I Have A Different Definition Of Funny Than Most People

When I heard that there was going to be a new Speaking Canaries LP out on Chunklet, I almost pissed my pants. Not literally, of course (it's not writing* if you're not lying just a little bit), but I was still pretty damn excited. Robert Griffin had mentioned years ago in the liner notes to 97 that there was an unfinished Speaking Canaries LP just laying around somewhere, "scrapped due to lack of funds, and Damon is somewhat ambivalent about completing it", but I'm pretty sure that's not what this is. What this is, in fact, is the first-ever Speaking Canaries recordings from 1990, meaning prior to "The Joy of Wine", even. Now, I love all the Speaking Canaries records as if they were my own children (there's that 'lying' part again), but "Joy of Wine" doesn't represent the best level of rocking out of all of them -- hey, you can't have all five of them be your favorite -- but fear not, "Platter Base Must Be Constructed of Moon Rock" is easily on the level of "Terrestrially Challenged", "Life-Like Homes", and "Get Out Alive" as far as quality-of-rockin' goes. I don't remember hearing any vocals on any of the tracks, which is why they're labeled as demos I guess, but this is definitely not basement-level sonics here. I haven't heard the vinyl yet, which I'm sure sounds amazing, but I was listening to the files in the car and when "Winning Son" came on it just exploded out of the speakers. You may recognize a couple of the song titles from other Speaking Canaries releases ("Toblewee Uslywus", the aforementioned "Winning Son"), but the tracks that I've never heard before or possibly didn't end up as other songs are total fucking hurricanes. "Mitchum Dope", "Hall of Force", etc etc, will all blow your head off like the rotten melon that it is, especially if you dig ROKKK, which I kinda fucking do. *ha ha, I called this writing

I Used To Hate This Job But Now I'm All About It

This is the last Speaking Canaries record that I ended up buying, which is kinda backwards because it's their first record, so obviously that means it took me that much longer to find it. This also happens to be my least-favorite Speaking Canaries record, although that's a pretty misleading thing to say because all of the Speaking Canaries records are worth your time, it's just that all the ones after this one were better and I picked a sort-of-dipshit way of putting it. Whatever, I was due to post something new and it was either this or an Urge Overkill record.

So while I go on knocking a record that I really like, I'll mention that some of what makes the later Speaking Canaries albs really great and different doesn't evidence itself here -- like, Damon doesn't sing in a falsetto yet (not that I really like that part anyway), and there's none of the bombastic-riffing-for-eight-minutes type songs, either, meaning parts of "The Joy of Wine" sound just like a Das Damen record or something. Close readers of obscured hand-scribbled liner notes will see that Karl Hendricks plays bass here, and sings on "Dizzy and Stoned", which is a somewhat mellowed-out acoustic number; "Blocks" is relatively poppy, too, as far as that goes. I'm not posting either of those songs anyway, sticking with the more typical rokk stuff like "Burning Loose", which Fu Manchu or Queens of The Stone Age stole the riff from, or maybe it was someone else. At least, I'm pretty sure it was one of them.




Thee Speaking Canaries -

"Aneka"

"Losing Son"

"Burning Loose"

"Winning Son"

I Wish I Were More Gifted

This is without a doubt one of my favorite records from the '90s, from a "band" that was mostly just a solo project of Damon Che (the drummer for Don Caballero), who for the most part played all of the instruments, sometimes even recording some stuff himself on a four-track. I'd hate to say something dumb (as opposed to all the other dumb things that I don't mind saying) like "this band kicks so much ass", but seriously, this band kicks so much ass. A Speaking Canaries song is like a fucking sundae, where there's vanilla and chocolate, and then further down there's some fudge and some nuts, and then that stops and there's strawberry and some chocolate again. And then maybe some more nuts. In case you think I woke up today and decided to say a bunch of dumb shit about Speaking Canaries just for the hell of it, Scat Records' own blurb for Speaking Canaries goes something like, "a monolith of rock, guitar excess, and psychedelic noise" and "a place where Van Halen and Sonic Youth meet and bug out on each other". So it's not just me, I guess.

I first heard The Speaking Canaries on a 1997 Scat Records label sampler, namely a song called "Enormous Hope" (credited as Thee Sspeaking Canariess, of course -- earlier records went by "Thee", and then later they dropped the extra "e") from their "The Opponents" EP, which by then was already sold out. I had to wait a little bit for their next record to come out, which was "Life-Like Homes", and quickly snatched that thing up. The record is ridiculous, with a 27-minute-long opening track ("Last Side of Town") that spans both sides, and almost as much hefty wankery and catchy/proggy/thudding rock riffage as the first Rush album and the fifth Triumph album combined. Not to mention enough exhorted "Whoo!"s and "Yeah!"s to make David Lee Roth sick to his stomach. As is usual for Scat releases, the packaging is nifty, too; you can probably just barely tell from the photo, but instead of being all black, the front cover is actually embossed with dozens of variations of the Thee Speaking Canaries name -- Thee Spackling Canaries, Thee Scented Canaries, Thee Spontaneous Canaries -- which is continued in handwriting on the a-side label.

Just in case you can't see it, at the very bottom of the back of the sleeve there's a blurb in tiny letters that reads in part, "The product you have purchased is entirely fictional and is exclusively intended for mature rock fantasy." Sounds about right.




Thee Speaking Canaries -

"Life-Like Homes"

"Last Side of Town Pt. 2"