dickl3
Chest Cavity #4 – Demolition Blues
the silence is broken! number four is great! yeah!
chest cavity’s got this great dynamic for rock songs, what some bloated guitar store chumps might call “the classic four piece formula” or something like that. it’s a two-guitar: one guitar doing rhythm, holding the chord progression together, while the other does some sort of lead-style melody over that. chest cavity uses this for a lot of happy/wistful/triumphant rock instrumentals. the closest non-chest cavity example of this i can think of is the las song on gbv’s _alien lanes_ (alright).
demolition blues starts out with one of those, a fragment of a song that goes for like four bars, which is the perfect length in this case. just a nice solid introduction to get you pumping your fist or airguitaring or whatever sick, weird thing it is you do alone in your room to triumphant rock music.
i’ve come to really like the song fragments that show up throughout the series. side b starts with this long string of them, all this little bits of acoustic songs. i can’t help but think of it kind’ve like the who’s “a quick one” you know? a miniature rock opera? but anyway, the song fragment thing is like a decent cliffhanger, or negative space in a painting, or both. just a taste, y’know? an sometimes just a taste is all you need. better to be left wanting more than to be sitting there going “i can has the next song now?”
you maybe get the impression that he just threw a buncha shit down on those tapes without caring much for order. and maybe he did, but in listening to these i’ve always dug on how well put together they are. even when you go from an acoustic instrumental to a bleeding face punk song, there’s an underlying sense of succession. it works.
let’s see, what else? the pop songs, that’s what else. being the true, k recs style teenage sucker for american pop that i am, i like the pop stuff possibly the most out of all chest cavity’s manifestations. on demolition blues, they have this sort of english garage rock / early american rock style thing that’s been going on in olympia and eugene recently [example: the pharmacy]. it’s hard to describe, but if you know what i’m talking about you know what i’m talking about. the songs like that on here– “you’re over there” “fancy words mean nothing” “maybe someday” “just this day” juice the old tearducts real thorough for yours truly. [note: above aren't the real song names. just based on the words. who knows if they have real names? not i.]
those songs really get to me. those and another one, the only one on there with piano. it’s got that same sort of heartbreaking finality as “here come the warm jets” (one of my alltime favrite songs, btw). anyway, good pop music recorded at home is up there for me with girls and icecream and spontaneous poetry. it’s one of the best, most poetic, most straight-to-the-gut emotional indulgence in lonesomeness that i know of. it’s that desperate vibe where your alone in your room at one in the morning with nothing to do and an overabundance of energy and then you go out and walk around but it’s eugene an the streets are empty and then you get even more lonely.
so what’re you guys doing? you have these tapes, right? if not, i think it’s time. twenty bucks is a damn fair asking price. i mean, you could get the new radiohead or whatever and have four bucks leftover for soda, or you could get six tapes worth of punk as fuck (in musical attitude if not always in musical style ) that’ll last you years and years and probably get you through some angst or soda withdrawal.
Chest Cavity #3 – Aftershocks
[can't find the case right now, so I'll post a picture later]
This one, more so than the previous two, brings on the rock. The antecedents were all like “ok, a couple heavy songs, then some mellower stuff, then a couple heavies” and so on. This one is solid heavy, with pockets of mellow.
So let’s discuss the heaviness: like I said before, it’s never repetitious. You don’t feel like “oh, I’ve heard this song on a million punk records” because the shit’s earnest. I was listening to this tape with my dad, and he says “this is oldschool.” It’s true, he pulls off the 80s punk-type stuff really well, and in his own way, and that’s because he’s not trying to cop some style: it speaks to him, and he replies in kind.
This isn’t to disregard the stuff that he does more of the 70s metal school, which is NC. Some of the stuff totally has me thinking thin lizzy.
He’s got a really good lead guitar tone. Nice and sharp. I’ve got a total soft spot for those cutting guitar tones, when done right.
Additionally, he pulls out some more of those pretty punk songs that get me all misty.
OK, now for the highlight section:
- by far the best moment is a short, acoustic song. Nic pulls out this beautiful, high singing voice. At first I was all like “is this a lady singing?” but no, it’s just this beautiful fucking song.
- A very Minutemen-y song, with a cool break in it.
- One that’s got an extended harmonic melody, and reminds me of GbV’s “alright.” It’s got that same kind of happy but kind of sad upbeat rock song vibe to it, that cheap trick epitomizes.
- A lot of really exciting rock stuff. the kind of thing that demands to be cranked.
- He does this song about Eugene that should have been one the songs on “Everything Went Black” which is good: if there’s a song to be written about this damn town, it should sound like Black Flag. There’s even a talking break: “you’re not moving to portland, you’re not traveling to europe . . .”
- The bass playing! Seriously, it’s some of the most well-placed bass played I’ve ever heard. tasteful, tasteful, tasteful. Overall, he organizes the songs really well.
- A total television instrumental.
- A lot of other stuff. It’s hard for me to get everything, what with these things being 90 minutes each.
I’m excited for to check #4
Chest Cavity #2 – Escape
I think it might be safe to say the tapes are chronological. While still jumping around stylistically, “Escape” definately has a more “complete” feel to it. It’s also a bit more serious in ways. The name “Fragile Charm” for the first one makes more sense in a context with the second: the first is much more of a loose congregation of song fragments that could be described as “charming” (all condescension aside, we don’t do that here.)
Most of the songs on Escape are quite long, and relatively formless in a way that has me thinking on many of them “hey, this would be good on a movie sundtrack.” It reminds me of an Eno definition of ambient music: something you can have in the backround without listening to, that sets an environmental mood, but that is also interesting enough when you actually pay attention to what’s going on. Of course, the songs aren’t that formless: they still are sets of specific chord progressions and all that, it’s just that they tend to wander without going anywhere.
This mainly refers to the A side. There’s still a fair amount of energetic rock and pop type songs, recalling for me a range encompassing later Thin Lizzy and the New York Dolls. Nic’s singing is damn, damn good and there, unfortunately, isn’t a lot more singing on Escape than on Fragile Charm. However, that just makes it so much better when he does sing. Well, I guess there’s more singing.
There’s a good deal of seriousness in that “Is This Real” way, like, for instance the first song. Also some good acoustic stuff. Also some of the Dirty Three kind of desert vibe (if you know what I mean?) and one song that is so damn early Judas Priest. Also a really good keyboard song.
Maybe I should start doing this bullet-style:
- A weird ass song with a disco-y (but hey, not crap) rhythm, in a very 80s subdued glam pop way. But it’s not very subdued. And he’s singing like Morrisey (however you spell that doude’s name.)
- A really long song based around a really sort of cute/pretty marsupial acoustic guitar line. I had a good time listening to it walking around in a sunnier moment of this green Eugene Spring.
- I already mentioned the New York Doll’s, but I’ll say it again. If the leads on Fragile Charm reminded me of Cheetah Chrome, then the leads on Escape remind me of Johnny Thunders. This is not to leave unnoticed the Ron Asheton in there.
- A really good song with the line “Rock and Roll never sleeps” (followed by “so why should we.) That line could easily be used for the forces of evil, but Nic does it right. His voice has an earnesty to it that makes it perfect for home-recorded rock.
OK, I don’t want to make this too winded. So far we’re 2 for 2 as far as these things being awesome goes.
Additionally: Nic has seen the first review, and I think has some corrections on some of my assumptions (I coulda just asked the guy in the first place) so expect for the next one, in addition to the same old same old, a good helping of Truth.
For instance: he’s actually selling them, at 20 bux for the entirety (a damn good deal.) I believe you can get them via this site.
Chest Cavity #1 – Fragile Charm
As mentioned, I will discuss the Nic Gusset Home Recording Tape Series (pictured below) one tape at a time.
But first I should mention: we the household got new cellphones and they have built-in cameras. I intend to milk this option of easily-accessible, crappy looking images shamelessly. That right, Terrainasaur’s going visual!
I should also say a word about the series, more in depth than I have. The first five, all the 90 mins, are under the name Chest Cavity. The sixth, the shorter one, is under the name Ghost Snail. Liner info is minimal at best, excluding song names, but including cryptic photocopied images, in the veign of much of the posters which adorned the wall of his room at his mom’s house when he lived there, which is, I think, where most of this was recorded. I could be wrong about that.
Nic is using his tape-copying machine to make copies as fast as he can. I don’t know if he’s selling them, he may just be giving him to those he knows, which would include all of Eugene, half of Portland and a good portion of the Greater Northwest.
Now to the first tape, entitled “Fragile Charm.”
This is, straight up, the music of an intelligent punk rocker with a cavernous record collection. Too smart to just pull out the oom-pa oom-pa thing for every song, we have here a guy who could easily go in any one of a thousand directions, which the tape alludes to.
I don’t know if the series is chronological. If it is, this variety would make sense. Also the sparsity of singing (aren’t we all petrified of singing?) Which is worth mentioning: the singing is damn good. Sometimes like Joey Ramone, somtimes like Richard Hell, but never like he’s trying to be either. It’s quiet on the mix in that way that makes you hurt to hear more.
The drums sound about how they should: they’re trashy and they put the punch in the right notes. On the stuff w/ a full three/four piece (bass, drums, rhythm + lead gtr) each instrument fits in where it should. Especially worth noting in this regard is the bass playing, which could be described as “tasteful.” Not too boring, but not too obnoxious.
I’ll break it down to some highlights. Since song names aren’t listed, I’ll just do it bullet-style:
- The first song is just two guitars, one doing a riff and one soloing. It sounds a lot like the guitar tracks heard on the Stooges’ first record.
- A good number of tough rock songs. The tape manages to remind me of Rocket From the Tombs at many points, especially some of the solos. He manages to get tone that sounds like Cheetah Crome, in a good way.
- There’s at least one very Polvo song.
- A damn good acoustic gtr + bass song
- A song called “Gimme Regression” which you can hear on the Chest Cavity myspace, linked above. It brought on the mist to my high-school eyes. Chest Cavity, at moments, perfectly expresses the manifold emotions of being a “kid.” Nic, says I, is one of those guys who will “always be a kid” in every way that counts.
- I know there are some covers on there, I just can’t tell which ones are. This is a testament to good songwriting.
- The general pervading sense of “I don’t care what anyone thinks” which is one of the valuable lessons that punk rock has to offer (and that many “punks” never learn.) This tape is just damn fun, when not being angsty (in a good way.)
- Some damn pretty pop songs.
OK, that’s all I’ve got right now. The end of the tape says something to the effect of “this is really just the beginning.” So it is. Things I’d like from future tapes? More singing, perhaps.
Tomorrow I’ll check out Chest Cavity #2: “Escape.” I’m excited.
our favorite punk rocker . . .
Earlier today Nic Gusset (a name which I and most people I know instinctively precede with “good old”) dropped off at my house his six-tape home recording series. Five
of the tapes are ninety minutes, and the sixth is, I believe, sixty.
That is exactly the kind of thing I love, the bedroom-recorded cassette tape type stuff. I don’t know why, but it really gets me (when done well.) He released it under the label name “Trough Raid” (which is a better name than rough trade, btw.) It’s got me nostalgic for the days-I-never-saw of tape only “DIY” labels.
I haven’t had a chance to crack the first one open. I’m going the hell to bed (after watching half of “Empire Strikes Back” with Jesse.) I plan on starting tomorrow. Maybe I’ll post a play-by-play on the series.
