I Wanna POLL On A Sunny Day - JAMC's Honey's Dead

Sugar Ray on the basis of that awesome riff...no matter that it was used in a Bud commercial...

Far Gone & Out by a large margin

Rollercoaster would be a close second, but I prefer the EP version.

A wonderful album, tho it is one of those with which I have a hard time sussing out the nostalgia factor vs. its objective value

Love Far Gone and Out but Reverence was such a highlight of the reunion shows - like a surly, E-hating take on post-Screamadelica indie-dance.

First time I ever went to America, bought this on tape first day I was there and drove around Florida with this as the soundtrack. It was the only thing I listened to for 2 weeks. Awesome. If I'm being honest I would totally vote for Teenage Lust even though it is pretty icky. Probably be between Far Gone And Out and Tumbledown....or maybe Almost Gold. Damn it! Or Catchfire!! I'll have to listen again before voting. Hi Dere's description is perfect btw.

I was gonna sputter "who on earth wrote the Spotify blurb for this album?!?!??! basic fact checking RONG*!!!" before realising twas our own Ned Raggett. Oops.

*JAMC's drum throne did not pass directly from Bobby G to Monti - forgetting John Moore in the middle there

As much as I love Sugar Ray and Teenage Lust - Catch Fire just disappears up its own hole in a fit of sugary nastiness and tremolo guitar. Like, how can something so bitter and nasty and ugly and horrible be, at the same time, so damn SEXY.

(The grown up in me thinks Teenage Lust is despicable and horrible, but the 15 year old in me thinks it's the best thing ever.)

The grown up in me thinks Teenage Lust is despicable and horrible, but the 15 year old in me thinks it's the best thing ever

haha OTM

"Reverence" vs "Sugar Ray" vs "Catchfire" for me

I had no idea that The Drug Store was at Elephant and Castle! That explains so much.

I was just reviewing the new 2CD best of on Rhino and thinking that the JAMC didn't make any real bad albums, just increasingly less necessary ones. Received wisdom is that it's all diminishing returns after the big bang of Psychocandy but whenever I put on an allegedly disappointing record like Automatic or Honey's Dead I find myself loving it.

Nothing beats the first time rush of Psychocandy, but really, Honey's Dead is pretty essential. I'd say it's probably my second favourite of their albums - certainly the one I still get out and listen to the most.

Even though pretty much everything about it from guitar tone to drumbeats screams "1992!" it makes me realise that actually I'm really quite fond of 1992.

I remember jjj picked up Darklands when we were in high school and I thought the whole thing was just a disappointing mess; I was really missing the low end. I enjoyed "Head On" on the radio but not enough to pick up Automatic, so I was really unprepared with how hard "Reverence" tore my head off when I heard it.

I haven't listened to Darklands since so I don't know if I'd be more inclined to enjoy it now; I'm guessing I would. I do know that Honey's Dead is fucking amazing, though.

Darklands is at least 60% utterly classic.

I always forget about the Neubauten sample in Tumbledown even though it completely fucked the head off my Neubauten-loving then-housemate. Tee hee hee.

Och, this interview:

http://aprilskies.amniisia.com/articles/art_copy.php?id=74&sort=interview

<3

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

voted for teenage lust just so i can feel like an icky old man

The first JAMC I was conscious of: "Far Gone and Out" and "Almost Gold" got lots of airplay on my college station.

We called Sugar Ray the fucking song at the time.

voting "Reverence" but something tells me, if i listen to this right now that i would change my mind and go with "Teenage Lust."

Well, I voted for Catchfire in the end.

(Which is odd that it left me, as I'm almost certain I already voted before.)

I just dug up "Munki", so...

hmmm tough one. Whoever upthread is OTM pointing out how much this screams '92 (but in a good way). At the time I would have gone for 'Teenage Lust' but I fear I'd find it cheesy if I put it on now. Might vote for 'Reverence' instead (also somewhat ridiculous but w/e)

It is pretty much all about the accelerating and deccelerating tremolo on the wails of feedback on the "guitar solo" bit of Catchfire. And then Jim starts moaning about being crucified and it's all... oh yes please.

I can't really explain why 17 year old me didn't fall in love with this album, esp. after playing Automatic to death. Maybe it's darkness and abrasiveness felt a little contrived. These days I listen to Darklands (160% classic imo) and yes Stoned and Dethroned.

I vote 'Reverence'!

'its'

I realized I was going to love this album to bits the first time I heard it and the first song that didn't feel like the greatest thing ever recorded on first listen was "I Can't Get Enough". Everything about this album, from the beats to the feedback to the menace to the prettiness to the loudness to the softness to the EVERYTHING, speaks to me on a fundamental level. This is an album I would pick as an example of what I think music should sound like.

"Automatic" always felt too clean/clinical. On this one, the scuzz was back!

tumbledown

complete aside: does anyone else totally geek out over the Desdemoana mix of "Teenage Lust"?

This album was just full of nasty horrible sounds that they dug up out from under the drains out back of the Drug Store. (Very similar to the aesthetic of that Curve album I was listening to this morning.) It is the most filthy dirty thing I have ever heard and I want to kiss it on the tongue.

does anyone else totally geek out over the Desdemoana mix of "Teenage Lust"?

Eh, what?

I am looking for a link of it that isn't incredibly suspect and virus-laden but it's not going well; I guess it was originally on the "Rollercoaster" single/EP but I heard it on The Jesus and Mary Chain Hate Rock and Roll comp that came out shortly after Honey's Dead. It strips off the feedback and the beat and replaces it with the stomping hip-hop beat with some low-level white noise burbling in the background. It's a total love-it-or-hate-it thing and I completely love it.

I suppose I could ask my bestie in NYC for a rip - not on YouTube, I take it?

I have it in the same cabinet that "Munki" was in, bought in NY back whenever.

Not seeing it on Youtube, no. There are a bunch of live versions of "Teenage Lust" though!

xpost I bought the "hate R&R" cd in NY, not the cabinet. Or Munki. Actually, I might have bought Munki, it's the SubPop edition...

I remember there being some pretty good remixes on the Reverence single (incl a Ministry one)

mmm, I remember it as being "much the same", but then it was HOW LONG!!???? ago.

Even all these years later I associate this album with lemon-honey Halls cough drops - I believe I was chewing on them when I first heard the album, and that crossed with the colour of the cover, the name, and the gauzy feeling in both the music and my head made the association stick.

Definitely loved it at the time, and still do. And definitely felt a lot more fulfilling than Automatic did at the time.

yeah I'd be curious to see a discussion on Automatic around here. so weirdly and obsessively sterile

We had a thread on Automatic, didn't we? Or was that Darklands?

Yes.

JAMC Automatic Poll

Though I'm not sure I voted?

Unless that was me that voted for "Gimmee hell, gimee hell, I'm fucked up anyway" I'm really not sure.

I keep thinking I should pick up Automatic because I really like "Head On" a lot, but I don't really listen to JAMC for that type of song (kind of like I don't really listen to Love and Rockets for songs like "So Alive" or "**** (Jungle Law)"; I love them both, but they are the only ones off of that album I ever even consider playing).

That interview linked upthread is brilliant

"I think, in the studio," says William, "we're probably the least precious musicians around. If somebody in the studio can play a better guitar part than me, I'll give them the guitar. I'll give it to him," he nods at Jim, "or I'll give it to Alan Moulder (the engineer), or I'll give it too... For instance, on "Some Candy Talking", right? That bass part. He (Jim) couldn't play it. I couldn't play it. Douglas was the fuckin' bass player and he couldn't play it. We asked all the engineers in the studio can any of you lot play it, and they couldn't play it." He starts to laugh.

Jim: "It's got to be pointed out here that was an incredibly simple bass part."

I have no access to music here at work so I'm singing through them all in my head and Reverence is drowning out all the others, so I'm voting for that.

"Teenage Lust"! kinda nasty & the essence of the album to me.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Well, I'm guessing that was me & DJP who were the only votes for Catchfire. ;_;

Yup. ;_;

man I underrate "Good For My Soul" a lot

fuck "Teenage Lust" is so great. even that weirdass Desdemoana mix (that is available on the deluxe reissue of the album)

I don't know any Curve but if the post by Wheal Dream above is right, I should get on that, because this is a day where I want more of the mix of this nasty guitar shit on pop songs

or else I should just finally look into what "industrial music" is? total blind spot for me

I don't know any Curve

MY GOD, MAN

I don't really know how I feel about this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E51kZc8mdA

I must reiterate, that my adult self is very much "this is highly questionable and totally inappropriate!" and my teenage self is very much "FUCK YEAH FUCK YEAH FUCK YEAH THIS RAWKS!"

I'm not sure why, at the moment, I can only listen to Scottish bands from 1992, but this is where I'm at?

Did anyone ever figure out which songs were Jim's and which songs were William's?

I wonder if Euler ever investigated either Curve or Neubauten based on this thread...

y u no lyk 'Rollercoaster', ilm? Obvious choice IMHO.

Can't speak for anyone else, but - well, it's not that I don't love Rollercoaster (like I love all of their weird obsessive Bob Dylan rips, like I love the Mary Chain doing Bob Dylan in a way I don't love Bob Dylan?) but just that the entire album is such a cavalcade of awesomeness that the entire second half just slides one into another.

It's funny how I know Psycho Candy is supposed to be their best and most quintessential and most essential and all, but all in all, I think Honey's Dead is actually my favourite. It's the only album where I love every single song, there is not a bad track on this album (which is a test that Psycho Candy fails). And the most perfectly realised balance of ... what I feel the Mary Chain was about?

I was on the Mary Chain train from the start, but when Honey’s Dead came out, I thought that’s it, they will never top this.
My favourite is Darklands tho. And “Sidewalkin” is my fav single.

also I’m pretty sure William sings the William songs and Jim sings the Jim songs

It doesn't say on my copy which songs are William songs and which are Jim songs?

(And yes, after 35 years, I still struggle to tell their voices apart - and also, occasionally Jim does sing William songs?)

Of that first run, Psychocandy is the one I listen to the least. Automatic the most, Darklands second, Honey's Dead I save for when I want to be surprised by how awesome it is. Maximum Curve crossover.

xp Wullie has the thicker brogue and huskier voice (“Nine Million Rainy Days”) and Jim has the nasal whine (“Reverence”)

Jim does do a far better fake American accent, that's the only way I can ever distinguish them.

very true

I downloaded the entire Neubauten discography based on this but didn't really know where to start. So I'm interested: where, based on loving the Mary Chain, should I start with them?

If you want to know where the sample comes from, start at the very beginning with Kollaps.

The Neubauten stuff that JAMC are doing a kind of 'pop' version of on this album is probably more like Haus der Lüge, which is a good intro / entry point for a Mary Chain fan. Haus der Lüge or maybe Halber Mensch?

I've honestly never made much of a connection between Neubauten and JAMC. I guess you're talking the ... industrial noise? There are a few other acts I can think of that her really good at just draping poppy songs with artfully crafted white noise. AR Kane, Shriekback ... and yeah, Curve.

The connection is that the Mary Chain absolutely adored Neubauten?

Sampled them liberally on this album?

And they completely cop to it, like him out of Mogwai interviewed Jim and was all

SB: I’m out of questions, but I’m friends with Bobby and his question was: "On what record or song do you think you achieved the perfect combination of the Shangri Las and Einstürzende Neubauten?"

Which Jim said was too difficult, because, basically... all of them?

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jun/15/mogwai-stuart-braithwaite-interviews-jesus-and-mary-chain-jim-reid-all-tomorrows-parties

(Have you ever heard Neubauten's cover of Sand by Nancy Sinatra, because that track is basically the basis of at least 50% of the Mary Chain's more downbeat, acoustic albums like Darklands and Stoned and Dethroned.)

thanks, I'm excited to check this all out!

xpost I just mean I wouldn't expect any fan of one to necessarily be a fan of the other.

Anyway, one of the many things I like about the JAMC is that they are the perfect synthesis of so many blatant influences.

I read somewhere that neither Jim nor William can remember or work out who sang what on Psychocandy.

I dug out Almost Gold today for the first time in a while thanks to the thread bump and it's solid end to end but something about the baggy-by-numbers drums on a couple of songs puts it behind the first two albums for me.

Honey's Dead, even