Tape Study 2: Alabama, Alvvays, An American Tail, Another Michael
Continuing our journey through my boxes of cassettes.
Hello. Welcome to Tape Study 2. I’m covering a nice little batch of tapes this week featuring two Alvvays records, an EP my dog loved, a classic soundtrack, and an album with some Civil War references that made me go “hmmmm”. I listened to most of these while playing an Xbox game called Peggle 2. It’s a game where you hit pegs with a ball to make them disappear while a smiling unicorn stares at you, essentially a souped up version of the kind of thing you might have played on Facebook back in 2011. I’d been on the hunt for something to play mindlessly while listening to music, and for my money no game serves that purpose better than Peggle 2. If you’ve been looking for the same thing, check it out.
Before I get into the tapes I wanted to shout out the band Accessory who I caught at one of Ground Control Touring’s abortion benefit shows over the weekend (the event was done in partnership with Noise for Now who you can donate to here). I hadn’t heard of Accessory before the show, but I had high hopes when I noticed during their set-up that they had four guitarists. They played a great set of noisy art rock that felt like a mix of Television and Sonic Youth. Lots of bands out there right now are influenced by late 80s/early 90s noise rock, but I rarely see a group that’s as down to let the feedback sing as Accessory were, which cemented them for me as the real deal. Very cool band, check them out.
Anyways, on to the tapes.
Alabama - Feels so Right (1981)
When I was about six years old I saw Billy Gilman on TV singing at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I was really taken by his performance. They said on the broadcast that the music he was playing was called country, so I decided that from that point on I would become a country guy. It was a phase that only lasted about two years, but in that time I listened to a ton of country radio. This was in the early 2000s, so a good chunk of the songs that I’d hear were about 9/11, which always bummed me out. Because of this I enjoyed when they’d play older music recorded by artists who did not yet know 9/11 was going to happen. One band that I came to love during this time was Alabama, whose tracks “Song of the South” and “I’m in a Hurry (And Don’t Know Why)” were in regular rotation. Their tales of sweet potato pie really spoke to me. As I grew older and stopped listening to country music I sort of forgot about them, so when I came across Feels so Right while browsing at Laurie’s Planet of Sound it was a blast from the past, and I decided to pick it up.
I did a playthrough of this tape a while ago but didn’t really pay too much attention to the lyrics. Listening this time with the added attention of a person who would have to write about it there were many things lyrically that made me go “hmmmm” and “huh”, most of which had to do with the Civil War. The inclusion of illusions to the war were not in themselves surprising (the album’s cover does feature a small confederate flag), but I never would have guessed how the references would be worked in. Perhaps strangest is the song “Burn Georgia Burn”, the tale of a woman whose lover left her to go fight in the war on the night that Georgia was burned down. It features the usual connections between love and fire you might expect in the lyrics of a ballad, just this time it’s about a very specific fire from a very specific war. For example we get the lyric: “While strolling through her mind/She stumbled on an old familiar feeling/Of how he touched her many years ago/And how he made her burn/Burn, Georgia Burn.” I guess I just don’t really understand their compulsion to approach a love song from that angle. They do it in other places too, though usually with less specificity; for example on “See the Embers, Feel the Flame” they sing “Like the south girl, we’re going to rise again”, which I’m not even positive they really know what they mean by. It’s like these guys can’t even be horny without thinking of Dixie. Even if I adjust my outlook to make allowances for era and region to give the band some leeway the way they deploy the tropes is just bizarre.
Despite all of this I can’t argue with the fact that the songs sound good. It’s interesting because country-oriented rock is having a big moment right now, and Alabama is one of the most successful country rock groups of all time, but there’s not really much sonic connection between them and the current movement; the way that they’re indebted to 70s soft rock just hasn’t really carried over. The soft rock/country combo is great though, and it makes the songs go down easy, aided by the band’s great harmonies. I just wish the lyrics were different. In fairness to Alabama it looks like the confederate flag has been dropped from the covers of all of their reissues (including the cover of Roll On, which essentially was just a confederate flag), but the tracks are what they are. I don’t think I’ll really return much to this one, especially when there are songs out there like Lionel Richie’s “Stuck On You” that capture the style just as effectively without feeling the need to shoehorn in Stonewall Jackson.
Alvvays - Antisocialites
Love this one. Antisocilaites was the first Alvvays record that I ever listened to and I still get such a rush when I hit play and hear the synth at the beginning of “In Undertow”. Picking this album up on tape was big for me because on streaming I would often end up just replaying “In Undertow” over and over or getting distracted/pulled away for something work related before I was very far in; that’s one of the best things about tapes and other physical formats, they lead to much more intentional listening. Two tracks that really hit me this time that I didn’t notice as much in the past were “Not My Baby” and “Forget About Life”. The bass groove on “Not My Baby” really drives the song and I love the way the guitar rains around it. The moment after the “woo” on “Forget About Life” where the drums and synth lead come in is sublime. These are things I’ve ostensibly heard before but never noticed, so thank you tapes for helping me lock in and enjoy.
Another thing I was thinking about on this playthrough was how wild it is that they made an album this good and then immediately topped it. Will talk about Blue Rev in more detail in a little bit here, but Antisocialites sounds so much like a band at their peak that it’s kind of unbelievable that they could get even better. Tough to think of a band that’s more automatic, and I’m saying that as someone who is not always so crazy about synth-pop type music (I often find myself getting lost in the waves of the synths or wishing there was more forward momentum to the songs). Here we get all the cool things you get in synth pop with some Peter Buck Reckoning style guitar added in, acting as an engine propelling things along. It’s a great approach. A band in a different lane that appeals to me in a similar way is Wishy, who put themselves a cut above other shoe-gazey bands because their songs actually have momentum. Would kill for an Alvvays/Wishy tour. Hope it happens someday.
Alvvays - Blue Rev
Basically said this a second ago but damn, how did they get even better? Blue Rev finds a lot of its success in the band’s embrace of noise, something we don’t see so much of on the rarely abrasive Antisocialites. The difference can be felt on the album’s opener “Pharmacist”, which ends with a solo from a guitar so fucked up sounding that it could be mistaken for a synth. The record is a lot more guitar forward in general; as I mentioned in the Antisocialites bit above my love for the band has a lot to do with the way their guitars propel things, so them being more front and center here obviously works for me. This is not to say that synths have been thrown out the window here—tracks like “Velveteen” still feature them prominently—they just aren’t as often the star of the show.
“Pomeranian Spinster” is a song that really stood out to me on this listen. It’s just so hype, especially at 1:13 when the whole band comes together for this sharp descending line. It’s the most post-punk that I’ve heard Alvvays, and it’s a style that they wear well. I’ve never seen the band live, but if I did this song would be at the top of my “I hope they play _______” list. It’s also a great lead-in to the more relaxed “Belinda Says”, which has a sound more like what we heard on Antisocialites. On that track there are a few great moments where it’s just a soft synth and Molly Rankin’s voice, and as much as I love the louder/noiser parts of the record hearing her unobscured like that just really blows you away.
This was my first time listening to Blue Rev after reading this snippet from Robert Christgau’s consumer guide where he talks about having to get the album on CD because the combination of it’s fuzz and Spotify’s compression made much of it sort of illegible on streaming. In my opinion he was kind of exaggerating, but I think it’s cool that there’s a record that would make someone need to do that (and that he found it worth it). Will say that it sounded great on tape. I really appreciate Polyvinyl’s commitment to putting so many of their releases out on cassette, they and Sub Pop are two of the bigger labels that I feel like I can count on for consistent releases on the format.
An American Tail: Music From the Motion Picture Soundtrack
I don’t know that I’ve seen An American Tail more than once, but I did watch the sequel Fievel Goes West about 200 times as a kid, as well as the TV series that followed. Ultimately I’m loyal to Fievel the character more than I am any particular entry in the franchise, so picking this one up when I came across it was a no brainer. An American Tail: Music From the Motion Picture Soundtrack features selections from the film’s orchestral score (courtesy of James Horner) mixed in with original musical numbers, including the film’s signature track “Somewhere Out There”. I was watching basketball while listening to this one and the orchestral portions made the games feel very cool and the commercials feel very stupid. “The Cossack Cats” hit at a particularly intense moment of the game which felt very serendipitous. I don’t think I would have been able to hum or pick out the movie’s “Main Title” theme prior to this listen, but hearing it here I was quite moved and impressed. Overall I’d say that the pieces from the score on this one made more of a positive impression on me than the musical numbers, but to be fair I’m not the biggest musical guy.
One of the funniest things about this release is that the movie cut of “Somewhere Out There” is immediately followed by a version of “Somewhere Out There” sung by Linda Ronstadt. I hate to say it but Linda buries Fievel (though both renditions are enjoyable enough). The musical number I vibed with most was “A Duo”, featuring Phillip Glasser (who voices Fievel) and Dom DeLuise (who voices Tiger). The little spoken intro on the song from DeLuise really hit for me/felt almost like free verse poetry, with some fun little interjections added from Glasser. DeLuise just kills it on the song; what a fun voice.
I considered doing a rewatch of An American Tail to go along with this post, but I decided it would make me too sad to watch the parts where bad things happen to Fievel. Having enjoyed Dom DeLuise so much on “A Duo” I decided to instead pick something out of his filmography, landing on the 1992 film Munchie which I had never seen. In it DeLuise plays the titular Munchie, a pervert alien of sorts who helps out a bullied child whose mom is dating an absolute cretin. I had heard the movie was bad but decided to watch anyway because I liked how fucked up the Munchie puppet looked. It was as bad as everyone said, but I did get my fill of DeLuise, so no complaints from me.
Another Michael - Land
I got this one in a grab bag of five mystery cassettes; I don’t fully remember where from but it might have been Polyvinyl (this isn’t a Polyvinyl release but they sometimes carry titles from other labels in their store). In any event I’d highly recommend doing one of those random grab bags—be it tapes, records or CDs— from a label you like. Every time I’ve done it I’ve gotten at least two or three things that really hit, and it’s a cool way to check out bands and records that might not normally come across your radar. In this case I had been familiar with Another Michael before receiving Land, but I mostly just knew their 2023 release Wishes to Fulfill. I’ve listened to Wishes to Fulfill more than almost any other record I own, largely because I love it but also because it’s one of the few albums that I can tell my dog actually likes. When I put it on he goes from crazy to zen, and we can both just lay there and bask in the music.
Land is pretty different from Wishes to Fulfill; where Wishes is very folky in its approach Land is this kind of interesting mix of bedroom and indie-pop, with tinges of 70s soft rock occasionally peeking their head around the corner. I really enjoyed it, and am definitely going to add it to my regular cassette listening rotation. One part that really stuck with me was at around 1:36 on the EPs opener “About” where a steadily building crescendo falls away leaving us with this very vibey organ and Michael Doherty’s voice. After a few seconds he is joined in call and response then harmony by Nick Sebastino, with everything just coming together perfectly. The track had a similar effect on my dog as his favorites on Wishes to Fulfill, which helped cement Land as a winner.
“Connect” is another track on the EP that really stood out to me. I loved the staccato guitar lines that dance with the super thick bass as Michael’s voice sails over everything, and I also loved the parts where the piano would start to mirror the lead vocals to accentuate them. Just a very cool and well put together song. Having loved this EP, Wishes to Fulfill and the band’s latest release Pick Me Up, Turn Me Upside Down I really have no excuse for not checking out the rest of the Another Michael back catalog. I see a lot of the band in my future, which is good for me and good for my dog. Also want to note that I’ve seen them live a few times and have always been blown away, so you should try to catch them when they come to your city.
And there it is, Tape Study 2 in the books. Still early on in the journey but I’m feeling pretty good. Thanks so much for reading, it means the world to me. I’ll be back in two weeks with some music from Arlen Gun Club, Arrested Development, Babyface, Backstreet Boys and Bad Religion. See you then.
Steve and I saw Another Michael open for someone back in 2019, and they were awesome! I didn’t follow up with them, but now I will.