Local H - As Good As Dead


Welcome to the mid to late 90s. Long before 21 Pilots or the White Stripes, but not quite as long ago as the Carpenters, there was the remnants of a full band called Local H. After the other two guys quit, Scott and Joe said "screw it, we'll just be a drum/guitar duo." I'm not sure if that's keeping or not keeping it copacetic, and i'm equally not sure if they ever gave each other a high-five, but i think the results speak for themselves. Here's their second album As Good As Dead. 

Oh, yeah, this is actually a great place to start. See, we hated a lot of things about life in the 90s. The consensus was we were just losers with chips on our shoulders who hated "success," but that's about the least amount of effort you can put into analyzing the phenomenon. 

Right off the bat, we didn't necessarily hate high fives and steroids and monster trucks as things, we hated the guys who wanted to high five each other for taking steroids and being super proud of winning an award for their personal tricked-out monster truck. We didn't hate being in love, we hated the overly obnoxious PDA that belied the fact that they were actually toxic people who constantly screamed at each other in private. We hated the wanting to get back together after a breakup. We hated being stuck in a crap town with no future except hoping to win the lottery. I think one lyric sums it up pretty good: "If I was Eddie Vedder, would you like me any better?" No, you actually wouldn't, you'd only like the fact that you knew a famous person. 

So, we did what any restless mopey teenager would do, we cranked up our amps and vented our frustration in song. 

Fun fact, the band's name comes from two R.E.M. songs: Oddfellows Local 151 and Swan Swan H; H originally standing for "hurrah." 

So, As Good As Dead is a fantastic album, not just because the songs are catchy and grungy and head-bangingly enjoyable, but because they give us the real context of the zeitgeist. It's a lot like Frank Zappa standing in his living room with a riot happening outside his window and the fake facade of the TV reporting version of said riot making us want to scream about how stupid everything around us actually is.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 4 Seasons - The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette

Image
This might be my longest  album review ever. But i swear a couple times, so it's worth the read ;) How could i possibly mention Jefferson Airplane, The 4 Seasons, and Frank Zappa in the same context? Zappa said "this is rediculous" and a few years later The 4 Seasons said "you know what, Frank is right. This IS ridiculous." To which Jefferson Airplane said, "Oh. Ok. Got it." The real question is: which one is the most transgressive? Zappa said stop fighting, you look like idiots. Jefferson Airplane said i guess if love and community is a bad thing, then sure we're criminals and we'd be happy to move out into the fields and live peaceful lives without your garbage, let us go already. The 4 Seasons said hold my champagne for a moment. In 1969, The 4 Seasons released the single most ironic, acidic, extravagant, and downright befuddling album ever created, The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette. Zappa was accused of writing "shitty doo-w...
Read more

Welcome to my blog, and my record collection.

This is a blog about my love of listening to albums. It started off as a nightly perusal of my dad's record collection (which sadly became mine) on my personal facebook page. Over the last two months it has become quite an enjoyable process of simply ranting about what i think is a real art form, the album. It needs a more permanent home. Some of my reviews are positive, some negative. They might not be what you expect from album reviews, but i hope you at least find them entertaining. For the most part i do very little research, and they tend to be train of thought reactions rather than calculated essays. If nothing else, know that i'm really listening to them and whether they are amazing or abysmal i want you to go listen to them too.  I'll start migrating the 60+ i've written so far over here in the next few days, and hopefully get to the point where i just start writing them here. I'd probably even take suggestions if you're just dying to know my tho...
Read more

J. Geils Band - Freeze Frame

Image
Speaking of New Wave, I just listened to the penultimate J. Geils Band album, Feeze Frame, and it is awesome. You know the title track and Centerfold, but i highly doubt you know the album closer, Piss On The Wall.  It's not even really reviewable, to be honest, it's Freeze Frame, couple songs, Centerfold, couple more songs, and Piss On The Wall. I guess i could rehash what Post-Punk/New Wave New Wave was all about (actual dance club Rock & Roll with quirkily expensive synth leads), but you know The Cars and The Motels and Talking Heads. Believe it or not, the Ramones were considered New Wave rather than Punk in the beginning. Now we'd call them Pop Punk, but the point is that Rock in the late 70s existed on a spectrum from Corporate Cock to Nerdly Neurotic Pocket Protector, and in 1980/81 J. Geils Band said hold my beer, I gotta take a leak, how's this for "radio-friendly, twitchy nerd Rock with huge sing-along choruses?" Freakin' awesome, dude, freak...
Read more