2010-03-31 06:27:44

PETER BLACKSTOCK: You Can’t Find This Album

Filed under: Featured, Music, Peter Blackstock, The Cat Heads
Posted by: John

By PETER BLACKSTOCK

A prologue of sorts: I first came of age musically in the mid-late 1980s, at a time when underground alternative-rock bands were pretty firmly underground. Pre-internet, the ways of spreading word were fewer and further between, although the upside was that bands could still count on selling some of the records they pressed up, as long as they played a modest amount of live shows along the way.

And when I say “records,” I do mean RECORDS, as in vinyl LPs. For a lot of the bands of that era, this means their works never went to digital. Usually if they sold enough copies (exactly what number “enough” is, who knows — probably a few thousand?), a CD-reissue eventually followed at some point over the past couple of decades. But not always.

Case in point is the record pictured above, titled Submarine. It’s by a San Francisco band called the Cat Heads, and it came out in 1987 on Restless Records. At that time, Restless was putting out quite a few albums by decent underground bands, but things seemed to go awry at some point (as often happens with indie labels), and by the mid-late ’90s the label had all but disappeared. Submarine never did make it to CD, and so its tracks now sit in limbo, the masters likely buried deep in a vault somewhere, under the control of some entity or other that has no interest in doing anything with them. The same story could be said of hundreds, probably thousands of albums released during the pre-digital age.

Here’s the thing, though: Very few of those lost albums are as good as Submarine. This doesn’t seem to me to be a likely candidate for “lost album” status, given that it was the first significant production credit for David Lowery, frontman of Camper Van Beethoven. (Lowery has gone on to produce quite a few other noteworthy and high-profile artists, including the Counting Crows and Sparklehorse.) Further, the four Cat Heads members — frontman Mark Zanandrea, guitarist Sam Babbitt, bassist Alan Korn, and drummer Melanie Clarin — all had fair track-records with other projects both before and after the release of Submarine; it wasn’t as if these folks just popped up for one project and were never heard from again.

Submarine has its faults, to be clear. It suffers from the now-dated sonic imprint that plagued a lot of the best ’80s-underground recordings, with drum sounds overly echo-laden and vocals mixed too low. It also makes a poor first and last impression: the opening cut, “Little Less Of Me”, and the closer, “Crash Landing”, are metallic-tinged bludgeoners that are almost completely unrepresentative of the rest of the record. The ten tracks that fall between blend garage-rock, folk and pop influences into an engaging, ragged-but-right mongrelization. The band’s sound pretty much personifies what I loved and still hold dear about the underground of that era: Its rough edges reflect the die-hard nightclubs that were a home-away-from-home, and yet there is an undeniable, infectious tunefulness that soars high above those dark environs.

A handful of songs on side one reveal the band’s potential for greatness — notably “Apologize”, “Alice On The Radio” and “Postcard”, all written by bassist Korn — but it’s side two that is the clear zenith of the Cat Heads’ brief heyday. Drummer Melanie Clarin sings the second side’s opener, “Upside Down” – an alternate-mix version of which is available HERE — and it strikes me as one of the great lost pop songs of the ’80s, even if it was destined never to be heard in mainstream pop circles. Clarin’s voice also is out front on “Bisho”, a heartstopping waltz that shows just how beautiful this band’s music could be when they chose to go in that direction. Much of the beauty comes from Clarin’s vocals, which are also vital harmony counterparts on “Sister Tabitha” (a slightly psychedelic number accented by strings) and “The Other Side Of Paradise” (another pop gem from Korn’s pen).

It’s somewhat strange to be speaking so fondly of a record that you have almost no hope of hearing. Alternate mixes of a couple other cuts (in addition to the previously-linked “Upside Down”) have been posted to a memorial Cat Heads website; and if you really want to track down the original vinyl, Amazon presently shows a used copy available for $25, and a new one for $100. Perhaps someday it’ll see digital reissue, though given the red-tape that might be required to extricate the rights from whoever may own them now, and the minimal value of digitized tracks these days, my guess is it’ll probably never happen. Indeed, somehow this one has become so lost to the ages that even an image-search for the album-cover comes up empty on Google. (I shot the above photo with my own camera.)

Just know, then, that these guys made a really good record, a long time ago. For now, that’ll have to do.

Peter Blackstock was co-founder and co-editor of No Depression magazine from 1995-2008, worked many years as a copy editor for daily newspapers in Seattle and Austin, and served as archivist for the SXSW music festival from 1989-1997. He blogs occasionally at That Magnificent Ghost.

Comments (6)

6 Comments »

1. Peter: Nice piece!

   I remember being giddy with excitement when announcements were made for CD reissues of Guadalcanal Diary, The Plimsouls, Tommy Keene and the Reivers. For some reason, this particular crossroads of nostalgia, technology and rejuvenation was a validating taste edifier — at least temporarily. The problem is the CDs never lived up to my vinyl memories of the music.

   Comment by Scott Brodeur — March 31, 2010 @ 1:35 pm

2. I missed the Cat Heads, but I’ve been keeping an eye out for the digital version of Wednesday Week’s first record. Never a masterpiece, but a few very good songs that I will probably never hear again until I get a new turntable.

   But hey! Thanks to your piece, I just checked and found that the album was finally released in 2008 on CD. So maybe there’s hope yet for a Cat Heads release.

   Comment by John — March 31, 2010 @ 4:29 pm

3. Nice to know that someone noticed.
   Wasn’t easy, all that touring and stressing about the record company and getting good shows. One of the hardest jobs I ever had, being in that band. Alot of fun, though.
   CamperVan remembered, too. They asked us to play at their 25th Anniversary show at the Fillmore which was a blast.

   Comment by sam babbitt — April 2, 2010 @ 1:24 pm

4. I did have this album back when it came out. If I ever can find it again I’ll either be $100 richer or hold onto it for dear life. This album has such strong memories for me and it was one of those things that changed some of my presumptions of musical taste. “Touched Upon it” and “Upside Down” were particular favorites. The subdued vocals and the deep basslines were the major attraction that caught my ears and kept me listening. The sheer angst of “Upside Down” carried me away.
   I resent the whole “rights” crap that keeps such work off the shelves and not heard and enjoyed. This kind of attitude is probably part of what contributes to the spate of “illegal” downloads that occurs. Someone out there has the vinyl and a good number of people will find it for download. I would pay a reasonable price for a reissued CD. It amazes me how much from the former 99 cent vinyl bins ends up reissued on CD and yet this gem from the Golden age of hardcore does not? I wonder what the band itself has to say about this. They did put up the link to this article which is where I found it. Maybe it’s their subtle attempt to build up pressure for a reissue.

   Comment by Paul — July 11, 2010 @ 7:10 am

5. The Cat Heads’ 2008 set opening for CVB at the Fillmore is online at the Internet Archive for free download here-
   http://www.archive.org/details/Catheads2008-06-28.matrix

   Comment by morst — August 20, 2010 @ 12:16 am

6. The Cat Heads unexpectedly blew me away in a small club in Fresno, CA during the autumn of 1987, and subsequently, both Hubba!! and Submarine are two of my favorite releases of the 1980s. Got to interview them when they came back to Fresno after Submarine was released and found them intelligent, fun and engaging.

   I’m definitely going to download that reunion show, and hope against hope that someone someday has the wisdom to reissue those first two albums.

   Comment by Jim Connelly — September 1, 2010 @ 2:50 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website