I remember thinking "what the heck are these guys up to now?" when this record first came out, since the front cover photo is both totally brilliant and totally ridiculous-- not to mention the gatefold sleeve, which to that point was something that mostly only '70s rock stars got to have. There was always an implied amount of glam/camp in Death of Samantha's delivery, but even with keeping that in mind it's still hard to look at that cover without grinning (especially once you notice Steve-O's rinky-dink plastic trident from the budget costume shop).
There are days when I think that "Where The Women Wear The Glory and The Men Wear The Pants"-- taken from a line in "Lucky Dog"-- is Death of Samantha's best LP, but even on the days when it isn't ("Strungout on Jargon" is some tough competition), it's easily their hardest-rocking full length. There's any number of songs here that can kick you square in the balls, most notably "Good Friday", which about the closest D.O.S. ever came to outright metal. Still, it's not staunchly rock 'n roll all the way through; for example, the Doug Gillard-penned "That's All That Matters" and a cover of Peter Laughner's "Sylvia Plath" show some pretty good restraint. I won't bother posting any of the acoustic stuff now, though, since I know most of you don't have the attention span for it. I think a link to the entire album is still active on Panzan's Blog, if you want to hear the rest of the songs.
The clarinet/raw skronk found on a couple of D.O.S.'s earlier discs isn't as prevalent here (but not completely missing), although there's still some weirdo moments, like the car-honk "doo doo doo doo doo" backing vocals that all of a sudden pop up towards the end of "Savior City"; try not to laugh when you first hear them. Petkovic manages to toss out his usual fair share of lyrical references and one-liners, with my particular favorite being from "Staring Through It Now": "Hey, Mr. Has-Been/Your hair ain't as long as it used to be/Hey, David Crosby/Your brain is fried as it used to be". Anything that makes fun of hippies is okay in my book.
Death of Samantha -
"Harlequin Tragedy"
"Good Friday"
"Savior City"
"Staring Through It Now"
"Lucky Dog (Lost My Pride)"
9 comments:
...continued comment from the post before this one. Then you post rare stuff and leave all the songs off...man I just don't get you put I think you like fucking with people...anyways thanks for whats there I guess.
Well, one of the reasons I leave some songs off is so that it's still worth it for people to maybe seek out the record and buy it themselves.
When you have all the mp3's from a record, it kinda takes the fun out of finding the vinyl in a store...
p.s. I'll get another zip file together to e-mail to you soon, I've just been distracted lately, that's all.
I tend to vacilate between this one and Come All Ye Faithless as my favorite DoS LP.
I have no problem with you not putting up entire releases, Brushy. Then again, I only post single songs on my blog, Lightning Jukebox (it's a jukebox, after all).
:-)
Posting entire albums takes the fun out of everything, makes it more like commerce instead of a discussion.
I still remember what it was like growing up, when I'd hear a couple of songs while riding in somebody's car or on a tape that a friend would make, and I'd be like "Man, I gotta hear the rest of this now".
I love this DoS album the most, though I do love Strungout and Faithless dearly too. I love this band and am so bummed I found out about them after they broke up. Did I hear somewhere that DoS recently got back together for a show or two in Cleveland (like on New Year's Eve or something)? Man, I'd love a chance to see them, and failing that, a chance to hear that reunion show - having seen Cobra Verde, I have to believe DoS does a kick-ass live show. Petkovic is a straight-up rock god and Gillard may be the best guitar player I've ever heard.
Yeah, Gillard's one of my all-time favorites... Death of Samantha played a reunion show on 12/23/11, and you're in luck, because someone taped the whole thing and put the individual songs up on YouTube. They also included the extended intro to their set, which I guess involved Steve-O climbing out of a coffin (not sure, I didn't watch the whole thing!).
Sweet, going to go look for that right now. I remember hearing they used to the coffin intro back in the day. Thanks.
Can you email me some zip files of Death of Samantha? It is too impossible for a filipino college student to buy them :(
I could e-mail you a few songs, but I don't think I'm up for making and sending entire zip files.
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