(January 1992-April 1993)

THE CHILLS
Soft Bomb
Slash CD
A touchy subject...Soft Bomb brings to a screeching halt the Chills' heretofore unblemished track record. Granted, following up 1990's Submarine Bells – a flawless, inexplicably underrated work and one of the best LPs of the 1990s so far – would've been next to impossible under the best of circumstances. But this is the first time where the Chills' chronic handicaps, such as the eternally shifting lineup around Martin Phillipps, get the best of the proceedings this time. Never before have Phillipps sounded so exhausted before, his melodies so forced, his lyrics so tossed-off. It's as if Soft Bomb was a contractual obligation disguised as an alternative Pet Sounds. Living in Los Angeles seems to have had the worst effect on a songwriter like Phillipps (a man whose best songs tend to be deeply personal, stuck in a city utterly built on the superficial), and jamming with Peter Holsapple and calling in Van Dyke Parks to contribute an ersatz, overwrought string arrangement don't do anything but accentuate the various weaknesses. Phillipps has even been reduced here to writing songs about how tough it is to be a musician (shades of Kansas' Vinyl Confessions). The exhaustion factor was brought home at the Chills' New York show, featuring an assortment of US session pros and NZ pals (including the drummer from the Able Tasmans, whose bombastic fills were entirely out of character for him). In a stunning recreation of the album's overall tone, all the band members looked like it was all they could do to keep from passing out. Phillipps has since retired the Chills' name, headed home to Dunedin and is scheduled to begin preparing a Flying Nun solo release later in 1993. Suggestion to Martin: Go back to your proverbial roots – get hold of a four-track and hire Peter Jefferies or Chris Knox to produce.

CONFETTI
Haberdasher
Heaven 45
Sparse, plaintive and quietly melodic, it's impossible to hear Confetti and not think Young Marble Giants and Marine Girls...and I'd be surprised if it was a mere matter of synchronicity, since David F and Virginia Aeroplane are obviously up on their history (there's a cover of Josef K's "It's Kinda Funny" on this single, and they redo the Au Pairs' "Diet" elsewhere). Like YMG did on Colossal Youth, Confetti eschews traditional rock rhythms and instead relies on tersely-strummed guitar, odd percussion and twee femme vocals to carry the songs. But Confetti tend to be more edgy. Where Alison Statton usually sang of lost love in the past tense, for instance, Virginia is not above wishing bitter revenge on an estranged significant other ("Now I'd like to see a tower block fall on you/Or maybe a juggernaut could run you down/Or catch pneumonia/Standing in the rain/Just as long as/I never, never, never see you again!"). To top it off, Haberdasher physically resembles a vintage Girls At Our Best! or Mo-Dettes single, and there's a free postcard, sticker and Heaven Sent minizine. An ephemeral stroke of fleeting inspiration, one that transcends its obvious debts (you've at least got to give points for picking such a non-obvious band to emulate, as opposed to the millions of rock bands that wish they were the Stooges or Sonic Youth).

CONFETTI/FAT TULIPS
split flexi
Sunday Records
An interesting idea, having these two kindred spirits each tackle one early-1980s cover and one original. The Fat Tulips offer an ironically straight reading of Spandau Ballet's "To Cut A Long Story Short" and a thrashy "What Do You Do?" which recalls Talulah Gosh at their "Testcard Girl" chaotic best. But it's Confetti's cover of the Au Pairs' "Diet" that turns an otherwise diverting flexi into a must-find. When Lesley Woods wrote "Diet," she meant it as a critique of the politics of family and the assigned roles in which husband and wife are trapped ("He works the car/She, the sink/She's not here/To think"). It's every bit as complex and political as anything else that band ever did, but strange as it may seem, Confetti may have captured all the muted bitterness and suppressed rage that even Lesley Woods couldn't quite express. Stripping the song of everything but guitar, lonely vocals and an ominous tea-kettle siren (very "Final Day," as I'm sure they know), David and Virginia's "Diet" takes on an added tragic sense of power and empathy, and tells us something new about the original (something every successful cover song should do). In fact, it's so powerful that it nearly overshadows "Bridge 41," a song about marriage and growing older that's among their gentler numbers. As constrained as Confetti remain by their influences, they at least don't let it get in the way of reinterpreting the music that means so much to them. Note: selected copies come with a "Bonus Mispressed Flexi," with an extra Fat Tulips track.

CONFETTI
Sea Anemone EP
Sunday 45
Their previous EP and compilation tracks suggested a YMG/Marine Girls hybrid, but this one is entirely Marine Girls, right down to the many nautical references and the seagull sounds that link the tracks to one another. There's even a song called "Whatever Became Of Alice and Jane?", a blatant reference to the Fox sisters (the two-thirds of the Marine Girls that didn't go cocktail jazz upon that band's dissolution). Yeah, right: if you didn't know better, you'd swear that Alice and Jane had assumed the pseudonyms "Virginia Aeroplane" and "David F" and recorded these songs about bittersweet beach holidays. Bands that so obviously wear their influences are supposed to suck, but Sea Anemone succeeds despite historical reference, so perfect are the results. That Confetti broke up about a year ago only completes the Rough Trade/Cherry Red parallel...this single already seems long-lost and mysterious.

CONFETTI
Presentl
Heaven 45
Virginia and David wave bye-bye with an EP of Wedding Present covers. David F is now in a new band called Slumber; they've already released one 45 on Sunday, Holly And IV. It's not as immediately arresting as the Confetti stuff, but they at least do a decent Martyn Bates cover.

DQE
"Masturbation Made A Mess Out Of Me" + 2
Feel Good All Over 45
After years of self-released cassettes and side projects, this mighty Atlanta ensemble (now whittled down to the duo of Chris Verene and Grace Braun) finally makes its official debut. The first song, "Make The World Go Away," is uncredited, but it's the best of the three and among DQE's finest. It's just Grace Braun with a lonely chord organ, stunning in its concise clarity, the kind of music you might hear in a dream just before you awake. It's a rather jarring transition from the uncomfortable solitude of "World" to the new hoedown/polka/hardcore version of "Masturbation" (originally a solo track on the Summer Dreams, Ripped At The Seams compilation). Judging from a tape I've heard of their newer material, even more surprises remain in store, too...maybe they'll even come back to NYC and maybe I won't be foolish enough to miss them again.

DUMP
5-song single
Eighteen Wheeler 45
   "Lou Barlow and Peter Jefferies team up to cover the Ram album." God, I love it when press releases write the reviews for you, saving me the trouble of thinking up adjectives and reference points. Dump is essentially James McNew, former Happy Flowers associate and Christmas bassist, who's been most recently holding down the bass slot in Yo La Tengo. One or two moments hearken back to The Freed Man-style home taping (rapidly becoming the Eighteen Wheeler "sound"), but McNew's low-tech songcraft can't be denied. "Nothing Left" would have fit well into YLT's Fakebook period; "Down To The Sea In Ships" sounds like a long-lost outtake from God Bless The Red Krayola... As for "Christmas Card," it has enough simmering bitterness toward a certain former bandmate that it could well be McNew's "How Do You Sleep?" Hey James, the next time you get bored waiting for Ira Kaplan to finish up his next 15-minute guitar solo, you might have a future here.

THE EMBASSY TAPES
various artists
cassette
   Ninety minutes of music culled from recordings made in the basement of the Embassy, home base of the Nation of Ulysses. Tim Green is responsible for most of the stuff here – the Wonder Twins (Tim and Kathleen Hanna, trying very hard to be Mecca Normal), and various incarnations of Ulysses and friends make up most of the tape. There are also songs form Circus Lupus and Bratmobile (two sessions – the first has "Girl Germs" and a better version of "Queenie," the second features "She Said" and "Cool Schmool"). Most of the remainder is demo versions of Ulysses songs, or jazzy improvisations that show what NoU should have been putting out on record. A good posthumous look at one of the most heavily hyped bands from D.C., this time without the rhetoric. –Sean Murphy

HONEYBUNCH
"Mine Your Own Business/Remember You Always" (Slumberland 45)
"Endure Me" (Four Letter Words 45)
One of my fondest memories of 1992 was seeing Honeybunch on Halloween, a winning set highlighted by a cover of Sonny & Cher's "The Beat Goes On," with guest vocals by Small Factory drummer Phoebe Summersquash. Even if they rarely play out and make us wait about a year between singles, this band is a perennial favorite around here. Their past singles betrayed a heavy Postcard Records influence, but the Slumberland release captures Jeffrey Borchardt dropping his Roddy Frame/Edwyn Collins vocal affectations and writing songs closer to the New Zealand pop thing than Ostrich Churchyard. "Mine Your Own Business" is a happy-sounding song with a guitar break straight out of the Bats' Daddy's Highway; the B-side's "slightly detuned piano" (as Jeffrey describes it in Non-Stop Diatribe) is a nice touch, if not exactly "bluesy." Gorgeous and winning, as usual. The Four Letter Words single features a newly-recorded version of "Endure Me," a early, nearly lost song from Honeybunch's early days. An entire album by this band is long overdue.

INCLINED PLANE
various artists
Simple Machines 45
A solid conclusion to Jenny and Kristin's series dedicated to the six "simple machines." Tsunami offers a cover of a song by Flower (Richard Baluyut from Versus' old band), which sounds less distinctive than Tsunami's own songs but still fits the bill. Superchunk's "Baxter" is a bit stale – have we been duped or has Mac run out of great songs written at a moment's notice? I'm still convinced Jon Wurster is the wrong drummer for the band; bring back Chuck! The big surprise (and best song here) is by Road, a new Louisville band that shares a member with Crain. Their instrumental is reminiscent but not derivative of Polvo, keeping my attention all the way through with solid g and nice guitar noodling. Unrest finishes with a hyper, jumpy "Winona Ryder," although Mark Robinson's vocals are mixed pretty low. (And when's "Cath Carroll" coming out on vinyl?) All in all, a good conclusion to the series, even if Pulley remains my personal favorite. –Sean Murphy

THE INTERNATIONAL POP UNDERGROUND CONVENTION
various artists
K CD
Let's just be honest about it. If you weren't in Olympia, WA in August 1991, this CD isn't going to take its place. If you were there, you may disappointed that this CD doesn't jog as many memories as it should. It seems that instead of compiling the audio scrapbook for which the occasion begged, Pat Maley, Calvin Johnson and company have instead chosen to go the conventional route. The result is a collection of live tracks that, with fleeting exceptions, could have been performed and recorded anywhere, in any club in the world. Songs begin, they end, the applause fades out and another one begins...it's like listening to the indie-rock equivalent of any number of lousy double live albums (Larsen Comes Alive, anyone?). There is a definite sense of place and time missing, something that could have been remedied by something as simple as leaving in more of the between-song comments, monitor complaints and blown intros...anything to remind the listener that all of these performances happened within the same week, anything to recapture the magical aura that colored the whole week. It's here in places. Like the way Lois flubs the beginning of "Motorcycle Boy" and starts over undaunted. Or the Pastels' gloriously lethargic "Speedway Star," only one song in a performance I wish I could have to see again. Girl Night was reckoned to be one of the more important aspects of the convention, but only two selections are included here: the Jad Fair tribute by the Spinanes, and Rose Melberg's "My Day." The latter stands out for the way Rose sounds utterly terrified before going into the song, and as I understood it, one of the points of Girl Night was to allow women an open forum to overcome such fear and say what's on their minds. Even though the song that follows is no big deal, that moment of hesitation provides a brief insight into the evening's significance. Of course, at the time I slagged Girl Night, but its value seems to increase in retrospect.
    This CD should have provided more moments like that. Instead, so many experiences that couldn't have happened in a normal setting are just not here. How come Fugazi's "Reprovisional "shows up here, instead of the audience-participation version of "Suggestion" that moved more than one attendee to tears? Where are the spoken-word pieces from the Smithfield Cafe reading – Billy Childish's boozy Beat verse, Juliana Luecking's performance pieces? If one of the week's few rules was "no lackeys to the corporate ogre," than why include L7 on the album, who signed to Slash Records within weeks of their IPU appearance? Finally, what's with the half-assed packaging? A little explanation on what IPU was might have helped; it's surprising that K didn't have history more in mind when compiling this.
    Dare I suggest you pass this up? Not really. There's still enough superior material – Some Velvet Sidewalk, Scrawl, Pastels, Mecca Normal, Spinanes, Courtney Love, Girl Trouble, Hosler/Fisk/Basanich (and my, doesn't Mark Hosler sound blithe, mere days before Island Records and U2 would sue his and the rest of Negativland's asses?) and even Bratmobile – to merit inclusion in anyone's collection. But in the end, its main function is a better-than-average live LP. That's kind of a letdown when you consider the chance it had to document a week that, in 10 years' time, may be seen as the indie-rock nation's version of the Monterey Pop Festival.

THE LOUD FAMILY – Plants & Birds & Rocks & Things (Alias LP)
VINYL DEVOTION – "Sorry Isn't Good Enough" / "Nobody Told Me" (Mitochondria 45)
Plants & Birds & Rocks & Things begins with these sounds:
    1) a snippet of "Here Comes Everybody"
    2) the first guitar chord from "Shark Pretty"
    3) two or three seconds of extraneous chatter from Lolita Nation
4) a song called "He Do The Police In Different Voices."
    Can there be any doubt that Scott Miller has returned? As expected, his new project is in most ways an extension of his 1980s work with Game Theory. Look closely in the liner notes of your old Enigma LPs and you'll see the names of most of the Loud Family, along with producer Mitch Easter. Photo Robert has even retained, it appears. Musically, the new songs are simply Miller's strongest since 1986's The Big Shot Chronicles, without differing markedly from the well-crafted and elaborate pop records he created throughout the past decade. If you took Game Theory's bloated Lolita Nation double album and edited out all the chaff, you'd be left with something this concise. There are the usual instant classics ("Jimmy Still Comes Round," "Isaac's Law," the Let's Active-esque "Take Me Down [Too Halloo]," "Inverness," "Aerodeleria"), some twisted and half-finished song snippets ("He Do The Police In Different Voices," "Don't All Thank Me At Once"), a few moments of filler ("Self Righteous Boy Reduced To Tears," the Jad Fair inflections on "Spot The Setup"), and recurring samples and lyrical references to old Game Theory songs, and the unlikely "Ballad Of How You Can All Shut Up," a tossed-off moment of brilliance that sounds telegraphed from a distant outpost. Basically, Scott Miller and company sound completely rejuvenated, and he couldn't have resurfaced at a better time. Give this and the Sneakers reissue CD to the pure pop fan in your life and be loved forever. As for me, I'm completely enthralled.
    The Vinyl Devotion single features singer/songwriter/guitarist Shalini Chatterjee, who appears on Plants & Birds(I mean, her very name sounds like the name of a song from Lolita Nation). On her debut single, she's ably backed by Scott Miller and various members of the Game Theory/Loud Family axis. It's a fun pair of songs, consisting of the infectious "Sorry Isn't Good Enough," and a revised cover of John Lennon's "Nobody Told Me" on the flip (sample new lyric: "Everybody's flying but no one makes a sound/Everyone's talking but no one leaves the ground"). A bit slight, perhaps, but here's hoping we hear more from Shalini in the future.

THE MAGNETIC FIELDS
The Wayward Bus (PopUp CD)
"Long Vermont Roads" + 2 (Harriet 45)
We begin with The Wayward Bus, a collection of 1991's import Distant Plastic Trees CD (minus "Plant White Roses"), and 10 tracks recorded in late 1991 by Stephin Merritt and a host of guest musicians. The newer material takes a step away from the foreboding, Cocteau/Dead Can Dance sheen of Distant Plastic Trees in favor of a slightly more linear approach. Elements of Phil Spector, Bjorn & Benny ("Tokyo-A-Go-Go" is "Abba-esque" for real), Brill Building pop, Brian Wilson, Weekend and Eurodisco leap from Merritt's keyboards. Lyrics are the regretful/bitter variety on the order of "You'll roam the world/searching for a girl you'll never find/and then you'll quietly grow old/The saddest story ever told." The end result is, simply, a collection of pocket symphonies that rank among some of the best independent music so far this decade. More Wendy Smith cover art, too.
    Susan Anway's lovely, detached vocals are a big element in The Wayward Bus, but lately Merritt has been taking over the vocal chores. This was rather a hindrance in live performance – his own boredom factor aside, he always lost his voice halfway through each show – but on the Magnetic Fields' Harriet 45, the results actually aren't half bad. "Long Vermont Roads" incorporates all the elements of a classic Merritt composition – pastoral images, bitterly cynical lyrics, airy melodies and synthetic production that recalls late-70s new wave as often as it does Kraftwerk. The B-side features "Alien Being," which resembles a slowed-down version of The Wayward Bus's "Jeremy," and the surf throwaway "Beach A-Boop-Boop" (co-written with ex-Lazy Susan vocalist Shirley Simms) that at least indulges in some gender-bending ("I'm gonna get me a groovy tan/So's I can get me a groovy man"). In the end, Merritt's certainly got the songs to start an Abba hit factory of his own; I'm just counting on him not to rewrite "Fernando" or "The Winner Takes It All."
    I don't even want to talk about Superchunk's cretinous, predictably punked-out version of the Magnetic Fields' "100,000 Fireflies," especially after recently seeing them open a live show with it, thereby turning one of the saddest, most fragile songs in years into soundtrack music for riding the crowd.

MOONSHAKE
Eva Luna
Too Pure LP
   Drawing from 1980s "social" punk roots, Moonshake is a truly amazing band. I hear echoes of the Pop Group and PiL circa Jah Wobble, but the band sounds as modern as anything around these days. Dave Callahan, who used to be in the Wolfhounds, writes half of the material and sings it with as much prickly affectation as one is likely to find this side of Mark E. Smith. Moonshake is lucky enough to have two amazing songwriters in its midst, as Margaret Fiedler writes songs of slow, menacing beauty. Her "Beautiful Pigeon" is one of the very best songs this year and exemplifies Moonshake at its best, with a sinuous bass line that's pure rhythmic poetry. –Elisabeth Vincentelli

...ONE LAST KISS
various artists
SpinArt CD
Not quite the modern equivalent to Pillows & Prayers or I Love The Smell Of Napalm (that would be the Waaaaah! CD), but still a well-chosen, consistently high-quality selection of American and U.K. independent pop music. Most names will be familiar to those who maintain even the slightest familiarity with this scene (Velocity Girl, Swirlies, Magnetic Fields, Small Factory, Honeybunch, etc.). Many tracks are available elsewhere (although most not on CD), but even if you own all the singles, you'll still want this for the otherwise-unavailable songs by Courtney Love ("Baseball Bat," one of their last), Wimp Factor 14 ("Change Of Address Kit," one of their best), Swirl (near-perfect UK pop with winning Cath Carroll vocals) and Veronica Lake (the splendid "Daisy Kiss," complete with underwater-guitar sound). Even the rather lame Small Factory throwaway, "Hey Lucille," offers its own charms. And, of course, Suddenly, Tammy!'s "Lamp" is nothing less than resplendent.

ORANGE JUICE
Ostrich Churchyard
Postcard CD
Alan Horne resurrects the legendary Postcard imprint for this collection of unreleased Orange Juice sessions that were supposed to comprise their first LP. Most of the songs eventually appeared on You Can't Hide Your Love Forever and Rip It Up, but it's damn near revelatory to hear the early, unadorned versions. Here, at last, is the missing link between the raw, shambling structure of their Postcard 45s and the smooth soulfulness of their LPs, captured before Edwyn Collins' wry, self-deprecating romanticism hardened into so much schtick. (I mean, I've found myself laughing all the way through "Consolation Prize" and the previously unreleased "Texas Fever," and I'm not sure the effect is unintended.) Minus the gospel choir, "In A Nutshell" is effortlessly gorgeous, as is "Louise, Louise" and the until-now-unheard Part 2 of "Intuition Told Me." Informative liner notes and four Peel Session tracks round out this wholly necessary compilation, one of the best Christmas presents I've ever received. Now that Postcard has returned, might we have a singles compilation and a release of Aztec Camera's long-rumored pre-High Land, Hard Rain unreleased sessions?

STEREOLAB
Peng! (Too Pure LP)
Switched-On Stereolab (Slumberland LP)
They've been compared to everyone from Suicide (plausible) to My Bloody Valentine (nope) to Young Marble Giants (wrong). Does no one remember Here Come The Warm Jets or own the Edsel reissue of the United States Of America's only LP (an amazing 1960s psych band with the most acid-drenched lyrics in history)? Stereolab's music is an amazing concoction of Moog organ, guitar/bass/drums, female vocals and bilingual lyrics about repressive society and sexual freedom, all swirling toward the vortex of some of the loveliest melodies anyone's thought up lately. Stereolab avoids both pointless repetition and blatant ripoff. Moods range from the meditative "Super Falling Star" to the Modern Lovers-esque "The Seeing and the Meaning," and it all manages to enthrall. Switched-On is the money-saving singles compilation, but Peng! is flightier and more ambitious and, at about three times the price of the former's domestic release, never fails to satisfy

UNREST
"Isabel Bishop/Love To Know"
Teenbeat 45
This yellow single follows Unrest's astonishing Imperial f.f.r.r. album, which managed to pull the various fragments of Mark E. and company's music together (from funk to noise to pop) for the first time. It also featured "June," an elegy for a dead father that was the prettiest (yet saddest) song since "100,000 Fireflies." This time, we get a new-jack-swing rendition of Imperial's ethereal "Isabel" ballad, and a reverent, letter-perfect rendition of the Marine Girls' "Love To Know" (originally from the Lazy Ways LP), sung by bassist Bridget Cross Dare I say it, Unrest even improves on the original.

VELOCITY GIRL
"Crazy Town" (Sub Pop 45)
Forgotten Favorite (Slumberland CD)
Velocity Girl's most fruitful period happened when Bridget Cross still sang and played bass. Their early Slumberland material proved them perfectly capable of mixing heartbreaking melodies and lyrics with Psychocandy-styled ringing feedback (this was only two years ago; I'm making it sound sound as if it happened before I was born). When Bridget left to join Unrest, Velocity Girl's music took a turn toward the obvious, and with it (in the numerous live shows I've seen, at least) left much of what made the band interesting. To date, the Sarah Shannon version of the lineup has hit home exactly twice: the crushing "Warm/Crawl," from their Sub Pop split 45 with Tsunami, and their second Slumberland single, "My Forgotten Favorite." You can find these tracks, along with a few Australian B-sides, on Slumberland's Forgotten Favorite CD, a collection of Bridget- (and early Sarah-) era material that includes the band's already classic first single and various compilation tracks. Sadly missing is "Clock" from the What Kind Of Heaven Do You Want? 45, but there are two versions of "I Don't Care If You Go," an utter anthem of romantic ambivilence – just listen to the way Bridget drags out the last syllable of each line. I'll be happy to take most of this review back if their Copacetic LP is even half of what it should be,

VERSUS
"Astronaut" / "Insomnia" (Land Speed 45)
"Forest Fire" / "Bright Light" (Pop Narcotic 45)
This NYC trio isn't doing anything particularly innovative or uncharted, but they reconcile historical debt by being deadly perfect at what they do. The result is this part of singles, high among 1992's best. Listen to Versus' music once and you'll immediately hear traces of Husker Du, Sonic Youth, Volcano Suns, the Embarrassment, Joy Division and (predictably) Mission of Burma. Where Versus shines is in the palpable tension and careful craft of the songs themselves (I mean, just listen to the buildup at the end of "Insomnia"), and the excellent way the male-female vocals come together. Versus is one of the few bands able to breathe new vigor into a now-established subgenre of music...and that's not even counting the new material they've been playing out that's yet to see vinyl or aluminum.

WHITE TOWN
Alain Delon EP
Parasol 45
Alain Delon, I'm told, is a famous French actor whose visage adorns the Smiths' The Queen Is Dead album, but I've never seen any of his films.   According to White Town vocalist Jyoti Mishra, he's got a bad-assed hairstyle and attitude to match: "point a gun at him, he's steady cool...whatever else he may be, he's no fool." Be that as it may, White Town's second American 45 is a special thing; your basic indiepop band adds chirpy keyboards and polite, tasteful guitar distortion that places them more in the Blue Orchids/Monochrome Set school of smart pop than, say, that of your average Sarah band. All four songs are fine, if a bit glum (which is fine with me), and there's even a personal note from Jyoti about breaking up with his girlfriend.

WHITE TOWN
Bewitched EP
Parasol 45
Another soul-searching insert ("I've been feeling a bit suicidal lately..."), and four deliciously brooding songs by Jyoti Mishra, the man who's learned to channel betrayal, disappointment and misery in impressive ways (I want a White Town/My Dad Is Dead tour). Even the upbeat title track is basically about unwanted obsession. Where last single might have resembled the Monochrome Set, Bewitched has a muted, grey tone that more closely takes after Felt or the Field Mice. There's even a superior cover of Felt's "Bitter End," originally on The Pictorial Jackson Review. Without wishing him eternal misery and depression, I hope Jyoti has plenty more songs this strong in his arsenal. How else is he going to get through the next breakup?

WORKING HOLIDAY SERIES:
January (Scrawl/Versus) and February (Tinklers/Lungfish)
Simple Machines 45s
The first two installments in Simple Machines' 1993 monthly series of singles, each of which will include two bands paying tribute to myriad holidays. Scrawl (new guy drummer and all) kicks off the series with their New Year's Day tribute, "11:59 It's January," which is a great improvement from their moribund SOL single but not yet up there with Bloodsucker (which Simple Machines is re-releasing, incidentally). Versus' "Tinfoil Star," presented in honor of the first space mission, carries the B-side. Two Baltimore bands handle February, with the Tinklers' ironically clumsy, unfunky "James Brown" commemorating Black History Month and Lungfish celebrating President's Day ("Abe Lincoln"). The rest of the year promises holiday hymns by everyone from Liz Phair to My Dad Is Dead, so you might want to write to Simple Machines to see if they'll backdate subscriptions...they might even have leftover Working Holiday Calendars to send out.