I Understand About Indecision

This is the compilation that proved once and for all that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is a rip-off of "More Than a Feeling" (actually, I may end up siding with John Beers on this one). "Bostonot" is nine different Northwest bands deconstructing all nine songs from the first Boston album, spread out over two 7"-ers, and while half of this is just plain goofy, a couple of tracks are pretty choice. I think Cog came up with something good with their version of "Smokin'", and Treepeople's take on "More Than a Feeling" might be my second-favorite Treepeople 7" side of all time, after "Important Things".

In a nice touch, the center label on each of the four sides features a different hand-drawn portrait of one of the original guys in Boston; you can pick your own favorite, though the blownout poodle doo's on the Brad and Sib ones make them the front-runners, I think.




Treepeople -

"More Than a Feeling"

Karp -

"Let Me Take You Home Tonight"

Cog -

"Smokin'"

Fitz of Depression -

"Rock & Roll Band"

(these files are now all listen-only)








L to R: Sib Hashian, Tom Scholz, Brad Delp, the two guys nobody remembers

You're Not The One Who Let Me Down, But Thanks For Offering

Someone mentioned the Treepeople/Archers of Loaf split in a comment the other month, which I said I'd post it eventually, so here it is. The deal here was that each band got their own 45, covering one of the other guys' songs plus offering up one of their own.

I was never a big Archers fan-- even if it seemed like everyone around me was-- so it's no surprise that the Treepeople record is the better of the two here, though not by much. Actually, this whole thing is really good, and would make for a pretty solid introductory mini-course on '90s indie rock if you had a reason to ever want such a thing.

By the way, this particular copy was rescued from Jim Testa's moldy basement sometime last year and looks virtually unplayed. What I'm saying is, if this was your record label and you'd sent this copy to Jim way back when, hoping to get reviewed in Jersey Beat, you got snubbed, motherfucker.




Treepeople -

"Web In Front"

"Meet At The End"

Archers of Loaf -

"Quinnbeast"

"Funnelhead"

(these files are now listen-only)

I Stayed Away From What Doesn't Want Me

I bought the first Treepeople 7" on a hunch one day back in '89, simply because the picture sleeve looked sorta interesting (a grunged-out dude pushing a floor sweeper; yup, looks like rawk to me) and because I recognized some of the Seattle-related names on the back cover. It was around this same time that I grabbed the first Snuff 7" for mostly the same reasons-- knowing nothing about the band other than the picture of the stagediver on the back looked really cool-- so I guess I was two for two in that department.

When I took the Treepeople 7" home and listened to it for the first time, I was totally floored by what came out of the speakers. Keep in mind that most of the big anthemic rock stuff that I was really into during the mid-80's (Dinosaur Jr., The Replacements, end-of-the-line Government Issue) had either broken up or gone to seed a couple of years earlier, and now here was a record that sounded like a lot of those bands all at once, with an emphasis on the Dinosaur Jr. part. Outside of Prisonshake's "Deanna", I don't think I bought another single that year that I liked better than "Important Things", even if the guitar solos on it were mostly stupid.

A couple of years later the Pacific NW scene that had seemed so promising at one point started getting really crappy, and this ended up being the last Treepeople record that I bought for a while-- not like that's their fault. You can correct my mistake by heading over to Willfully Obscure, where they recently posted almost all of the Treepeople singles that I ended up not buying after this one.




Treepeople -

"Important Things"

(this file is now listen-only)