The Music Spectrum Notebook Series digs into my handwritten notes and reviews on older releases still getting my attention.
I Am the Heat declares The Future Doesn’t Need Us, but I do need to acknowledge the garage dance rock of their EP from this past year. It’s got a club heavy vibe but with plenty of rock ‘n’ roll dustups. “What Would Lou Reed Do” takes a punk rockabilly to a White Denim hand claps/gang vocals indie scheme. White Denim comparisons come on “Silver Skies” also with its vocal round during the bridge. White Denim attempts such vocal chances, but I Am the Heat is even more courageous. The song on the whole sounds like a more out of control 60’s Kinks laid on top of fuzz bass. The vocal and bassline on “Your Monsters” make me think of the ska-skewed rock of the Woodentops.
I Am the Heat
High Five Records
Woodentops: Live Hypnobeat Live
Speaking of the Woodentops, their live album Hypnobeat (1987) was one of the odds ‘n’ ends I was able to find on emusic.com to use a 50 free download offer on. While I would prefer to get their album, Giant (1986), still it is good to hear the music again, music lost when the old cassette version wore out.
emusic doesn’t nearly have the collection that iTunes has, but the free download offer was a chance to find some old things that weren’t in my collection anymore—like the Mighty Lemondrops, fIREHOSE, and Negativland.
The Woodentops became a favorite of mine back in 1988, my freshman year in high school. I bought Giant, because some seniors I looked up to said it was great. I remember buying the cassette at Musicland at Burnsville Center (Burnsville, MN) while there with the girlfriend of one of those seniors. She was just being nice, hanging out with my friend and me, lonely freshmen needing something to do on a rainy Friday night. She was just being nice, but when I asked her to put the Woodentops in the tape deck of her car on the way home, the upbeat melancholy love songs made me start to think there was something more to her friendship. It’s one of those vivid memories I have tied to music, this one a remembrance of getting carried away by emotion, overdramatizing the moment that never really was dramatic.
Hypnobeat should really be called Crazybeat. These live versions capture the Woodentops playing their songs at a frenetic pace. That beat was there in the studio albums, but here that constant beat emphasizes the ska aspect of the rhythm. “Love Train” has the pace of a locomotive running down the mountain with no brakes and a full load. This isn’t the time to be swept up in the upbeat melancholy from the backseat of my senior friend’s girlfriend’s car. This is about throwing off the melancholy, rejoicing in the nostalgia of those days, but celebrating that they’re over.
