mercury rev

i used to think mercury rev were english, but they're not. au contraire, they hail from buffalo, new york (where i claimed to be from when i was six and briefly lived in illinois; it was at least _on the map_, unlike the tiny bumfuck town i was actually from). they say they got together when they were all patients in the same psychiatric institution, but that could be bullshit (or maybe not). they have connections with: 1) tony conrad, an early associate of future velvet underground-ites john cale and lou reed, who mentored some of the mercury rev peeps while they were attending the state university of new york at buffalo; 2) the esteemed flaming lips, with whom their frontguy jonathan donahue has toured as a gtrist; and 3) the poet robert creeley, with whom they once made a record. their music started out as gorgeously ethereal psychedelic dream-pop with gtrs that sounded like jet planes or dentists' drills, which is probably what got them thrown off one of the early lollapalooza tours. since then, the sweep of their music has grown even more cinematic; imo, their 1998 release deserter's songs is about as close to a perfect record as anyone's come up with in the last decade. while i wait for the copies of their first coupla albs that i ordered from amazon to arrive, i listen every morning to "chasing a bee" and "frittering" from yerself is steam and "something for joey" from boces (i like the fact they named a record after the place in new york where my mother wanted me to go learn to fix cars when she thought i was going to drop out of school) via their website's vibration page. it seems to get my day started on the right foot.