Revisiting the Classix: Squirrel Nut Zippers

Did the swing revival really happen or was it all a fever dream? I remember Listmaker sharing his copy of Squirrel Nut Zippers' 1995 debut The Inevitable and quickly falling in love with the sound of a bunch of North Carolinians doing the Lindy hop. I remember seeing "Swingers" and developing a serious man crush on Vince Vaughan. I remember hearing tales of an absurdly named band from out west called Cherry Poppin' Daddies and thinking that name would get them exactly nowhere. And then all of a sudden Gap ads are on tv showing squeaky clean kids leap frogging each other to the crazee sounds of Louis Prima and "Zoot Suit Riot" is somehow a national hit and the words "Cherry Poppin' Daddies" are on everyone's lips? I guess the revival really did happen but now I wonder was it all as lame as it seems in retrospect and were all these bands just cashing in on a trend?

The only group lumped into the whole "swing revival" movement that I cared about was Squirrel Nut Zippers and they never seemed to jive with all the rest of the bowler behatted dapper fellows in bands like Big Bad Voodoo Daddy or Royal Crown Revue. Instead of looking to Louis Prima or Cab Calloway for inspiration, they seemed more obsessed with Billie Holliday and Django Rienhardt. More gypsy jazz, less 23 Skidoo.

Hot is the album that put Squirrel Nut Zippers on the map. It still holds up incredibly well probably because it seems less like a band riding a fad and more like a bunch of young jazz freaks somehow stumbling into the national spotlight for a brief period before resuming their anonymity. This album came out in 1996 and 2 short years later when the followup Perennial Favorites was released, Squirrel Nut Zippers were a distant memory in American pop culture, handily replaced by Limp Bizkit and their mook rock brethren. I don't mourn for the short career of Squirrel Nut Zippers but I do still have fond memories of my infatuation with them and the 3 albums I have are all fantastically played and extremely listenable. They, for the most part, avoided the horn saturated silliness that tainted the neo-swing groups and that consistently works against all modern ska bands.

What I like best about this band, and this album in particular, is their restraint. Groups like The Brian Setzer Orchestra are always trying to turn it up to 11 with their squawking horns and amped up in-your-face energy but Squirrel Nut Zippers understand that they don't need to stick your head in the bell of trumpet to get you excited. Album opener "Got My Own Thing Now" is a brilliant beginning full of incredible interplay between the musicians and will get you dancing straight away without the need for a giant neon sign reading "SWING!" Along with their toe tapping, revved up numbers, they are also able to write gorgeous ballads as long as you can stand Katharine Whalen's bizarre, Billie Holliday aping vocal mannerisms. "Meant to Be" is an incredibly tender and lovely song that I can't imagine coming from any other band from the era. Squirrel Nut Zippers are a sadly underrated band tainted by the bad memories of the plastic 90s. They really captured the heart and the joy of the music of the 20s and 30s without being a cliche or a parody. More jump and jive, less of the wail.

Revisiting the Classix: The Lemonheads

Evan Dando and the Lemonheads have been back in the news lately, mostly due to the recent reissue of their seminal album It's a Shame About Ray. I, like many others, first heard about this band during the Alternative boom of the early 90s and quickly fell in love with the folk tinged pop songs and dreamy hair of Mr. Dando. By the time they released Come on Feel the Lemonheads in late 1993, I had already soured on the band and moved on to harder stuff like Archers of Loaf and Slant 6. What happened? I was so into Ray. I loved every song from barn burning first track "Rockin Stroll" to their wonderful cover of "Frank Mills" that ends the album. I stayed up late to catch their videos on 120 Minutes. I even fell in love with Smudge, Australia's version of The Lemonheads. But then Come On debuted and I yawned. The first single "Into Your Arms" was a cover, which is never a good sign, and it was pretty boring. I moved on and never looked back.

Until I did. I'm so glad I eventually revisited this record because it truly was love at first listen. I had access to the album for years but for some reason I never had any interest to give it a listen. My dad bought it on cd but I don't remember ever hearing it around the house. I remember him cranking "Everybody Loves Me But You" from Juliana Hatfield's debut album Hey You but I don't have a single memory of Evan Dando's voice rattling the speakers in our house. Years later, I discovered that Hott Mama had a copy of Come On on cassette, still in the shrink wrap. It was a BMG featured selection and automatically shipped to her without her consent. She never sent it back and there it lay, covered in plastic and long forgotten. Shawn put "Rest Assured" on a tape she sent to me and I dug it so much I finally decided to dust off the cassette and give it a chance. It was this tape version that won my heart. I now listen to this album more often that Ray and have more than once called it the most underrated album of the 1990s.

At the time Come On was released, I think I was annoyed by Evan Dando's public image and his slow descent into bloated rock star self destruction. Now I find it fascinating and it's this drug addled weirdness that makes the album so twisted and beautiful. There are certainly some typical Lemonheads pop gems, like "Dawn Can't Decide" and "The Great Big No" but most everything else is just slightly off, or completely off the rails as is the case with "Style." This odd tune is the centerpiece and thesis of the album, paving the way for the future crack smoking and following drug sickness that Evan fell into during the tour in support of Come On. Here's the opening lines of the song:

Don't wanna get stoned

Don't wanna get stoned

But I don't wanna not get stoned

I don't wanna not get stoned

Pure poetry! It goes on like this until he delivers my favorite verse:

Wanna knock things down

I'm not gonna knock things down

But I don't wanna not get stoned

So I'm not gonna not knock things down

What is that, a double negative? Brilliant! "Style" is song 7 on the album and is followed just four songs later by "Rick James Style" which is the same exact song only slowed down a bit and featuring the inimitable vocal styling of, you guessed it, Rick James. If you weren't already worried for the state of Evan Dando's soul, this song will change your mind. Yet somehow, it's not the death knell for the album. Instead, he follows it up with a brief little country rock number called "Being Around" which is so peppy and silly you can't help but fall in love.

All in all this is a very flawed album with some questionable judgment calls but for me it's the flaws which give it such a distinct personality and make me love it wholeheartedly. Song 3 is "It's About Time," a song written for Juliana Hatfield detailing how she finally lost her virginity to good friend and bandmate Evan Dando. And she sings backup on it! Who does that? Future Lemonheads albums are all half decent and half boring and terrible. Nothing he has done since has matched the perfect marriage of songwriting greatness and absurdity found on Come On Feel the Lemonheads. It doesn't matter that they decided to end the album with the bizarre piano doodle "The Jello Fund" because it is more than balanced out by wonders like "Big Gay Heart," "You Can't Take it With You" and the greatest Lemonheads song of all time, "I'll Do it Anyway." If you too passed on this album long ago, give it another chance and enjoy Evan Dando's collapse along with me. It's a glorious descent.

Revisiting the Classix: Five-Eight

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!"