13 Songs: 1989 Reconsidered

Revised January 2, 2011

Star Maker Machine recently spent a week profiling songs from 1989. I failed to contribute, despite the fact I had a song picked out, and fought for the theme. What can I say? My jackasseritis flared up. In fact, 1989 had a profound impact on me. That was the year I started DJing at KCSC, Chico State's campus radio station (see flyer below), and discovered so much greatness in the vast American rock 'n' roll underground. It was like seeing in color for the first time. Music didn't suck, popular music sucked. Worst. Drum. Sound. Ever. My arch-nemesis, the synthesizer. Always with the synthesizer. And that horribly compressed production style best described as Footloosey. Lies, damnedable lies.

KCSC showed me that living, breathing, cursing, laughing, traveling 400 miles to a gig rock 'n' roll was alive and well and possibly drunk in localized niches throughout the country. Our band could be your life. The unheard music. I got it and lots of other people got it, in lots of other niches, like a web, or perhaps a net of interconnectedness. It was 1989, the calm before the swarm. Life was good.

Joq Blox: A week when DJs spent an hour featuring a single band. Pretty eclectic list of artists. Impressive. (Click to enlarge.)

Chico was an underrated hub in the west coast's network of punk rock venues and college towns. Bands from Seattle and Portland could play to a good crowd in Chico on a Thursday, and then go to the Bay Area and/or Los Angeles for the weekend. We were a much better option than Sacramento (Excremento, ugh), and a half-day's drive from the Bay Area. The Burro Room (aka Hey Juan's, aka Juanita's) was Chico's premier venue ... and by "premier" I mean a pair of conjoined dives. One side served decent Mexican food and cheap beer, the other side had music, and the whole building is in the pantheon with The Chukker and Sam's Town Point. The constant influx of touring bands helped nurture Chico's music scene into a kind of "Athens West," led by bands like 28th Day, Vomit Launch, and The Downsiders.

• Read Chico Rock City: The News & Review's look at 30 years of Chico music, from 1977-2007. Good stuff, accessible even to outsiders.

What follows are the 13 songs that best sum up my 1989. Experiencing a lot of this music at the grassroots level obviously made an impact. These were acts I played on the radio and were among my favorites to see live. If the list seems overwhelmingly young, male, and guitar-driven, I plead guilty. That's how 1989 sounded when I was young, male, and guitar-driven. For the record, the list is unranked and I didn't limit myself to 10. I thought having the songs flow together was more important than the ranking, which could change by day's end. Also, 1989 was too good a year to have only 10 cuts, and this way I get to make a clever segue to my first band.

13 SONGS: 1989 RECONSIDERED
Download 13-song playlist (50 mB)

Fugazi - Waiting Room [buy]

Technically, this first appeared in 1988 on Fugazi's self-titled debut EP. However, I didn't hear it until the following year when 13 Songs was released. Consider it a transition piece between 1988 and '89. The opening sequence is like the Jaws theme, mainly due to Joe Lally's Hall of Fame bassline. Fugazi's first song remained a kind of template for the rest of their career: Lurching, undulating rhythms, intense dynamics, and feather-sledgehammer vocal parts (Ian MacKaye's hammer leading the way here). Fucking epic.

Public Enemy - Fight The Power [buy]

"1989 the number!
Another summer (Get down!)
Sound of the funky drummer!"

Public Enemy and The Bomb Squad at the height of their powers. Brutal, abrasive, cacophonous, and swings with James Brown's hard, late '60s funk. Seriously, does any hip-hop act have a better 4-year peak than PE from 1988-92? Doubtful.

Operation Ivy - Unity [buy]

It might help to be 20 years old, but I still love this. Operation Ivy was one of the few bands to master the perilous ska-punk zone of suck. Jesse Michaels and Tim "Lint" Armstrong (both pictured right) were great singers and their lyrics were clever and brash. But, the real key to Op Ivy was the fact that Armstrong (guitar), Matt Freeman (bass), and Dave Mello (drums) were a killer, hard swinging power trio. Hard to believe they existed for only 24 months (May '87-May '89). Armstrong and Freeman later went on to form Rancid, who, to their credit, built a mini-empire from the ashes of Op Ivy.

Beastie Boys - Johnny Ryall [buy]

Of all the albums released 20 years ago, Paul's Boutique stands tallest. It's a tour de force of sampling, song construction, pop culture deconstruction, rope-a-dope imagination, and having more rhymes than JD's got Salinger. And it couldn't even be made today because of legal knots pulling at the residuals. All I'm saying is, any album that has me considering the $130 "20th Anniversary Commemorative Package" has to be top shelf.

• Read Deconstructing Johnny Ryall, originally posted April 28, 2010

Maria McKee - Drinkin' In My Sunday Dress [buy]

This is the Maria McKee I want cloned and kept in a vault. That Voice, plus her spirited appreciation for classic roots music from Hank Williams to X is/was a potent combination. Unfortunately, the woman who could've been the cowpunk Patsy Cline was knee deep in her Stevie Nicks phase in 1989. Thankfully, "Sunday Dress" escaped the industry's lacy, twirling subterfuge. It pays stylistic homage to the heady early days of Lone Justice and looks ahead to 1993's outstanding You Gotta Sin To Get Saved album.

Elvis Costello - Deep Dark Truthful Mirror [buy]

"I had encountered the Dirty Dozen Brass Band a couple of years before (Spike), and it was the first attempt to use people -- to use horns on a record in other than a quite typical R&B pop way. They were a jazz ensemble that came out of the marching band tradition."
--Elvis Costello, in Jazz Times

The Dirty Dozen backup is inspired as Elvis channels Van Morrison channeling Sam Moore (from Sam & Dave). A soulful gem from an underrated album. If Spike was 11-12 songs instead of 15, it would be a timeless classic.

Flat Duo Jets - My Life, My Love [buy]

God bless the Flat Duo Jets. Guitarist/vocalist Dexter Romweber and drummer Crow furiously combined rockabilly, surf music, punk rock (both the music and DIY philosophy), '50s music, Sun Records, and a thousand strange, primitive, mostly southern singles you've never heard of. The blues-infused, guitar-drums setup clearly anticipates White Stripes and Black Keys and the FDJ are an obvious bridge between The Cramps to The Sadies.

Thelonious Monster - For My Lover [buy]

In Tracy Chapman's hands, "For My Lover" is a haunting, cryptic love song. Under the Monster's supervision, "Lover" becomes a junkie's lament like a stowaway from Neil Young's Tonight's The Night LP. Two weeks in jail, $20,000 bail, metaphorical mountain climbing, psychoanalysis, and the things you won't do for love? I'm looking at you, dope. Bob Forrest and Mike Martt share vocal duties, with Martt coming in at, "Everyday I'm psychoanalyzed." One of my favorite Monster songs.

Nirvana - School [buy]

Great riff, great vocal, great song, great excuse for wanton destruction. Am I crazy or do I hear, "You're in high school again," "You're on acid again," and "You're an addict again"? Nirvana rules.

• Read Barney Ties Me to the Chair: Remembering Nirvana, originally posted February 20, 2010

Pixies - Debaser [buy]

The leadoff track from Doolittle and the album many consider the Pixies' masterpiece. I like Steve Albini's dryer, more abrasive production on Surfer Rosa, but Doolittle is a classic and almost a self-contained Greatest Hits.

fIREHOSE - Some Things [buy]

Archetypal fIREHOSE. Everyone gets time to shine, but the various parts all support Ed Crawford's great anthem. Like many of his best tunes, the song is heavily tinged with nostalgia, and has a unique country-rock feel. Of course, when your rhythm section is Mike Watt and George Hurley, unique is par for the course.

I think the fIREHOSE legacy is undervalued. They were a great band, a step down from The Minutemen, sure, but who can't you say that about??? Flyin' The Flannel (1991) is a desert island disc, Ragin' Full On (1986) and fROMOHIO (1989) are filled with great songs, and the Live Totem Pole EP (1992) is an out-of-left-field treat. Great band, an impressive catalog, and almost uniformly brilliant (and fun) on stage. They deserve more love.

Superchunk - Slack Motherfucker [buy]

Superchunk in the very early days, with Chuck "Chunk" Garrison on drums and Jack McCook on guitar. "Slack Motherfucker" sounds like a young band doing an impression of Soul Asylum doing an impression of MC5. Awesome song from a band still a year or two away from finding its sound and entering its prime.

• Read Superchunk: It Is My Life, It Is My Voice, originally published October 19, 2010

Mudhoney - You Got It (Keep It Outta My Face) [buy]

"You give it away like free samples,
But I don't want what anyone can have."

The forgotten band of the "Puget Sound,"
Mudhoney wrote dozens of anthems, toured seven galaxies, were instrumental in breaking Sub Pop in England (opening the floodgates to world domination), and were the legit heirs to both The Stooges and The Sonics, two pillars in the grunge exoskeleton. Like fIREHOSE, I feel like they're a historical footnote and shouldn't be. Every good boy deserves Mudhoney. Let's make it happen ... for the children.

"Reality of being keeps the demon away from the threshold of our Eden."

Prescott Curlywolf - Dignity Of Action [purchase]

We return the mothership to the Curlywolves of Prescott, previously heralded around these parts in appropriately reverential tones. According to my buddy, Ducktaper, Rob Bernard said the lyrics to "Dignity" came from a book of poems written by inmates at an insane asylum. Weird enough for you? What if I told you these inmates were actually ... ZOMBIE CANNIBALS?!?!?!

Send more copsss!

Hear more Prescott.

Rebel Land, Alabam: The Dexateens & Archibalds

--Dexateens playing The Chukker, Tuscaloosa, 1999

Today's post is brought to you by Alabama. Not the band Alabama. The state of Alabama. Heart of Dixie. Birthplace of Hank Williams. The band ... hell, they're way too expensive for The Adios Lounge. Trust me, I've seen the rider and knowing the words to "High Cotton" will only get you so far. Even Randy Owen's goatee gets its own dressing room and NO BROWN M&MS!

So, let us pilot the Tardis to 1999, setting general course for Tuscaloosa, Alabama, specific coordinates for The Chukker. The Chukker, now defunct, was the shitty little bar that could, the kind of place where you'd get a contact high after 10 minutes on the back patio ... er, "beer garden" ... then walk back inside to see a dude with a table on his face. The only place residing in a more colorful parallel universe is Sam's Town Point (pictured below) in south Austin. Sam's is a doublewide/bar/venue/family compound and the only place I've ever been prompted to ask, "Hey, who's the hot one-armed chick?" True story. We're talking pantheon level quality.

On this particular night in May 1999, The Chukker was hosting two bands bringing the MC5-meets-Motorhead heavy ordnance: The Hellacopters and The Quadrajets. The Copters were touring behind their third album, Grande Rock, and The Quadrajets were proving that not everything coming out of Auburn sucked.

The opening band that night, the Dexateens, were locals whose drummer, "Sweet Dog" (aka "The Midnight Mayor of Tuscaloosa"), was a student of mine in American Studies. I think the picture at the top of the page is from this show, but that could be a false memory. I do remember thinking that this was a tough bill for a young band because the Hellacopters and Quadrajets circa '99 didn't fuck around. They brought the no-bullshit sledgehammer rock for three hours. I was impressed that the Dexateens didn't allow themselves to be intimidated by that, or at least didn't show it. They tried very hard to be very good, and fell short, but had fun and definitely didn't suck. You could see the quality in there, trying to get out.

"A lot of people don't realize what's really going on. They view life as a bunch of unconnected incidents and things. They don't realize that there's this, like, lattice of coincidence that lays on top of everything. Give you an example, show you what I mean. Suppose you're thinkin' about a plate of shrimp. Suddenly, someone'll say, like, "plate," or "shrimp," or "plate of shrimp," out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconsciousness."
--Tracey Walter as Miller in Repo Man

By coincidence, another student of mine was at that show, a likable young waif named Joey Thompson. He was friends with the Dexateens and starting to write songs and play out. In fact, a few years after this show, just before emigrating from Tuscaloosa to Austin ... the same trip I made the year after that Chukker show ... he recorded a batch of songs with Sweet Dog and Elliott McPherson, Dexateens' singer/guitarist. The session was with Robbie Kirk at T-Town's 600 Studios, the same producer and same room where the Dexateens cut their self-titled debut and its amazing follow-up, Red Dust Rising.

Maybe it was coincidence, but it was in this period, roughly 2004-07, that Thompson's songs, like those of Dexateen songwriters, McPherson (second from left) and John Smith (far left), began drawing inspiration from a life spent in Alabama. The state became both a geographic location and a narrative entity. Thompson, despite (and probably because of) living in Texas, named his new band, The Archibalds, in honor of Northport's slap-your-mama-good BBQ joint (pictured below right) and titled their first record, O Camellia, after Bama's state flower. Alabama looms large in several Dexateens' songs, including "Red Dust Rising" (duh), "Take Me To The Speedway" (which we'll get to), "Pine Belt Blues" (which we'll also get to), and "Freight Train."

Dexateens - Freight Train [purchase]

"How's the Crimson Tide gonna cleanse me, by and by?"

Is it coincidence that the Dexateens and Archibalds released two of my favorite albums from the past year, Lost And Found from the former, Easy Living from the latter? Fact is, I openly root for these bands because of our shared history. It's a connection to an era when Tuscaloosa could fall back on The Chukker, Vinyl Solution, and Shaun Alexander in The Swamp. Once you Roll Tide, you don't backslide.

Intersecting chronology aside, the Dexateens have developed into one of the flat-out best live bands in the country and are maybe a year away from entering the rarefied Uncle Tupelo, Faces, Replacements territory. It also doesn't hurt that you can download Lost And Found for free from their website. Of course, that works both ways. We should be living in a world where the Dexateens make money releasing every album on 180 gram vinyl and some combination of CDs and iTunes. L&F was free because there wasn't another financial option that made sense and that has to be a bitter pill.

The Archibalds haven't been around long enough to get bitter. In some ways, they remind me of the Dexateens circa 2003-04. Right on the cusp of the next level, discovering what works and what doesn't, and getting the band telepathy on lockdown. Easy Living is a great album, but it's only a beginning. Like the Dexateens, coincidentally, The Archibalds have yet to face down the long-term touring issue. That might be the final level for both bands, who knows?

The lattice of coincidence will strike you dumb, winding its way backwards to a seemingly insignificant night until finally revealing its wisdom. If nothing else, it proves my theory that everything you need to know about life you can learn from Repo Man. Just thinking about it makes me hungry. Plate of shrimp, anyone???

RAISE YOUR FIST UP TO OLD HANNAH

Archibalds - Sinking Ships [Download]

Austin Powell nails it in his Austin Chronicle review of Easy Living, comparing The Archibalds to "the Gourds and Beck's early slacker raps." I think that's pretty accurate. Thompson's songwriting occasionally ventures into the funky acoustic country-blues of One Foot In The Grave and Mellow Gold, and the band mines a folk-country-soul hybrid familiar to Gourds fans, detouring through everything from bluegrass to hip-hop.

"Sinking Ships" comes from The Archibalds' debut, O Camellia, an album of songs paying homage to Sulphur Creek, Elk River, boll weevils, and yes, high cotton. Musically, the song is zydekin to The Gourds' "County Orange," what with its accordion lead and acoustic guitar push-push. I like how the baritone sax and trumpet ride on top of the accordion, forming a counterpoint to the vocal harmonies. In fact, there's a great syncopation between the different harmonic elements, and the whole shootin' match is pulled along by Thompson's driving acoustic guitar. Unpretentious, white-buckled anarchy with a side of white barbecue sauce.

Archibalds - Hood Rats [purchase]

One of the best songs on Easy Living is weaponized by Seth Gibbs (pictured far right). His bass is the song's anchor point, especially when he starts walking the dog in the chorus. Who does he think he is, Paul McCartney on loan from 1969? Actually, Thompson (Mr. Fancypants in the mirrored shades) gives the song almost a Ray Davies vibe, in its steady lilt, understated, yet assured narrative voice, and even in the unexpected use of a flute to double the main riff.

Archibalds - The Choir [purchase]

"Gospel train caught in the rain,
Loaded down for 40 days,
While the choir's softly singing."

Soulful, churchgoing funk, "The Choir" would make Bobby Charles and Doug Sahm proud they'd written it ... and you're reading one of the biggest Sahm fans of all-time. It's carried along by a great melody and keyboard riff, the vocals and vocal harmonies are outstanding, Gibbs' bass sweeps all over the joint (in this case like Jimmy Smith of The Gourds), I love that killer overdriven harmonica solo, and though it would SO easy to overreach in any respect, the song maintains a simple dignity. I'm just sayin', it's a slippery slope to "I Want To Know What Love Is" and I'm glad to see The Archibalds display fundamentally sound defense.

Check out:
Archibalds on MySpace
Archibalds on YouTube

TAKE ME TO THE SPEEDWAY

"When I first met this band they wanted to record a record ... trouble was, I had already recorded that record with The Quadrajets. Don’t get me wrong, they did an amazing version of The Quadrajets, but they weren't being completely true to themselves and I think deep down, they knew it. 'Cardboard Hearts' was the first tune that showed something else was going on deeper here. It sounded sort of like what the Meat Puppets might have sounded like if they had come from the south and not the southwest. (The Dexateens) hadn't realized yet that being yourself IS and will always be COOL. I guess I just happened to be the one to come along at the right time to plant the seed. Country + punk + early ‘70s rock … well, If YOU like it, who cares what anybody else thinks?"
--Tim Kerr, testifying on the Dexateens website

Dexateens - Pine Belt Blues [purchase]

"Pine Belt" isn't simply James Gang awesome, it contains 27 separate levels of Alabama Whup Ass.

Dexateens - Take Me To The Speedway [purchase]

"Take me to the speedway,
Drive me through the red clay,
We'll just go in circles everyday."

The songwriting development of McPherson and Smith owes a lot to Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley of the Drive-By Truckers, whose own embrace of the redneck diaspora and the attendant Alabama mythology must've been an influence. The band even enlisted Hood as co-producer for their 2007 album, Hardwire Healing. All that said, "Take Me To The Speedway," from the Dexateens' breakthrough second album, Red Dust Rising, is fucking epic independent of its referent sources. Great build, huge cascading guitar parts, it's like John Fogerty getting "Cortez The Killer" in a headlock made of tequila shots. Other bands should fear this song.

Dexateens - Own Thing [purchase]

If I'm ever listening to a song and the words Exile On Main Street come into my head, an angel gets his wings. Little known fact. This tune sounds like something Rod Stewart should be singing with The Faces ... in 1971. I love how the drums come in at :50, set apart from the rest of the band, who apparently were recording in a bathysphere. Awesome effect.

Dexateens - Slender Thread [download for free!]

"Everyday people got to hustle some cover,
From the bombs that you're dropping out the aeroplane,
Folks will remember what you told 'em tomorrow,
And hold it up to what you told 'em yesterday."

This one also reminds me of the Stones, but from their underrated 1965-67 period with Brian Jones at his most focused (think "I'm Free" through Between The Buttons). Mostly written by Smith (pictured left), "Slender Thread" is damn near a pop song, but with a great electric guitar lead and scathing lyrical content.

Dexateens - Sweet Little Loser [download for free!]

Another Exile rip, it also reminds me of that first Izzy Stradlin album and all that I love about Hollywood Town Hall-era Jayhawks. Blissfully great harmonies, sweet guitar lead, what country music and rock music should sound like more often.

Lyrics, songwriting, and discussions of artistic growth aside, the Dexateens are first and foremost a balls-out monster live band and their greatness needs to be filtered through that fact. To wit:

DEXATEENS - NAKED GROUND



The Drive-By Truckers have had the Dexateens open many shows for many years. While The Truckers are bigger in the public consciousness, have established themselves as a viable road act, and can hold their own in the volume department, I'd hate to be anyone following the Dexateens right now. Pound-for-pound, I think they're the best rock 'n' roll band in the country and you better bring your A+ game if you expect to follow their tornadic activity. Supposedly, the Dexateens are on the road with Lucero. Poor Lucero. When that tour ends, you'll have to identify them by dental records.

Dexateens - Magdelene
(Recorded January 12, 2008 @ 40 Watt Club, Athens, GA)

While you can still hear echoes of the Meat Puppets, this track is right in The Neckbones' wheelhouse. You wanna talk about all-time great southern rock bands? You don't have to go very far down the list before you reach The Neckbones. In fact, consider them in the short queue for upcoming Adios Lounge topics. "Magdelene" doesn't simply bring the badass rock 'n' roll ninjitsu. What makes this track particularly memorable is the very ending, after the band finishes and the Dexateens unexpectedly rock the T-Town pride. Remember, this set was in Athens, home to the University of Georgia, a fairly staunch SEC rival. That's Smith teaching the Bulldogs to behave with the virtuoso crowd taunt. "ROOOOOOOLL TIDE, ROLL!!!" Awesome. I love how the crowd is momentarily stunned by the sheer heft of balls before heaping abuse on the band.

Roll Tide, bitches.

Check out:
Dexateens website
Dexateens on MySpace
Dexateens on YouTube