33 rebellions per minute
"Agitate, agitate, purify, sterilize, rinse it out, spin a while, tumble dry low"
1993
Icemakers Of The Revolution, FISHEYE FRENZY
When buying cheap albums by artists you've never heard of, there are more good strategies than you might, casually, assume. First, finding a promising band name is a nice start. My own tastes run to names like Squonk Opera, Maestro Subgum, Rise Robots Rise, Icemakers Of The Revolution, hinting at an intelligent eccentricity such as I enjoy in the music inside. My Mom tends more to buy bands named after children's literature (Railway Children, Beyond Zebra, Phantom Tollbooth), or names suggesting childlike simplicity and sense of wonder, as simple as Eggstone, the Rain People, the Children, or Something Happens!. If your tastes are more aggressive and hostile, you'd have good odds trying bands with names like Napalm Death, Alien Sex Fiend, Morbid Angel, Death Angel, Napalm Sex. Band names can be chosen with remarkable casualness, to be sure-- I am very glad R.E.M. decided against naming themselves "Cans Of Piss"-- and there is plenty of room to go wrong on this cue alone. Ned's Atomic Dustbin played a fairly generic indie-rock swirl and peaked (lyrically and musically) with a Bay City Rollers cover. The Phantom Tollbooth were harsh and grating. Fuck play breezily erratic mistuned guitar pop. But more names indicate musical direction than lie, in my experience.
The next step would be checking the song titles for confirmation. For example, I bought Icemakers Of The Revolution's FISHEYE FRENZY as the free album of a buy-three, get-one-free deal, and it was an initial tossup between that and Walking On Einstein's COMMONERS AMONG THE MASSES (which might, to be sure, be brilliant after all, were I to go back and try it). W.O.E.'s song titles sounded fairly ordinary, though: a hint that their name and album title were a single flash of inspiration, or a gift from a friend? Better to choose an album with titles like "Levee Coin-Op", "Jon's Pickup", "Odd Fellows/ Birmingham", "Old Insulation" among the more ordinary sounding efforts. This is not because dull titles can't conceal fascinating ideas, but indeed because they can-- and are more likely too when surrounded by titles in which the imagination shines through. If Richard Marx wrote songs called "Walt" or "Where I Stand", they would be cliched; the Icemakers were clearly a band capable of infusing spirit into them.
Cue #3 is whether you like the album artwork. Partly this is subjective, again: the colorful archaeological-dig-as-art cover of FISHEYE FRENZY is just my style, you might prefer abstract modernism or gleaming death skulls or childlike drawings. I also like the good-times bohemianism of the band photo, implying musical playfulness and good cheer; some music fans hate playful good cheer and say mean things about They Might Be Giants wherever possible. Style aside, it is my experience that a band which cares about its package, and puts artistic effort into it, is usually one which puts effort into the music.
There is one cue, however, that I recommend generally, once you've already had your attention grabbed. If a band has at least one unconventional rock instrument-- a second drummer, a violinist, a flautist, a vibraphonist-- take notice; if it has two or more, and not necessarily ones that go well with each other, risk the money. This is not because wonderful music can't be made with a bass/ guitar/ drums lineup; the Sex Pistols and U2 and XTC and R.E.M. and the Dead Kennedys and Metallica and Dan Bern have all proved to my satisfaction, at least for an album or two, that the power trio is all a talented bunch of people need to be mesmerising. The problem is that, through historical accident more than anything, bass/ guitar/ drums is the generic, average lineup. People who mainly want to look hot for the chicks (or the boys) are well-advised to learn those instruments and bash out a record. People who want to imitate what they hear on the radio just for the heck of it will use that lineup; maybe add a synthesizer or a piano. Walking On Einstein, a guitar/ bass/ drums trio, might be doing that. I'm in favor of it; I think it's great. But just because making a record is fun for the band, is no reason to assume buying that record will be fun for you. On the other hand, people who bring in extraneous instruments almost always have something in mind. Icemakers of the Revolution, as of 1993, had Stacia Spencer on viola and violin, and Camille Rocha on alto, tenor, and soprano saxes (they also listed C. David Kellam as "percussion", not "drums", which turns out to be significant in this case). If they were just jamming with friends to jam, they'd have taught Stacia and Camille the basic three guitar chords. You only need viola and sax if you want to be interesting. Which doesn't always equal good. But it's a start.
Final note on this theme: if the liner notes list the band's previous two albums, that suggests (doesn't prove) that enough people liked the first two albums that a third one seemed worth the effort. And if a quick glance through the lyrics shows a name-drop of one of your favorite bands, that should seal the to-buy decision. FRENZY's last track, "Dancin' While You Drive", favorably namechecks Maestro Subgum, whose avant-vaudeville classic LOST LOST LOST is, in my opinion, challenged only by the Chrysanthemums' LITTLE FLECKS OF FOAM AROUND BARKING in brilliance-to-sales ratio championship.
Having fully deduced the quality of your newfound discovery and brought it home, it still makes sense to listen to the album itself, of course. "Levee Coin-Op", leading off the album with an a capella chorus about laundry, married an XTC-ish melody to a sprightly, spare arrangment set off by whirring toy percussion. "Jon's Pickup" and "Walt" open with beautifully ringing, undistorted electric guitars, Connells-like; both follow two-stage evolutions to surging, aggressive power-chording. "Odd Fellows"'s spookily atmospheric basslines and African drums remind me of the Red Temple Spirits or the more restrained songs of Tribes With Knives, if either band had made good use of a female harmony singer-- I realize you probably don't know those bands, but trust me, they were well named. "Birmingham"'s assaultive Morse-code rhythm on guitar and bass pair with the only square, stomping, quarter-note snare-drum banging on the album; add in soft feedback whines and dueling saxes, and the overall effect is like U2's "Pride (In The Name Of Love)" must've been right after M.L.K.'s assassination, before time produced perspective (or resignation?). "No Jack" is playfully swaggering blues-rock given mild rhythmic unsettlement by the jazzy bass. "Old Insulation" and "Secrets" enter on tom-toms and bongos and cowbell; but "…Insulation" takes a bassline from Ben E King's "Stand By Me", a sawing violin reminiscent of dEUS's "Suds And Soda", and the slightly bagpipe-y infection of Big Country's guitarist, while "Secrets", just female voice, minor key chorale, and that percussion, could pass for "world music". "Where I Stand" is the hoedown version of THE JOSHUA TREE. "Wild Revolution" is the hoedown version of a hoedown, until a marching bridge, a speech-and-drums verse, and a panoramic detour towards the original style. "Dancin' While You Drive" closes the album with an urgent monologue over a jazz rhythm section.
Unifying the album are four things. Kellam's percussion, choppy and authoritative and mixed to the front, manages every transition crisply in any idiom. Stephen Hartnett's guitar plows a field between electric blues and the Edge. Every song features the folky three-way harmony of Hartnett, Stacia, and Shawny Anderson at some point, regardless of the surrounding vocal parts. And then, there are the lyrics. The viewpoint, I admit, is fairly consistent, whether the subject is housework as oppression, migrant work as oppression, racial beatings as oppression, full-time subpoverty level jobs as oppression, the dominance of bland music as oppression, or, in "Wild Revolution"s animal perspective the human race's existence as oppression: "Wouldn't be so bad if they paid the rent/ wouldn't be so bad if they gave what they spent/ wouldn't be so bad if they'd see the light/ wouldn't be so bad if they didn't bite/ wouldn't be so bad if they didn't cheat us/ wouldn't be so bad if they didn't EAT us". Except, you know, the band photo was right: these guys are having fun. "We all know, the humans gotta go" is a rousing cheer, "Dancin…"'s anti-MTV rant is a relished and proud bit of posturing, and "No Jack"'s chatty and openly pointless story about car trouble is delivered as if it were nothing out of line with the album. "Jon's…" and "Walt" acknowledge beauty and courtesy as much in the lyrics as in the playing. Oppression does exist, it is bad, and it is worth pointing out. But if you let it spoil your capacity for fun, you'd be letting it win.
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