Maybe it’s just the dry, old-school-lo-fi production — lending it an unvarnished patina not entirely unlike the results I get on my cassette 8-track when I can be bothered to be fastidious and have access to halfway decent microphones — but in Teen Challenge, Lincoln, Nebraska’s Pharmacy Spirits have created an album to which listening feels like you’ve unearthed an unknown treasure. Specifically, it plays like a compilation of the entire, mostly 7″ discography released over three very intense years by some little-known 80s postpunk or 90′s emo band (geographically, and to a degree sonically appropriate, Friction comes to mind), that found no notice beyond a small underground following, but in their short life managed to very quickly transcend their nichey little genre to create something really special that probably meant an awful lot to a number of now widely-scattered people who at age 19 or so saw them in any of several basement shows, knew their songs backwards and forwards, once were fiercely devoted but now years later have all but forgotten, the band’s cassettes and records now stuffed along with other old keepsakes into boxes in corners of very different basements, or long since lost in the flux of chaotic young lives… but now you stumble across these songs languishing in some back corner of a record store, and knowing nothing of all this history you buy it on a whim, take it home and put on, and realize that you’ve stumbled onto a weighty little artifact indeed. If you were to somehow find those basement-show kids, no longer kids, settled down with families now, and play them that old record, sweet sad memories would come flooding back as if through past-life regression hypnosis. And yet for as much as the music of Pharmacy Spirits feels like it’s calling to you out of your mythic punk-rock past, not one note sounds dated, exactly. Indeed many of the sonic elements — yelpy vocals, angular guitars — tend to go over big with indie kids these days. Where Teen Challenge does feel like a period piece, it pulls the act off authentically enough, and with enough original touches, to seem like more than mere homage. They’ll be at Vaudeville Mews on August 29 with Gabe Cordova. Though I almost would prefer seeing them in a basement.

(Now Listening: Zoroaster — Matador)

So, yeah. Played a pretty decent first Distant Trains set to open up the show on a pretty typically sparsely-attended Wednesday night at the Mews. Went over better than I expected. Todd On Acid is definitely a character. S.E.R.F.’s set was a drunken, technically-plagued mess, but a cool sweeaty rock and roll mess, though I’m not sure they themselves appreciated it as such. Part of rock and roll is playing your songs right, but part of rock and roll is also getting a raucous party vibe going, and they definitely succeeded on the latter. Even when they’re off playing-wise, they’re still a really fun bunch of guys to have up on stage, and I think folks really enjoyed it.

The headliner and definite highlight was The Bassturd. I think he’s always had this show-business-parody angle to what he does, but a lot about his show has tightened up to the point of downright professional, his timing seamless, his array of lighting gadgets, a mix of christmas lights and various Spencer’s Gifts/truck-stop-souvenier material, has gotten impressive enough that he did his set with no stage lighting whatsoever, playing keyboard entirely by touch. Hits such as “Fucking U Down” (with amplified accordion, of course), “Dirty Dirty South,” and “Bling Ballz” were in the set along with Devo covers from his tribute CD The Important Sound Of Things Falling Apart. The audience was mostly established fans very familiar with his material, and he was successfully goaded into doing a bit of “David Geffen Is A Pedophile.” Dan was totally on and in his element, and it was a joy to see him play such a solid show and to hang out with him.

Last night’s show came about as the birthday wish of Kim Hutchison, noted artist and wife of Why Make Clocks frontman Dan Hutchison, that he reunite two of his old bands, the goofball punk of Going To Grandma’s and the bloody-minded prog-punk of Fetal Pig, both featuring brother Jeff Hutchison, and the former also including Jeff’s Blutiger Fluss bandmate Jim Duede. Neither band came with their original bassplayers, however; yours truly did the job for Fetal Pig, opening the evening, easily among the most challenging sets of music I’ve learned and played in my life, and following a second set of no-nonsense rock and roll from Squidboy, Why Make Clocks drummer Will Tarbox took up the bass guitar for Going To Grandma’s, his first performance ever on the instrument. I’d expected GTG to be a fun band, what I hadn’t expected was that they would also be so good. Well written songs with lots of vocal interplay and sing-along choruses.

It’s been intense, playing new and old material for the first time. All humid weather and good times with good people. A lot of folks at last night’s gig seem to think we should play these tunes more often. I’m up for it.

I’m gonna do it kind like the solo gigs I been doing since ’08 or so, with drum machine and looper, but playing bass instead of guitar, and playing it loud and slow and sludgy the way Distant Trains rolls. I could maybe use a bandmate though, for future performances. Maybe someone who plays both drums and spaced-out synthesizers.

The show is at Vaudeville Mews here in Des Moines this Wednesday at about 9:30 pm. The Bassturd is the evening’s headlining attraction, and deservedly so; if you have not seen The Bassturd yet, you really should. The man is a songwriting keyboarding rapping improvising accordioning juggernaut of hilarity, absurdity, and awesome. A past collaborator of The Bassturd is also on the bill, Des Moines O.G. songwriter Todd On Acid, and newfangled local psychobilly outfit S.E.R.F.. I’m not quite sure what the order is other than of course The Bassturd goes on last.

I would have posted this bit of news much earlier but shit has been hectic in Centipede Land. I moved from a rented split-foyer in southeast Des Moines to a cheaper and lower-maintenance apartment in West Des Moines and started a new job as a combination Ruby On Rails programmer and server admin and possible development team lead. It’s the kind of job that forces me to learn a bunch of new shit to keep up, which is the kind of job I like. I went to 80/35, which I’ve already written about. I worked out an apartment-friendly headphone-based practice setup for bass + drum machine. I bought a Stylophone, and that kept me kind of busy for a while. I’m reading about four books at one time. In the process of moving, I unloaded a lot of random, bulky, oddball possessions that I didn’t really have much of a use for any more, but I’ve still got a lot to go. Feel free to make me an offer on a Yamaha CP-30 electronic piano or an epic collection of pencil sharpeners, including a ton of those die-cast metal ones that look like old cars and appliances and shit. The collection of Pascal programming books didn’t sell as well as I had hoped, most ended up in the recycle bin. My Atari 2600 and large collection of cartridges and accessories will be going to the International Video Game Hall Of Fame being started in Ottumwa, Iowa, in hopes that they do in fact appreciate the significance of Chase The Chuckwagon.

Anyway I didn’t start Centipede Farm to be a personal blog, in fact I very expressly started it not to be a personal blog, but you know, I’m sure that’s all interesting shit, and it ties in in some ways with my musical projects. Another rad thing I’ve got going on is the Fetal Pig reunion, which also involves a reunion of yet another classic ’90s Des Moines band, Going To Grandma’s. It will also be happening at the Vaudeville Mews, this Friday, along with another classic Des Moines rock band that needs no reunion because they never went away, Squidboy. Learning Fetal Pig songs, which are these crazy complex riff-fests that sound like a cross between The Minutemen and King Crimson, has been an awesome mind-bending experience and one that I hope will influence my writing for Distant Trains. There is talk that since we’re getting the songs down pretty tight we should go down to Luke’s and record an album.

See you Wednesday and Friday
(Now listening: Sleepy Sun – Fever)

I know, I’m probably late to the party writing about this album. Then again, I never claimed to be any kind of real music journalist, just a guy who likes to write about music. Plus, it’s a big album, I needed adequate time to chew it over.

There’s a misguided, but nonetheless widespread, conception that playing rock and roll music is the province of the young and naive, those yet to take on real responsibilities in life; that being in a band, supposedly thereby chasing some elusive/illusive stardom, is something you’re supposed to grow out of. And indeed, playing in a band can look incompatible with full adult life; for instance, most 9-to-5 gigs don’t take kindly to your just picking up and taking off for a month on tour. So when it comes to the music game, there’s a looming societal pressure as one stares down their 30s to give up the silly teenage rock-star dreams, hang up the guitar, and just grow the fuck up already.

But that’s just it: nobody with an immature, teenager mindset would take music seriously enough, nor would they be organized enough, to be able to still do it while working it around jobs, families, grad school. Certainly not after one’s bandmates have all moved to different states hundreds of miles away from each other for those things. Working hard to write the best songs you can, and slogging through the grunt-work of getting out and selling a record, is actually a downright grown-up thing to do. That’s just what Poison Control Center have done, and the album itself is about those very conflicts: about worrying about your youth slipping away, and whether growing up/older really means being obligated to stop being creative and fun, to stop burning with that brightness and energy we’re all supposed to associate with youth.

Youthful energy and abandon are certainly something that Poison Control Center know a thing or two about. In their live sets they’re known for getting absolutely crazy, hanging upside-down from the rafters, knocking over their gear. There may not be a more fit band out there at this moment to write and perform the songs on Sad Sour Future. Yet it’s hard not to see the ambitious 17-song album, and the epic, some might say insane, year-long tour now in progress, as a desperate last-ditch attempt by Poison Control Center to try to transcend their hometown-hero status while they still have a chance, to see if maybe-just-maybe they can make a career out of this music thing and thus avoid that very growing-up that’s probably expected of them, which, maybe they really believe means that if they don’t “make it” in some sense with this record, that the band will finally have to end. If they have even half of another record like this one still left in them, then I sure hope not.

Yeah I know, yawnsville, none of this addresses what the record sounds like. Fine. Never mind the Pavement reunion, Poison Control Center have everything you love about Pavement but with new melodies, new lyrics, and a bit of that Flaming Lips whimsy thrown in. Poison Control Center’s pop instincts are always very much evident, but never to the detriment of the raw and freewheeling (experimental?) tendencies beloved to the duct-tape-guitar set. These songs are both patchworks of gritty guitar sounds, and summery jams you can sing along to, of the sort likely to end up with that “soundtrack to a chapter of your life” quality that lends emotional weight and meaning to the well-chosen chord changes — another one of those musical experiences that, at 35, I had suspected one is supposed to grow out of, until this album proved me wrong. This is music that works on the age 25-to-40 heartstrings the way you thought pop music was only supposed to work on the 17-to-25, much of it revolving around those themes I’ve already addressed, and in the final analysis the orientation seems to be one of cautious optimism that the rock and roll spirit will prevail. If Poison Control Center are right, maybe we’ll all be at the rock club in our middle age, embarrassing our kids, knowing that we probably look like dorks to the twentysomethings and completely not caring because we know in our hearts, hearts bursting with fun and meaning and creativity, that we are in fact more rock and more awesome than they in their limited experience can possibly know. We at least have had time to live some shit worth singing about.

here, and heavy as hell. One week to go until release date.

80/35 Festival just finished up, it was pretty cool. I debated with myself whether to write anything about it at all since everyone else is bound to, and anyway I probably missed a lot of stuff. This was my second 80/35, and the first I had main-stage tickets for. One thing I think is cool about 80/35 is that even if you can’t muster the cash for tickets, there’s still a lot of stuff to see: there are free stages; no tickets are needed to hang around the various vendor tents; one such tent, that of Yellowbrock magazine, hosted some acoustic performances, including Poison Control Center and Des Moines’ own American Idol contestant, this past season’s Katelyn Epperly, with her pre-Idol bandmate Nick Frampton, the duo now known as Katelyn & The Bruises. Plus Des Moines Social Club, located right nest door to the second stage, puts some bands on for free in their Sideshow Lounge area. This year’s “third” stage had a new emphasis on electronica, DJs, and hip-hop. I didn’t catch much of that, but the second stage featured no lesser lights than Califone, William Elliott Whitmore, and local rising stars Canby, Christopher The Conquered, and Cashes Rivers. This is a pretty cool time to be a music fan in Des Moines.

However, I must admit that a combination of factors kept me from seeing a lot of stuff:

• being still in the process of unpacking from our recent move, not to mention still recovering from said move, in the sore-and-tired department
• having an 18-month-old, which requires certain preparations and/or accommodations
• being rather down on social activity in general of late, and pretty much hating people overall
• having pretty much no idea who any of the third-stage hip-hoppers were, and hence whether any of them held any interest for me
• weather that alternated between oppressive heat and humidity, and rain

Most of what I turned up for was the main-stage acts, which this year were just too compelling for me to pass up. Related to that last item, my favorite moments of the festival both directly involved rain:

• A gentle rain that begin falling, as if on cue, precisely as Yo La Tengo hit the final chord of their final number “Pass The Hatchet”
• The Walkmen soldiering on through their set in a driving cloudburst, even as the water shorted out their organ, a very appreciative crowd cheering them on

It was great to see Yo La Tengo with Leah. In a way, Yo La Tengo is kind of “our band” in the way some couples have an “our song.” Before we were dating she hadn’t heard them, and I like to think she fell for me when I played Electr-O-Pura for her. Then, in November 1997 when we had been dating about four and a half months, I got her to go see them with me at Gabe’s in Iowa City, something that’s one of our most special memories of our relationship. I was super glad that this time our 18-month-old son Wesley got to share the experience with us.

Right after Yo La Tengo I did catch half of William Elliott Whitmore’s country-soul stylings. He made shout-outs to Why Make Clocks and Ed Gray.

And I must say that I am glad I caught The Walkmen’s set. I kinda-sort liked them before, based on several really beautiful moments on Bows & Arrows I found when I got it a few years ago, but other parts of that album, and much of their first, Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone (boy, if that isn’t a title I’ve really related to a few times), coming off as so languid as to be nearly shapeless, left me a bit unsure. Their most lovably shambolic qualities were definitely in effect yesterday, but I think that the appreciativeness of the crowd made it difficult for them to maintain a properly cool indie-rocker disinterested facade, and they were revealed to be guys who really love and care about what they’re doing. Their floatier numbers somehow made a bit more sense live, but maybe it was just the mood of the overcast day. In short, they were pretty awesome. The newer numbers, that I recognized by how little I recognized them, sounded even better than some of the material from the first two albums that I knew. So I’m looking to pick me up a copy of You & Me once I’m slightly less broke-ass.

I had to go out alone for Spoon, and it wasn’t as fun to be there by myself. I ran into some friends and ended up mostly chatting with them instead of watching the band, as there was such a heavy crowd that it was hard to get a good view of the stage. The problem with big shows is how big they are. Spoon sounded great, though, with kudos due to the sound crew. The band played several of my favorite of their songs, and I thought it was cool how they brought along a big ol’ horn section. The horns even did riffs that on album were done on guitars. The dubby effects on the vocals that they used so much on Transference were thrown in all over the place during their set.

I didn’t bother sticking around for Modest Mouse on the second night, I was pretty much burned out at that point and just wanted to lay around.

Anyway, good festival, et cetera.

This is so totally overdue. I can’t even be trusted to get the news out in a timely manner about my own album. Forgive me, I’ve been in the throes of moving. “Congratulations On Your Suicide” is out on Sleep On The Floor.