Day After Day #306: Better Than Nothing

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Better Than Nothing (1994)

There are many examples of how the music industry has chewed up and spit out artists. They sign the artist to a big contract, the artist releases albums that don't sell well, the label drops the artist. This was especially common in the '90s when the major labels were trying to find the next big alternative rock artist. 

This series has documented the major label feeding frenzy that followed Nirvana's success, but it continued to a lesser extent in the mid-'90s when an unknown Boston-based singer named Jennifer Trynin self-released her debut album Cockamamie in 1994. After the lead single "Better Than Nothing" started getting played on rock stations across the country, Trynin got critical acclaim and record company bigwigs began courting her as the Next Big Female Rock Star.

Cockamamie is an excellent collection of catchy, guitar-driven rockers, highlighted by "Better Than Nothing," a midtempo ripper with a chorus that lodges itself in your brain.

"Maybe we could talk in the shower/I'll bet we'd be gone in an hour/Maybe we could leave all this behind/Or we could just stay home/Maybe we could pool all our money/Maybe head out west to the country/It'd be just like here but we'd be there/Or we could just stay home/It's better than nothing/It's better than nothing/I'm feeling good, I'm feeling good/I'm feeling good...for now/But I know that by tomorrow I'll probably come around."

I first heard "Better Than Nothing" on WFNX and then picked up the CD and was hooked. I saw Trynin play at TT the Bears in 1995 and she was excellent.

"Maybe we could stay out all night/2 shots of whiskey and have a good fight/Finally figure out who's really right/I think I'll just stay home/For now things don't seem so bad/I don't wanna know if I will sink or swim away to shore."

Among the labels that were chasing Trynin was Geffen, whose CEO David Geffen told her she reminded him of Linda Ronstadt, and Warner Bros., which was led by Danny Goldberg, Led Zeppelin's former publicist and Nirvana's manager. Eventually Trynin signed with Warner Bros., which gave her a three-album deal and a near-$1 million advance. Warner Bros. re-released Cockamamie in 1995 and "Better Than Nothing" reached #15 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and #40 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. But the second single didn't chart and the album stalled out at #74 on the Billboard 200.

Disappointed with album and ticket sales, Warner canceled a planned European tour and cut promo support. Trynin opened for Buffalo Tom on a fall tour. But by the following spring, Goldberg left the label for Mercury and Warner Bros. opted to put its money behind another female artist, Alanis Morrisette, who had a monster hit with "You Oughta Know" and her album Jagged Little Pill. 

Trynin released her second album on Warner Bros., Gun Shy, Trigger Happy, in 1997. It was quieter than her debut, but was strong nonetheless. It got good reviews but was more adult alternative than alt-rock and didn't sell well. The label refused her recommendation for the first single and then made her change the name of the song they wanted from "February" to "Getaway," but then didn't even release the video that had been made for the song. Eventually, Trynin took a buyout from Warner Bros. that released her from having to make a third album and dropped out of the public eye for a few years.

In 1999, she began playing guitar with the Boston indie rock band Loveless, which released an album in 2003. Trynin, who was a creative writing major in college, released her first book in 2006, Everything I'm Cracked Up to Be: A Rock & Roll Fairy Tale, which detailed her meteoric rise and fall. I spotted it in my local library not long after it came out and really enjoyed it.

Trynin married producer Mike Deneen in 2000 and then took time off after having their daughter in 2003. She started playing music again in 2014 with The Cujo and Band of Their Own, but is also working on her second book. Trynin has also been hosting EARFULL, a performance series that features writers and musicians, in Boston-area spots.

Day After Day #239: One Armed Scissor

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

One Armed Scissor (2000)

Is it possible for a band to have too much energy? Probably not, but if you ever saw an At the Drive-In performance, you might wonder. I've only seen footage of them on YouTube, but man, they went all out all the time on stage. Just off the charts insanity and awesomeness.

In 2000, the music scene was pretty strange. Napster was blowing up, the recording industry was filing lawsuits to stop file-sharing sites like Napster, nu metal acts like Limp Bizkit were all the rage and pop and hip hop were also thriving. 

By this point, post-hardcore act At the Drive-In had been together for six years, formed in El Paso by guitarist Jim Ward and singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala, with Omar Rodriguez-Lopez joining in 1995 as bassist. The band released their debut album, Acrobatic Tenement, on Flipside in 1996. Shortly after recording that album, ATDI added Tony Hajjar on drums and Paul Hinojos on bass, with Rodriguez-Lopez switching to guitar. After switching labels to Fearless Records, the band released In/Casino/Out in August 1998. 

Buzz had been building about ATDI's incendiary live performances and eventually the group signed with G.A.S. Entertainment, a label founded by record company exec Gary Gersh and artist manager John Silva. But while the band was recording its third album, Relationship of Command with producer Ross Robinson, G.A.S.'s parent company, Digital Entertainment Network, dissolved and Gersh and Silva merged their label with Grand Royal (founded by the Beastie Boys in conjunction with Capitol Records). 

Any fears that ATDI would water down their sound after signing to a major were unfounded. Relationship of Command came out in September 2000 and was a ripper of an album, cementing the band as the premier "screamo" act of the moment. I was working for Webnoize and we attended South by Southwest in March 2000, where ATDI played a hot set; unfortunately, I was unaware of it and missed it. But thanks to our office "research" on Napster, I was able to hear some of the new stuff early and picked up the CD when it came out. "Pattern Against User," "Arcarsenal" and "Rolodex Propaganda" (featuring Iggy Pop) are all standouts. The energy is palpable, with Bixler-Zavala screaming while Ward and Rodriguez-Lopez riff furiously and the rhythm section thunders along. 

"One Armed Scissor" was an early favorite, although I have to admit I didn't know what the hell they were singing about most of the time. According to the Wikipedia page for the song, the band said in an interview that a one-armed scissor is a mixture of Red Bull and vodka, and that the song is about their tours told from the point of view of "an omniscient character named the one-armed scissor who sees their hardships they deal with while on tour." Okay, that still doesn't make much sense. But neither do these lyrics, which center on something bad happening on a spaceship (I think).

"Yes, this is the campaign/Slithered entrails in the cargo bay/Neutered is the vastness/They hibernate, but have they kissed the ground?/Pucker up and kiss the asphalt now/Tease this amputation/Splintered larynx, it has access now/Cut away, cut away/Send transmission to the one-armed scissor/Cut away, cut away/Send transmission from the one-armed scissor/Cut away, cut away/Send transmission to the one-armed scissor/Cut away, cut away."

The song began getting play on college radio stations like WMBR, which we were listening to in our Cambridge office at the time, but also on more mainstream rock stations. And the band was going on talk shows like the Late Show with David Letterman and Late Night with Conan O'Brien and just exploding on the stage, with Bixler-Zavala throwing himself into instruments and even Conan's guest couch (according to a YouTube viewer who was in the audience) while the band thrashed away. 

"Dissect a trillion sighs away/Will you get this letter? Jagged pulp sliced in my veins/I write to remember/'Cause I'm a million miles away/Will you get this letter?/Jagged pulp sliced in my veins/I write to remember/I write to remember/I write to remember."

So maybe the space station is a metaphor for life on the road, perhaps. That life was taking a toll on the band, for sure. In November 2000, ATDI's touring van skidded on ice and flipped onto its roof; the band escaped with only minor injuries to Hajjar and Bixler-Zavala. In January 2001, the band was playing the Big Day Out festival in Australia when the band grew upset at the crowd's moshing and left the stage after playing three songs. Two months later, about to begin a U.S. tour and at the peak of their popularity, ATDI split up. While exhaustion was given as a reason, both Bixler-Zavala and Rodriguez-Lopez were dealing with drug habits and the band members had different ideas about musical direction. 

Bixler-Zavala and Rodriguez-Lopez wanted to move into a prog-rock vein and formed the Mars Volta, while Ward, Hinojos and Hajjar formed the ATDI-adjacent Sparta. Both acts released albums that performed well. Hinojos left Sparta and joined the Mars Volta from 2005-2009. ATDI reunited in 2011 and played some festival shows the following year. The Mars Volta split up in 2013 and Bixler-Zavala and Rodriguez-Lopez stopped talking for a while before resolving their issues the following year.

ATDI reformed to make a new album in 2016, although Ward left after a few rehearsals and was replaced by former Sparta guitarist Keeley Davis. The album, in*ter*a*li*a, came out in 2017 and was pretty good. The band toured behind the album, but in November 2018 announced another hiatus. 

I still love watching those old videos of At the Drive-In, which remind me of similarly kickass acts like Fugazi, Drive Like Jehu, Hot Snakes and the Nation of Ulysses, all of which ATDI has cited as influences. Whether they're singing about spaceships, booze or scissors, ATDI was the real deal, man.