FROM THE CRATES #3

Part 3 of my journey pricing our stacks of used 7-inch records. In my walk through our wax museum of recorded sound, sometimes I find things I need to share – so here we are. This is “From the Crates.”

 








BAND: Holdstrong
TRACKS:
A1 Illumination
A2 Butterknife
B1 Taken
B2 All Hope Abandoned
LABEL: Pin Drop Records
  

THE BAND 
Holden, Massachusetts. Worcester County. 1990’s.
See hills, rivers, trees. See white-painted wood arranged into churches. See single story, mute-colored houses folded into deadbrush and thin river birch along Route 122A. See neoclassical architecture asserting the sophistication of all 15,000 who inhabit the town.
Hear hardcore music.
Holdstrong emerged from Holden in ‘93, releasing their 7-inch, Gaining Ground (PDR01) as the flagship of their “then vanity-but soon to be legit” record label, Pin Drop Records. Orbiting around drummer, Matt Myrdal and guitarist Bill Cole, the band shuffled through numerous lineup changes whilst scratching themselves hard into the grain of the local hardcore circuit. After years of local touring, the band settled into a somewhat stable lineup including vocalist Chris Berthiaume and bassist Tim Carlson with whom they released their first full-length CD, Nothing In Return (PDR04). Tack on a 2nd guitarist, a few more releases, and two fairly successful national tours and you’ve just about covered the bulk of Holdstrong’s career which came to a close around 2000.

THE LABEL
Said to have been founded by Holdstrong guitarist, Bill Cole, Pin Drop records proudly displayed their motto “Hardcore since day one” on their spartan, no-frills webpage. The label currently has their original website (now inactive) preserved in a fan-made online archive where you can click around and see what was going on circa 2000. Pin Drop’s roster included, Holdstrong, In Reach, Die My Will, Fragment, Grimlock, Polyglot, Fall From Grace, and Crosscurrent.

THE MUSIC
Holdstrong’s sound developed after soaking up a decades worth of Massachusetts hardcore. That being said, Gaining Ground sounds nuanced - partly due to Holden’s location. Seated almost in the middle of the state, Worcester county is often folded in (geographically and culturally) with Western Massachusetts. This explains why in Gaining Ground you hear a tug of war between the knife-edge violence of Boston’s scene cut with the slightly less aggro Western Massachusetts sound (Deep Wound etc). I am a particular fan of the springy bass lines that weave throughout the record, specifically in “Taken.”
Berthiaume’s vocals attest to the hardcore style but the double-bass-heavy drums and deep, sinister edge to the guitar distortion lean more towards the metalcore sound that hit stride less than a decade later.

It’s a good listen...so come in the shop and check it out!

FROM THE CRATES #2

Part 2 of my journey pricing our stacks of used 7-inch records. In my walk through our wax museum of recorded sound, sometimes I find things I need to share – so here we are. This is “From the Crates.” 

BAND: The Deist’s Pouch
TRACKS:
 A-side – “Everybody’s Got a Pouch”
 B-Side – “Backsliding Deist’s Prayer”
LABEL: Sommerweg

The story behind the Deist's Pouch begins with a car accident and the first law of thermodynamics. When singer and songwriter Vic Chesnutt got into a car wreck that left him mostly paralyzed at age 18, whatever energy present in his life was not destroyed but transformed into what would become a prolific music career, just as vibrant as it was tragic.

I’ll admit it was the album art that caught my attention. Staring at the monochromatic, bright green picture of a group of kids – one of them (perhaps Chesnutt himself) frowning straight into the camera - I had a gut feeling there was something important here. The Deist’s Pouch, a side project of Chesnutt's, was recorded in 2003 at Fried Sound Studio in what discogs describes as "a one-off jam session of members of [Vic Chesnutt], Lambchop and Calexico," two of Chesnutt's frequent collaborating bands. By this point in his career Chesnutt was firmly established in the underground rock scene with eight records under his belt (two of which were produced by REM’s Michael Stipe) and a slew of collaborations including a tribute album in '96 featuring Garbage, REM, Smashing Pumpkins and more.
The record was released off of Sommerweg Records, an obscure, now defunct German label whose few releases were primarily underground American groups including Barbara Manning & The Go-Luckys!, Bruces,  John Convertino, and Mountaineer.

The sound of this 45 reflects the much of Chesnutt's material; introspective lyrical profundity paired with his signature simple, folk-based chords - a sound partially determined by his limited physical capabilities after the car wreck and partially from his grandpa’s guitar lessons during Vic's early years in Athens, Georgia. In a 2009 interview with Fresh Air, Chesnutt stated, "My granddaddy, he would show me the chords to ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’ in G, and then we would play that song for an hour without stopping...and then a week later, we would come, and we would do, okay, ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’ in A flat...and we did it until we played all 11 keys, and that was it." It was his grandpa’s “guitar-does-well-tempered clavier’” instruction that instilled in Chesnutt the very chops that carried through his life. In the very same interview, then collaborator Guy Picciotto (Fugazi) described Chesnutt's sound, "There's so much in Vic's chordings, and there's so much in his melodies that you can also build on top of them...his music is the foundation, and it can support a lot of architecture." Picciotto's description in 2009 rings true in the material in the Deist's Pouch in ‘03. The two tracks stand as chiseled achievements in folk rock structure.

After hours of searching I can’t find ANY recordings available for streaming online, but you’ll have to trust me when I say these tracks are great. Interested? Come into the shop and we’ll put the record on for you!

FROM THE CRATES

PREAMBLE: So Neil takes me aside and says, “Intern Ted, you see these MASSIVE shelves packed with old 7-inches? Yeahhh, I’m gonna need you to go ahead and price them. All of them. Kbye!”

Here I’ve been since - sorting, sifting and pricing my way through a deluge of used wax.
The upside? It’s awesome.
In between the Donny Osmond and the Chaka Khan, we’ve got some really rad, rare, and fascinating vinyl here. So rad and rare in fact, that I have to share some with you. This is From the Crates.

BAND: Medium Medium
TRACK: “Hungry, So Angry”
LABEL: Cherry Red Records

Emerging from Nottingham, England – a town known for its bicycle industry, tobacco industry and yes – Robinhood, Medium Medium was an offshoot from an earlier punk project, The Press. The Band released their freshman single in 1979 – but what we have here is their second single, which surfaced in 1981. Fun fact: it was actually the first signing from Cherry Red Record’s then A&R, Mike Always. The song’s “new wave does dance funk” sound was light enough on its feet to soar across the pond and into the ears of the American alt-radio scene – even cracking the Billboard Top 50. “Hungry, So Angry” gave Medium Medium their first (and unfortunately their last) real jolt of notoriety. After the initial success and a U.S. tour the band was unable to keep momentum, eventually falling off the map after a unanimously rejected attempt at a full LP in ‘82. 

About the song: This song is tight. I wonder if they’d been listening to Fear of Music while writing the song - you get a definite Talking Head’s vibe between the chorus-heavy disco rhythms of the guitar and front-person John Reese Lewis’ Byrne-esque vocal mimicry. The band is often compared to contemporaries, Gang of Four, which makes sense as both lay claim to the dance/funk/punk sounds in the transitional space between new wave and post-punk. The song rests primarily on a bass and drum groove with the guitar adding half-muted, stuttering rhythmic slam-strums on top. The whole thing is sandwiched between raunchy, wailing saxophone solos provided by singer, Lewis. Alan Turton’s bass groove is the real standout, taking its cues directly from slap-style funk bass.
Lyrically we’re met with dense lines describing the struggle resulting from the semipermeable barrier between an artist’s work and personal life. After an initial intimate revelation, Lewis sings, “And I write this down, You stare at the ground,” adding, “It’ll embarrass you, ‘cause you hate the way I had to write this down.” In an artist’s compulsory search for truth, where does he draw his personal lines? Or is all fair game in love, war, and art?
Give it a listen - and come find it in the shop!