Impulse Listening

"Hit Liquor" - Shudder To Think
(from Pony Express Record, 1995)

I know, I know... what's with the sporadic posts full of empty promises of more constant content? Well, out of the myriad of ways I invest my time, blogging is, shall we say, low-yield. I'm not saying I'm giving up; hobbies, after all, are part of a balanced habitual agenda. But just don't shake yer skinny fists at me if a week slips by sans update.

The big news is that I'm rediscovering guitar-oriented indie-rock, but not those limp-wristed, moustachio'd, histrionic charlatans who send college kids' hearts atwitter these days. I'm talking about back when the guitar was still considered an instrument flush with potential, before computers became the dominant tool of the day, when our heroes expended energy physically wrenching demons and ideas from their instruments instead of breaking a sweat striking poses. This retrovisionquest has led me back, inevitably, to a city fundamental to my musical growth: Washington, DC.

One band I had the pleasure of seeing on two occassions in the mid-'90s were fish out of water in any pond, more theatrical and arch than their Dischord labelmates and certainly too strange to survive for long on a major label. Though they were unceremoniously relegated to the long list of '90s Ones That Got Away, their influence rippled throughout the rock underground. So singular was their sound, though, that their imitators could be used as a frame of reference for themselves: a sincere & retrained Brainiac, or perhaps the Dismembermant Plan squared.

Regardless, Shudder To Think friggin' rocked. Enjoy.