Today I post an early –and welp, a wee bit embarrassing– early bit of writing from the earrrrly days of Pitchfork (back when typing out “Pitchfork.com” in your address bar still took you to a farming supply webpage) that I thought had been lost forever.
Once upon a time, Pitchfork had a short-lived recurring feature about mixtapes –in the short-lived features/ singles section called “We Are the World” for the historians at home– and I know I had a doozy. It was a mixtape made my senior year in high school that I now had occasion to revisit and re-remember just what was on the thing ten years later. At that point of time, mixtapes seemed to verge on the obsolete. No doubt everyone was pivoting to Winamp playlists and burned CDrs, which have certainly weathered the sands of time.
But no amount of searching on the site or in the Wayback Machine could turn it up. (PFK archives in general are sort of a hot mess.) At one point, I even asked Ryan Pitchfork if it might be on an old hard drive, but that was probably right around the time he peaced out. And then last month, some five years after that email, he hollered back:
This wasn't backed up on a hard drive and never made it to our "We Are The World" section's archive page. It appear to have been one of the last entries in that section before it was retired.
The column was dated February 17th, 2003.
One of the other reasons my mind has yearned to track down this piece isn’t to do with archival complete-ism or narcissism about having my every scrap of writing or anything like that available online. Sometime in early 2022, my old friend Marshall took his own life. We weren’t in touch much the past few years, but sent a few emails during the height of the pandemic. Naturally, the relationship had shifted from wide-eyed high school kid idolizing a punk guitarist to us just being two fathers stringing it together as best we could. His kids were nearing the end of high school on the West Coast while I was deep in the trenches of early childhood in NYC. My lone trip out to see them in Oregon I remember fondly, as I was introduced to the wonders of kombucha and Dave’s Killer Bread. I believe we even took in an acoustic Millions of Dead Cops show featuring Dave Dahl himself playing at some vegan grocery store in the woods that we rode bikes to. (Oregon in a single sentence.)
I don’t even need to turn and glance at the wall of records behind me to know that Marshall’s deep love of music in all its forms and locales kindled in me my own curiosity and questing for new sounds. I learned so much from him and his example and still mourn his passing two years later. As I wrote then and feel even more now: “the more open you are, the better.”
Without further ado, The Lost Mixtape #4:
Winter break, December of '93, and R, my best friend in high school, was house-sitting for one of our idols: Marshall Gause, the guitarist from our favorite band ever, El Santo. The record collection in that apartment was astounding, and we scarcely knew where to dig in, much less what to check out. Things were still up for grabs in those heady, post-Nevermind days, and not knowing anything was a crucial attribute when it came to music. The more open you were, the better.
Lucky for us, we had some big sacks of Mexi-schwag to help fuel our curious, curatorial fires, which helped the music go down easy as we dug through the stacks, picking stuff out at random or by cover art, then putting it all on tape. It would be years before I realized who some of these people were, or if they had more than one good song in 'em; in fact it wasn't until I dug this tape back up that I realized what a template –and future burden on my expense accounts– it was. It led me to enjoy and juxtapose different genres, whether they tied together or not, even if they killed vibes: By mere proxy, everything began to make stoned sense.
>>Side B
(In a fit of inspired stoner genius, both sides of the tape are Side B, with similarly torn labels so it's impossible to tell which side is which. This is the first side I laid to chrome though.)
Pere Ubu: "Navvy"
The only Ubu song I knew for awhile, a bright spastic jumper about "these arms and legs they flip-flop flip-flop." It wasn't until later that I found out they were dark, dubbed out, wiry, and savagely rocking, too –on the same side of the record no less– with incredible synth jags and weird tape distortions. Dub Housing is my favorite Pere Ubu record.The Groundhogs: "Shake It"
Is this the same band of power seventies action with Joe McPhee? Can't tell. It was on some English white blues comp, so, maybe. "Shake 'Em Down" is a clackity post-Yardbirds take on a Mississippi Fred MacDowell standard run at a very clipped pace. The guitar and harmonica breathe and vibrate nicely, but once you hear the original, with the wax paper'n comb, there's no going back.Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers: "She's Gone"
Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers: "Walking the Ceiling"
Taylor's playing a $12 guitar with a slide made from the leg of a chair, and the drums sound twined together, ready to fall apart on each hit. Raw, loose slide blues from Chicago. We saw the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion on their first tour during my senior year: He always played with his leg on a chair, and when Roy Montgomery came to the States he was looking for a guitar just like Hound Dog's. It took a long time before I realized the name game here and above.Interlude: One of those Sesame Street records beat to shit. Grover shrinks and crawls all over the little kids listening to this; it's an excellent front for pedophilia. This copy starts to skip on the line "Here I go, walking down between your eyes, down between your eyes, down between your eyes..." over some dinky piano loop. It's just begging to be a Luke Vibert sample.
Rollins Band: "Earache My Eye"
Rollins saved R's life: He single-handedly held up a teetering amp stack that was about to fall on him. I still wonder how much muscle mass affects irony...Call it the Joe Piscopo Effect (note to self: cancel gym membership). No, they don't have the "Hey man, you ruined my record, I just bought it" bit either.NRBQ featuring Captain Lou Albano: "Captain Lou"
Ahh, how great is this one? A wonderful pop number about the wrestling icon, way before Cyndi Lauper found Manic Panic and put him in her first video. It's hard to convince kids who know nothing prior to the WWF how punk-rock wrestling actually was in the seventies. Richard Meltzer talks at length about it in his books. At the end of this , Cap'n Lou comes in with a gravelly rant about percentages that is sheer, glorious nonsense. Might be the highlight of the tape.Dan Hicks: "Cloud My Sunny Mood"
A soundtrack for a lost Ralph Bakshi toon; breezy and jazzy, all about being down. His nonchalant wavering reminds me of J. Mascis way back when; his stuff with the Hot Licks can be silly, tight, and a real humdinger in the right mood, like Raymond Scott Orchestra. A hard record to find.Interlude: Having stoner fun with the video input on the amp. Snippets of cable staples like The People's Court, a Metallica solo, infomercial keyboards, movie dialogue, etc.
No Means No: "The Day that Everything Became Nothing (live)"
How forgotten are the Wrong Brothers? Just bass and drums, before Ruins, Lightning Bolt, etc. They were a huge influence on all the tight Austin prog-punk bands we absolutely worshipped at the time: Gut, Big Horny Hustler, and Multitude of the Slothful. There's at least ten parts to this; it might be the only song of theirs I know.Todd Rundgren: "Intro/ Breathless"
Weird, analog noise demonstration: "P-P-Peas p-p-popping", then it cuts into a wah organ and drum machine workout that was totally cheesy back then. It's still catchy as all get out, and dizzy in its chop-flash. I had no idea he had pop stuff like "Bang on the Drum All Day" or "I Saw the Light" until much later, I thought it was all this Zappa instrumental goofiness.Art Blakey: "Caravan"
Since my man R was a drummer himself, he suggested this one. Standard big jazz horn lines, but Blakey's supreme chops make it pop. Wayne Shorter might be on it, but it's one of those I could never remember the title of.Talking Heads: "Thank You for Sending Me An Angel"
I was never into this band, regardless of my friend's efforts to indoctrinate me. I even scoffed at their #2 spot on Pitchfork's Top 100 Of The 80s list. I like the military march of the drums, the funk interlocking with the bass, and the highlife guitar break. Byrne's voice is like David Thomas' too, so, what's for me not to like?Jawbox: "Jackpot Plus"
I think this might've been their major label single, but maybe it was the flipside. No, it's a split with Tar, and the band names are writ upon some gent's forehead. While it moves and elevates well enough, and would've got me jumping at one of their shows, the screamo vocals barely fit in the bars and it bugs me. I would scarcely, if ever, revisit this stuff now.Royal Trux: "Back To School"
Not one of Marshall's records, but since I'd just picked it up, I threw it on while cruising in the Montero jeep. Man, did this ever soundtrack my senior year. Up through Cats and Dogs, the Trux could do no wrong, and they never felt quite right again. Sad, trippy, groovy, through a glass darkly, the Kramer-enhanced feeling of this one song could sum up the totality of feelings I have hearing this tape again, nearly ten years on. "It's an education every day."William Shatner: "Mr. Tambourine Man"
Vying with Mrs. Miller-- or perhaps Jandek-- for Most In(s)ane delivery of the English language, this is as beguiling as a bloody car crash. I sped it up so as to fill up the end of the tape; the dramatic nuances get lost a bit.I’ll post the other Side B tomorrow.