There's something fascinating about near-misses, and rock history is full of 'em. Every so often, a sound or a scene gathers up a head of steam and plows headfirst into the cultural mainstream, leaving a healthy scar. It happened in the Pacific Northwest with the fusion of urban punk and backwoods metal, and, for a time, it appeared as if Washington DC's brand of smart and prickly art-rock would likewise enthrall the masses.
There's nothing Beltway-dwellers hate more than feeling culturally inferior to that Other City. Sure, DC has free museums, but back in the day, it also played host to an incredibly vital rock scene. Much of the hullabaloo was due to Dischord Records, which did business with pretty much every Mid-Alantic band worth a damn.
Among the odder acts on Dischord was Shudder to Think — one of only two groups (the other being Jawbox) who went on to sign with a major label. In those strange years between Roxette and Rage Against the Machine, any crew of goateed individuals with guitars and a tenuous connection to the underground were courted by A&R twerps hoping to snag the next Nirvana.
STT were always an acquired taste; singer Craig Wedren's quirky falsetto and the band's disregard for convention — be it punk, metal, rock or otherwise — made them a tough pill to swallow for a generation whose idea of subversive music was Smashing Pumpkins.
I remember playing STT's Epic debut, Pony Express Record, for a former bandmate, hoping to illustrate a possible link between Rush and punk rock. His response was something like, "It's so fucking melodic, but they're all the wrong melodies." Can't say he was far off the mark. Another friend and musician was fond of calling them "Shudder to Stink." Harsh.
Shudder's second "lead" guitarist, Nathan Larson (original axeman Chris Mattews [not the host of "Hardball"] quit to pursue an archeology career before their major-label signing), has the following to say about the group's musical modus operandi:
We were operating as one, a strict machine, absolutely certain of our ability to turn hard rock on its head. Craig was surely the architect, but I was in there as draughtsman, and we set about creating vicious sonic mayhem. The four of us had rehearsed this stuff into the ground, and, though improvisation played a role at certain times, the songs were highly regimented. We teetered between powerful and highly serious art music, pretentious bullshit, and camp wink-wink irony. It was this back and forth that allowed the stuff to work.
That they managed to release one of the weirdest guitar albums in rock history on a major is a testament to how clueless and/or blindly optimistic label execs were at the time. Any rational individual should have concluded that STT's music was completely unmarketable, due to its complicated rhythmic structures, atonality and lyrical obtuseness.
Yet according to Larson, they had at least one supportive representative at Epic:
. . .It's testament to our A&R man's clout that we were able to turn in such a clusterfuck of a record unaltered. We more or less delivered it exactly as we had designed it, for better or worse. Well, we wanted the cover to be a polaroid of somebody's cock in the middle of the desert, but none of us willing to go to the mat for that. Wish we had, but that idea was nixed. But it was odd that the label would accept the general package, after all this was Epic records, not exactly known for experimentalism, and expectations were set quite high considering the album's content.
From there, they were thrown on larger tours, opening for bands like (you guessed it) Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam. To their credit, the musicians in these larger acts actually liked Shudder to Think. But that didn't spare them the wrath of audiences expecting classic rock in flannel and combat boots.
Larson sums up the experience:
It's my feeling now that some of these uberrockers just enjoyed seeing what would happen when we got up against a large crowd of half-drunken frat brothers, itching for the headliners and anxious to impress the hapless girls they'd dragged along with them. And it was nothing if not amusing, there's nothing like it really. Think of it: a stadium full of jarheads, and you up there, representing the sole barrier between them and their favorite band. Not only were we not playing anything identifiable as a song, what were we, what the fuck were we, a bunch of faggots?? We got this a lot : "FUCKING FAGGOTS!! FUCKIN QUEERS!" or my favorite (this is a quote): "YOU GUYS ARE A BUNCHA BUTT-DIGGERS, DUDE!!!" Note the clever midsentence shift from the plural "you guys" to the singular "dude," and the novel use of the term "butt-diggers."
Soon, the band began giving it right back:
On tour with the Smashing Pumpkins, Washington DC:
Guy in audience: "Dude what's Billy Corgan like?"
Craig: "His cock tastes lemony."
The so-called "alternative generation" liked to pretend they had an anything-goes approach to music, but this was hardly the case. I was at the first three Lollapaloozas (back when they went from city to city), and watched it go from ragtag fringe gathering to corporate dude-rock festival. As grunge reached its saturation point, a lot of excellent music was forced back into the underground, where the punk and hardcore bands endlessly toiled.
And all the big-label backing in the world couldn't conceal the fact that STT were never gonna be anything more than a cult act, capable of moving only a fraction of the "units" a band like Stone Temple Pilots could.
Meanwhile, in Gotham...
1994 was the year a young troubadour by the name of Jeff Buckley "graced" the world with his unabashedly romantic, fearlessly musical debut. Buckley had long been haunting the NYC avant-garde scene, blowing minds at coffeehouses and small clubs. but it was his Columbia Records long-player that would inspire so many other bands and artists, Shudder to Think among them.
Passions were shared and alliances forged, but a lasting rock revolution never materialized.
It was around this time that STT frontman Craig Wedren was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease — a condition he eventually beat. But the crisis added to the fraying of nerves already raw from disappointment over Pony Express Record's poor sales performance. In the midst of the madness, Larson undertook a side project with Autoclave/Helium guitarist/singer Mary Timony and Joan Wasser — violinist/keyboardist/vocalist for the Dambuilders, and also Buckley's lover.
The group, called Mind Science of the Mind, released only one album. Their self-titled and under-promoted disc had, unsurprisingly, more than a few similarities to Pony-era Shudder to Think. But it also boasted glammy, quasi-erotic undercurrents — shades of Buckley, perhaps. (He actually filled in on bass for a handful of MSOTM performances).
The influence went both ways, as borne out by the songs Buckley was working on up to the time of his tragic drowning, most of which turned up on the posthumously released Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk. Several of these works-in-progress featured Shudder-style chord changes and asymmetrical grooves. The two acts eventually teamed up on a song on STT's soundtrack to the indie flick First Love, Last Rites.
STT and Buckley seemed to be heading in a similar direction, with music that had one foot in gnarly post-punk and the other in Queen-esque musical grandeur. Given time to develop, this sound might have eventually become a prevailing rock aesthetic.
Then Buckley went swimming in Memphis on the way to meet his band, who had just flown in to resume work on their second record. His body washed up on Beale Street nealy a week later.
The passing of such an obvious talent took the wind out of a lot of sails, including those of STT and their associates.
Rock, at least of the kind practiced by bohemian Americans, began to recede. In the mainstream, guitar-based music was completely stale, as cookie-cutter bands such as Nickelback and Puddle of Mudd tapped into an audience of mouth-breathing morons who happened to own Nevermind.
There were still great bands in DC — The Dismemberment Plan and Faraquet (more on them later) being but two. Still, the underground didn't seem to be holding together terribly well. Post-rock, which was originally jazz-tinged and feisty, had become an altogether dreary affair, and Montreal emerged as the metropolis of choice for miserabilist collectives armed with cellos and delay pedals.
Then came The Strokes, who brought needle-nosed guitars and uptempo beats to the party (as well as coke and cheap beer). This sound continues to be employed by more bands than I care to count.
It was goodbye challenging and sexy rock, hello denim and ironic moustaches.
A year or two later, copping Joy Division suddenly became quite faddish. Yawn.
Yet there is still life in the underground, particularly on the punk side of the fence. Acts like Clockcleaner, Jay Reatard and Evil Army are all kicking serious ass. I smell another near-miss...
But it remains to be scene whether or not DC will ever regain its former rock authority. Maybe when Fugazi comes back from "hiatus."
Postscript:
Since the Mind Science of the Mind album is well out-of-print, I see no reason not to post it here in its entirety. If Nathan Larson happens to be reading this (stranger things have happened), and wants me to remove the files, I will happily comply. Until then, enjoy these MP3s:
"Infidels (When Your Hips came Loose)"
"Skirts to Suffer On"
"Your Human Spine"
"Does it Rain In Your Womb?"
"Science of the Mind"
"Oceans Don't Need Us"
"Dutch Ghost Reclamation of the City of New York"
"To the Tender (Beauty Marks/Blisters)"
"Do You Rule?"
"Aiwass" (I actually gave a song the same name around the same time — total coincidence).
Here are some links to Shudder to Think videos:
"X-French Tee Shirt" — Live on the old "John Stewart Show."
"X-French Tee Shirt" — Video
"Hit Liquor" — Video
"Hit Liquor" — Live, Toronto warehouse, 1993
"Take the Child" w/Chris Matthews — Live, 9:30 Club, Washington, DC
"Ballad of Maxwell Demon" — Velvet Goldmine Soundtrack
Joan as Police Woman (Joan Wasser):
"Christobel"
Recent Comments