The allure of rennet

I rarely have the opportunity to practice musical evangelism, something I love doing but that elicits only occasional and limited interest. To do it properly, I find I need to hold someone’s attention long enough to spit out an impassioned but excruciatingly detailed breakdown of exactly what is brilliant about a song, album, or artist’s work.

That’s the kind of thing I can do best via laptop; in person, glazed looks ensue more often than not, primarily because I’m not that great at reading people’s conversation motives. Also, I can’t provide numbered lists as effectively in verbal form. It helps me to count out the reasons and frame them concisely (but still in excruciating detail. That’s important.) In the most concise form in which I can provide it, here, then, is my evangelical litany in support of the legacy of Barkmarket, the loudest and most menacing power trio ever to make my ears bleed.

Jeremy Hart (Houstonians may recognize his name from his spacecityrock blog) and I saw Barkmarket open for another band whose name escapes me (Therapy?? Note that the first question mark after “Therapy” is part of the band’s name while the second indicates I am unsure that this is correct information) at Goat’s Head Soup, a location of questionable fame that suffered an equally questionable demise not too long after this show. Dave Sardy, the band’s yowler/guitarist/songwriter, piled a stadium show’s worth of high-end cabinets into what could charitably be called a stage, neatly piled next to a giant bass drum – not just a kick, but an actual marching-band-sized bass drum – hauled in by his drummer, Rock Savage. (insert gasp/snicker here)

No one took much notice until the music started. Even after it started, I’m not sure how much attention anyone else in the place paid; I was transfixed and couldn’t move. I could actually feel the cartilage rattling in my head. I’m into that sort of thing, all by itself if necessary, but it helps when the musicians behind it are in full control of their craft. Sardy made sure they were that night and on each of the albums I heard.

Barkmarket made six albums and two EPs; my collection consists only of their later work, specifically the long-players Gimmick and L Ron and the Lardroom EP. Based on those and on the show I saw, I am ready to make three broad generalizations about their legacy, generalizations I hope will convince you to give them a listen. Because there’s not a lot of love, like, or even knowledge out there about Barkmarket. And that is unacceptable. The reprogramming starts now.

1. Sardy, a sought-after producer even during the band’s tenure (1987-1997), made sure his guitar sound was not the standard-issue rock/heavy metal machinery drone. Evident on every song is the time Sardy took to ensure we could hear every note. The B-flat power chords that introduce “Whipping Boy” (see video here, embarrassing though it is) on Gimmick is not just a sound or a foundation – it’s a B-flat/F/B-flat chord. You hear each note in its well-rounded tube-warm splendor. That’s quite purposeful not just because Sardy wanted his Music Master/Vox combo to sound great.

   He also exploits combinations of these same power chords with intervals that either enhance or clear up key signature ambiguity, depending on his desire. The A-flat/B and E-flat/G-flat combos in “Dumbjaw” off the same record (video too embarrassing to show here) create enough confusion to make the chorus sound almost hopeful before Sardy shuts the door with stripped-down dissonance and minor chords. Effectuating those shifts in a listener’s mind means never having to say “Let me tell you what chord that is.” Dave makes sure you know.

2. There is near exact parity between the moments where you understand the members of Barkmarket as talented musicians with chops and rhythm and the moment where you understand those members to be willing to throw off those trappings to serve the greater purpose – to create work that is centrally about lack of control and will. There is something deliciously ironic about the ability to create the effect of sloppiness so purposefully, and no one does it better. About 75% of their songs (possibly more) clatter to the ground a la this footage.

   There is also the meticulous capture of every squeal and metallic pickup crunch. Nothing is out of place, yet it all feels out of place. Again, I can see why people want to work with Sardy. They probably listened to Barkmarket. (OK, probably three other people in the world have listened to Barkmarket since 1998. But his reputation precedes him anyhow.)

3. The band evolved in a fascinating manner between Gimmick and L Ron, creating in the latter a work that is both more polished and more experimental than its predecessor. With “Static” on Gimmick, Sardy creates a delta-blues-stomp nightmare vision through muffled percussive microphone breaths, out-and-out guitar squealing, and a slow blooming of a banjo part from dribs and drabs at the outset to full-throated strums and arpeggios during the final chorus. That was just a teaser; L Ron, though it does not boast anything quite as overtly off-genre, expands the band’s territory to full metal-blues slide guitar, proto-techno, and highly filtered and compressed near-noise breakdowns. On “Visible Cow,” the opener with the aforementioned slide, Sardy’s guitar makes a seemingly impossible volume progression from buzzy acoustic to sharp electric barks and eventually to boomy swagger. (insert “goes to 11″ joke here) (looks like I just did) At that last level, the sound is nearly symphonic in its depth. The ode to Staten Island’s favorite landfill, “Fresh Kills,” rumbles along until the very end where it exposes out-of-tune ramblings and the limitations of de-tuning the standard 4-string bass (which John Nowlin has tuned at B so that even the lightest open-string playing brings ugly buzzes). Within the framework of a well-crafted studio work is a feedback-obsessed noise rock extravaganza. That’s what makes their final work their best – and well worth your time.

So this is why I can never put away my Barkmarket albums, why they are always the first on the nostalgia tour for me. There is much I have left out – I haven’t touched the lyrics (“divine prate from a bag of rennet”…mmm…cheese), the full extent of the de-tunings (never simply to D, always to B, C, or C-sharp, and often performed mid-song), or the fact that there is nary a guitar solo in any of these works (I hold that fact especially dear). But the evangelism above is enough for me to get you started and, as you likely wish, leave you the hell alone about Barkmarket already.