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May 30, 2007
Retrohump Day: Two Sans Theme
Usually, I try to assign these video posts a theme, even if that theme is startlingly flimsy or entirely concocted after the fact. Try as I might though, I can't seem to find much connective tissue between today's stellar entries. One is a relatively new discovery for me, one an old favorite. One is fast and serious, bordering on nervous, the other loose and romantic, drunkenly relaxed. One shows Brits in the US, the other Yanks in Europe. One professionally produced in stark black and white, the other amateurishly captured in grainy color. They both feature skinny white musicians playing variations of underground rock music, but that's hardly the basis for a snappy title, now is it?
the Monochrome Set - "Eine Symphonie des Grauens"
(Minneapolis 1979)
"Eine Symphonie des Grauens" is an accidentally stumbled upon song that I now find hard to believe has existed happily without me for nearly thirty years. I mean, if it's just been lying around for all that time, why have its praises not been shrieked towards the heavens? I promise I was listening for the shouts.
The stern visage of singer Bid in this contextless footage suggests that he had to part ways with his former bandmate Adam Ant due to an acute allergy to foolishness and foppery. A further investigation of the Monochrome Set's discography will most likely utterly discount this theory. But that's a matter for another time.
the Monochrome Set - "Eine Symphonie des Grauens"
Pavement - "Kentucky Cocktail"
(Belgium 1992)
Considering the fact that they've been my declared favorite band for well over a decade, it's a wonder I don't write about Pavement that often. I guess I'm afraid my levels of enthusiasm will make me sound foolish or something. So I'll go for understatement here when I say that this stuff is still tremendously appealing. Gary Young as the frazzled old hippy, Steve Malkmus as the dickish task master, it just all fits the oral history to a tee. When they start playing it's shockingly heavy, yet impossibly casual. And perfect, really. Not by any technical definition that you could quantify, but still. A magic trick I've studied from all angles on loop without making any progress towards unlocking.
See what I mean? I could break out into a sonnet at any moment, if I'm not careful.
Let me just end on a note about the song in question, "Kentucky Cocktail". I always regard with great respect bands who save very high quality material for special circumstances, like the late John Peel's show, for example. Though it's not quite as sublime as its Peel Session brother "Circa 1762," "Kentucky Cocktail" was clearly an album quality composition. To be willing to toss such a song away, to turn it into a footnote for the trainspotters...well that kind of supremely confident nonchalance is kind of inspiring still.
Pavement - "Kentucky Cocktail" (John Peel session)
Posted by Jeff Klingman at May 30, 2007 02:30 AM
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