aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser
#068: The Oblivion Seekers– ‘There’s No Depression In Heaven’ (Singles Only Label ’91)
Hello friends,
‘The Oblivion Seekers’ is the name of a book which collects various stories and journal notes by Isabelle Eberhardt, a women who lived quite an adventurous and rather mystical life around 1900. Apparently she was so, let’s say, ‘modern’ in her lifetime that she became a cult figure for feminism in the 1970’s. Probably though, unlike me, you knew this all along, of course.
On a totally different note, I once visited the famous Guinness Brewery in Dublin in the 90’s and back then, after having completed the brewery tour, you would get a token for a pint, served in the basement. Now, my friend Anja tasted her pint, but she didn’t like it at all – so I sat there with two pints, hers and mine … nothing wrong with that, of course, until a fairly big group of middle-aged women got up from the table next to ours – and apparently the majority of them had a taste as bad as Anja, because one of them gave me nearly all of the group’s tokens and whispered with a sheepish grin: “drink your self into oblivion, love”.
Now, I cannot tell whether Mark Sten (bassist/vocalist-and sole constant throughout the band’s life) chose the band name from being present at the Guinness Brewery that afternoon and overhearing that women’s advice to me or whether he had read a bit of Isabelle Eberhardt – either way, “The Oblivion Seekers” is what he went for … and why not?!
Nothing much can be found about them, it must be said – as much as I’d like to give you at least some reliable information: there isn’t pretty much available, as it is so often the case with bands which I heard only once on one of John Peel’s BFBS shows. And this is not because The Seekers were ‘one hit wonders’ in an indie sense, no, in fact they have issued six albums within the 90’s/00’s, but I only know their self-titled debut from 1992.
I once read a comparison about them though which went: “(…) if I had to describe them using other bands, I’d describe them as X meets Roy Orbison”, which is not too far from the truth, as far as I’m concerned. A productive DIY roots act, with Mark Sten leading successive cohorts of younger punk musicians through a variety of older rock styles from the 1950s and early 1960s – rockabilly, girl group, early soul, late R&B, doo-wop and primitive black gospel. The underlying theory was to play rock as if the Beatles had never existed …
So there you are, that’s all I have – but, to be frank, that’s all you need to know in fact, I would think. This and today’s tune, of course, the only single they ever made – it preceded the debut album by a year and in my humble opinion it is a masterpiece: firing on all 8 cylinders, all the blades are sharpened, and there’s a bullet in the chamber. Oblivion Seekers: Portland Oregon’s finest gothabilly soul rock whatever ensemble, at your service
mp3: Oblivion Seekers – There’s No Depression In Heaven
And in case you have been wondering whilst jumping around to this in sheer ecstasy whether this is all about ‘depression’ as in being in a morbid emotional state or ‘depression’ as in commercial crisis: well, it’s the latter, because the tune was originally recorded by The Carter Family in 1936 (in the middle of the Great Depression) – also we all know that back then no-one cared a great deal about people who preferred to be on their own most of the time, and if someone did, I suppose a full-frontal lobotomy would have been the cure of choice …
Enjoy, take care
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 