SOUNDTRACK: HELLBENDER-Con Limón (1997).
Co
n Limón was Hellbender’s final CD. It shows a lot more depth and variation than one would have expected from the debut. “Fake I.D.” opens really really quietly for two verses so that you have to turn it up loud. And then the song kicks in and explodes your speakers. There are more such dynamics on this song, including the verse ending on a high guitar note and pause that adds a bit of quiet punch to the otherwise fast song. “You Gutted Me with a Switchblade Shaped Like a Telephone” opens with some quietly spoken words (which I have not as yet been able to understand), but the verses and chorus have quite an emo feel. “Long Distance Phone Bill Runner” has a catchy chugging riff with some screamy vocals. “Untrusted You” introduces acoustic guitar (and a cool off-key note). The vocals sound like Bob Mould. Indeed the whole thing has a kind of Hüsker Dü feel to it. “I-95 is Tattooed on My Brain” also opens slowly, with dark, quiet lyrics and a cool riff once the guitar kicks in. The guys clearly have a way with song titles.
“Song About Some Girls” is perhaps one of the cheesiest songs I’ve heard in a long time (although as one reviewer points out, it does anticipate radio friendly emo by about a decade). Coming from Hellbender it is super-cheese. I’m surprised they allowed it to be released (and I’m surprised it wasn’t a huge hit). Check out the lyrics (and this coming from a band with two lyricists who are currently published authors): “This is a song that I wrote about some girls/That I met at the beach back when I had the Jeep.” Really. And the chorus is a series of staggered “Right” “Right” “Right” “Right.” It is so insanely catchy–I hate myself for liking it so much. (The lyrics to their other songs are much better).
“Graveyarded” returns to the more angry type of song, dark with interesting riffs. It’s a fitting ending to the last release by this under appreciated (they don’t even have an entry in allmusic?) band. Oh wait, there’s a bonus song on the disc. After a few seconds of silence, there’s a strange bass-heavy riff (and kind of dancey drums). The lyrics are all spoken (I won’t say rapped). It sounds nothing like them, but I’ll bet they had fun making it.
[READ: May 21, 2012] “Fun Won”
Sometimes a title confounds you until you see it in the context of the story. I couldn’t even figure out how to say the title (which isn’t hard, but looks so peculiar) until I read it from one of the characters. I also had no way of anticipating what this story might be about.
Imagine my surprise that it was about the 90s, and about a woman who worked for Conde Nast, when money and drugs were plentiful and the fun never stopped.
It’s funny how context is everything. If I had read this story in the 90s, I would have hated everyone in it for their glamorous life, their quarter pound of weed, their expense accounted fancy dinner and even the fact that they work for a fashion magazine (Gaultier and Naomi Campbell are name-checked). And yet now that the bubble has burst and the fun has stopped and I never got to be a part of it (not that I would have…but still), I read this story almost wistfully.
This story is set up in a tricky way. Meaning that it starts out by talking about marriage but then shifts gears. The marriage discussion is all about how her friends married such squares in the 90s (while now women marry interesting men who have job but are defined by their hobbies). And it is a nostalgia piece for the 90s (“when you could still dream of being a writer, when writing for magazines and then writing books and all of that added up to a good life.”) [Sigh].
For background we learn that the narrator, her brother and their father were big dopers (their mother abstained–from the dope and the family). Her brother Ed is visiting from California with a quarter pound of awesome pop (this was before everyone had access to awesome pot). The bulk of the story concerns this visit. Ed and the narrator get high, then they share the pot with Marni (who is famous, although whose actual title is unstated–she’s the one who calls Gaultier). They end up all going for dinner at a fancy restaurant (with shaved truffles).
They also meet the narrator’s boyfriend who is a real estate mogul–he sells building for tons of money (and yes, is likely the reason the bubble burst). And then they go to a record studio to hear a famous singer make her album and watch it get mixed. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 