We return to normality on tonight's program: no tributes, no fundraising, no celebrity guests. I present my humble program as it typically proceeds, with one "shout-out" to my friend and colleague Stephanie, who does the "Humming Wires" program on Wednesday nights from 7:00 to 9:00. I was walking to the station Sunday night, when Steph spun "Bombast" during the tag-team extravaganza. DJ camaraderie: it's a decent feeling!The Dentists furnish our "Physical Evidence" for the week, in the form of You and Your Bloody Oranges. I do manage to...
We return to normality on tonight's program: no tributes, no fundraising, no celebrity guests. I present my humble program as it typically proceeds, with one "shout-out" to my friend and colleague Stephanie, who does the "Humming Wires" program on Wednesday nights from 7:00 to 9:00. I was walking to the station Sunday night, when Steph spun "Bombast" during the tag-team extravaganza. DJ camaraderie: it's a decent feeling!
The Dentists furnish our "Physical Evidence" for the week, in the form of
You and Your Bloody Oranges. I do manage to play the whole thing, even the vocal snippet without a name, so there's no need to describe the sound. I will say that this record charms me as few records do, mostly by historical accident. When I left my parents' house to attend college, I had eighteen records to my name. Why and how do I remember such a detail, by the way? Although I'm not positive, I'll be damned if this record wasn't one of them.
How this record--pressed on what was apparently The Dentists' own label, documenting a band that seems to have been part of no scene, nor to have conformed to any contemporaneous fashion--traveled 6,000 miles to end up in a cultural backwater, where it could appeal to me from a record store bin by means of its cover image alone [this was the era when a good cover could promise good music], I can never know. Things could have gone so differently--it might have landed somewhere else, another record could have caught my eye that day, and so on. Do you ever ponder this stuff? Sorry to subject you to my mental detritus. I'm happy to refund your money, if these musings don't please you.
The Dentists, who were never "twee," "C86," "post-punk," or "garage revival" (despite being close to the Medway and working with Prisoner and Headcoat Allan "Crojack" Crockford), would have their inexplicable major-label moment in the United States, a decade later, when they were not "grunge," "slack," "cuddlecore," or "math rock."
You and Your Bloody Oranges doesn't seem to be the record that aficionados name-check or to which they gravitate, for reasons I can't explain any better than I can my own relationship to it. I do hope it gets a reissue someday so that more people can hear it, but for now we can all bask in the glow of this shoddy vinyl-to-mp3 capture.
BOMBAST playlist, 2013 November 13, 2100-2300:
- "Overground" | Siouxsie & The Banshees | The Thorn | Wonderland - Polydor
- "Hang On St. Christopher" | Tom Waits | Franks Wild Years | Island | "Listening Parlour"
- "Noughts" | Few Nolder | Private Drive | Best Kept Secret
- "Sequoia" | Saroos | Return | Alien Transistor
- "Pallino" | The Dentists | You and Your Bloody Oranges | Spruck | "Physical Evidence"
- "Trigger" | Whore Paint | Swallow My Bones | Load
- "Luna Luxor" | Chrome Sparks | Sparks | Future Classic
- "Secret History" | Jawbox | Grippe | Dischord
- "My Friends in the Best of Circles" | The Dentists | You and Your Bloody Oranges | Spruck | "Physical Evidence"
- "wistful wishful wanton" | Pinkcourtesyphone | Foley Folly Folio | Boomkat
- "Waiting for Nina (Noon Mix)" | C-Rock & Patrick Kunkel | Waiting for Nina | Leena
- "Moving" | Petar Dundov | Sailing off the Grid | Music Man
- "Something That Will Never Happen" | The Dentists | You and Your Bloody Oranges | Spruck | "Physical Evidence"
- "What Goes Boom" | Pixies | EP1 | self-released
- "Polyfusion" | Seefeel | Quique | Modern Classics
- "I Can See Your House from Up Here" | The Dentists | You and Your Bloody Oranges | Spruck | "Physical Evidence"
- "See the Train" | Blancmange | Mange Tout | Sire | "Listening Parlour"
- "untitled" | The Dentists | You and Your Bloody Oranges | Spruck | "Physical Evidence"
- "Constantinople" | Trentemoller | Lost | In My Room
- "Jugoton" | Ichisan | The Pink Collection | Eskimo
- "The Best of Everything" | The Dentists | You and Your Bloody Oranges | Spruck | "Physical Evidence"
- "Hurt on Hold" | The Monks | In Fuzz We Trust | Stag-O-Lee
- "Lydden Circuit" | Brassica | Temple Fortune | Civil
- "I Was Wrong" | Live Skull | EP | Desire
- "Where's My Chicken, You Bastard?" | The Dentists | You and Your Bloody Oranges | Spruck | "Physical Evidence"
- "Don't Drink and Drive" | Hutton School Choir | Classroom Projects | Trunk
next time: make sure you're serious, 'cause I can be dangerous. Enjoy the music! --kid catharsis
