hasslehorse

i've started doing research for the oral history of the wreck room i wanna write. one of the themes in this tome is gonna be a few strands of underground music here in da fort from the '90s up to now that i'm fascinated by, including the infamous haltom city-riverside crew that includes not only the me-thinks but also their compadres in helldamncrap, shotgun messenger, one fingered fist, blood of the sun (whose gtrist richard hurley usedta play in guy 2000 with me-think ray), to name but a few.

so anyway, last week i browbeat ray liberio out of a copy of the hasslehorse cd the chicken factory. released wa-a-ay back in '96, it sounds a whole lot different than you might expect it to, based on the me-thinks' propensity for marrying rawkin' ramalama with silly horseshit in the manner of their heroes the loco gringos and turbonegro. according to ray, "we were really influenced by pavement and guided by voices, except we played through huge stacks," and indeed, you can hear echoes of those precursors all over the chicken factory. (remember the golden days of the afghan whigs, the archers of loaf, sebadoh an' like dat? remember how lame you thought they sounded way back when? in the fullness of time, tho, some of that stuff holds up a lot better 'n the whimpering emo donkeys and formulaic "pop-punk" boo-shee that's followed in their wake. look out, kids...the '90s as nostalgia are _right around the corner_.)

upon hearing this ceedee, a local muso of note commented, "when the first song started, the singer sounded so much like a very young lou reed that i had to check the credits to make sure i'd gotten the right cd," highlighting the fact that practically every post-r.e.m. amerindie outfit shoulda been paying royalties to lou, specifically for the third 'n' fourth velvet underground albs -- or perhaps that's just my incipient codgerhood talking. (vinny pimentel as lou? john frum as doug yule? i've heard weirder comparisons.) a fort worth weekly scribe, hearing this disc, apparently panned frum's "septic prince albert" voxxx. (whatthehhell does that _mean_, anyway?!?!?) i'll say this much: if the post-cobain era can be viewed as "the age of the non-singer," then hasslehorse were a band very much of their time. and ratsamy pathammavong's "mr. sincerity" vocal on the closing "what would chu say?" is a big part of the track's distressed charm. besides, i'd rather hear intonation that's a little wobbly at times than some pitch-corrected plastic automaton from american idol. it's the _human sound_, like some hillbilly or sharecropper that harry smith or alan lomax done unearthed. so there.

instrumentally, this is a pretty intriguing stew, including dulcimer and sitar, even. i understand that sir marlin von bungy played keys for these guys live, prolly 'cos they couldn't get ray's mom audrey (who played piano on the opening "caribbean amphibian") out of the house to gig. ray was kind of a busy drummer for this kinda stuff, but his assertive traps keep the mainly medium tempos from lapsing into somnambulant strummarama. frum and vinny play a lot of 12-string, which keeps the sound pretty full, and the snippets of effect-laden psych gtr that swim out of the mix give a pretty good idea who mike bandy in helldamncrap was inspahrd by. (these days, of course, vinny 'n' rat play in helldamncrap with mike, while frum sends occasional musical postcards from seattle under the rubric of the denver strangle or the pungent sound.)

what's consistent from hasslehorse to the me-thinks is the sensahumour, the h.c. civic pride, and the ray liberio graphixxx. (if you had him in _your_ band, you'd make him do all the artwork, too. es verdad.) from then to now, the whole package is brilliant, um, conceptual art. (con art?) if you're curious about this disc, just ask ray...he's still got about 500 of 'em under his bed.