Sunday, August 2, 2009

Count The Things That I've Done Wrong

click for enlarged view

Henry over at Chunklet put up a post recently, pointing out the scarcity of good-to-great 10" records (which quickly de-evolved into a "name every 10-inch record you've ever heard of" competition in the comment string, but that's alright), and that prompted me to dig out and post one of my favorite 10"-ers of all time: "Some Girls Like Cigarettes", by the Karl Hendricks Trio.

I'm pretty sure that the Karl Hendricks Trio are one of the most seriously undervalued outfits to take shape in the 90's, which you can judge for yourself by listening to the tracks I've posted here (and by seeking out their stuff through Merge, which is mostly all still available digitally and why I won't be keeping these tracks up for very long). When Karl Hendricks goes for The Big Rock, it sounds like Thee Speaking Canaries trying to swallow My Dad Is Dead whole; when he takes it back a bit, you're still left with a bleeding mess of comic despair. I mean, "The Last Thing You'll Ever Do For Me", with a guy asking his girlfriend to kill him off after she dumps him, is just funny ("Hold me down, kiss me, cut my throat... you can always change the sheets after I'm dead"). And who else would you say writes songs more beautiful yet-still rocking than "It Could Be A Miracle" or "If This Song Was A Cigarette"? The fucking Pixies? Give up.


click for enlarged view

Karl Hendricks Trio -

"Some Girls Like Cigarettes"

"It Could Be A Miracle"

"If This Song Was A Cigarette"

"Ducky"

"The Last Thing You'll Ever Do For Me"

(these files are now listen-only)


click for enlarged view

8 comments:

Unknown said...

My deepest condolences for the loss of your super-hero powers.

Find more Karl Hendricks in my mp3blog and forum searches:

HERE and
HERE

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ said...

this
is
great
! ! !

Sean said...

Always a mix tape standard..everything about them was improbable, from the Merge via Pittsburgh allure, to the layman's name.."hi, I'm Karl Hendricks..and this is my trio!"..to the "maybe Skin Graft would've put this out?" cartooon sleeve designs.

I had 3/5 of this on a mix, and I'm really happy to hear the final two! I've heard Nothing Painted Blue and Smoking Popes references before, but I think they just write clever catchy songs the way a lot of people in bands wish they could. The older I get, the better this sounds..and I ain't gettin any younger!

Brushback said...

Yup, maybe if Karl had picked a "cooler" name (like Zonic Shockum or something), people woulda paid more attention... I agree, these are solid, catchy rock songs. Great stuff.

Sean, I tried calling your radio show a couple of months ago (just to be annoying), but no one picked up the phone.

h2o said...

Absolutely one of my favorite bands from the 90's. One of these days I'll have to post all the Fiasco recordings because it's a crying shame that more people don't know about 'em. Great post, Dave!

Brushback said...

The mp3 files on this post are now listen-only (non-downloadable) files. All eight songs from the 10" can now be heard via my Vox account (accesible through any of the above listen-only links), including a few tracks which weren't included in the original post.

Plus, you can buy a whole bunch of Karl Hendricks mp3s through Merge.

Tom Hoffman said...

Thank you for your support.

Brushback said...

Cool! You're welcome