Tiny Music...Songs from Various Record Shops III -- The Cult's Sonic Temple

Tiny Music...a series of entries on recent and seemingly random purchases. Why I made them, and why, perhaps, you ought to do the same--or at least take up the methodology!

Part 1

Part 2

I wandered into The Cult more by chance than anything else. I discussed the Beggars Banquet Omnibus Edition series releases some time ago, and The Cult's Love was amongst them. I didn't know the band and they had a weird reputation--weird in the sense of "normal." It meant it was the last of the Omnibus titles that I purchased (The Fall followed The Fall, and Bauhaus came close behind). The liner notes themselves reference this, noting all the reviews and interviews that suggest that "rock" was a 'dirty word' at the time of Love's release, at least in the independent community that they came from.

When It Comes to Making Dreams, It's All Mixed Up

Sometimes I don't know where to start. There are decades of music, and plenty of it I've never heard, and plenty of it you've never heard, dear readers. Do I come in an emphasize a long-time love of my own? Do I try to bring one out that I feel people will not know? Do I try to pull a band out from the sturdy position of independent fame and influence, showing it to people who never heard of it? Address resources for music? Point to only the things I'm looking at in the immediate?

Any of these is an intriguing idea, and, unfocused though it may leave me, I want to address all of them, and leave this a discussion of music from an unusual viewpoint--not restrict that viewpoint to only certain elements or factors of the entirety of music.

I'd like to write about a band I love dearly and have spent horrifying amounts of money on, to say nothing of what a few family members have spent on them as gifts, but to cover エレファントカシマシ¹ known in English by the half-translation, half-transliteration "The Elephant Kashimashi," but that's a massive undertaking. They released a new single in November (yes, they still do that in Japan!), and another is coming in April. The album they are likely to appear on has not been announced yet, though. This seems like a solid place to bring them up, but it's effectively guaranteed that I'd have to address something like the totality of that band--which has existed, unchanged, for the last 24 years, with an album release almost every single year in that time, to say nothing of non-album singles, non-album b-sides, and EPs like Dead or Alive (no relation to the British band, video game or movies). This isn't the time for that, as that will probably take a few entries, perhaps to discuss them by "era."

Similarly, while I've recently acquired the reissues of The Fall's Cerebral Caustic and Shift-Work, that's another band that would need a lot of time devoted to try to make an accessible discussion work. That's 29 studio albums, a number more lives ones, endless compilations, EPs, non-album singles and more music in general than one can shake a stick at, no matter how vigorously.

Omnibus, take all of us, all of us take Omnibus

A lovely stack.

 
While I've been digging through post-punk, alternative rock and their relatives and descendants, my father has continued on his longest musical path, which relates most to roots, folk, 'alternative country' and the like. My appreciation of defunct local band Two Dollar Pistols confused both of my parents, as it was noted that they seemed "more like [your father's] music" by both of them. Of course, they played in the Borders I used to work in, as our Sales Manager, Gerald, was very invested in music and the local scene--and, despite a move, he continues to be invested in music. So I had a solid starting point for the band, and I've found that baritone vocalists appeal to me in some way that I'm still trying to figure out, as there aren't many around. Let's set that aside though, and I'll agree to talk about my father's interesting influence on my taste in music some other time.

Still, this meant that I was out looking for the reissue of Smashing Pumpkins' Gish¹ while trying to get him to a place he could find the new Dylan tribute Chimes of Freedom for a price he'd accept. He'd actually texted me some time prior to try and acquire a copy through my current job, but, well, nothing doing. I don't work somewhere that's going to carry niche compilations, however large that niche might be.