SOUNDTRACK: POLKA DOGS-“Slag Heap Love” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).
Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song. Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.
Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album. Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits. Or maybe the compilation was for something but a song you really wanted was on it, too.
With streaming music that need not happen anymore. Except in this case.
I bought this compilation, used, recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.” It’s a goofy song and this is the only place you can get the studio version. The actual compilation was not well documented, so I didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like. It turns out to be a compilation for Ontario based Moose Records which specialized in Rock, Folk, World & Country. They put out another compilation in 1992 and that’s all I can find out about them.
Polka Dogs sounded promising–I imagined a rocking polkafied band. “Slag Heap Love” sounded like it would be a gritty rocking song.
So imagine my disappointment when the song is propelled by a tinny banjo and the accordions are only used as accompaniment, not for wild soloing. Even the tuba is slow and ponderous and not used as a fun bass instrument. Top this off with the vocals which are almost comically crooned and this song proved to not be anything I wanted at all.
About half way through (the song is five minutes long) the song goes to double time, which makes it more interesting. But the vocal style remains the same and nobody does anything more interesting than playing the same stuff in double time.
It doesn’t even really sound like a polka until the last forty seconds when the song picks up into triple time, but by then the song is pretty much over (especially since the lyrics don’t really change for the whole five minuets. “Slag Heap Love” is pretty unexciting.
[READ: July 1, 2019] “Falling, without You”
The July/August issue of The Walrus is the Summer Reading issue. This year’s issue had two short stories, a memoir, three poems and a fifteen year reflection about a novel as special features.
This is simple poem of loss–of a person falling apart.
I rather liked how visceral this poem was, with each stanza being more explicit as she fears she might fly apart.
My nails might lift from my fingers
my hair might float away
my skin might lift off
my organs might escape
The final line, “Hold on to me now, I can;t hold myself together anymore” sounds like a song lyric but is much more evocative coming at the end of this poem.
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