofty peak.

At first it’s all too much of an okay thing. It goes on to become quite a lot of a very good thing. Fun but not life changing.  That’s okay. Not everything is. B+

"Two Fat Sisters"

A Vehicle for the Road Not Taken

August 2014:

It was a beautiful late summer day and we were riding home from lunch on City Island.  Alas, traffic was backed up. Me and Mrs. Jaybee were tired and, frankly, getting on each other’s nerves.  

It was Mrs. Jaybee’s turn to choose the music. She picked an old favorite - The Chills’ Submarine Bells.   

Listening to an often-played record can be wearisome. But today - maybe because the weather and the date were a near match of the day in 1990 when we got the CD - the flood of memories it invoked brought tears to my eyes. (This is an odd thing to have happen when you’re bickering.)

Oh, and it sounded great.

August 1990:

It might not come as a surprise to you that I used to spend my birthdays in record stores. I’d go during the year, too, but on my birthday I’d give myself permission to go nuts. And this one would prove to be a legendary trip. (A good trip, by the way, looks like me holding an armful of CDs, and Mrs. Jaybee looking on wondering why we were indoors on a perfectly beautiful day.) Why?

First, because I’d gone through a record buying drought for a few years. I’d held off on getting a CD player until 1989 so the selection of vinyl albums in record stores was getting slimmer by the week. But now I had the CD player.

I’ve often (well, maybe twice) said how when I go to a record store my eyes are bigger than my ears (or wallet) I pick up lots of potential CDs to buy and end up putting back all but a handful. And 1990 trip was the very epitome of this. At one point, I had 30 CDs in my cart. I would eventually prune it back to nine or ten.

But before I did, somewhere in that pile of 30 were Submarine Bells by The Chills and Vehicle by The Clean - both new CDS by alt-rock bands from New Zealand. I’d heard very good things about both, but now, having to make some hard choices, I thought one NZ-alt-rock band would have to suffice for the time being.

So, how did I choose?  The cover, of course.

Here's the Clean:

And here's the Chills:

I much preferred the pretty blue and weird marine life Submarine Bells. A dumb reason? Sure, but look at this expert advice that says otherwise.

1990 and Forward:

Another reason this trip would be memorable was that we had just bought a house, and were thus starting a new chapter in our lives. This virtually guaranteed that the music we were listening to - assuming it was any good - would forever be associated with that time.

We only had Theresa - two years old - at the time. Michael hadn’t arrived yet. So you can imagine how many memories were to follow.

And I didn’t regret Submarine Bells one bit.  It was the the best of the many CDs we got that day, and would end up being one of our all time favorites. And like the best music, it would go beyond being mere background music for those times. It would become part of them.

While I never exactly looked back, I’d kept Vehicle on my list, occasionally see it on subsequent record store trips and wonder what I might have missed not getting it.

Why didn’t I just get it? Well, it would show up less and less frequently, and when it did, it would be in the form of a pricey import. So it would never quite make it through the pruning process, and The Clean would eventually drop off the map. Plus, I’d already gotten the great CD, didn’t I?

April 2014:

Record Store Day in Other Music and there it was. A brand new copy with bonus tracks, and almost reasonable priced. The time seemed right.  

I would get a chance to hear the road not taken.

The Clean - Vehicle

First you get the guitars chiming, ecstatically welcoming in the Spring of 2014 like the chirping of (giant prehistoric) birds . Then the bass and drum foundation that is so strong I don't care that they really can't sing for sh*t. 

It’s a bit harder-edged than the Chills and weirder. But it’s such a striking sound that it provided the most high points of any CD so far this year, I played it non-stop for six weeks.  Even the Chills didn’t do that. Granted, there were nine other CDs it was competing with. The Clean only had two, which I’ll deal with at another time.

So what would it have been like if I got the Clean instead of the Chills? Well I probably wouldn’t have played the latter as much for dinner guests. But I suspect it would have attached itself to our memories almost as indelibly as the Chills.

But just to be certain, check in with me in 24 years or so. A

"Draw(in)g To a W(h)ole"