Seam: 23 February 1994 Freidrichshafen, Germany SOUNDBOARD

Another nice Sooyoung Park-related treat for my followers today.



The same kind fellow who provided me the recent Bitch Magnet recording also supplied me with a Seam master, this time with a bit more lineage known.  My source himself taped this 23 February 1994 gig at The Bunker at Jugendhaus Molke, Freidrichshafen, Germany via soundboard patch - and it's terrific.

Now I'm not hip with the Seam trading circles (heh! Is there even one?) so I have no idea if this gig saw circulation or not.  If it did, I certainly never had it.  Well, I only have two other Seam live sets, one of which I recorded myself and eventually we will get to it here.

This is a great set from a transitional period for this band.  The sound is stellar, the track selection also fantastic.  The playing... well, my source - who was there, as he recorded it - says this was a gig where Seam filled in for Bedhead at the last minute, as Matt "Biznono" Kadane had fallen ill and Bedhead had to cancel.  So, on this snowy, cold February night, only 5 or so attended this gig.  The playing shows: while the guitars and drums are in top form, the bass - perhaps a sign of Lexi being on the way out? - isn't.  Perhaps I'm being too harsh... mostly the bass is fine, but when it's not, it's clearly not.

The sound mix is a bit wonky, but again, I'm sure it sounded great to the five who were there.

One thing that I love about this set is the dynamic it brings out from the Headsparks LP tracks ("Atari"/"Grain"/"Decatur"/"Sky City"), in the live setting.  Headsparks is my least favorite Seam LP, because I think the recording itself is too murky/poor to appreciate; here, the songs really come to life and explode out of the players, greatly increasing my appreciation of these tracks.

Another thing that gets my geek out about this set is that it features a track that wasn't recorded until the following year, with a completely new lineup, "Two Is Enough" (which also happens to be near the top of my "Favorite Seam Songs" listing, not that I actually have one compiled but...).  They have it pretty well sorted out here, gun to my head I probably would be able to tell it wasn't the same players as on the recorded version (the bass (again!) gives it away), nevertheless it's wonderful.

The lineup here, as far as we can tell:

Sooyoung Park - guitars, vocals
Craig White - guitars
Lexi Mitchell - bass
Bob Rising - drums

At some point after this gig - the Internets are woefully unclear on the timing - Sooyoung completely rebuilt the band, replacing his entire surrounding cast.

But wait... in researching the photographs to use for this post I came across an odd picture at Seam's myspace page, the below:

Here, we see Sooyoung and Lexi (she is 2nd from right), surrounded by the "new" Reg Schrader (left, guitar) and Chris Manfrin (right, drums).  Which implies that the band itself was in a transitional state at one point, being a mixture of the old and the new.

Here's something else...

This photo shows someone playing guitar to Sooyoung's right, that is not Craig White and looks like Reg instead, and also features Lexi on bass.  This is allegedly from 1993. 

Which lineup, then, played here?  I have no fucking clue.  Do I ultimately care, really?  No, because the music's stellar.

So enjoy! Lossless FLAC, of course.

SEAM
23 February 1994
The Bunker at Jugendhaus Molke
Freidrichshafen, Germany

Soundboard master (at least I presume master...), recorded by Uwe
Tarted up by the Analog Loyalist July 2011

Setlist:

01 Kernel
02 Atari
03 Grain
04 Decatur
05 Sweet Pea
06 Bunch
07 Sky City
08 Two Is Enough
09 Rafael
10 Something's Burning
11 Dust and Turpentine

Grab it here.

Any other readers have any Seam or Bitch Magnet recordings to share?  The Internets need more! Lots more!

how slow can you go: CODEINE Frigid Stars LP

Sometimes a record so perfectly encapsulates a mood, references such a specific time and/or place that there's no other way for that mood or that experience to be the same without the accompanying record in there somewhere.

I hadn't planned to blog this record for another few months but I think that because I've been going to it for solace, when breaking from the Smiths mastering for that other blog, it was time.

Now dealing with Morrissey on the one, and Codeine on the other, I'd imagine people are either lining up the pills for your humble blogger, or preparing the rubber room for my impending confinement. Ha! I say. I just like the damn thing.

This 1990 release is a VERY powerful record - a record that gains its power not only from its breathless lack of speed, but from its immense sheets of guitars. Stephen Immerwahr's vocals sound as if they're vocalized from the depths of despair, an icy sheen that just adds to the remoteness, the emotional gravity, of the record. And indie legend Chris Brokaw - doubling up here on both guitars *and* drums - has to be an utterly fantastic drummer just due to the nature of how precisely slow a timekeeper he had to be.

With a name like Frigid Stars, and the cover shown below, you can just picture the emotional desolation of this record.

It's not a record for a bright, sunny summer August day. For a chilly, windswept January winterscape, or blustery, rainy fall day with the onset of a brutal winter on the horizon, it's perfect. And while some songs individually are standouts, it's a record best enjoyed as a piece.

There is a stylistic, and (after this record) musical link between Codeine and one of this blog's other favorite set of acts, the Bitch Magnet/Seam axis. BM/Seam fellow Sooyoung Park gifted this record's "New Year's" to Codeine several years before one of his own bands recorded it (Seam did so in 1993 on the Headsparks LP), and not only does Codeine thank the Bitch Magnet folks in the credits, their next record (an EP not blogged here, though I may in the future) featured BM's Jon Fine and part-time BM David Grubbs in various guesting roles.

"Cave In", for that matter, sounds like a track that fell off the master reels for Bitch Magnet's Umber LP, and "Cigarette Machine" could have spun off from Ben Hur. Really great songs, all of them.

So enjoy, lossless FLAC for your pleasure.

CODEINE
Frigid Stars LP
1990 Sub Pop

01 D
02 Gravel Bed
03 Pickup Song
04 New Year's
05 Second Chance
06 Cave In
07 Cigarette Machine
08 Old Things
09 3 Angels
10 Pea

edit: removed link

enjoy!

postpunk on the prairie: Seam

There once was a time when I wanted to be SEAM.

(Musically, that is.)

Still do, actually.

Something about this longstanding Chicago band captivated me at very first listen, and kept my rapt attention with everything I ended up hearing from them. If I have to pick my top three indierock bands, Seam easily makes the list, and would be in strong competition for the #1 spot.



Led by Bitch Magnet alum Sooyoung Park on vocals/songwriting/guitars - and fleshed out by various different bassists/drummers/second guitarists depending on the album - the band's penchant for huge somber-to-in your face dynamics, Sooyoung's barely-audible vocals, terrific minimalist songwriting, and just stellar guitars, it's truly a shame they never got more recognition.

While I never hope to solve that recognition thing with the 35 readers this blog has, if even one person recognizes this band's utter brilliance, my mission is done.

With every band I was in, and with nearly every song I wrote for a duration some time ago, I wanted to sound like Seam. That's the level of influence these guys had (and still have) on me. But my songwriting skills are nowhere even close to matching up, and I include myself in the inability of any band I've been in to perform them well. So of course I had to live vicariously through just listening instead (though here you can hear an utterly pathetic-yet-still-cool garage cover an old band of mine did of their first LP's track "Shame", with yours truly on bass guitar).

As far as I know Seam is still a going concern, but they've not released an album since 1998's THE PACE IS GLACIAL, and haven't played a gig (as far as I am aware) since 2007. Sooyoung's since relocated to the West Coast, and other band alum are scattered about Chicago either in other bands or doing who knows what.

But to hell with that - featuring here on this very blog are the finest works they've released, the stellar 1993-to-1995 run of an EP and two LPs.

First we feature 1993's KERNEL EP. With a remake of a song initially appearing on their debut LP HEADSPARKS (the aforementioned "Shame") but this time much more subdued than the original (my old band's cover version I linked above is based on the original), a cover of a Breaking Circus track "Driving the Dynamite Truck", again much more subdued/dynamic than the original, and two new tracks "Kernel" and "Sweet Pea", Seam comes roaring out with passion and energy.

Later that same year they blasted everything away - rewrote the book, if you will - with the utterly fucking phenomenal LP THE PROBLEM WITH ME - a landmark record, in my eyes. The first full-length to feature my favorite aspects of the band as mentioned earlier, there's not a duff track in the bunch. Blasting off with "Rafael", slowing the pace a bit with "Road To Madrid", flying off the handle again with a remade "Sweet Pea" (the E Bow guitar here is utterly stellar, that keening sound throughout the track that sounds almost like feedback), building and releasing tension all the way through to the closer "Autopilot" (what a song!) - this album is utterly unstoppable.

Then we segue into 1995's ARE YOU DRIVING ME CRAZY? - a refinement, if you will, of what they perfected with THE PROBLEM WITH ME. It's much the same spectacular sound/songs/dynamics but with added new twists, and a more developed sense of pacing. Had I never heard THE PROBLEM WITH ME this album instead would be tops - but the band had a hard act to follow, and while they didn't top it, they may have matched it with this one.

I've seen Seam quite a few times and each gig was spectacular - I even taped them once. I will upload that gig at some point to the blog.

So enjoy - and as usual, these records are (as far as I know) all still in print on Touch and Go, so for Chrissakes go buy 'em after sampling 'em here!

SEAM
Kernel / The Problem With Me / Are You Driving Me Crazy

- - - - - - -

KERNEL



(1993 Touch and Go TG112CD)

01 Kernel
02 Sweet Pea
03 Shame
04 Driving The Dynamite Truck


THE PROBLEM WITH ME



(1993 Touch and Go TG118CD)

01 Rafael
02 Bunch
03 Road To Madrid
04 Stage 2000
05 Sweet Pea
06 Dust And Turpentine
07 Something's Burning
08 The Wild Cat
09 Autopilot


ARE YOU DRIVING ME CRAZY?



(1995 Touch and Go TG142CD)

01 Berlitz
02 Hey Latasha
03 Port of Charleston
04 Rainy Season
05 Two Is Enough
06 Haole Redux
07 Tuff Luck
08 Broken Bones
09 Sometimes I Forget
10 Petty Thievery

all the above split into two RAR files, need to download both to extract....

edit: removed link.