Oblivians are a band from Memphis, the godfathers of the garage underground scene in that city that just broke up when they were getting to be known worldwide in the late nineties. They called it quits after a great collaboration with Quintron in 1997. The band went separate ways, Greg Cartwright established himself as one of the most important songwriters with the new band Reigning Sound, Jack Yarber became the king of the minimalist garage and Eric Friedl was busy running the famous Goner Records label and playing gutter punk with True Sons of Thunder. This year they decided to ditch their real surnames again and return to The Oblivians.
It’s like all those years of separate careers did not even happen. The new record is a classic Oblivians chaotic mix of dirt and melody. Timeless quality comes form the fact that they recorded the whole thing on scotch tape, at least that’s how it sounds like. Inputs to the record are brotherly divided up by all three of them and among the excellent originals that already threaten to become classics, there are some hilarious cover choices: Paul Butterfield Band, Andy Griffith and probably the catchiest song on the record Call The Police which brings back Quintron and Miss Pussycat and it was written by Stephanie McDee – a popular local hip hop entertainer from New Orleans who mixes rap and zydeco traditions.
A few technical notes on the vinyl release. Cover on the font is a great photograph, but it’s a low resolution digital photo blown up to the 12×12″ record cover. Inside photography is beautiful. There is no clear information on the record or on the cover where it was mastered or pressed. I can’t say much about the vinyl cut, after all, the whole record sounds like it was recorded on a scotch tape. But that sort of visual and aural lo-fi chaos is what represents The Oblivians authentically. Anything more polished would be a disaster.
Today we say goodbye to one of my personal heros. Tusta was a singer of a great punk band KUD Idijoti who put out a series of three excellent EPs back when I was just starting to be interested in the underground rock. For me, Idijoti was one of the most exciting things that happened musically worldwide, although they were just a small local Yugoslav band. Unfortunately, cancer took Tusta’s life sometime last week and it shook me deeply. As if a family member died, although I didn’t even know him personally. Today show is for Tusta. We hear some his music and we also check out some of the new music as well. Cowbell is a duet from England. Electric Six have a new live record, and they visited Cleveland. Along, they brought a new band from San Diego called Little Hurricane, also a duet. And we saw an interesting new Cleveland band, Dead Sweaters. Plus Dick Valentine has a new solo record. And The Legs, Eric Oblivian’s old band, has their recordings from 2000 finally out on a record.
The first block in today’s show is dedicated to the three (fake) brothers – Eric, Greg and Jack Oblivian. We know Jack has a new album Rat City, but the other two brothers are shaking the rock’n’roll scene with new records as well. Greg’s Reigning Sound has a new digital record called Abdication For Your Love and Eric has a really exceptional new record with his band True Sons of Thunder. Their older colleague from Memphis, legendary Steve Cropper has a tribute record, dedicated to Lowman Pete Pauling of The “5” Royales fame. New Jersey singer songwriter Neal Casal is back also with the new record. Canadian lady Kathleen Edwards is a new name for us, but we really like what she’s doing.