September 20, 2005

Of Fishes Great and Fishes Small

New blog. New post. This is all new to me. Please bear with me while I learn how to do simple, basic things like wrap text and get a goddamn digital photo of a vinyl record. (They’re really difficult to take in focus without glare.)

I first became an Al Kizys fan when I saw his band the Bag People play at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC in the early ’80s. All anybody knew about them was that they were from NYC - which at that age was all I needed to know. Couldn’t tell you who they were opening for (the first or the second time they played) but I remember feeling real cool hanging “backstage” with the band. There’s a blurb I wrote in the Live section of an issue of WDC Period that I can’t seem to find anymore. I don’t know who broke the dressing room mirror. The Bag People were a fun band, sort of in the noise/hard rock vein - which was an unusual combo at the time, not a massive collection of subgenres like it is today. If I’m not mistaken, they did a Deep Purple cover.

A few years later, I was in NYC myself. Like most of my memories of that time, it’s obscured by a heroin haze, but amid all the lifestyle bands that formed my music worldview, Of Cabbages and Kings held a special place behind my eardrums. Their first self-titled 4-song 12″ on Purge/Sound League Records (home to Missing Foundation and other L.E.S. noise hooligans) is a grand hymn to rock’s intellectual majesty, with Algis doing a knuckle-shredding Lemmy-esque bass strum over a subterranean bellow of pain. “The Veil Thins” is magnificent, the lyrics an apocalyptic seaman’s poem credited to David Stowell.

Check out the classic ugly photo-booth mug shots, the kind that practically every noise band of the era used on their album art to evoke a sense of pseudo-anonymity and criminal menace.

Face, the 1988 followup LP, has its moments, too, but for me nothing beats the debut number. Both of the first two records were recorded at Fun City studios by Wharton Tiers. Until doing the research for this post (not really my strong suit, as will become clear), I didn’t even know that the Cabbages had put out four releases. Tracks from the last two albums are available for download here.

Â Â
An Italian webpage about them is located over here.

DISCOGRAPHY
Of Cabbages and Kings (Purge/Sound League) 1987
Face (Purge/Sound League) 1988
Basic Pain, Basic Pleasure (Triple X) 1990
Hunter’s Moon (Triple X) 1992
…also, Mesomorph Enduros comp (Big Cat) 1992

The rhythm section of this band could do no wrong. Al and Ted joined the motherfucking Swans for a time while Ted helped found Prong and later joined Godflesh and Jesu. Al and Carolyn both played with Glenn Branca’s Guitar Ensemble along with Miriam McDonough, who used to do my taxes.

Enjoy the spell.

Of Cabbages and Kings - “The Veil Thins”

Rick at 12:20 am

3 CommentsÈ

Mr. Toestubber makes fun of my musical taste and then…boom! The first band he posts I dig AND resembles (in a precursorial way) music I love. That is saying a lot, even if I had to make up a word.

Comment by econobrat Ñ September 20, 2005 @ 5:35 pm
At the moment I am slightly confused. It’s possible this layout did it, but in fairness it’s possible I came to the table preconfused. That makes two new words in as many comments. I guess this site is destined to be a real linguistic hotbed.

Look, that song is not quite my cup of tea. But– and this is important– I support your right to listen to it. One thing’s for sure: it downloaded real nice.

I’d like to end this commentary now, seconds before I type something sweet.

Comment by Buff Orpington Ñ September 20, 2005 @ 9:15 pm
egggscellent post i happened to step in while wandering the intornet looking for OCAK info. there isn’t much.

Comment by jack palanquin Ñ July 25, 2006 @ 10:59 pm