Thirty years ago, most people weren't online. A Pew Research Center poll found that 14% of U.S. adults had internet access, with the vast majority using slow-ass dial-up modems. And 42% had never heard of the internet. Things are obviously different now, but this week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs from 1995 in hour 2. Thankfully, you've got Windows 95 to help you listen in.
What else is in the news today?
Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Bob Mould - Here We Go Crazy/Here We Go Crazy
Kestrels - Lilys/Better Wonder
Twin Foxes - Time is On Your Side/Green, It's All Around You
Destroyer - Bologna (feat. Fiver)/Dan's Boogie
Throwing Muses - Summer of Love/Moonlight Concessions
Horsegirl - Julie/Phonetics On and On
Share - It Spins/Have One
Being Dead - Van Goes/EELS
King Hannah - Lily Pad/Big Swimmer
Dale Crover - Blow'd Up/Glossolalia
Johnny Foreigner - A Sea to Scream At/How to Be Hopeful
Kal Marks - Whatever the News/Wasteland Baby
The Bug Club - Pop Single/On the Intricate Inner Workings of the System
The The - Risin' Above the Need/Ensoulment
Jesse Malin - Room 13 (feat. Lucinda Williams and Elvis Costello)/Silver Patrons Saints: The Songs of Jesse Malin
Hour 2: 1995
2Pac - California Love (feat. Roger Troutman and Dr. Dre)/Greatest Hits
PJ Harvey - Meet Ze Monsta/To Bring You My Love
Rocket From the Crypt - Drop Out/Scream, Dracula, Scream!
Thurston Moore - Psychic Hearts/Psychic Hearts
Helium - Pat's Trick/The Dirt of Luck
Jawbreaker - Fireman/Dear You
Matthew Sweet - Sick of Myself/100% Fun
Pulp - Common People/Live at Melkweg 12/8/95
Mad Season - I'm Above/Live at the Moore 4/29/95
Pearl Jam - Sonic Reducer (live feat. Joey Ramone)/1995 Christmas Single
Fugazi - Bed for the Scraping/Live at Irving Plaza 4/4/95
Boss Hog - I Idolize You/Boss Hog
The Pursuit of Happiness - I Should Know/Where's the Bone
Unsung is a feature in which I take a look at a pop culture phenomenon (be it music, TV, literary, whatever) that has been forgotten or underappreciated. In this installment, I look at Undeclared, Judd Apatow's follow-up to his groundbreaking and short-lived show Freaks and Geeks.
When it comes to TV shows that had a short run but a huge impact, Judd Apatow's Freaks and Geeks was monumental. The hourlong comedy-drama was created by Paul Feig and ran on NBC in 1999-2000, focusing on a group of high school students in the Detroit suburbs in 1980-81. The network originally aired the show on Friday nights originally, but it was moved around to different timeslots before ultimately being cancelled after only 12 of the 18 episodes ran.
The show's stars ended up going on to bigger things: Linda Cardellini, John Francis Daley, James Franco, Seth Rogen, Martin Starr, Jason Segel, Busy Phillips and Samm Levine all had various degrees of showbiz success over the next 20+ years. F&G offered a realistic portrayal of high school students, as opposed to the wacky teens cracking wise in typical sitcom fare.
Apatow had a tough time with the cancellation. He ended up having back surgery for a herniated disc. Eventually, he decided to pursue the idea of what would happen to the Freaks and Geeks if they went to college and the show Undeclared was born. He didn't use the same characters and the show was a half-hour comedy instead of a full-hour comedy-drama, although Rogen was cast in a larger role.
Undeclared premiered on Fox in September 2001, centered around a group of freshmen at a fictional California university. The show was set in the 2000s instead of the early '80s and starred Jay Baruchel, Carla Gallo, Rogen, Charlie Hunnam, Monica Keena and Timm Sharp as the students. Baruchel (who was the Led Zeppelin fanatic in 2000's Almost Famous) played Steven Karp, a nerd looking to reinvent himself in college. His roommates Lloyd (Hunnam), a handsome British would-be actor, Marshall (Sharp), a music major, and Ron (Rogen), a business major. Lizzie (Gallo) and Rachel (Keena) live across the hall.
There were cameos from Segel, Phillips, Starr and Levine, and supporting characters were played by young stars-to-be Kevin Hart, Amy Poehler and Jenna Fischer. Guest stars included Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell and Ben Stiller.
The college setting could have led to rote Animal House stereotypes, but like Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared took a thoughtful and sympathetic look at its characters. Sure, there was still partying and hooking up, but it wasn't all hijinks. Right after he moves into his dorm, Steven is visited by his dad (played by folk musician Loudon Wainwright III), who promptly tells Steven that he and his wife are getting divorced; while everyone else (including his dad) are partying down the hall, Steven is thrown for a loop and stays in his room.
Undeclared fell victim to a lot of the same network BS as F&G, but there were other problems. Fox aired the 17 episodes out of order, which made the narrative confusing at times. The show premiered two weeks after 9/11, at a time when people weren't necessarily seeking out comedies. Apatow found out the show wasn't getting renewed when they were filming the second to last episode.
While Freaks and Geeks has been embraced since its cancellation as one of the greatest TV shows of all time, Undeclared has been all but forgotten. A DVD set was released, but the show has never been easy to find on streaming media; you can currently pay $1.99 per episode to watch it on Amazon Prime. But the full episodes are available for free viewing on YouTube.
Although it flew under the radar in 2001-02, Undeclared has proven to be influential. Apatow took his second consecutive TV failure as a sign to try his hand at movies and he had spectacular success with The 40-Year-Old Virgin (which made Steve Carell a star and gave his show The Office a boost), Knocked Up, This Is 40, Funny People and many more. Baruchel has appeared in Tropic Thunder, This Is the End, Goon and the How to Train Your Dragon movies. Rogen, who was a writer on Undeclared, became a movie star, appearing in Apatow movies and others and also writing and producing movies like Superbad and This is the End; he also directed The Interview and This is the End. Hunnam played the lead in the series Sons of Anarchy.
The success of The Office, which was influenced by Carell's starring turn in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, led to the production of now-classic comedies like Parks and Recreation, 30 Rock and Community. Apatow's certainly not perfect, but he was a major force in 21st century comedy and Undeclared is an important part of that.
There are many movies that revolve around prison, whether it's putting people in jail or getting them out. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs about prison in hour 2. It's as satisfying as foiling the hijacking of a plane transporting maximum security prisoners. A veritable rage in the Cage, if you will.
This playlist has many dramatic slo-mo scenes:
Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Tunde Adebimpe - Magnetic/Single
Twin Foxes - Wounded Dog/Green, It's All Around You
Horsegirl - 2468/Phonetics On and On
S.C.A.B. - Rose Colored Glasses/Rose Colored Glasses EP
Share - County Lines/Have One
Wild Pink - The Fences of Stonehenge/Dulling the Horns
King Hannah - Davey Says/Big Swimmer
The Cure - All I Ever Am/Songs of a Lost World
Split System - Alone Again/Vol. 2
Amyl and the Sniffers - Bailing on Me/Cartoon Darkness
English Teacher - The World's Biggest Paving Slab/This Could Be Texas
Kim Deal - Wish I Was/Nobody Loves You More
Spun Out - High Life/Dream Noise
Sharp Pins - Friday Night/Mod Mayday 23
Being Dead - Rock n' Roll Hurts/EELS
Spectres - The Mandela Effect/AM-DRAM
Rick White Archive - G Turns to D/20 Golden Hits of the '90s
Hour 2: Jail
AC/DC - Jailbreak/Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak/Live and Dangerous
Public Enemy - Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos/It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
Two Gallants - Las Cruces Jail/What the Toll Tells
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Jailhouse Blues/Jukebox Explosion
Iron & Wine and Calexico - Prison on Route 41/In the Reins
Jesse Malin - Prisoners of Paradise/Glitter in the Gutter
The Afghan Whigs - What Jail is Like/Gentlemen
The Kinks - Holloway Jail/Muswell Hillbillies
Jeff Beck Group - Jailhouse Rock/Beck-Ola
Bob Dylan - Hurricane/Live at War Memorial Auditorium, Plymouth MA 10/31/75
Part 2 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey about our favorite concerts. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").
Show notes:
Our top 10 concerts in no particular order
Phil: Banged up and seeing his first Dead show in Foxborough in 1989
The show is popular with Dead fans
Jay: Caught Mike Watt backed by the Foo Fighters in their first Boston appearance in '95
Phil: 12 days after that Dead show, saw the Who at the same venue
A 3-hour show for the 20th anniversary of Tommy
Jay: The one area appearance by Them Crooked Vultures in '09
Supergroup with Josh Homme, Dave Grohl, John Paul Jones
Phil: McCartney at Sullivan Stadium in 1990
The tour book phenomenon
Jay: Two shows in one night--The Amps followed by Mighty Mighty Bosstones
Phil: U2 show on St. Patrick's Day '92 in Boston, Achtung Baby tour
"Put it in H"
Jay: Also a U2 show; September 1987 at the Boston Garden
Phil: Dylan at Endicott College in October 1992
Tickets purchased at a local jewelry store
Dylan almost didn't play because a heater wasn't working on stage
Jay: Electric performance from Nick Cave's band Grinderman at House of Blues
Phil: Pearl Jam at the Orpheum in April 1994
A few days after Cobain's death
Jay: Front row at the Orpheum for Sugar, November 1994
Bob Mould's last tour with Sugar
Phil: Neil Young at the Wang Center in 2018 with Jay
Neil was solo, telling stories between songs
Gotta see some of these older artists while they're around
Jay: Pearl Jam in April '92 at tiny club Axis
Just before PJ blew up
Phil: Dead & Co. at Fenway in summer '23
$60 cheese pizza
Jay: Last month seeing Sloan in Toronto with my daughter
Played their first album front to back
Only concert I've ever seen in Toronto
Phil: Phish playing third show in three nights at Mansfield
Jay: Ty Segall at the late lamented Great Scott in 2014
So loud the floor was shaking
Jay: No issues with seeing shows by myself
Phil: Goose at MGM Fenway last year
Played lots of covers, including the odd 36-minute jam
Jay: First time seeing the Tragically Hip at the Paradise in April '91
About 25 people there, but the band killed it
Saw the band many times after that
Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and write a review!
The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.
Unsung is a feature in which I take a look at a pop culture phenomenon (be it music, TV, literary, whatever) that has been forgotten or underappreciated. In this installment, I look at SCTV, the sketch comedy show that flew under the radar while Saturday Night Live got all the attention.
This is a milestone year for Saturday Night Live, which is in the middle of its 50th season. The show has had some great seasons, some decent seasons, some mediocre ones and some outright bad ones. Some of our biggest comedy stars have come from SNL. To my mind, there have been better sketch shows over the last half century, including Mr. Show, Kids in the Hall, Chapelle's Show, I Think You Should Leave and Key & Peele. But my all-time favorite is SCTV.
Originally called Second City Television, the show got its start in 1976 as an offshoot of Toronto's Second City comedy troupe. The original cast included relatively unknown members of the Toronto stage show--John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Dave Thomas and Eugene Levy--plus Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara and Harold Ramis. Instead of being a random collection of sketches like most comedy shows, SCTV's ingenious premise was to follow the broadcast day of a fictional TV station.
The first two years, the show aired 30-minute episodes on Global, a Canadian network of stations. The cast did parodies of TV shows, commercials and public service announcements, and later added behind-the-scenes segments featuring various characters at the station (later to become a network), including owner Guy Caballero (Flaherty), newscasters Floyd Robertson (Flaherty) and Earl Camembert (Levy), beer-swilling brothers Bob and Doug McKenzie (Moranis and Thomas), station managers Moe Green and Edith Prickley (Ramis and Martin), washed-up singer Lola Heatherton (O'Hara) and obnoxious star Johnny LaRue (Candy).
For its second season in 1978-79, the show was syndicated and shown in various markets in Canada and the U.S. Ramis left partway through the season. The Toronto Global station where the show was filmed dropped SCTV because of its high production costs, so show producer Andrew Alexander signed a deal to have the show filmed in Edmonton. Candy and O'Hara dropped out at this point, replaced by Rick Moranis, Tony Rosato and Robin Duke. Moranis, who had previously been a radio DJ, was the first cast member who wasn't a Second City alum.
After canceling the Friday night music show The Midnight Special, NBC signed SCTV in 1981 as a 90-minute late night replacement. Called SCTV Network 90 (and later SCTV Network), the show aired at 12:30 a.m. Rosato and Duke left for Saturday Night Live, which was undergoing a revamp after Lorne Michaels left. Candy and O'Hara returned for the fourth season, and Martin Short joined the cast toward the end of the season; O'Hara, Thomas and Moranis all left near the end of the season. Several of the early 25 episodes included sketches from the previous seasons as the cast worked to produce new episodes.
SCTV had one more season on NBC, ending in 1983. For the fall of '83, NBC wanted to compete with MTV by airing Friday Night Videos in the 12:30 a.m. slot, so it offered SCTV the Sunday night slot opposite 60 Minutes; SCTV declined, especially considering they would have had to tone down for the family time slot. The show ended up moving to pay-cable channel Cinemax in 1984 (and a similar one called Superchannel in Canada) for one more season of 18 45-minute episodes. The cast for this season was Flaherty, Martin, Levy and Short, although Candy, O'Hara and Thomas all make guest appearances.
The SCTV cast all went on to prominent things. Candy became a beloved comic actor in movies until his death in 1994. Moranis and Thomas rode the popularity of the McKenzie brothers into a comedy album, movie (the funny Strange Brew) and an animated series; Moranis appeared in many big movies, including Ghostbusters, the Honey I Shrunk the Kids series, Spaceballs and Parenthood, before retiring from acting in the late '90s to raise his kids after his wife died. Flaherty played notable bit roles in Stripes and Happy Gilmore and starred in the great Freaks and Geeks series; he passed away last year. Ramis left the show and starred in Stripes and Ghostbusters before focusing on directing films like Groundhog Day; he died in 2014. Levy starred in many movies, including Splash, Christopher Guest's films like Waiting for Guffman and A Mighty Wind, and the comedy series Schitt's Creek. O'Hara starred in big movies including the Home Alone movies, the Guest movies, and Beetlejuice, and also in Schitt's Creek. Short was a cast member on SNL in 1984-85 and then became a popular movie actor (The Three Amigos, Innerspace, the Parenthood movies) and has hosted SNL five times. Martin has been a busy actor for the last 40 years, appearing in many movies and TV shows, most recently in Evil.
SCTV excelled in world-building, creating an entire universe of lunatic and hilarious characters. I remember seeing some of the Global shows in the late '70s, but I really got into SCTV when the NBC seasons started. I was also watching SNL at the same time, but SCTV was so much better. There were DVD box sets released in the early 2000s, of which I have a few, but as of now, the show isn't streaming anywhere and that's a shame. There was an SCTV documentary and reunion that was directed by Martin Scorsese for Netflix pre-pandemic, but it's been shelved and there's no indication on whether it will be released. In the meantime, there are plenty of great clips from the show on YouTube and even full episodes from the early years. It's definitely worth your while to check 'em out.
Well, looky here, it's another new year. 2024 went out with a whimper, at least in this household. The only one of us with plans was Hannah, who went to a New Year's Eve party, while the rest of us stayed home and watched TV. Which is fine, honestly. Deb and I had gone to NYE gatherings in recent years, but nobody seemed inclined to throw one this year. I wasn't running the New Year's Day race in Salem so I didn't have to watch what I ate or drank, but we stayed up until about 1, when Deb went to pick Hannah up.
One of my 2024 goals was to write something every day and I ended up doing 346 installments of my Day After Day song writeups, so I'm happy with that. It was fun to do, but I'm glad not to have that daily pressure hanging over me this year. In 2025, I'm going to take on another writing endeavor: I'm resurrecting a feature I started in 2010 called Unsung, in which I write about a pop culture phenomenon (music, movie, TV, book, etc.) that has been forgotten or underappreciated. I think I only wrote three entries over the course of a few months before I was distracted by a shiny object, or more likely at that time, kid or work duties. But this time around, I'm planning to write one post a week, which is a realistic goal, and it allows for a lot more variety than just writing about music. Hoping to have the first one up tomorrow.
Other resolutions or goals for the new year include the perennial desire to lose weight. This is the fourth straight year I've done a Dry January in an attempt to detox a little and drop some of the excess poundage I acquired over the holidays. It's usually pretty effective; coupled with cutting out junk food and desserts, I've lost anywhere between 10-15 pounds in that first month. I haven't found it to be difficult to stop drinking; I enjoy drinking, but I usually only have 2 or 3 beers on any given night. One year, I kept it going until Memorial Day Weekend.
Part of the weight thing stems from the fact I've done less running the last few years. I aggravated my right Achilles in 2022 training for a half marathon and it's taken a long time to bounce back. I went to PT a few times and a sports medicine doctor who used a "dry needle" technique that seems to have worked. That said, my heel still tends to tighten up on me so I've only been running 1-3 times a week. I ran 400 miles last year, which was more than the year before but a lot less than I did a decade ago, when I was running about three times that and a lot faster. I'm sure part of it is getting older, but I refuse to accept that I can't get at least a little faster than I have been the last little while. I'm also realistic about it, though, and have been walking a lot more on days when I can't run.
On the plus side, I'm still lifting weights 3 to 4 days a week and playing hockey twice a week. I worked out almost every day last year and still ended up being 15 pounds heavier than I want to be. Hence the Dry January deal. A friend of mine posted on FB yesterday wondering why so many people do it and postulating that maybe if you need to do it, you've got a bigger problem with alcohol. While that may be the case for some folks, the rest of us realize that there are a lot of calories in alcohol, especially in the IPAs that I typically enjoy. I was a little annoyed at the judgment. If I want to stop drinking for a while, I don't owe anybody an explanation.
I'm also looking to read more this year. I have a lot of books piling up on my nightstand and I only seem to get a lot of reading done when I'm on a trip. With no long road trips or work travel planned until later in the year, I'm going to have to get more serious about carving out time to read. When your job requires you to read all day long, sometimes it's the last thing you want to do in the evening.
And another goal is to start playing guitar again. It's been a while (been a while) and I have no illusions about playing in front of people or anything like that, but it's something I've always wanted to pick up again.
Every year is filled with its share of craziness, and if you go by the sheer level of insanity, 2024 didn't disappoint: Moo Deng, the summer of Brat, the end of Bennifer 2, the Kendrick-Drake beef, the Rizzler and the Hawk Tuah girl were all over social media at different points. One of the fun things was the ubiquitous presence of Snoop Dogg at the summer Olympics. That guy was everywhere and having a blast (and he was paid handsomely for it). It was a nice distraction before the insanity of the fall, so there's that. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, it's part 2 of my look back at the best indie rock of 2024. It's an eye-opener.
Snoop just spotted this playlist:
Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Kim Deal - Disobedience/Nobody Loves You More
Cindy Lee - Lockstepp/Diamond Jubilee
Kal Marks - Motherfuckers/Wasteland Baby
Los Campesinos! - A Psychic Wound/All Hell
Johnny Foreigner - This is a Joke/How to Be Hopeful
Neutrals - That's Him on the Daft Stuff Again/New Town Dream
Fontaines D.C. - Favourite/Romance
+/- - Calling Off the Rescue/Further Afield
Lunchbox - Dinner for Two/Pop and Circumstance
Waxahatchee - Evil Spawn/Tigers Blood
The Marias - Paranoia/Submarine
Bodega - Set the Controls for the Heart of the Drum/Our Brand Could Be Yr Life
Shellac - Girl from Outside/To All Trains
The Jesus Lizard - Hide & Seek/Rack
Redd Kross - Candy Colored Catastrophe/Redd Kross
Pearl Jam - Dark Matter/Dark Matter
Hour 2
Hallelujah the Hills - Here Goes Nothing (Patrick's Version)/Single
Cloud Nothings - Running Through the Campus/Final Summer
Gouge Away - Stuck In a Dream/Deep Sage
The Cure - Warsong/Songs of a Lost World
The Lemon Twigs - If You and I Are Not Wise/A Dream is All We Know
Ekko Astral - On Brand/Pink Balloons
Ex-Hyena - Shapeshifter/A Kiss of the Mind
The Folk Implosion - OK to Disconnect/Walk Thru Me
John Davis - The Future/Jinx
Nada Surf - In Front of Me Now/Moon Mirror
Chime School - Give Your Heart Away/The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel
X - Sweet to the Bitter End/Smoke & Fiction
Jack White - Bombing Out/No Name
MJ Lenderman - Wristwatch/Manning Fireworks
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Raw Feel/Flight b741
Osees - Look at the Sky/SORCS 80
Horse Jumper of Love - Today's Iconoclast/Disaster Trick
Glitterer - The Same Ordinary/Rationale
The Bug Club - Quality Pints/On the Intricate Inner Workings of the System
Editor's note: Check out my podcast discussion with Jay Breitling about our favorite music of '24 on Completely Conspicuous (here's parts 1 and 2).
Time flies when you're something something. That's what 2024 felt like. A lot happened, much of which wasn't good, and here we are in a new year. However, what was good in 2024 was the music, especially in the second half of the year. If you're looking for the big pop or country albums in this roundup, look elsewhere because that's not my bag. But there was plenty of indie rock to get excited about. Here's my top 15 albums of '24.
15. Ducks Ltd. - Harm's Way (Carpark): Charming jangle pop from a Toronto duo that cranks out great songs with regularity. Some similarities with acts like Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever. Choice cuts: On Our Way to the Rave, Train Full of Gasoline, Hollowed Out.
14. Ekko Astral - Pink Balloons (Topshelf): Angry noise rock from D.C. punk act that doesn't shy away from political hot-button topics: Trans rights, the Israel-Palestine situation, racism, you name it. Blistering rippers upon rippers and a great live act to boot (I saw them open for Ted Leo and the Pharmacists in June). Choice cuts: On Brand, Uwu Type Beat, Sticks and Stones.
13. Dale Crover - Glossolalia (Joyful Noise): Named after the term for speaking in tongues, the third album from the Melvins' drummer features Tom Waits leading off the album by doing just that. The album is chock full of excellent psych-rock jams, with guest guitarists Kim Thayil and Ty Segall contributing hot lead guitar work. Choice cuts: Doug Yuletide, I Quit, Spoiled Daisies.
12. Jack White - No Name (Third Man): On his sixth solo album, Jack White reverts back to his rip-roaring blues punk days, with fiery and fun blasts of noise throughout. He created demand in July via guerilla marketing, with unlabeled copies of the record slipped into the bags of customers at his Third Man Records store in Nashville. After folks started posting audio rips of the album online, White released it the old-fashioned way. The best thing he's done since the White Stripes. Choice cuts: Old Scratch Blues, Bombing Out, Bless Myself.
11. Kal Marks - Wasteland Baby (Exploding in Sound): Carl Shane continues to bring the noise rock heat with the latest Kal Marks release, a pissed off collection that explores frustration with the world at large while also looking inward as a husband and father. The title track, which Shane calls an apocalyptic love song for his wife, combines the punishing musicianship of bands like Pile and Shellac with a pop undercoating. Choice cuts: Insects, Motherfuckers, Wasteland Baby.
10. J Mascis - What Do We Do Now (Sub Pop): Another excellent solo effort from Mascis, working in some hot solos among the acoustic-based songs. Taking a break from the jet-engine roar of Dinosaur Jr., Mascis digs into more folk and country influences, balancing songs about longing and loneliness with the sheer brilliance of his guitar work. Choice cuts: Right Behind You, You Don't Understand Me, I Can't Find You.
9. METZ - Up on Gravity Hill (Sub Pop): Toronto noise rock trio returns with another blistering album, tempered by more melodic touches. Frontman Alex Edkins has previously done poppier stuff with his side project Weird Nightmare, but this time around brings that feel to METZ. Guests Amber Webber and Owen Pallet contribute to the new vibe. The band has announced this is their last album, which is a bummer, but if true, what a way to go out. Choice cuts: Entwined (Street Light Buzz), Light Your Way Home, 99.
8. Fake Fruit - Mucho Mistrust (Carpark): Second album from Bay Area post-punk trio fronted by Hannah D'Amato brings the heat with vocals reminiscent of Courtney Barnett. She rips into shitty ex-partners, bad relationships and other indignities with directness, frustration and humor. The band blows through these songs with panache and power. Choice cuts: Mas o Menos, See It That Way, Gotta Meet You.
7. Mannequin Pussy - I Got Heaven (Epitaph): Loud, self-assured punk pop from Philly. Frontwoman Marissa Dabice is a commanding presence, leading the band through punk ragers and more tuneful interludes. Dabice rides the edge of various emotions: love, lust, pain, annoyance or just sheer anger. The band can play it quiet and gentle one moment, vicious and profane the next. It's a fun ride. Choice cuts: Loud Bark, Sometimes, OK? OK! OK? OK!
6. Daniel Romano's Outfit - Too Hot to Sleep (You've Changed Records): Shit-hot collection of power pop scorchers from prolific Canadian Daniel Romano. Ten songs that rock shit up in under 30 minutes. Romano has bounced from genre to genre, whether it was folk, country or orchestral prog. This time around, Romano and his Outfit kick out the jams, motherfuckers, with catchy and riffy garage rock that satisfies and leaves you wishing there was more. Choice cuts: Where's Paradise?, Steal My Kiss, Field of Ruins.
5. Fontaines D.C. - Romance (XL Recordings): Dublin outfit ditches the post-punk sound of their earlier albums, going for a bigger arena-ready sound that still captivates. They changed their look to something that would have worked at the height of Y2K-mania 26 years ago, but their sound is very much modern and dark. Frontman Grian Chatten is a confident presence as he navigates the band through new territory. Choice cuts: Favourite, Starburster, Here's the Thing.
4. MJ Lenderman - Manning Fireworks (ANTI-): The fourth solo release from the guitarist of Wednesday, the album is a feedback-drenched alt-country tour de force. I discovered Lenderman early in '24 thanks to his live album And the Wind (Live and Loose), which is excellent. He drops hilarious vignettes about losers and goofballs in a deadpan delivery that never gets excited, just acknowledges the situation, and includes plenty of pop culture references. You've gotta love an album that closes with a 10-minute song about playing "Bark at the Moon" on Guitar Hero. Choice cuts: Wristwatch, Rudolph, She's Leaving You.
3. The Hard Quartet - s/t (Matador): This wide-ranging debut from a group featuring alt-rock luminaries Stephen Malkmus (Pavement, Silver Jews) and Matt Sweeney (Chavez, Zwan) works because it doesn't sound like either man's past work. Both are hot guitarists and split lead vocals. Along with Emmett Kelly (Will Oldham) and drummer Jim White (Dirty Three, Oldham), the Hard Quartet covers a lot of ground: Scuzzy garage rock, power pop, prog excursions, angular indie rock, stoned country rock and Stonesy swagger. The HQ feels like a real band as opposed to a supergroup dominated by one or two members. Choice cuts: Rio's Song, Chrome Mess, Earth Hater.
2. The Cure - Songs of a Lost World (Fiction, Polydor, Lost, Universal, Capitol): A masterpiece of a return after 16 years from Robert Smith and Co. Majestic soundscapes that take their time to develop. The band is firing on all cylinders, with Reeves Gabrels providing sharp lead guitar, Simon Gallup with heavy bass and Jason Cooper with thunderous drumming. Smith sounds the same as he ever has, although this album's lyrical content is more serious that Cure albums of the past, with lots of ruminations on death and doom. Choice cuts: Alone, A Fragile Thing, Warsong.
1. Kim Deal - Nobody Loves You More (4AD): Crazy to think that after 37 years in the biz, this is Kim Deal's first proper solo album. Although maybe the Amps one-off in '95 might qualify, or the occasional singles she released under her own name over the years. Some songs ("Are You Mine?" and "Wish I Was") were written in 2011-2013. Steve Albini helped with production. Deal sings a lot about loss; she took care of her parents before they both passed and her good friend Albini died earlier this year. There's a lot of interesting instrumentation; the title track includes strings and a brass section, but there are still rockers in abundance. Old friends Britt Walford and Jim McPherson and sister Kelley Deal all help out. It's warm, full and flat-out brilliant. Choice cuts: Disobedience, Coast, Wish I Was.
Honorable mention:
Cloud Nothings - Final Summer
Mary Timony - Untame the Tiger
Buffalo Tom - Jump Rope
IDLES - Tangk
Johnny Foreigner - How to Be Hopeful
John Davis - Jinx
The Jesus Lizard - Rack
Oceanator - Everything is Love and Death
Illuminati Hotties - Power
Horse Jumper of Love - Disaster Trick
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Flight b741
Osees - SORCS80
Chime School - The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel
Los Campesinos! - All Hell
Redd Kross - s/t
+/- - Further Afield
Shellac - To All Trains
DIIV - Frog in Boiling Water
Sharp Pins - Radio DDR and Mod Mayday 23
Les Savy Fav - OUI, LSF
St. Vincent - All Born Screaming
The Lemon Twigs - A Dream is All We Know
Neutrals - New Town Dream
Mdou Moctar - Funeral for Justice
Pearl Jam - Dark Matter
Bodega - Our Brand Could Be Yr Life
Kim Gordon - The Collective
Waxahatchee - Tigers Blood
Boeckner - Boeckner!
The Bug Club - On the Intricate Inner Workings of the System
Rick Rude - Laverne
The Smile - Wall of Eyes
Sleater-Kinney - Little Rope
Jesse Malin - Silver Patron Saints: The Songs of Jesse Malin
Reissues:
Sloan - Smeared box set
The Tragically Hip - Up to Here 35th anniversary reissue
Velocity Girl - UltraCopacetic (Copacetic Remixed and Expanded)
Part 1 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey about our favorite concerts. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").
Show notes:
Cold weather running tips
What makes a great concert?
Small shows vs. stadiums
Hard to pare down the list
Limited to one show per artist
Good idea for a sequel involving a time machine
Phil leaned toward larger shows
Didn't include: R.E.M., the Cure, Sleater-Kinney, Drive-By Truckers, Tedeschi Trucks Band
Jay: Prefer the intimacy of club shows
We were at the same shows before we knew each other
Phil: First concert was Van Halen in 1986
Setlist.fm is a great resource
MTV's Saturday Night concerts
Jay's first show was a festival show in Kingston, NH with Cheap Trick, Ratt, Twisted Sister and Lita Ford in 1984
Jay: Not a fan of festival shows anymore
Adventures in seeing Rush
Jay: Didn't see R.E.M. when they played my college
Other favorites: PJ Harvey, Hot Snakes, Lollapalooza '92, Afghan Whigs, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Drive-By Truckers, Alice in Chains/Screaming Trees, Peter Gabriel, White Stripes, Hold Steady, Mission of Burma, Gord Downie
To be continued
Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and write a review!
The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) (1987)
All good things must come to an end. I'm certainly not talking about 2024, which will go down as one of the more effed up years in history, but this little daily exercise is wrapping up. I started a few days late and I missed a few along the way, but I'm pretty impressed that I was able to stick with it for the entire year. I want to do something similar for 2025, but not daily, because that is difficult at times. Maybe weekly, and obviously something a little different.
As for a final song, R.E.M. upbeat apocalyptic whirlwind of a rocker "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" seems fitting. The last several years, every year has seemed like the end of the world and yet we keep going.
The song is on Document, the band's last album on I.R.S. before signing to Warner Brothers and a demarcation point for some hardcore fans of R.E.M.'s earlier, quieter sound who jumped off the bandwagon when "The One I Love" became a top 10 hit. The band was expanding into a more mainstream act, which turned off some of those earlier. As for me, I stuck with them because they're a great goddamn band.
"It's the End of the World" was the second single off Document after "The One I Love" and was released in November 1987 after the staggering success of the lead single. Frontman Michael Stipe came up with some of the rapid-fire lyrics from a dream he had where he was at legendary rock critic Lester Bangs' birthday party and he was the only one in attendance who didn't have the initials LB. He balanced with the doom-and-gloom news he saw on TV.
"That's great, it starts with an earthquake/Birds and snakes and aeroplanes/And Lenny Bruce is not afraid/Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn/World serves its own needs/Don't mis-serve your own needs/Speed it up a notch, speed, grunt, no strength/The ladder starts to clatter/With a fear of height, down, height/Wire in a fire, represent the seven games/And a government for hire and a combat site/Left her, wasn't coming in a hurry/With the Furies breathing down your neck."
The song is influenced by Bob Dylan's classic "Subterranean Homesick Blues," another song featuring quickly sung stream-of-consciousness lyrics.
"Team by team, reporters baffled, trumped, tethered, cropped/Look at that low plane, fine, then/Uh oh, overflow, population, common group/But it'll do, save yourself, serve yourself/World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed/Tell me with the Rapture and the reverent in the right, right/You vitriolic, patriotic, slam fight, bright light/Feeling pretty psyched/It's the end of the world as we know it/It's the end of the world as we know it/It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine."
Musically, the song has its origins in an unreleased track called "PSA," which was later reworked and released in 2003 as "Bad Day."
"Six o'clock, TV hour, don't get caught in foreign tower/Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself burn/Lock him in uniform, book burning, bloodletting/Every motive escalate, automotive incinerate/Light a candle, light a motive, step down, step down/Watch your heel crush, crush, uh oh/This means no fear, cavalier, renegade and steering clear/A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies/Offer me alternatives, offer me solutions and I decline."
The song only got to #69 on the Billboard Hot 100 but it got a lot of play on rock radio and MTV. During my junior year at UNH, my roommates and I took a road trip to Montreal for spring break in March 1988. We were in an establishment called the Peel Pub and they had a cover band that played "It's the End of the World," which of course we all loved. We didn't know all the lyrics but we definitely knew this part:
"The other night I drifted continental drift divide/Mountains sit in a line...Leonard Bernstein/Leonid Brezhnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs/Birthday party, cheesecake, jellybean, boom/You symbiotic, patriotic, slam but neck, right, right/It's the end of the world as we know it (time I had some time alone)/It's the end of the world as we know it (time I had some time alone)/It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine (time I had some time alone)."
The brilliant minds at Clear Channel included the song on a memo of songs considered "lyrically questionable" after the September 11, 2001 attacks. In more recent years, it has become popular around potentially calamitous events like the supposed Mayan apocalypse in December 2012, the COVID-19 pandemic and different religious doomsday predictions.
Document became R.E.M.'s most popular album to date, hitting #10 on the Billboard 200. By the early '90s, R.E.M. was one of the biggest bands in the world, which didn't end as a result. Drummer Bill Berry left the band in 1997, leaving Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck and bassist Mike Mills to continue on as a trio; they released five more albums before calling it quits in 2011.
Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Watching the Detectives (1977)
Elvis Costello has been one of the most interesting rock artists going since the late 1970s. I've already featured a more obscure song of his from the late '80s, but as this series winds down, I wanted to highlight one of his greatest.
The artist formerly known as Declan McManus first started playing in a folk-rock band called Rusty in 1972 in Liverpool, England. The following year, he moved to London and playing club gigs as Declan Costello; later in 1973, he formed a pub rock act called Flip City that played around town for a few years.
He signed with Stiff Records in 1976 and was teamed with Clover, an American country-rock band, as his backing band (some of the members went to form Huey Lewis and the News). They recorded his first album, My Aim is True, in January 1977, but it wasn't released until July. Costello then left his job as a computer operator and set about picking a touring band; he already had chosen drummer Pete Thomas and then held auditions for a bassist and keyboardist. Steve Goulding and Andrew Bodnar, rhythm section of the Rumour (Graham Parker's band) helped with the auditions to see how those trying out would sound as part of a band.
Costello picked Bruce Thomas on bass (no relation to Pete) and Steve Nason (later to go by Steve Nieve) on keyboards and called the band the Attractions. But while he was hanging out with Goulding and Bodnar, Costello had them help him put together a new song he wrote after listening to the Clash's new debut album. "Watching the Detectives" was also inspired by film composer Bernard Herrmann's moody scores for Hitchcock movies. The combination of a reggae beat, eerie keyboards and cynical lyrics, which were spit out by a sneering Costello about a couple who are arguing while the woman is watching a detective show on TV.
"Nice girls, not one with a defect/Cellophane shrink-wrapped, so correct/Red dogs under illegal legs/She looks so good that he gets down and begs/She is watching the detectives/Ooh, he's so cute/She is watching the detectives/When they shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot/They beat him up until the teardrops start/But he can't be wounded 'cause he's got no heart."
The song was released as a non-album single in October 1977 in the U.K. and it hit #15 on the Singles Chart. It was added to the U.S. release of My Aim is True but only got to #108.
"Long shot at that jumping sign/Invisible shivers running down my spine/Cut to baby taking off her clothes/Close up of the sign that says, 'We never close'/He snatched at you and you match his cigarette/She pulls the eyes out with a face like a magnet/I don't know how much more of this I can take/She's filing her nails while they're dragging the lake."
Goulding's pounding drums are in the forefront as Costello and Bodnar provide the jagged reggae sound and James Bond guitar; Nieve overdubbed the appropriately sinister sounding organ and piano. The third verse is filled with the lyrical viciousness that Costello would become known for.
"You think you're alone until you realize you're in it/Now fear is here to stay, love is here for a visit/They call it instant justice when it's past the legal limit/Someone's scratching at the window; I wonder who is it?/The detectives come to check if you belong to the parents/Who are ready to hear the worst/About their daughter's disappearance/Though it nearly took a miracle to get you to stay/It only took my little fingers to blow you away."
My Aim is True hit #14 in the U.K. and #32 in the U.S., getting critical raves. Costello and the Attractions played Saturday Night Live in December 1977, earning a ban from SNL producer Lorne Michaels after they unexpectedly pivoted during the live broadcast and played the unreleased song "Radio Radio."
Costello went on to have a long, successful and interesting career with lots of creative twists and turns along the way. He's still at it, but "Watching the Detectives" remains one of his greatest songs.
