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#580: Ween – I Saw Gener Cryin’ in His Sleep

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Not a very festive or momentous song for the coming new year, I know. But these things aren’t planned. I just do whatever song is next on my phone. And on this New Year’s Eve the track is ‘I Saw Gener Cryin’ in His Sleep’, the thirteenth track on Ween’s major-label debut Pure Guava.

For any Ween fan reading (quite unlikely) wondering where I would place Pure Guava in my favourite albums of the band, I’ll say to you that it probably isn’t in my top five of theirs. To me it just feels like The Pod Part 2, though with less songs and… a bigger sound to it maybe? There’s a larger emphasis on grooves and the drums on Guava, but The Pod in itself is just a lot more interesting and has a lot more variety – no matter how out there it is. I only have four songs from Guava on my phone and for some reason ‘I Saw Gener’, which I feel a lot of people would probably skip over after a while, popped out to me on that first album listen in 2015 or so.

I guess it’s because Ween are known for being this silly band who make a lot of silly stuff (even though their music is actually amazing and you should listen to anything of theirs as soon as you can) and this song details an instance where things aren’t as they seem. Dean Ween – real name Mickey Melchiondo, affectionately known as Deaner by Ween fans – sings about seeing bandmate Gene Ween crying in his sleep and offers some advice to help him through bad times. It’s all a bit heavy.

However, it’s shoddily recorded and set to upbeat, bouncy music which completely overshadows the downbeat lyricism. The drum machines skip out of time and some points, the drum machine cymbals thrash about wildly, there’s some piercing feedback after the first chorus. It’s a great listen. It makes it so funny, but it’s not supposed to be. It’s so conflicting. But that’s the beauty of many a Ween song.

That’s the end of 2017. Hard to believe I revived this back in August when I was stuck at home relentlessly searching for jobs online. Now I have one. I start next week. Hopefully this is the start of something special. Will see you in 2018. Many more songs to come.

My iPod #538: Sex Pistols – Holidays in the Sun

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“Holidays in the Sun” opens Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, the only album the punk rock band produced during its two year stint in the late seventies. Its title is a bit misleading. It looks and sounds pleasant, but it is really about the high sense of paranoia Johnny Rotten detected when standing next to the Berlin Wall whilst on holiday with his band-mates. Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground on the Nintendo DS had this track on its soundtrack, I gained a liking to it – I am able to talk to you about it today.

The opening guitar and drums beat in time with the sound of a soldier’s march before hastily rushing into the track’s introductory chord progression, blatantly taken from The Jam’s “In the City” which was released six months prior. And all whilst this progression plays Rotten, buried under the noise, sneaks in the first line “A cheap holiday in other people’s misery” – something the band had seemed to take underneath all the controversy the members had earned themselves before the album’s release.

I always thought Rotten’s vocals were the highlights of most Pistol tracks; he doesn’t disappoint here too. He seems to match his countless exaggerations and intensity in tandem with the performance with the music. He sounds somewhat subdued during the first verse before minutes later he turns into a blubbering mess before the track’s climactic solo. He’s not a great singer. To say he sings at all is a stretch. But his delivery makes the song all that more exhilarating to listen to.

My iPod #532: Brakes – Hold Me in the River

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The Brighton based band Brakes released their second album The Beatific Visions in 2006, one year and a few months after raising the roof with the impressive debut of Give Blood.  The Beatific Visions reinforced the rough rock ‘n’ roll delivered in songs under/just above two minutes that was established with Give Blood, albeit with crisper and cleaner production.

“Hold Me in the River” starts it all off and was released as the album’s first single. The track takes fourteen seconds to warm up before breaking into its riff which acts as the main instrumental refrain. Lacking a chorus, “Hold Me” consists only of two verses sung by an ever-eccentric Eamon Hamilton who sings about, what I can only guess, being ready to take on anything that comes his way.

A very confident opener, it is something to get you ‘settled’ in for the ten tracks that are to come.

My iPod #502: The Strokes – Heart in a Cage

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“Heart in a Cage” was the second single released from First Impressions of Earth, the third album by rock band The Strokes released on New Year’s Eve 2005, or New Year’s Day 2006 depending on where you lived.

It’s good to be able to recall the memories of a certain time when an album was about to be released and there was a certain hype around it. First Impressions was the comeback of the band who symbolised the return of indie rock in the 21st century, and whilst “Juicebox” was somewhat the wild ride – to put it lightly – with its action-flick sounding bassline and controversial music video, “Heart in a Cage” was the straight comedown with its black and white video and depressing subject matter.

Before being released officially, I had already heard the song when The Strokes performed it at an exclusive live show in London which was aired on MTV2 during December. Just a side note. Check it out if you want.

But the official video came out a few months later, and features the band members performing the track around various locations in New York City. Most notably, Julian Casablancas mimes to the track whilst lying on the ground and avoiding being trampled on at the same time. You can’t help but feel sorry for the guy as he sings about feeling abandoned, unmotivated, and restricted. He’s not allowed to feel free. His heart beats in its cage.

My iPod #420: Nine Black Alps – Ghost in the City

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“Ghost in the City” closes out Nine Black Alps’ third album “Locked Out from the Inside“; after ten tracks of murky guitars and brutal rhythms, “Ghost” arrives as the slow comedown to bring it all to an end.

Maybe one of the softest Nine Black Alps songs with Sam Forrest’s vulnerable and gentle vocals, “Ghost in the City” also creates an eerie and barren atmosphere helped along by a siren-like wailing that appears at various points throughout and its overall production in that it sounds very natural. For instance, in parts where the guitars stop playing or just by listening to the song’s depressing guitar lick, every sound you hear echoes and reverberates around your headphones. It feels like everything’s moving in slow motion, though you’re right there in the studio with the band while they play the song to you.

Just short of five minutes, “Ghost in the City” carries on the themes of alienation and isolation that are noted to within the album though rather than using those themes to make another headbanger, “Ghost” brings to the forefront how miserable and frustrating feeling alone can be.