In the past week, I’ve learned more biographical facts about Earwig* than I knew when I first heard them 30 years ago. (Oh lordy, doing the math is humbling.) They existed as a trio from 1989 until 1993, with Kirsty Yates on vocals and bass, and Julian Tardo and Dimitri Voulis on guitars and programming. I always thought “programming” would be an awesome album credit. Like how that dude in Mission of Burma was credited with “tape.” Someday!
It was dumb luck that I ran across their song “Your Friends” at Virginia Tech’s WUVT-FM in about 1991. I can’t remember anyone specifically pointing it out. Most likely the 12″ 45-RPM Subtract EP landed in the FM studio’s “A-bin”—the place where the newest and ostensibly best music was put into rotation by the Music Staff (which I haunted for a spell). You could frantically pick something at random from the A-bin when you realized you’d planned your on-air set badly and needed to fill three minutes. At least there was a low chance of playing something embarrassing.
Earwig “Subtract” ep (1991, La-Di-Da)
After I discovered Subtract, I put it on the clunky Russco turntable in the station’s production booth to dub a copy. I didn’t know anything about Earwig because there were barely any details on the record. “Your Friends” was the only track on side A, and that was perfect because it gave the song the physical and temporal space it deserved. “Out Of My Hands, Over My Head” and “Slit” on side B are good, but “Your Friends” was the only one that ended up sandwiched between other indie-rock gems on a TDK cassette that I’m sure I still have in one of many boxes in the basement.
For a spacecraft or object or bit of celestial debris to orbit the earth, it has to be high enough and move fast enough that it doesn’t drop straight out of the sky, but also doesn’t careen into the void. Once you reach that state, you “fall around the earth” forever, never reaching the ground. The weightless guitar rising into its own geocentric orbit at 2:12 is like a planetary hug around the nucleus of Yates’s untreated voice, the guitar harmonics loop, and the drum pattern. All of it is so relentless that you’d never think you could get away with it. The song doesn’t even have a chorus. Maybe it sort of has a bridge. Wherever it comes from, it reminds me of a radio beacon station that’s been broadcasting forever and will keep going after the track is over.
It still takes effort for me to pay attention to the admittedly disturbing lyrics. Lyrics to me have always been the icing on the cake to music anyway; it’s good if they’re there and don’t suck, and they multiply the goodness of the melody if they’re great, but if the sound and the notes aren’t there, I’m out. Now that I really hear the words, I keep getting an image in my head of the protagonist pacing around the bound-and-gagged object of her obsession as she tells him how it’s all going to go down from here. Way to sneak that into such a light and airy tune!
The songs on Subtract were included in the Past compilation, but I missed it when it came out on January 1, 1992. It’s worth a listen, but overall it doesn’t have anything that grabs me more than “Your Friends”.
Earwig “Past” compilation (1992, La-Di-Da)
When I walked to class on campus, it was more often with headphones and a cassette Walkman than without. Why waste any potential music-listening time in a day crowded with lectures, eating, and neglected homework? Especially when music—whether transmitted by WUVT or played on a tape—was the only thing that consistently made sense. My chosen major of engineering was way over my head a lot of the time. Lots of music I listened to back then has since been demoted to just being an interesting visit to the past, but “Your Friends” still sounds too good to be true even as it’s playing.
* Editor’s note: Phil is discussing the UK Earwig, not to be confused with the same-named Columbus, Ohio band that existed within the same approximate era.
Peggy Lee “Is That All There Is?” from the album Is That All There Is? (Capitol Records, ST-386, SM-386, 1969)
by Mark 347
Among a 23-volume set of encyclopedically categorized obsessions, the distillation of an entire philosophy into a gesture, a phrase or a symbol has always fascinated my need for a shortcut to the beating heart of the issue. From the snow-falling piety of three fingers making the sign of the cross to the horror in a Nazi salute, Art–which I consider to be ANYTHING that can be sensed by any one of the top 5–has the ability to compress a thousand ideas into a penstroke, a photo, a song, and Peggy Lee’s haunting “Is That All There Is?” plays a fine game of Jeopardy!, phrasing brutal honesty in the form of a question. ITATI? A religion of unconditional acceptance can be built from the keystone of this t-shirt-ready sarcasm. The musical equivalent of pillow talk, when the chanteuse of your sexual preference wakes you with a song about how there’s no Santa Claus. Adults only. Discretion advised. You may just want to kill yourself.
The autopsy: Written by Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller, with Randy Newman arranging and conducting, produced by Lieber and Stoller. Released as a single from the album with the b-side, “Me and My Shadow.” Also released with the same U.S. catalog number, 2602, with “I’m A Woman” as the b-side. It reached #11 on the U.S. pop singles chart and #1 on the easy listening list. “Easy Listening”?!? Hardly. When first hearing this song as an “impressionable” youngster with a curiosity for the darkness in the light, I was struck by the dead-pan honesty of the narrator. Not a singer, but a barstool confessional narrator. A little intoxicated, lost in the fog of memory and quite possibly, rather…oh…post-traumatically stressed. In my day, it was just called crazy, but this was a delirious, gob-smacked, in-the-know kind of crazy. Throw Kim Stanley, Estelle Parsons, Geraldine Page, Madeline Khan, and Karen Black in a blender and you get the idea as a smoothie. (I have a thing for…strong, opinionated women, and the few, the embarrassed, all asked, “Is That All There Is?” Odd.) Anyway, I digress, as usual and who cares?
It’s the SONG. You don’t need to know any of this to FEEL the abandoned carnival atmosphere of a life-learned lesson. Yes, that IS all that there is, so whatcha gonna do about it, chump? Fact and Myth abound regarding the parallels of Lee’s life and the song’s events, the meaning of the “final disappointment” and the perspective of the resigned, but not unhappy, victim of living. Among my favorites is the story that Lee threatened to have the songwriters killed if they let anyone else sing the song. Plenty of other people did. Most of these people are dead. Don’t fuck with Peggy. It’s the Gothest bit of poetry sung without candles, black lace or latex and I’m sorry Rozz Williams didn’t have a chance to cover it. We weren’t, but talk about a phoenix rising from the fire. Our girl is unimpressed. Her father held her while their home turned to ashes. A circus is seen as the spectacle it is, dazzling, fleeting, forgotten way before the next thrill. The love of her life left and she DIDN’T die. Well. Is that all there is? Really? So let’s keep dancing, break out the booze and have a ball (aka, fuck). This is not a woman who’s given up, but given in to the fact that everything in your hand right now is going to be unceremoniously slapped out. You lose. The end. You gonna cry about it? Turn up the goddamn stereo.
“Is That All There Is?” is a positive, let-me-tell-you-something that flips off loss, materialism, the need for self-justifying love and the spell of the shiny, all while sashaying into an upbeat, let’s-get-loaded-while-we-can celebration of time. Now. Consequence always crashes the party, so leave the door open. As a kid, this slightly dangerous-looking woman, battle-worn, telling me what I already smelled was in the oven had burned, but there’s wine and music. Now, to return to the twist of the knife, the “final disappointment” Miss Lee says she’s not ready for, her despair turns to triumph. No G-O-D or Great Reward? Hell and it’s not so bad? The punchline to the joke and it’s not funny in the least? Does it matter? We’re sticking around to get what little joy there is from a life with one guarantee. Everything ends in tears.
Peggy Lee “Is That All There Is?”
Every time I hear this song, claimed by Peggy Lee, the echoing–not loneliness, but aloneness–kills another tiny shard of my broken heart and heals another. There’s nothing to lose, because there’s…nothing. It doesn’t matter because the mind can’t fathom the loss. Dance, drink, fuck. Wear black, burn candles and incense. How Goth can you get? Hearing a mysterious, glamorous woman sing about the destruction of the known, the treacherousness of beauty and the loss of love only to find out the chocolate was hollow, clued me in. Spoke to me as an adult. Explained my nightmares. That’s all there is, but you can dance in the ruins. If you want it.
I still find “Is That All There Is?” a frightening proposition, whole-heartedly agreeing as I do. The idea of whistling to one’s unescapable doom has a stoic/heroic dignity that one can hope to maintain in action as well as intention. I hope I remember to sing “Is That All There Is?” as the lights dim and fade. All loss becoming the ultimate gain, understanding.
Waxahatchee Out in the Storm (Merge Records, 2017)
by Greg Lagrosa
Out in the storm
In the early part of 2018, recently separated from a long-term relationship, it is safe to say that I had lots of feelings and needed a way to let them out. While I can’t say exactly when I first listened to the album Out in the Storm by Waxahatchee, it was definitely one of the main outlets at the time.
Waxahatchee (aka Katie Crutchfield) was “formed” in 2010 by Katie Crutchfield when she ended a relationship, moved back home with her parents, and decided to write and record some music to make sense of it all. The result was the home recorded album American Weekend (2012), full of songs about heartache and confusion. Crutchfield then continued to mine the same territory on subsequent albums Cerulean Salt (2013) and Ivy Tripp (2015).
I know what you are thinking–this music sounds like something I could have used at the time. While you wouldn’t be wrong (and I do enjoy these earlier albums to an extent) they just didn’t meet the needs of the day so to speak. These albums were just a bit too introspective and full of melancholy to express how I was really feeling.
As I mentioned previously, I don’t actually remember when I first listened to Out in the Storm (2017) and it may well have been before things went downhill for me but when I listened to the album again in my new state, it did the trick. Out in the Storm was a major part of my soundtrack in 2018. Full of fury and fuzzed out guitars, the album chronicles the end of a relationship gone wrong. In no uncertain terms. No beating around the bush. Just letting it out there about how you REALLY feel. Now THIS was what I was looking for.
This, at least to me, was a cathartic expulsion. The music was no longer solo and Crutchfield is accompanied by her full touring band. The music is full of energy and emotion. This was music sung by a woman who was newly sure of herself and willing to tell the world (and her ex) in no uncertain terms what she was feeling about her situation. At the time, I could really understand what she means when singing, “When I think about it I wanna punch the wall / When I remember everything I wonder / If I’ll always feel small” in the song “Brass Beam” and “I laid down next to you / For three years shedding my skin / Dreaming about the potential / The person I could have been” in “Fade.”
Waxahatchee “Fade”
Now that the bad times have passed and the feelings have abated, it seems obvious that this album would no longer be at the top of my playlist. But it’s also true that once I got the feels all out, the emotions expressed feel a bit trite. Even if I know in my heart that isn’t true. But that’s OK because music has the power to bring you back to a specific place and time. When I listen to Out in the Storm now, I know exactly how 2018 felt and can appreciate all the more that things are now much better.
The Fifth Dimension “Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In (The Flesh Failures)” (Soul City Records, 1969)
by Mike Shanley
Most of my early childhood memories involve listening to music. I can recall being allowed to use a phonograph that had two speeds—45 and 78—with a tone arm that merely snapped into place with the speaker on the arm itself. The needle was sharp like a Victrola needle. Lord knows how many records got shredded by that thing. Along with the family stereo in the living room, we also had a series of cassette players, the majority of which suffered serious harm when placed in my well-intentioned but careless hands. The exception was the Bell and Howell player, which must have been built to survive anything. Not even a fall from an upper bunk bed kept that thing from running.
The music I associate with my first memories includes Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass and Sergio Mendes’s Brasil ’66. They made my heart beat faster. But no one did it quite like the Fifth Dimension. Before the Beatles—before anything else, really—their pop hooks and top notch harmonies ruled my world. When my dad met them in an airport and brought home an autographed picture, I wasn’t blown away. I was jealous. That should have been me that crossed paths with them, my little kid mind thought. I wanted to be in the presence of such royalty.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
One well-loved cassette
My dad had a batch of pre-recorded cassettes and Greatest Hits by the Fifth (which is what I used to call them, and will use here) was The One. It came in one of those heavy plastic covers (a “snap case”) that had to be pinched to open up. The artwork was pasted on the front, carrying over to the spine, with a separate paste-up on the back with the song titles. The back stayed firmly on the case but the glue on the front of our copy eventually came loose, thanks to my constant handling of it.
Then there was the cassette itself. I remember it most likely because I wasn’t able to read any of the text at first, so the design helped me identify it. Maybe the folks in the cassette manufacturing department at Liberty Records (who owned the Fifth’s subsidiary Soul City) were trying to make a statement about unity following the civil right struggles of the late ’60s. Side One of the plastic shell was black. Side Two was white. The label on each side had a purple background. They might have been trying to show how Black and White could work side by side at the start of 1970 (the year this compilation was released). All I knew was that it looked really cool in the tape player. The smiles on the faces of Marilyn McCoo, Florence LaRue Gordon, Billy Davis Jr., Lamonte McElmore, and—the guy who I somehow decided was the coolest of the whole band—Ron Townson were always happy to see me.
If only the world could get along like the two sides of a Fifth Dimension cassette
There really isn’t a dud in the collection. Sure, I go back and forth on “Sweet Blindness” and “The Worst That Could Happen”—but even those songs have some amazing vocal performances. However, the tape’s opening track occupies a very special place in my heart. A place that still gets goosebumps when I hear the intro start up. That song was the medley of two selections from the musical Hair—“Aquarius” and “Let The Sunshine In.” (The latter is actually the coda to the song “The Flesh Failures” but after all this time, it’s become a song unto itself.)
Since my birthday is in October, I was probably still two years old when Pop introduced me to this song. I had no idea what harmonies or arrangements were. I probably didn’t even have the mental capacity to figure out that the five heads on the tape cover were responsible for the sounds I was hearing. All I knew was that it was exciting.
It starts from the very beginning. The flute introduction to “Aquarius” sounds mysterious and suspenseful. Something is on the way. Interpreting music with mental images, I used to imagine that the Fifth was at the top of a hill that I was scaling, or that a camera was quickly panning over. And they were getting closer as the rhythm section got louder.
After Marilyn and Florence (it sounds like both of them in unison) sing the first verse, the guys join them on the chorus that sounds a big release, five voices that can shake the foundation with their tight harmonies. Behind them, the group of Los Angeles session players known as the Wrecking Crew add to the urgency. It’s moving fast, and you better hop on board. I was there. Maybe lyrics like “No more falsehoods or derisions” sound clunky and earnest, but the way Marilyn tears those syllables off so effortlessly, you can’t help but be taken with it, especially since most two-year olds don’t know what she means anyway.
The medley on this tape was the same version that appeared on the hit single, which jumps into “Let the Sunshine in” after one heavy chorus. The album version, however, goes back and repeats the first verse, in which Billy, Lamonte and Ron echo Marilyn and Florence this time. A few years after getting addicted to this cassette (when I was roughly four or five), I heard the full-length version on the radio. KDKA-AM radio DJ Art Pallen was playing a Fifth Dimension set one morning, and I thought something had happened to my song. (The concept of a single edit was still foreign to me.) It was perfect the way it was, I thought. Leave it alone! You’re not going to make it better!
I got over it. Eventually. But I still prefer the single version.
When the song shifts into “Let the Sunshine In,” the energy has taken a swing to the left. I recall my brother Tom and I, on one occasion, rewinding the tape back to the beginning, and listening to “Aquarius” again because we liked that better. But the urgency is still there after “Aquarius.” And it’s about to get wilder.
Whoever gave the Fifth the idea of forego “The Flesh Failures” and just sing the coda had a brilliant idea. Whoever had the idea of letting Billy Davis Jr., freestyle overtop of the band deserves an award. Davis begins a little understated, with a casual “Oh, let it shine” answering their line. But with each chorus, the spirit takes him higher until he unleashes a wail that’s worthy of James Brown. Then he breaks the fourth wall, telling listeners he wants them to sing along with Fifth Dimension. Never mind that the band’s name doesn’t fit rhythmically into the song. If you don’t do what he says and start singing, bad things could happen. Do it. Because that sun might actually get in there. And maybe the war will be over. By the end of the song, the passion of the music has risen to a point that they have you believing that. (People sang it at Woodstock after the rain storm, and look what happened there.) At the very least, you’ll feel a sense of loss when the song starts to fade. I know I did. If only that euphoria would continue.
The Fifth Dimension “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In (The Flesh Failures)”
The Fifth tried to strike twice with another heavy medley on their next album. According to the liner of the album Portrait, national disc jockey Robert W. Morgan suggested they combine Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Going to Come” and the Young Rascals’ “People Gotta Be Free.” It was a bold idea and one that a group like them—who were regulars on programs like The Ed Sullivan Show—could take to Middle America. Unfortunately, they decided to turn it into a suite by adding a song from the play Bread, Beans and Things called “The Declaration.” Davis, as one could imagine, made “A Change Is Gonna Come” his own and the group did a bright version of the song that was too controversial for the Young Rascals to play on the Ed Sullivan Show. But “The Declaration” started the whole thing off on the wrong foot. Well-intentioned as it was, the song attempted to put the Declaration of Independence to song, with stiff results. The group boldly performed the song when they were invited to the Nixon White House, where it was greeted first with dead silence, and then a roar of applause.
As my musical tastes evolved, “Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In” was never a song I completely deaccessioned from my life. During tenth grade, my high school choir sang it as the closer of a night of music from the ’50s and ’60s, while dry ice filled the stage. At 21, I found a used copy of Greatest Hits and dove back into it. (It had a different running order than the cassette, but that was okay with me.) For my 30th birthday, my pal John gave me a two-disc compilation of the Fifth, which I continue to play constantly on those occasions when I pull it off the shelf.
Maybe “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” just takes me back to being two or three, when all I needed to be content was a Little Debbie snack cake and the chance to hear those five voices belting out that song. But I hear it now and the Fifth Dimension conjures the urgency that Hair was trying to evoke in music, giving youth a voice and show the world why rebellion was needed at that time. Even with their wild outfits, the Fifth Dimension were always more mainstream pop than counterculture. But their polish and craft allowed them to give this song as much punch as the better protesters of that era.
Camille Saint-Saëns Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 78
by Finn McCool
“Either I am going to end up at this guy’s house or I’m going to find a new route home.”
The commute is key. Living in Northern Virginia, you grow up knowing that traffic is bad. As an adult, you figure out your alternate routes for different times of day, different destinations, etc. In the early 90s, I was lucky to be working in a location not far from my house. Even so, I had my alternate routes. My office was in Tysons Corner, which is one of the worst areas, so I had to develop a commute that studiously avoided the bad parts. In those days, there was no Google Maps or even MapQuest to rely on for alternate routes. I remember one day, stuck in traffic, when I impulsively made the decision to follow another car who had turned off on a side street. I thought, “Either I am going to end up at this guy’s house or I’m going to find a new route home.” Thus, a new route home was developed.
The new commute took me on a parallel route to the most congested areas like Route 7. You may remember the DC band Hoover’s Dischord release from 1993, “The Lurid Traversal of Route 7.” Been there, done that. I ended up winding my way through residential neighborhoods that I had not previously known about. I got to see the streets where neighbors engaged in friendly one-upsmanship with their Christmas decorations. I was never able to go any faster than 15-20 miles per hour and I had to stop every block for a stop sign, but I didn’t mind. It was still better than sitting in traffic on Route 7 or Route 123, the other major road that goes through Tysons. The new, improved commute was actually quite relaxing. I could listen to music and just enjoy my time in the car. I started using those roads even when it wasn’t rush hour.
The Lurid Traversal of Route 7
Using this route, I could even go home for lunch and be able to make it back to the office in about an hour. That was a great time. So many memories. Remember those Happy Hours at Mustache Café? Free food! Anyway, so one day I decided to do a quick run home for lunch. I made my way at a leisurely pace through the neighborhood streets, listening to WBJC, a classical station from Baltimore. WBJC’s signal is not very strong, but I prefer it to DC’s much closer classical station WETA, who just plays “the hits.” WBJC also plays the popular pieces, to be sure, but they also regularly go for the deep cuts and the more obscure composers. Therefore, I wasn’t surprised that I did not recognize the piece that was playing as my car crawled like a viper through the suburban streets. I pulled up to a stop sign and came to a stop. I was probably daydreaming or just relaxing while the music played. An orchestral piece, it was mainly contemplative in nature, but it had its crescendos every now and again. It was a bit cinematic in nature and you kind of wondered where it was going to go next. And then suddenly the music vanished.
As I sat there in silence trying to figure out what was going on, two things happened simultaneously – a blast of church organ hit me in the face and a hearse menacingly crossed the street in front of me. This seemed like a pretty clear omen of imminent doom. My life (and death!) flashed before my eyes. While I was trying to catch my breath, the orchestra returned. I started to breathe a little easier. I looked both ways and finally moved on through the intersection. Still on edge a little bit, I listened as the WBJC announcer (probably Dyana Neal, as she has held down the midday spot for years) announced the previous piece of music.
“A blast of church organ hit me in the face and a hearse menacingly crossed the street in front of me.”
It turns out the piece was Symphony No. 3 by Camille Saint-Saëns, also known as “The Organ Symphony.” It’s 35-minute work with no official breaks, although Saint-Saëns packs in all the traditional symphonic elements like Adagio, Scherzo, Finale, etc. And yes, there is a spot near the end where everything stops dead and there is a moment of silence before the organ busts in all by itself. It also turns out that there is a Catholic Church, Our Lady of Good Counsel, near the intersection where I was stopped when I heard the Saint-Saëns symphony. I am guessing there was a funeral the day I was driving through the neighborhood.
The Gullible Ear 