Kim Deal did a lot of great things with Pixies, not least her lead vocal and bass notes vocal on Gigantic.   But I still think this is her finest ever moment:-

mp3: The Breeders – Cannonball

Cannonball was released in early August 1993 just a few weeks ahead of the band’s second album, Last Splash.  It remains the only time any of their singles was a chart hit here in the UK, and even then, it barely made it.  One week at #40.

It’s one of those songs which tips its hat in the directions of indie and grunge, as evidenced by the fact that its Spike Jonze-directed promo was aired frequently back in the days of MTV2 and can still be seen nowadays when the rock-guitar obsessed channel Kerrang goes through a bout of nostalgia.

It’s one of those songs that has an unnerving ability to lodge itself into your brain.  Go on…..give it a listen right now, and I bet you find yourself singing or humming snatches of the tune later in the day as you go about your business.

I’d love to say I have this one on vinyl, but it’s very much the CD single, although it does offer up the same three additional tracks.

mp3: The Breeders – Cro-Aloha
mp3: The Breeders – Lord Of The Thighs
mp3: The Breeders – 900

Cro-Aloha features a similar sort of distorted vocal as can be found on Cannonball.  It’s only a shade over two-minutes in length, but it still pulls off the impressive feat of in places offering a reminder of Kim’s former band as well as being a head-banging classic for those whose tastes are along such lines.  A different and much more commercial recording of the song, entitled No Aloha, would be included on Last Splash.

The band’s bassist, Josephine Wiggs, takes the lead vocal on the other two tracks.

Lord of The Thighs is a cover of an Aerosmith song.  I love how Josephine’s seemingly disinterested delivery is at odds with the way the band are playing the tune.  I dare anyone involved in Dry Cleaning to say that this wasn’t an influence on how they wrote and recorded their excellent debut album.

900 is the most experimental of the four songs.  It’s a song written by Josephine, and given she was a trained cellist prior to becoming a rock musician, it’s no real surprise that there’s a place on it for that instrument as well as a violin.  It’s probably best to just say that it works well as a b-side, but there may well be some of you who really enjoy it.

JC

1993 was the year when The Breeders made a commercial breakthrough in the UK, thanks to the critically acclaimed album Last Splash going Top 5, with two of its tracks – Cannonball and Divine Hammer – being minor hits in the singles charts.

Nobody knew that it would take until 2002 for a follow-up album to be made available, with the band more or less becoming inactive for the most part after taking part in the two-month-long Lollapalooza Tour in 1994, where they shared the main stage with Smashing Pumpkins, Beastie Boys, George Clinton & the P-Funk All Stars, A Tribe Called Quest, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, L7, and Green Day.

It was while that tour was underway that their labels – 4AD in Europe and Elektra in the USA – quietly issued a four-track EP, with the 4AD release being on 10″ green standard black vinyl:-

mp3: The Breeders – Head To Toe
mp3: The Breeders – Shocker In Gloomtown
mp3: The Breeders – Freed Pig
mp3: The Breeders – Saints

I didn’t pick this up at the time, only finding it many years later in a second-hand shop.  I was quite disappointed when I played it, thinking the lead track was a step-back from the polished efforts that I had enjoyed on Last Splash…it sort of sounds as if it’s a hurried, unfinished track that had been issued just to ensure there was product on sale as they made their way across the States.

Shocker In Gloomtown lasts less time than it takes to type this descriptive sentence – it’s a hard-rocking noisy cover of a song written and recorded by Guided By Voices.

Freed Pig is another cover – lending weight to my theory that the EP was a rushed release – this time of a Sebadoh number, but there is a bit of a tune there in comparison to the two previous tracks.

Rounding things off is an alternative version of Saints, one of the most popular and enduring songs from Last Splash.  It’s okay, but not a patch on the original.

The EP barely cracked the Top 75 here in the UK and made no impact in the States.

JC

Lunchtime addendum

This was posted first thing as saying it was on green vinyl.

It isn’t….and thanks to the folk who came on this morning questioning things.  I’ve just been into the big cupboard full of vinyl where the singles are stored to check.

Sorry for being an arse!

A GUEST SERIES

29 : Cannonball – The Breeders (1993 4AD Records)

Released as a single in August 1993 (Reached Number 40)

Another record I can’t play on guitar and for the second post in a row I get to say that something rocks like a bastard, which is exactly what ‘Cannonball’ does. It is also bloody brilliant, but I’m kind of figuring that you all know that by now. You mustn’t whatever you do confuse this track with the David Gray track which has the same name. They are very different. Gray’s ‘Cannonball’ doesn’t rock like a bastard, it more sways like an abandoned windbreak at a lonely Welsh beach. It’s shit as well.

In my second year as a student I was asked by the Students Union to be a judge at a ‘Battle of the Bands’ kind of contest (I suppose that my editing of the music pages gave me some form of experience). Something which I reluctantly agreed to do. I mean, secretly I was honoured and amazed that they even asked, but I nonchalantly said that I would check my schedule and get back to them. Which I did twenty minutes later, saying yes.

The event itself was pretty awful. There were ten or so entrants, mostly pub rocking student bands who could neither play, sing nor write their own material. I’ll bypass most of them if you don’t mind, but I will touch briefly on ‘Anita’. Anita was a dance student, who played an acoustic guitar, well, she knew two chords, and thought she could sing. Worse than that she thought she could sing Joni Mitchell songs. She couldn’t. She was embarrassing the entire human race by just being there. The fact that she lived next door to the future Mrs SWC, was something I ignored when I was asked to comment on her performance by the compare (a fat oaf who genuinely changed his middle name to ‘Disco’ when standing for the Entertainments Chair Position). I told her that she should stick to dancing. She didn’t speak to me or Mrs SWC again from that afternoon.

Anyway, the two best student bands around were (and I’ve changed their names because one of them got signed and did quite well) my mates band ‘Tea Towel’ – who didn’t get signed – and ‘Knobheads’, who did. I think you can work out which band I thought I was better. Knobheads sounded like Pearl Jam and in comparison Tea Towel sounded like Radiohead. I couldn’t understand the appeal of Knobheads, also they all had the looks of models, and were way more talented than I would ever be, but you know, Pearl Jam.

The problem was that Knobheads were playing their own material and Tea Towel were not, they were doing cover versions of songs like ’Breakfast at Tiffanys’ which didn’t help them. Still, apart from that they were better musicians, had a better singer and had bought me at least two bottles of Becks that day.

Anyway, it came to the final, a shoot off between these two bands. They had thirty minutes to wow the audience and the judges. I mean I’d already nailed my colours to the mast by telling Knobheads that I would ‘actually rather read The Sun on a bus to Woking’ than listen to them again. I mean, it’s hardly Simon Cowell is it?

Anyway Tea Towel come on and do very well, they ended with a new song, a cover of this as it happens,

Grassman – Dodgy

But without the gospel choir. A song which itself very nearly made this list. It was remarkable, but not remarkable enough.

Knobheads strode out full of confidence, wearing shades, and looking it has to be said, like an actual band. They were a five piece, only one of whom was actually a student, something, I tried in vain to point ou.  They had a singer, a lead guitarist, a rhythm guitarist, a bassist and a drummer. They played twenty five minutes of their Pearl Jam inspired angst rock and I tried to not yawn too obviously. Then they said for the last song they were going to end with a cover. Which is when they blew the roof off the place.

The singer grabbed another guitar and the rhythm swapped his guitar for a Gibson Flying V, and they launched into a full on enslaught of ‘Cannonball’ and I have to say it sounded bloody amazing. Three lead guitars, a crashing bass, stage divers, and trashed speaker at the end. If they did that all the time instead of having seven songs that sound exactly like ‘Even Flow’, then I might have upgraded The Sun to the Guardian.

It was, and believe me, if you knew the back story about me and that band (another time), you would understand how much it pains me to even type it, the best thing I’d seen live for some time. The bastards.

The B Side of ‘Cannonball’ contains an Aerosmith cover version – an ode to Chris Hoy, so I’m told.

Lord of the Thighs

SWC

 

 

a guest posting BY jimdoes

The Breeders have got a new album coming out next week (JC adds……well, they did have back in February when jimdoes sent this over!!) and to commemorate it I thought I’d do a quick ICA (if there is such a thing)

First up I’m a big fan of Kim Deal and did think about a Kim Deal ICA as she’s guested on quite a few records as well as made some formidable music with The Breeders – in all their various guises. I’ve tried to include something from each of their albums (they’ve been around for 20 years!) – otherwise there might be more songs from Last Splash. And I know The Breeders are more than just Kim Deal but she’s the singer and it’s her band, so I’m going to talk about the music and her. She’s the coolest Kim in music (sorry Kim Gordon, it was a close one) and The Dandy Warhols even wrote a song about her – which I’ve always thought of as a bit weird because they could never be as cool as Kim Deal and the song isn’t anywhere as good as anything by The Breeders.

SAINTS (From ‘Last Splash’)

There’s something about Kim Deal that makes me smile – maybe it’s because I imagine her smiling whenever she’s performing. Anyway, this is a track that I always put on compilation tapes that I gave to people in the Spring. “Summer Is Ready When You Are” – what a great line.

PACER – The Amps (From ‘Pacer’)

I’ve included The Amps as part of The Breeders because they pretty much were – when The Breeders went on hiatus, Kim Deal formed The Amps – as she’d done when Pixies had some down time. And they still play a few Amps songs live. Kim Deal could always write a good pop song and this is one of my favourites.

BANG ON (From ‘Mountain Battles’)

Here’s one you can do a sort of shuffling dance to (honestly) – it’s got a great beat. And Kim Deal is still smiling. And I love the way it ends – “missing gah”.

OFF YOU (From ‘Title TK’)

Kim gets all sensitive and introspective – but does it with such grace. Possibly the closest she gets to not smiling.

IRIS (From ‘Pod’)

I’ve been obsessing about this song recently. It’s so good. One of the things I’ve always loved about The Breeders is you not one song sounds like it could have been a Pixies song – they just seem so apart from that bit of Kim Deal’s legacy. This one is maybe closest as it does have that LOUDquietLOUD thing going on though. Pod is one of my favourite albums but it’s always been one that I listen to in it’s entireity – it always seemed a shame to delve in to one track, but if you don’t know it this is a good starting point.

CANNONBALL (From ‘Last Splash’)

The hit single. Impossible not to include this on an ICA. One of the best songs of the 90s. One of the best songs of all time. My daughter loves it.

SAFARI (From ‘Safari’ ep)

Released on an ep after Pod, a belter of a track. It wouldn’t have been out of place on Last Splash.

I AM DECIDED – The Amps (From ‘Pacer’)

Considering that Pacer is such a rough and raw sounding album, it contains some of Kim Deal’s poppier moments – to my ears anyway.

FORTUNATELY GONE (From ‘Pod’)

More pop music. More smiles. Sugar sweet. Ba-Ba-Ba-Baa.

DIVINE HAMMER (From ‘Last Splash’)

And if this one doesn’t make you smile too, then I give up.

jimdoes

The Breeders were kicking around as a band long before they ever got into a recording studio. It was the brainchild of Kim Deal and Kelley Deal. They happened to be twin sisters. But before they could really do anything with the band, Kim found fame as bass player with The Pixies.

In late 1989, seemingly tired of her band’s refusal to record songs she had written, Kim re-formed The Breeders as a side project. She did not however, include her sister in the band – instead recruiting a group of close friends and fellow musicians including Tanya Donnelly from Throwing Muses.

Their debut album Pod, recorded in Edinburgh, Scotland, was released in 1990. Not long after, The Pixies broke-up. Whether or not the two events were linked, no-one is really prepared to say, but you can draw your own conclusions.

Kim decided to concentrate fully on The Breeders, and her twin sister came on board for the next set of recordings, which resulted in the four songs on this very fine 1992 EP:-

mp3 : The Breeders – Do You Love Me Know?
mp3 : The Breeders – Don’t Call Home
mp3 : The Breeders – Safari
mp3 : The Breeders – So Sad About Us

That’s the order the songs appear on the CD – alphabetically as it turns out – but it was track 3 Safari for which the promo video was made. It’s a belter of a track that wouldn’t have been out of place on any Pixies record.

The fourth track is a cover version of a song by The Who (a song that had also coincidentally been covered some 14 years earlier by The Jam). It has been suggested by some that it is a sarcastic attack by Kim on the break-up of her other band.

This particular line-up of The Breeders proved to be short-lived. Tanya Donnelly went off to front her own band – Belly – while there was also a change of drummer.

Mark III of The Breeders would then find some fame and fortune in 1993, with the hit single Cannonball and the LP Last Splash. Incidentally a different, more refined version of Do You Love Me Now? from Safari was recorded for Last Splash.

Enjoy