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November 07, 2006
Obscurer Than Thou
These days, any kid with a four track can immediately put his tortured mewlings up on MySpace for the world to endure. It was not always so. In an effort to shine a light on worthwhile artists from decades past who never even cleared the "cult artist" bar, we enlist a man a bit older and wiser than we, Professor David Klein. He's not actually a professor, but he is sitting on a mountain of out of print vinyl, which I think should count for an honorary degree of some kind. He'll be dropping some science here occasionally, so listen up! -JK
Obscurer Than Thou, part the first
by David Klein
Obscure is a relative term. Decades ago, Can was obscure because your local record store didn’t carry their records, and unless you were reading the right music magazines, you wouldn’t have even heard of them. Now Starbucks has its own Krautrock compilation and you can hear New Zealand indie founding fathers the Chills in the aisles of Key Food (this really happened to me.) So the point is: the obscure music is out there; it walks among us. Anyone can stroll into Kim's Underground, find the "Out There" section and impress their wispily bearded Bohemian friends. Although that kind of obscurity does hold a certain fascination for me, I wouldn’t choose to inflict it on the public. It’s squarely between me and my wispily bearded friends. For the purposes of this column, obscure means stuff that is too far gone from the current scene to be known to the average young listener, so that even if you did hear it in Key Food, you’d miss the irony. Above all, I’m talking about music that would be a shame not to know about. And on that note…
Five Story Garage by Man Sized Action epitomizes the kind of obscure record I want to extol. It is perhaps the ultimate obscure record in my collection. (And yes, I do mean “record.”) This Minneapolis five-some recorded two records in ’83 and ’84—the first was impossible to get, and was hampered by Bob Mould’s tinny production, but the second one—an eight-song EP on Mould’s Reflex Records, had national distribution, so maybe you could find it if you looked hard enough. But the point was, you were supposed to look for it. Local music sages spoke in hushed tones about Man Sized Action, like they were Minneapolis’s secret weapon. Most of us knew of the ‘Mats and the Hüskers, and even second-wave bands like Soul Asylum, but MSA were off the radar for all but the best-informed among us. The fact that the band’s name sounded like a Johnny Wadd feature never even entered into it. To own this record was to own something rare and cool, and it’s still the case. The same cannot be said of my Sadistic Mika Band record.
When people trace the history of the ‘80s indie Minneapolis scene, Man Sized Action are just a footnote, a local post-punk band, but they were much more than that. They were on the stealth tip, a real insider band. In ’84, his highness Steve Albini wrote a glowing tribute to the band, including this lovely description of Brian Paulson's guitar part on the song "57": “A rapid-fire sequence of chiming harmonics that would make Andy Gill [of Gang of Four] hang himself in jealousy.”
Man Sized Action - "57"
Twenty-two years later, the very much not-dead Andy Gill has seen his group serve as musical touchstone for a slew of quite good bands, while Man Sized Action remains unheralded. Nevertheless, Five Story Garage still sounds as fierce and unforgiving as the Minnesota winter, undiminished by time, new production techniques, or radical improvements in the science of rock & roll. Ending with the monumental “Different Than Now,” with guitars that sound like a shower of blood, the final recorded work of this unsung outfit finishes on a fitting note of urgency, addressing the listener directly with words alternating between hope and despair:
"If we don’t look ahead to the future/ it won’t be any different than now
If we make setbacks work in our favor/ we’ll remember and next time we’ll know
So keep moving ahead never look back/ I know you can and you’ve done it before
That’s how we got to this position/ We set ourselves up for our own fall."
Man Sized Action - "Different Than Now"
Posted by Jeff Klingman at November 7, 2006 09:45 AM
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Comments
Awesome post! I can't wait to hear more about music from days past that past us all by. Now excuse me while I go see if Big Black's Lungs EP still has enough dust on it to make me feel obscure.
-K Douglas Circa 1978
Posted by: Kelli Douglas at November 7, 2006 10:00 AM
Great article...especially the part about the wispy beards.
Posted by: bulletholejonny at November 7, 2006 09:28 PM
"To own this record was to own something rare and cool, and it’s still the case. The same cannot be said of my Sadistic Mika Band record."
You are the only human being I have ever met who knows about this record/band, even though I have not met you and even though I passed on buying this when I saw it in a record store.
I still regret not buying it to this day, if only so I could say that I own it.
Posted by: blugg at November 16, 2006 01:20 PM
I have this record but the grooves are worn to dust. Has this MSA 5 Story Garage ever been released on cd? The weird thing is, I cant remember how I got this record. I think Albini gave it to me. An aside: When my band played MN, Brian and the singer would always show up. Great guys and and supporters of music.
Posted by: rick at March 31, 2007 01:02 AM
