I was thinking the other day about my cd collection and how there are so many cds hiding in there that my eyes pass over daily without even stopping. It's automatic at this point. I've conditioned myself to jump over them, taking no notice, and it's gotten to the point where sometimes I'm not even sure if I own a certain album or not even though my eyes glance at it several times a week as I pass by it on the way to the shiny new soundz. Five-Eight's I Learned Shut Up is one of these forgotten cds. It's actually one of the first cds I ever purchased but it's probably been about 10 years or so since I last listened to it.The album came out in 1992 and I remember being introduced to them around the same time as I became obsessed with Barenaked Ladies. It was a year where I was first starting to make headway into forging my own musical tastes and choosing some bands who weren't part of the Lollapalooza set. Five-Eight were from Athens, GA (just like R.E.M. so they were already cool) and I loved them immediately. Over the years, I soured on both them and Barenaked Ladies but couldn't bring myself to ever get rid of this album. The Barenaked Ladies' Gordon is another story. I have tried selling it several times and nobody wants that piece of shit. It's currently selling for $0.75 on half.com, which is the lowest price you can possibly list a cd for, so you can see what a hot commodity this thing is. If they still had cut out bins, Gordon would fill about 20% of the available space. It's the Whipped Cream and Other Delights of the modern era.
The other day I needed some music to keep me company while I did the dishes and for some unknown reason, my eyes stopped on poor, forgotten Five-Eight. After years of neglect, I was horribly excited to listen to this artifact from the past. I often wonder when listening to albums how many other people in the world are currently listening the same cd. When I put I Learned Shut Up on the other night, I had a pretty fair shot at being the only person listening to it in the entire universe at that point. Now I don't know if it was the years of absence making my heart grow fonder or what but it did not disappoint.
Right away, I was soaping up silverware and doing the head bop to the furious rocking of lead off track "Looking Up." As with all albums that burrow their way into your brain during the influential high school years, I still knew every guitar lick, drum fill and lyric. I wasn't even enjoying it purely nostalgically. The 15 year old Gamera loved it as an escape from the drudgery of teenage life and the 30 year old Gamera can think of nothing better to assist in the cleaning of greasy pans. It's a stone rocker, even the ballads.
And oh, what ballads. "Desperate Tonight" and "Destroy this World" are absolute killers but even they pale in comparison to the masterpiece that is "She's Dropping the Bomb." I may be wrong, but it appears that this song is about two young guys attempting to save a stripper from her dreary life through poetry and utter sincerity. Their plan fails beautifully and culminates with these crushing lines: "I was the poet in the bar/Do you remember me/She said no." Oh! It's torturous and brilliant and it blows my mind to see someone write such a painful song about themselves where they don't look cool for a single second. Singer/Guitarist/Songwriter Mike Mantione is nothing if not a heart on sleeve type. Brutally honest lyrics paired with at-times shrill singing let you know HE IS NOT JOKING. I saw him once at JMU standing at the edge of the stage sans band, singing the song "Weirdo" without aid of a microphone to open the set, laying his soul out there for everyone to witness and wince at. The picture of him singing naked inside the Angriest Man ep basically sums it up. This man is not afraid to overshare.
So it was a pleasant revisitation and I don't see going another 10 years before another listen. If you are one of the others out there who still own this cd, give a chance this week, you just may be surprised how awesome it still is.
And now for the requisite viddeo post. This time it's Five-Eight plus members of R.E.M. playing at the 40 Watt in 2006. Athens superpowers, activate! Form of "Sitting Still!"
6 comments:
jamie and i had so much fun hanging out and interviewing those guys before that connells show in 92. those were the days.
doesn't gordon at least have a couple of good songs on it?
whipped cream and other delights is a good album. don't make fun of it.
Gordon does indeed have a couple of good songs but the stink of it all won't wash away and has only gotten worse over the years. It's possibly the most embarrasing cd in my collection.
Plus, I didn't think I insulted Whipped Cream, I was merely commenting on the ubiquitousness of it. That, Jackie Gleason albums and Mitch Miller records make up half of the thrift store collections coast to coast.
fair enough but you did mention it in the same breath as gordon.
i can't wait until you write about truman's water.
it's a shame that that JMU show was in the pre-YouTube era, because if ever a performance needed to be re-seen it was him doing "Weirdo" alone with no mic. i remember echoes bouncing off the weird angles of the P.C. Ballroom (divider closed to cut the space in half) and the final note just hanging in the air for about 15 seconds as the couple dozen people there were all a bit mesmerized. that memory may be exaggerated by my distance from it so many years later, but i recall feeling really moved by it at the time. a top 5 concert memory for me.
oh, and "heart on sleeve" barely begins to describe some of this stuff. "Weirdo" in particular. the man had some demons and i think he was on a battalion of anti-depressants. i don't listen to their stuff often, but i do still enjoy it. they were pretty damn good.
and yeah, listo, those were the days. it's funny how little clue we had about what we were doing. i remember asking them about their influences and they answered something like "Husker Du, the Who.. really any band with a 'hoo' sound in it" or something like that. also, the Connells totally rocked that night. "Stone Cold Yesterday" - whoo!
Yeah, the performance was pretty stunning. There is a solo you tube video out there but it's from 2004 not 1992 at jmu and i think the crowd may be partially singing along. Florida is a hot spot for Five-Eight fans I guess. He wrote a concept album of sorts a few years back called the good nurse which i'm intrigued to hear because i think it's full on bipolar battling and antidepressant analysis. Listmaker once said Mike Mantione seemed to think himself to be a cross between Lou Reed and Bob Mould and I would agree there's a lot of that in him filtered through years of psychoanalyisis.
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