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.

Day After Day #124: Here Come the Rome Plows

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

Here Come the Rome Plows (1994)

There are some songs that, when you first hear them, you're instantly blown away. That was the case with "Here Come the Rome Plows" by Drive Like Jehu. It came out in April 1994 on Interscope and I remember being amazed that it was on a major label, because it was one of the most uncompromising and ferocious things I'd ever heard.

The post-hardcore act was formed in 1990 by San Diego singer-guitarist Rick Froberg and lead guitarist John "Speedo" Reis, who had both played in the band Pitchfork previously. They were joined by bassist Mike Kennedy and drummer Mark Trombino, who played in the band Night Soil Man. Around the same time, Reis formed Rocket from the Crypt, which was playing horn-driven punk party rock. 

Drive Like Jehu was a decidedly different animal. Froberg's yelping vocals were loud and insistent as Reis and Froberg played pummeling riffs and snaky guitar leads. They were tagged as part of the early emo scene of the '90s, but I'd say they were originators of the "screamo" sound that At the Drive-In picked up a few years later and then many bands followed afterwards. They're also referred to as an early "math rock" act thanks to the precision of their guitar parts and unusual time signatures.

DLJ released their self-titled debut in 1991 on Cargo Music and Headhunter Music at the same time as Rocket from the Crypt's debut Paint as a Fragrance.

At the same time, the major labels were sniffing around San Diego in their search for the next Nirvana and Interscope ended up signing both Drive Like Jehu and RFTC. Jehu released their major label debut first, with 1994's Yank Crime. I found out about the album a month or two later from my brother, who had picked up their debut. This wasn't a band that was getting played on alternative rock radio or MTV; it was too goddamn intense. Upon hearing the lead track "Here Come the Rome Plows," I was hooked. There was nothing else like it at the time. That summer was a fun one for me, and I was driving around blasting mixtapes that included Drive Like Frickin' Jehu (I was probably alone when I was blasting them, but nonetheless).

I didn't know what the hell a Rome plow was at the time. I just assumed it was a Biblical reference like the band's name, but in fact, a Rome plow was a specially armored bulldozer made in Rome, Georgia, and used by the U.S. military to clear forests providing cover for the Viet Cong in the Vietnam War (literally just found that out). But the song sounds like a bulldozer as it slams into your head, piledriving your skull with monster riffage from Reis and Froberg.

"Sad to say/It's over now/Here come the huns/Pick a side/Pick a spot/Here come, here come/Rome plows! Rome plows!/Rome plows! Rome plows!/Rome plows! Rome plows!/Rome plows! Rome plows!/Cal state/No fun/Stay put/Here come/To clean the state/To pass the time/To erase/Yank crime."

Even as I moved further away from my metal roots, I was getting into heavier, more atonal music like Jehu, Helmet, Rollins Band and Sonic Youth. Songs like "Rome Plows" would just ratchet up the tension, not just with the amazing guitar work but also Froberg's shouty vocals, which sounded like he was getting run over by one of said same plows.

"Why waste/Your time/Here come the huns/Be my/Date tonight/Here come, here come/Rome plows! Rome plows!"

The song careens along unrelentingly, teetering this way and that as it charges through the jungle. Just an incredible experience as it thunders along for nearly 6 minutes. 

What makes the band so interesting is the rest of Yank Crime isn't just eight more "Rome Plows" but long, slow crawlers like "Do You Compute," "Luau" and "Sinews"; out-and-out rippers like "Super Unison," "New Math" and "Golden Brown": and quiet interludes like "New Intro."

Sadly, I never got to see Jehu live. The band split up in 1995 so Reis could focus on Rocket from the Crypt, who I have seen several times. Trombino became a producer and audio engineer who worked with bands like Blink-182 and Jimmy Eats World, Kennedy left music to become a chemist and Froberg moved to New York City to work as an illustrator. He eventually reunited with Reis to form yet another killer band, Hot Snakes, who played from 1999 to 2005; later he formed Obits while Reis formed the Night Marchers. 

In 2014, Drive Like Jehu reunited for a performance in San Diego and then played several dates in 2015 and 2016. Hot Snakes reunited for a tour in 2017 and I saw them play an amazing show at the Middle East in Cambridge that November. Froberg was working on a new Hot Snakes album last year when he passed away of natural causes at the age of 55. I was at a cookout at my cousin's house last July when I heard the news and it knocked me for a loop, much like "Here Come the Rome Plows" did when I first heard it.