Thursday, June 5, 2008

Smacked By A Frozen Two By Four

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I'm about 80 posts into this sparkling dumb excuse for a blog, and so far I haven't really gotten around to writing about a lot of the bands from the Danbury/Waterbury scene that made up the core of Brushback's coverage back in the 90's-- bands like Atlas, The Differents, Creature Did, Explodee, Grand Passion (though they were from New London), Damien Pratt and Nevertheless, and so forth. So to start catching up a bit, here's the first single from what was might've been the best Waterbury band of that time-- Farmertan, dopey picture sleeve and all.

I can understand how this could be just another easily forgotten indie rock single to most people who aren't from around here, but to me, it was a revelation. See, I'd dropped out of the scene for a few years back in the early 90's, after spending a bunch of years putting out a zine and going to shows, and at the time I left there wasn't much of a scene in Waterbury to speak of. A couple of good record stores, maybe, but not really any working bands or places to play-- at least none that I remember. When I got back into things, I found that the local scene had obviously benefitted from not having me around; not only were there now Waterbury bands playing out regularly who were actually good, but at least one of them (meaning Farmertan, though you can put Nevertheless on the list, too) even seemed to have the same appreciation for The Replacements and Small and Superchunk that I did. I mean, it was practically a miracle! Or something.

The CD that Famertan put out afterwards sorta blows this single away, both sonically and with better songs, but I've always had a soft spot for this single because Paul's voice sounds a lot rougher and more Westerberg-like compared to Farmertan's non-basement recordings. I've also always liked the b-side, "Waterfall", better than the a-side, but I tend to be wrong about those things. Not that the a-side is bad, mind you, plus it has that little dub intro that reaches back to SSD's "Get It Away" if you choose to think about it in that sense.

You'll notice on the semi-hilarious Serendipity catalog insert that Brian Sinclair mentions a compilation ("Baby Pictures") that I don't think ever actually came out, though Brian swears it did-- probably woulda been a million-seller, no doubt.


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Farmertan -

"Idiot Boy"

"Waterfall"

(these files are now listen-only)


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1 comment:

Brushback said...

The mp3 files on this post are now listen-only (non-downloadable) files. TOUGH LUCK, CHARLIE! No, actually, for those of you who missed the boat, I will do my best to respond to any e-mailed requests for the original files.