I graduated high school and began college in 1993. No matter what year it was, I would have indelible memories of the music I heard then because of where I was in life. But 1993 was a pretty good year whatever my personal circumstances. The major labels were signing anyone just to see who would stick. And the Alternative / Modern Rock / Buzz format was just being hatched. Radio hadn’t yet managed locate the mediocre sweet spot they would find when Collective Soul got launched out of Atlanta in ‘94. My friend Chris Godbey, who attended my high-school and coincidentally ended up with me at Baylor, was introducing me to the Lemonheads and Dinosaur Jr. and Camper Van Beethoven and the Breeders and Frank Black and the Pixies. And we all discovered Beck at the same time, of course. Yo La Tengo, too. Sunday nights were for watching Beavis and Butthead, The Simpsons, and 120 Minutes. Where we first met Tool and the bee girl.
Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of shit from 1993, which is why you got a Paul Westerberg post last week. Since it’s time for a podcast again, I’m setting the NAPcast transporter back 17 years. Join me, won’t you?
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- Dinosaur Jr. – “Start Choppin’” This was the first song Chris wanted me to hear. It was my introduction to Dinosaur Jr., and Where You Been is probably my favorite Dinosaur Jr. record. But if I’d heard Green Mind first, or Bug or You’re Living All Over Me, one of them would be my favorite. I like them all about the same. Which is to say a whole hell of a lot. Weirdly, I initially learned to sing by emulating J. Mascis. I didn’t have much of an ear, so I had to learn slowly by starting with just talking in that J. Mascis style. I didn’t sound like him, but the laconic singing style helped me learn to hear my own voice better. I’m still not all that great a singer, but I hit my notes.
- Belly – “Dusted” I prefer Belly’s Star to anything by Throwing Muses. And I think the singles off this record are up there with Radiohead’s Bends singles when it comes to superb, sophisticated pop that was actually getting radio play in the 90s.
- Liz Phair – “Fuck and Run” Liz Phair and Mazzy Star are the only artists in this podcast to have turned in perfect, beginning-to-end records in 1993. Phair’s record is astonishingly good. Great hooks, great production, and IMO the best lyrics on any record during entire decade. I can’t, for the life of me, figure out how’s she’s managed to suck for the rest of her career. She could have been, and probably should have been, the Harper Lee of indie rock.
- Dah-veed – “Cold Samba” I saw David Garza play several times in 1993 and ‘94, including two shows in Waco. And I loved those shows. “Cold Samba” is off Culture Vulture, which didn’t make much of a dent outside Texas. But it’s probably the best record Garza ever did, and it sounds like the kind of record Paul Simon wished he could have made late in his career. Even back then.
- Mazzy Star – “So Tonight that I Might See” The only record I’ve ever consciously used as make-out music. I’ve said before that Mazzy Star was a one-trick pony. But that one trick is really good.
- Frank Black – “Places Named After Numbers” Thanks to Chris, I got into the Pixies, Frank Black, and the Breeders all at once. Could have picked any song from Black’s debut.
- Yo La Tengo – “From a Buick 6” Remember hearing & seeing Yo La Tengo for the first time on Conan O’Brien playing this very song. Chris and my other pal Josh had seen them open for Julianna Hatfield at the Shimmy Shack in Houston. They didn’t give a crap about Hatfield after Yo La Tengo had left the stage. I wish so much I had gone home that weekend. But I stayed in Waco and missed the show. Yo La Tengo has been my favorite band for 17 years.
- Radiohead – “Prove Yourself” Radiohead had a huge hit with “Creep” in the summer of ‘93. After years of the band themselves slagging their debut record, it’s now officially underrated. I still think Pablo Honey is very strong, with more convincing hard rock guitars than most American bands at the time. This track’s a bit unusual. Probably the only time they hinted at country-rock in their entire catalog.
- Suede – “The Drowners” I think this was another 120 minutes find. But it might not have been. I honestly can’t remember whether I heard this in ‘93 or ‘94. One of my favorite choruses ever, though I could never understand why British mags fawned over Bernard Butler. Talented, but I certainly don’t think he was the “greatest guitarist of his generation.” Even as the brit guitarists of the time go, Graham Coxon and Jonny Greenwood both strike me as better choices. But since none of them were in Sonic Youth or My Bloody Valentine, I don’t think they can be called greatest of anything. Incidentally, any time I’m in one of those “brit pop bands are the best” conversations with fans of Oasis or Blur, I’ve usually considered Dirty and Clouds Taste Metallic as ways to settle the argument. You can have your press feuds and your scenes. I will take my album oriented rock, thanks.
- Snoop Dogg – “Gin and Juice” Chris had a black roommate, Derrick, who was pretty similar to the other well-off kids from Dallas who were at Baylor. Except that he was black. And was an enthusiastic fan of rap music. Seems like most of what Derrick played us was obscure, super-dirty shit from Port Arthur and other Gulf Coast dens. But we also jammed the hell out of Snoop’s first record as we played Madden and NBA Showdown on Super Nintendo. Obviously, this record was such a huge hit, we didn’t need a black dude to show it to us. But that’s the way it went down. Good times.
- Beck – Beercan “I’m sad and unhappy, whawrupruprup.” Watching “Loser” for the first time in the dorm’s downstairs lounge, you could have told me that Beck would, along with Radiohead, build the most sustainable and successful career of anyone who debuted in 1993. And I would have said, a la Wayne’s World, “NOT.” But if you’d told me that after I’d listened to the whole of Mellow Gold, it would have made sense to me. Even back then.
- Cracker – “Take Me Down to the Infirmary” Not everything holds up for me the way it did when we were driving around drunk singing “Euro Trash Girl”. But the ballads on Kerosene Hat are really well done.
- The Breeders – “Drivin’ on 9” A girl I dated near the end of high school put this song on a mix tape for me. I could listen to the Deal sisters sing almost anything.
- Flaming Lips – When You’re Twenty-Two. Another record and band Chris got me into. Actually, Chris was then part of a Houston band called Loggerhead who were damn near reverent about their love for the Flaming Lips and Pixies. The first cover I ever learned on guitar was “Five Stop Mother Superior Rain” from In a Priest Driven Ambulance, which I learned when Chris and I performed it at Magic Bus. We did the Stones’ “Sweet Virginia” in the same short open mike set.
- Smashing Pumpkins – “Hummer” From this generation’s Frampton Comes Alive. My favorite track off the record. I used to think I could see tracers generated by the song’s coda. Ah, drugs.
- Counting Crows – “Omaha” Another record I bought based solely on the Rolling Stone review in the fall of ‘93. When it broke huge the next Spring, all the frat boys on my floor gave me credit for getting them into it early on. You laugh, but I think their debut is a great record. It’s held up very well for me. Go ahead. Fire me from NAP.
- Buffalo Tom – “I’m Allowed” Can’t remember how I found out about this band. Probably a listening station at CD Warehouse. Remember that place? We used to sell CDs at the one in Waco so we could eat next door at Cici’s Pizza.
- The Lemonheads – “Rick James Style” This song was my adult introduction to Rick James. I had heard Superfreak as a kid, of course. But then I had no idea who it was singing or why it mattered. I was 7. Come On Feel The Lemonheads came out the same year James was arrested (later convicted) of sexual assault and kidnapping. This collaboration was recorded before those charges and was made possible because both Evan Dando and James were heavy crack users. The two of them dreaming up the song’s double negative verse—”I don’t wanna not get stoned”—while they both hit the pipe seems so impossible and hilarious. Especially given the fact that the rest of the album is comprised of charming, goofy, unassumingly brilliant pop songs. I love it almost as much as desert-island-disc It’s a Shame About Ray.
- Matthew Sweet – “Someone to Pull The Trigger” Matthew Sweet’s Altered Beast was nowhere near as good as Girlfriend. But it had some good jams. And this song is one of my favorite sad-bastard classics of all time. Incidentally, a big part of the reason I loved both those records was the guitar playing throughout of Richard Lloyd and Robert Quine. I hadn’t heard of either before I discovered Sweet, nor had I heard of their bands. It would be more than 10 years later before I even managed to like Television. You should take a look at the credits for Altered Beast : Mick Fleetwood AND Jody Stephens played drums. Greg Leisz and Nicky Hopkins are on there too. Pros all over the place. Not very alternative. But for me, everything was new and part of the same big bang.
Update: I’ve now created an 8-Tracks Mix of this podcast. Enjoy.
“Great production” on Exile in Guyville? I’d like to hear your defense of that. I mean, I agree it’s a great record, but not because of the production.
Also, Counting Crows are great, but Collective Soul is a mediocrity? C’mon dude, a little consistency.
Alternate NAPiverse Mixtape ’93 for junior high schoolers: the Wayne’s World 2 soundtrack. My grossly premature introduction to Dinosaur Jr. and Jimi Hendrix. . . along with Aerosmith and *shudder* 4 Non Blondes. Not all our recollections can be fond ones.
Since you didn’t mention an argument against the production on Exile in Guyville, I can’t be sure what your objection is. Does the record succeed in spite of middling to awful production? Is the production too spartan to qualify as production? Would the record have been one of the best of the decade with any other competent producer? Since you didn’t elaborate, I’ll make my points in the vacuum.
1) This was Phair’s debut album and she didn’t have a band or even much performing experience. All her previous work had been her own home recordings. I think translating a singer-songwriter, especially one with no previous pro work, may be one of the most difficult tasks a producer can have. It’s a blank slate. Even with great songs, and using Phair’s own recordings as a blueprint, you weren’t going to make a successful record just by turning on the expensive recording equipment.
2) That being said, part of the challenge with Phair was, as producer Brad Wood has said, “not screwing it up.” The girlysound songs that made the cut for that first record were obviously great. But if you listen to the rest of Phair’s discography, production (namely too much of it) is part of the problem. Now, perhaps, this is part of your point. But I think restraint can be a choice too. Brad Wood was the only producer on Phair’s first two records. Here’s the difference I hear. On the first record he improved every single song that Phair had previously recorded. On Whip Smart, some of the girlysound songs were superior to Wood’s recordings. It’s also true that Phair’s songs on Whip Smart weren’t as good. And she was receiving some pressure from Atlantic to deliver more radio-friendly tracks. For the rest of her career, Phair would suffer from the same twin problems: inferior songs along with production that crippled her strengths: her direct, conversational voice, and her intricate, unconventional approach to her own guitar playing. Phair did some of that damage herself. If she misconceived her own talents, so did her subsequent partners, producers, and record company hacks.
3) But Wood did more than simply preserve Phair’s essential qualities. In addition to recording the record, he played bass, drums, guitar, and keyboards on both of those first records, with minimal outside help. He worked more like a traditional pop music producer, in that he provided the tracks underneath Phair’s train. He was the first band she had ever had.
4) It’s easy to hear the record and suggest Wood mostly stayed out of the way, but he’s doing something cool on nearly every song. On most of them, he’s offering substantial support. Would another producer have given “Stratford-on-Guy” the weird flang-y menace it had? Or rescued the ace guitar hook on Johnny Sunshine, which Phair had mangled on the original?
5) The other difficulty with Phair’s originals is the danger of monotony. There are 18 freaking songs, and yet Wood allows Phair to sound like Phair while providing the songs with enough touch to separate themselves and sustain a single album listen.
6) Phair’s vocals are vastly improved over her home recordings, as you would expect. But it’s not just the quality of the performance that’s different. Exile included layered, treated vocals, new arrangements, and even additional hooks and verses (e.g., Johnny Sunshine). I’m not sure how much to credit Phair with this. Probably quite a bit. She was limited in the number of tracks she had on her own. Still, it took Phair and Wood working together to make every single song from Phair’s home recordings better. It doesn’t always happen like that.
Phair and Wood were in a new situation. One they’d never be in again. They were working together for the first time, and that seems to have generated some restraint and respect for the source material, which her later work could have badly used. Still, I think it goes too far to acknowledge the success of the record and not give the producer any credit. He helped do something no one else (including him) ever did again: make a good Liz Phair record. And not just that—a classic record. So yeah, I give him some props. It was a good record because of Phair, but also because of Wood.
Hey man, no need to get defensive.
I didn’t know anything about the way the record was made, so it just sounded like a band playing some songs. That was an excellent defense, thanks.
Haha. Sadly, I was looking forward to writing that all day. I’ve been kinda meh about posting lately, but this one was a lot of fun.
You could always watch the documentary on my Exile in Guyville anniversary reissue disc, though I don’t recommend it.
I’m right there with you on the Flaming Lips (pre-Soft Bulletin at least), and the ballads on that Cracker album. Plus “Low” off that album. The rest of it, not so much, but “Low” and “Take Me Down” were both awesome songs. I wish I’d gotten into Yo La Tengo as early as you did though. Took me awhile to find them…