A couple of the Country Teasers’ mid-90’s recordings for Tim Warren’s glorious Crypt imprint can be described as particularly harsh collisions between the rollicking, ramshackle nature of the early Fall and a downright evil lyrical worldview that could rival that of the brothers Flemion, Dennis and Jimmy.
Subsequent recordings for the Fat Possum label struck this listener as a tad smoothed over and not nearly as awe-inspiring (though not entirely without merit). Then again, I might have mixed them up with the Gin Blossoms.
In any event, the newly released ‘Live Album 1999-2004’ (In The Red) is a fantastic collection of careening, collapsing rock’n’roll that has me wondering what else I’ve missed the boat on in Country Teasers-land. The originals are crammed with malice, soul and tape hiss. The covers — alternate universe classics by the Butthole Surfers, Brainbombs, New Order and Randy Newman (a stirring rendition of “Short People” spliced together from 3 different gigs in 2 different countries) are given new life. Well, some of ’em are. The hit or miss ratio is pretty good, though, much better than if you were growing up with Ryan O’Neal as your dad.
If your last exposure till now was “Destroy All Human Life,” then you missed out on two fine releases on In the Red. The first was a singles and odds ‘n’ ends comp called Science Hat Artistic Cube Moral Nosebleed Empire (double-vinyl version literally appends an extra album’s worth of material onto what appears on the CD) and the second was a full-length entitled Secret Weapon Revealed at Last (Full Moon Empty Sportsbag) which is just as scum-laden as their earlier work. I was particularly taken aback by the waltz entitled “Please Stop Fucking Each Other.”
Seeing them at Tonic on January 2004 was quite an experience … they wore the 100+ strong crowd down to a nub of like 12 people by the time the set ended. These people came to enjoy the show and were crushed by the band’s determination to make them do anything but. I’ve never seen vibes that bad emanating from a stage before.
The live album is tops, would buy from again, A++.
thanks, Doug. “Please Stop Fucking Each Other” is one of the highlights of the live CD. It’s all about the bad vibes!
hadn’t seen them in years but caught them at some place in bed stuy/wbg in brooklyn two years ago perhaps, where the drummer quit mid-show. hugely entertaining though a bit ‘crazed’ and ‘outrageous’ for the sake of it (aside from the drummer quitting part). Some bands are fucked up by nature, some try their best to be. I like the former more.
I hear you loud and clear (even though you’re just typing. How much of the live CD qualifies as genuinely fucked and strategic pose, I cannot say, but to whatever extent misanthropy is an affectation, I like these guys.
I was at said show when the drummer quit … they had somebody in the audience come up and get behind the drums, and it seemed as if she knew all the songs, too. Try pulling that stunt, bands.
supposedly they’ll be touring the states this fall.
i saw them in seattle at the tractor tavern of all places in 1999. that drummer who subsequently died of a drug overdose, led the whole band off stage in protest of the singers inability to recall the lyrics. he had drunk about 90% of a bottle of jack and was a wreck. but then the drummer pissed on the curtain. we drove him to olympia to hang out and he told me that the cure was his favorite band. mark arm was there that night. he started off smiling. half way through his arms were folded and his lips pursed. 85 minutes in he was gone. i stuck it out that night but left at tonic in 2004 after the dr octagon, “im destructive” cover. i preactice yoga now. i can’t be around so much misanthropy like i could when i was younger.
fuckin hell I need this, it’s not in stores here. But yeah that fat possum album…more smacked out than smoothed over (according to scuttlebut), definitely some nodding off ballads. Also it’s got their most offensive lyrics with love songs to maggie thatcher and charming stuff like “kill the faggots, niggers, painters, singers”. When I saw them last year it was all good vibes…ben’s a stand up comedian more than anything.
where can I get a copy?
They played in London last Saturday and were incredible. The opening act, Wet Dog were also brilliant. I can’t get Teasers’ CDs in shops over here in England, which is a travesty. Is the live album coming out here in the UK?
Anyway, the gig was amazing and Ben said it was one of his favourites. The only CD of theirs I could find in the shops here was S.A.M.E. and they played a blinding version of “Tough Luck On Jock” at the end of the gig. Also “Happy Feet” with a competely new backing to that on the CD, reminiscent of Pavement’s “Two States”. I think they’re even in the same key, but, needless to say, Country Teasers make far more interesting music than Pavement ever did, great though they were.
There were titles I don’t recognise from the discographies too, so I’d imagine a lot of the songs were new and unreleased, like one called “Points of View”, which is based around two notes. It contains the line “Zyklon B was a terrible gas ’cause it killed off all of those Jews. That’s why it made such a good gas from Hitler’s point of view”.
A lot of my friends were incredibly offended by some of the lyrics, but I think it’s a brave thing to adopt the voices of the people you’re attacking and most of the crowd loved it. Hope they’ll play again soon.
Jamie
this “adopt the voices of the people you’re attacking” stuff. Tell me more, it sounds fascinating.
JR
Long Island, NY
I think I read this in an interview Ben gave somewhere. I think it’s brave because a lot of people will switch off immediately, stop listening and assume you’re racist if you use a word like “nigger” or “Paki”. I am from an ethnic minority myself, Indian, and I think the line “You Indians and you Pakis, why do you squabble over an unnecessarily expensive war on pullovers?” is one of the funniest I’ve heard, although I do feel guilty for laughing.
In the interview Ben made the great point that posing as a racist or misogynist or homophobe and thereby showing up the ridiculousness of such attitudes is a far better way of combatting racism, misogyny and homophobia than simply singing “we should all love each other” and he’s right, although I can see why people get offended and think the character singing the songs is him.
That’s what I meant by “adopting the voices of the people you’re attacking”. It’s nothing especially new in satire generally but I think it is in music. If Ben recited his lyrics as a stand-up comic in a cosy left-wing comedy club in the attic of a pub somewhere, we’d all get the joke immediately and congratulate him for it. But that context isn’t there in a music gig: he doesn’t appear to be trying to make us laugh, in fact he’s pretty terrifying on stage and so it’s much braver as he’s laying himself wide open to misinterpretation.
Anyway I wrote a short review of Saturday’s gig on the website of the student radio station I do a show for, here: http://www.rarefm.co.uk/gig_reviews/the_country_teasers_nought_wet_dog_the_bull_gate.html
My show is called “Leave The Capitol”, after the Fall song, and goes out on Sundays at 9pm UK time.
Postscript: listening to “Please Stop F*cking Each Other” again, it seems he’s singing “unnecessarily expensive woolen pullover”, which is even funnier.
yeah, cause it’s kashmere innit? Ben does write a tasty lyric but more important: ds (above) you got your facts wrong when you say
“in 1999. that drummer who subsequently died of a drug overdose”
To quote Twain the rumors of it being an extremely cold summer that winter in seattle are true but LAWRENCE WORTHINGTON IS NOT DEAD. I know for a fact he’s living in A______s, MD, working to become a master carpenter and autodidact historian. Hire him to build you a new staircase based on that one Duchamp picture.
The Country Teasers are fucking brilliant.
That is all.
-Captain Pleased