Chisel / The Van Pelt - split single (Air King Alliance)

Air King Alliance appears to be an in-house label for WMUC FM of Washington, DC, as these two bands (so closely associated with the Gern Blandsten scene of the mid-to-late 90s) both recorded their contributions live on the air.  Thus we get a 7" presumably pressed out of university budget money, with all the great non-production that student engineers give us.  The Van Pelt are the a-side, with 'Yamato (Where People Really Die)'.  It's made up of frantically strummed solid-state guitar over a clop-clop rhythm and those high-strung, yelped vocals that are the reason I never really liked the Van Pelt (who I have a vague memory of seeing in a moldy basement circa the time of this record - perhaps that's even where I got it!).  Yeah, it's the flipside I keep this for - an "electric" version of 'Towncrusher', the hot acoustic jam on Set You Free which is pretty much the only song I really remember from that album.  This is certainly a substandard version, kinda bashed through without much passion or purpose, but it's still good since I don't own a copy of the original.  The guitar solo here is lacking the fire and verve of anything from 8 Am All Day - it's a big step towards the indie-by-the-books efforts of the Ted Leo solo record.  I wonder if Air King ever released anything else?

Cheveu/Tyvek split 7" (S-S)

Cheveu's side ('El Tortuga') is more of the same, but that's a good thing. The drum programming is a bit more interesting and these guys manage to work a bit of texture into some very narrow confines. It's a bit less distinct, melodically , than some of the album faves, but it has a thundering chorus and the guitars really ring out despite the lo-fi origins. Tyvek's track 'Future Junk' is a frantically strummed rave-up with vocalist Kevin extremely high in the mix. The most interesting part is the jam-out ending, where the guitars start fracturing and spitting all over themselves. The synth player is a bit buried but I guess Tyvek know what kind of mix they want. It's kinda blood and guts except I suspect these guys are actually pretty nerdy. There's a lock groove at the end of their side which functions as an awkward false ending. The whole thing is over in a blink (both sides), which is how it's supposed to be.

The Better Automatic (Resin)

Out of the three main blogs here (for LPs, CDs and 7"s), I think this 7" one is probably the most fun. The LPs and CDs I keep pretty 'clean', as I freak out pretty much annually and sell/toss things. But 7"s get away with murder - I don't notice what I have, often forgetting about them entirely -- and thus you get weird records like this, which I have carted around with me for 10+ years now. The Better Automatic are a now-forgotten band from Washington, DC who I think I set up a show for in 1998. When they came through they were a fun, lively mod-pop band (or at least that's how I remember them). This 7"s downplays melodic hooks in favor of punchy, more shouty vocals and anthemic guitar pricks. It's almost impossible for me to listen to this without thinking of Fugazi, but not because of the DC connection - because the vocalist sounds exactly like Guy Piccioto and the songwriting resembles 'Margin Walker' more than a little. That's not to say that these songs about Buckmister Fuller and sock monkeys are without their charm - and I can see the 17-year-old me getting really excited about this - but listening now, it's just begging to be forgotten. I don't know why they reminded me of the Jam live - maybe they changed sounds after this 7" came out, or maybe my memory is just extremely faulty. I also realise that this is the type of record I should be digitising and uploading MP3s of.... this project decided not to do that, because otherwise I'd end up digitising my entire record collection and that's way more labour than I'm willing to commit to. But what's the point of reading my poorly-written 3 sentence review of this band if you can't hear it yourself? I highly doubt anyone else out there is gonna be ripping this. So, if you really want to hear The Better Automatic, comment here and maybe in the new year I'll get to it. (oh, how promising!)