Wednesday, May 20, 2009

You're A Waste Of Time

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Five or six years after their first 7" and Halo of Flies were still releasing fierce-sounding records, as evidenced by this 1991 single. Now, six years might not sound like a long time, but what are the chances that your favorite new band today will still be putting out their A-Grade material six years from now? If they're anything like the washed-out fake-indie crap that shows up in my in-box every day, my guess is "no fucking way".

This also happens to be my favorite Halo of Flies 7" sleeve, representing HoF's "Mod" phase or something (maybe it's because they're Mods is why you can barely hear the guitar solo on "Tired & Cold"). I don't know if Henry Owings (see this, by the way, it's great) is going to come in here and give a nod to Haze's particular graphic design on this one, but I thinks he oughta.


click for enlarged view

Halo of Flies -

"Tired & Cold"

"Wasted Time"

(These files are now listen-only. Also, I don't know why Blogger has such a tough time transferring reds; if you click on the above links and look at the sleeve photo, the red letters are as they should really appear)


click for enlarged view

9 comments:

Lightning Baltimore said...

In a career of killer singles and EPs, they definitely went out on a high note.

Have you heard any of the H•O•F stuff?

Brushback said...

I've got that single that came out last year, with Grant Hart singing backups on it (or someone)... listened to it once, didn't hear anything to make me want to listen any further.

Brushback said...

Plus the thing cost eleven fucking bucks or something, direct from AmRep. What a gouge.

Brushback said...

AND FURTHERMORE....

Didn't Halo of Flies release one more single after this (a split with Mudhoney, I believe), or is my memory screwing things up again?

Lightning Baltimore said...

It's been spotty. Some I've liked a lot and some . . . uh . . . not as much. The four song EP they did, A New Kind of Hate, is the best of the batch, IMO. Naturally, now that I want to listen to it, I can't find the CD that came with it.

Yes, final release was a split 7" with Mudhoney. HoF covered "Jagged Time Lapse" by John's Children.

h2o said...

As far as HOF singles go, I think this is musically (probably) the best they ever did. Design wise? Well, I think it definitely has a "look", but the "No Time" single to me is still one of the best as is the "Death of a Fly" single. For as much as he knocks his own design chops, Tom is tremendously talented. However, he comes from (at least by his own estimation) the 5-minute design school which, honestly, I don't believe for a second. Regardless, Tom's designs always played a heavy part in those AmRep releases whether he knew it or not.

Brushback said...

One of the interesting things about this sleeve, to me, is that they set up a "high-concept" photo shoot just for a 7".... and it came out pretty good.

h2o said...

....and fortunately, Dan Corrigan's one helluva photographer. It's funny how shit like that can RUIN a design.

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.