Is there such a thing as music lovers’ music? Within the niche corners of the internet where music geeks gather, there’s a handful of bands we all know and love. That echo chamber can make it seem as though they’re bigger than they are – Elliott Smith, Say Hi, Morphine, Robin Trower, but when you mention them to the casual listener, you’re met with blank stares.
Into that canon I would like to include The Jesus and Mary Chain.
I remember not too long ago when Third Man Records released the 40th Anniversary edition of the band’s groundbreaking noise-pop debut Psychocandy on Hot Honey vinyl. My social media feeds, comprised mostly of my fellow vinyl nerds, were alight with fans breathlessly waiting to get to their local record store for a copy. To the mainstream – meh. Can you imagine a Taylor Swift release getting a meh?
Now, as good as that album is — and it’s truly a masterpiece — the Jesus and Mary Chain album for me has always been Automatic, the band’s third release via Blanco y Negro Records. I came to JAMC through a combination of non-traditional methods, even for a band as alternative (back when alternative meant something) as the Scottish brothers Jim and William Reid.
My brother Patrick got deeply into the live-action role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade when it was released in 1991. Home from Marine Corps bootcamp circa 1993, Patrick introduced me to the game and boy did we have a blast finding folks willing to play and acting out the story developed for the evening. Unlike a lot of game manuals, the books included not only a suggested playlist to set the mood but scattered throughout were quotes from different songs. Nine Inch Nails, Skinny Puppy, Bauhaus, Joy Division, The Cure and The Jesus and Mary Chain among the many bands with song lyrics adding to the game’s mystique – a goth soundtrack codified by White Wolf, the game’s original publishers.
Much to Patrick’s disappointment, I spent significantly more time reading the manuals than playing the game as those random song lyrics became a treasure map for me. In between reading the history of particular vampire clans, if a particular lyric intrigued me, I’d write it down. Joy Division – didn’t hit (yet), Bauhaus – evenly split, NIN already securely in my library.
Unless you’ve lived there for any amount of time, trying to describe growing up in rural Alaska circa the late 80s/early 90s feels like an exercise in the unbelievable. We had a party-line for phone service and typically that detail is enough to dead-stop most people from the lower 48 – we won’t even get into the number of times I missed the school bus because a moose was blocking the driveway – well, that’s what we told Mom, anyway. School’s pretty easy to skip when it’s 40 miles one direction and your parents are 40 miles the other direction. All of that is to say a significant amount of cultural things either never made it that far north or were so late in their coming as to be DOA. Same was true of most music, especially the variety Patrick and I were trying to find at the time – Paula Abdul made it, but you’d be hard pressed to find Depeche Mode. Patrick and I were deeply involved in choir during our high school years as was our friend Julia.
To say I had a crush on Julia would be an understatement and my slightly overweight and awkward teenage self was constantly seeking conversational clues to talk to her – she could be surly as fuck at times if she didn’t like you so I had enough wherewithal to realize traditional routes would lead to dead ends. I can’t say for sure, but I’d wager it was my junior year when I noticed Julia wearing a Pixies t-shirt. Having never heard of them, I began doing what looked like research in the pre-Google era – for me that meant a trip to the library to scour current editions of Rolling Stone magazine as well as the Fred Meyer record store, praying they had anything in stock.
Much to my delight I hit paydirt in both – Rolling Stone had done a review of the band’s album Trompe le Monde (the album cover depicted on Julia’s t-shirt) and Fred Meyer had a singular copy still in its full-size cardboard packaging. Gathering what meager money I had at the time, I bought a copy of the album and devoured it, with the track “Head On” resonating with me in a way I wasn’t prepared for. The aggressive, circular guitar that lands 14 seconds into the song and Frank Black’s vocal delivery a half step behind the beat — à la Willie Nelson or Frank Sinatra — building tension with every bar, filled me with feelings I didn’t have the words to describe. I may have utterly struck out with Julia but the Pixies were now completely mine.
Back in San Diego, sometime later, I was at a Tower Records listening station working through my list. From the opening cool-ass guitar swagger reminiscent of Chuck Berry or Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Here Comes Alice” grabbed my attention and I stood there running afoul of any store-imposed time limit as the chug-chug-chug of the album’s second track “Coast to Coast” tightened its grip on my ears.
Then a flicker of recognition lit up in my brain — holy shit, these guys redid the Pixies I thought to myself — that’s cool! I flipped the CD over, perusing the cover — released in 1989. I continued listening, lost in the familiar, noticing the small differences in the remake. My brain did some quick mental math … wait a minute, Trompe le Monde came out in ‘91 … the Pixies were covering them?! This was the original?!
Automatic and a few other titles in my bag, I caught up with my Marine Corps buddy Richard and we loaded into his newly acquired Dodge Neon. Richard was everything I was not – born and raised in Los Angeles, he grew up immersed in Southern California cool via KROQ radio and access to culture nearly right outside his doorstep. I’ll never forget a black and white photograph he shared with me of John Easdale, lead singer of Dramarama, he’d taken as part of a high school photography class. That cool cut both ways though. I’m convinced he mostly tolerated me, my name on the lease to the apartment we shared and his ticket out of the barracks. I always figured his true viewpoint was made clear one evening as we both unloaded from the Neon. My hands full, I lifted my leg up and used it to shut the door and Richard was instantly furious.
“If your hick-ass EVER kicks my car like that again you will never ride with me again … do you understand?!”
Somewhat taken aback, I nodded my head in understanding, shrunken in what felt like a child being scolded by an overbearing father.
All of that was yet to come as we made the trip from the Sports Arena area of San Diego back to Oceanside.
“This album is amazing,” I said to him after slipping the CD into the player.
“How do you not know Jesus and Mary Chain,” Richard retorted.
Over the years I would find myself having to answer some version of this question over and over again … no seriously, growing up in Alaska is a handicap to young adults navigating the lower-48 world.
I brushed off Richard’s comment, having learned at some point that some things were just better to let them think they had the upper hand.
For more than 40 minutes I tuned out the world and listened like I was back in my family’s Chevy Safari van trekking between Fairbanks and home — forested landscapes replaced by the concrete jungle of coastal cities between San Diego and Oceanside.
You ever hear an album for the first time and already know it’s a no-skip recording? That was me and Automatic – I was hyped quickly running through the tracks at Tower but by the time that drive home was through, I was smitten. Don’t get me wrong, some songs landed harder on first listen than others while some would come around as standouts on deeper listens – looking at you “Gimme Hell” and “UV Ray.”
Fuzz, wall of sound, swagger and sneer … this is the lightning Oasis was trying to bottle with “Supersonic” from their 1994 release Definitely Maybe. Where Oasis, and hell for that matter every other band who tried to capture the Jesus and Mary Chain vibe, failed is that they missed a critical component – behind all that fury of sound and energy was a vulnerability that was real, that landed in a way my 20-something brain immediately identified with … projecting tough as nails on the outside hiding a scared, unsure of himself, little boy on the inside. “That’s me ‘cause I’m falling apart.” A young man from Alaska, a little boy-meets-world trying to make my way in a world that was both delicious and oversaturated.
