It’s clear from my nearly non-existent concert photography feed that I’ve cut down greatly on the number of shows I see each year, but it’s hard for me to pass up seeing one of Allen Epley’s bands. Between Shiner (eleven times) and The Life and Times (eight times), I’ve seen Epley nineteen total times in eight different cities (St. Louis, Chicago, Champaign, Indianapolis, Newport, KY, Kansas City, New York, Boston). The biggest difference between this concert and their opening slot for the Hum reunion show in January was my familiarity with their new album, Tragic Boogie, and the highlights of that record sounded great. Still no “Mea Culpa” or “A Chorus of Crickets,” but they’ve got to plug the new wares, which I discuss at length below. Short take: behind Lula Divinia, The Egg, and Suburban Hymns, but still worth checking out.

I was running late the night of this concert and missed Constants, whose excellent “Passage” was leaking out onto Harvard Ave. as I entered Great Scott. Unfortunately, it was the last song of their set. I was looking forward to hearing some material from their upcoming album The Foundation, The Machine, The Ascension, but I’ll have to wait for the 3LP release on Mylene Sheath, which ships in late June. Six feet of artwork and two choices of vinyl color for pre-orders, so get in line.

I did get to hear the excellent Deleted Scenes for the first time, and damned if they didn’t put on a great show. Hard to pin them down to a single sub-genre, but the Dismemberment Plan, Talking Heads, indie pop, and even some math-rock came up during the set, never as a singular influence. Singer Dan Scheuerman has a captivating stage presence and their songs are even better live. I wouldn’t be surprised if their next record pushes them into headlining slots across the country, but I grabbed their debut full-length, Birdseed Shirt, and talked to Scheuerman after the show.

63. Deleted Scenes – Birdseed Shirt CD – What Delicate, 2009 – $8

Deleted Scenes put on such a convincing performance that I had no choice but to pick up their debut full-length, Birdseed Shirt, on the loathed compact disc format. (It does not look like an LP is in the works, but my purchase of an album on CD almost assures it an eventual vinyl pressing.) Does Birdseed Shirt measure up to their live set? No, but it’s still a compelling album. There’s a considerable amount of production depth on these songs, but I’d argue that a few of the tricks (keeping vocals on one channel, for example), detract from the power of the songwriting. I keep meaning to give this album a few front-to-back spins, but I usually get stuck on highlights like the abrasive “Mortal Sin,” the gliding, melodic “Ithaca,” and the dourly triumphant “Turn to Sand.” They’ll be at TT the Bear’s on July 3rd, and I might just have to use that concert as an excuse to leave the house. Those live YouTubes are whetting my appetite.

64. The Life and Times – Tragic Boogie LP – Hawthorne Street, 2009 – $10

My fondness for Allen Epley’s massive, math-rock-influenced rock can admittedly affect my ability to assess his groups’ albums immediately after release, so excuse this long build-up to the discussion of Tragic Boogie. I remember claiming that Shiner’s Starless (2000) was an improvement upon Lula Divinia (1997) in a Signal Drench review, an opinion motivated by the initial surge of new music from one of my favorite groups and the desire to cement Shiner as one of the groups the magazine got behind, especially in light of a vicious Pitchfork review (which is now gone from the site). In hindsight, Starless was an occasionally awkward transitional record, suffering from too much deference from Epley’s guitar and Paul Malinowski’s bass to the second guitar being added by Joel Hamilton and Josh Newton. Whereas Lula Divinia felt mammoth with just three members, Starless feels strangely thin at points with four. The album felt less challenging than Lula as well, with both Epley’s songwriting and new drummer Jason Gerkin taking a more straightforward approach. I know there was a version floating around—either demos or an early studio cut—with Tim Dow still in the group, but I’ve never come close to hearing it, so it may very well be an urban legend. I doubt a change in drummers would have made “Too Much of Not Enough” a better song, however.

Starless took a full three years after Lula to come out, in part due to label changes. The record was originally slated for the New York label Zero Hour, who’d put out Swervedriver’s 99th Dream and a few other semi-notable records, but they folded and left Shiner in the lurch. Was there major label interest in the group during this time as well? Who knows, but I suspect Epley, a music lifer, would not have minded some financial security. Starless ended up being released on Owned & Operated, run by Descendents/All drummer Bill Stevenson, but they didn’t feel a part of O&O like they did on DeSoto. It felt like a stopgap solution, much like Starless now feels like a stopgap record.

Thankfully their follow-up record, 2001’s The Egg rectified all of these concerns. Back on DeSoto Records, Shiner seemed dead set on pushing themselves to the fullest on The Egg, making a nastier (“Surgery”), more technically challenging (“The Egg”), more inspired album (“The Simple Truth”) than Starless. Jason Gerkin’s syncopated drumming on the title track seemed like a direct response to any fans who longed for Tim Dow’s deft work on “My Life as a Housewife.” I’d seen the group enough times leading up to the CD’s release to know that those songs would hold up. Eight years later, The Egg is essentially a 1B option to Lula Divinia’s 1A, since the latter feels a little more natural, less forced. The set list for their final show backs me up. Three songs from Splay, five songs for Starless, seven from The Egg (including Japanese bonus track “Dirty Jazz”), and seven from Lula Divinia (eight if you include “Sleep It Off”). Maybe the presence of original drummer Tim Dow at the show encouraged more Lula songs, but I trust Epley’s ability to assess the strength of his own material in the live setting.

Shiner’s farewell concert was a bittersweet send-off, but I never questioned why they broke up—The Egg pushed that group as far, as hard as it would go and there was no logical follow-up. Bringing in new collaborators and starting again made sense; so much sense Epley did it twice with The Life and Times. The John Meredith / Mike Myers line-up only lasted for The Flat End of the Earth EP, but the Eric Abert / Chris Metcalf line-up has now released two full-lengths and two EPs on four different labels. I discussed Suburban Hymns and The Magician when I picked them up on vinyl back in January, but it’s been three long years since the latter came out, stretched out by an extended label search. Sound like a familiar situation?

According to the painstaking liner notes, Tragic Boogie was initially conceived in April 2007 after a tour with the Appleseed Cast. That group’s Low Level Owl albums must’ve inspired the Life and Times’ home-recording impulse, since without a label footing the bill, only a home studio would allow Epley and company enough time to equal the Appleseed Cast’s experimentation-laden three weeks in the studio for that double-disc affair. After building a home studio and convening for several big sessions, they’d finished mastering the record in April of 2008. It took a year of label-searching before the record was released on the New York-based Arena Rock Recording Company. I’d like to think that two months is enough time to let Tragic Boogie sink in, so here goes.

Tragic Boogie is undoubtedly a home-recorded album, but not for the reason you might expect. No, it doesn’t sound thin in comparison to Suburban Hymns (recorded primarily at Matt Talbott’s Great Western Record Recorders by J. Robbins and Paul Malinowski) or The Magician (recorded at the Magpie Cage by J. Robbins). In fact, it sounds remarkably full, filled with bells and whistles like textural guitar overdubs, vintage keyboards, swirling background vocals. Epley states that they were aiming to make “the larger-than-life record we’d been hearing in our heads” and there’s no doubt that they succeeded in that aim. Tragic Boogie passes on the traditional rock template used for Suburban Hymns songs like “Running Red Lights,” “Coat of Arms,” and “Charlotte St” in favor of the explorative shoegaze approach of “Thrill Ride” and “My Last Hostage.” But how it comes through as a home-recorded album (much like compatriots National Skyline’s Bliss & Death) is in the dominance of this aesthetic shift over the base songwriting on a number of songs. Give a band enough time to tinker with guitar textures, drum sounds, and additional instrumentation, and there’s a definite risk that those elements will define the record. It’s far less likely that a home studio will cause a group to reevaluate their songwriting practices, Unwound’s Leaves Turn Inside You being a rare example.

The relatively positive Pitchfork review of Tragic Boogie states that the first half of the album trumps a weaker second half on the merit of this massive, shoegaze-influenced aesthetic, but I’ll argue the opposite. The stretch of “The Lucid Dream,” “Tragic Boogie,” and “The Politics of Driving” is as strong as anything The Life and Times has done, since the meta-level storytelling feeds off of those echoing layers of guitar. “The Lucid Dream” is a woozy, My Bloody Valentine-esque (I don’t use the comparison lightly; they’ve earned it here) fever dream, drifting with violence, regret, and oblique perspectives on Epley’s continuing musical pursuits. The title track pulls things back into the light, connecting images of doomed astronauts to both the suburban lifestyle and the group’s ongoing difficulties in finding a label and a larger audience (“We’re floating in space in search of a home, with no radio”). The two-chord signal, the rubbery, expressive bass line, and the forceful drum fills propel this story onward. “The Politics of Driving” is the album’s highlight, giving enough space to the blend of Epley’s delay-heavy rhythm guitar, Metcalf’s keyboards, and Abert’s baritone guitar leads before kicking into gear with an ascendant, cathartic rush. The song sheds some insight into Epley’s desire to keep going in the face of those label difficulties, those personal changes, with lines like “But victory would fade / The winners felt their days had no meaning / And so they’d kneel and pray / For something new to chase / Into the deep blue sea” and “But we love them even more when they don’t return” recognizing the uncontrollable impulse to press forward, even if it means certain doom. Epley’s never shied away from meta-level songwriting—“The Situationist” has “I loved the time when a little clumsy rhyming could put the crown on your head,” “The Egg” is clearly about nurturing Shiner and pushing it forward, even as things break down—and these songs add to that ongoing, cross-band commentary.

Perhaps it’s my preference for Epley’s meta-commentary on his bands or his dark character studies (Shiner’s “Sleep It Off,” The Life and Times’ “Muscle Cars”), but my issue with the first half of the record is that a few of the songs seem content with vague imagistic lyrics without much meat to them. The first three songs are strong enough; “Que Sera Sera” works well as an equally triumphant and foreboding lead-off track; “The Fall of Angry Clowns” hits a rewarding chorus of “Strange feeling, growing older”; “Let It Eat” charges forward with aquatic vocals, “Regretting all the lost days… in a future world,” establishing a thematic consistency. But “Old Souls” wastes a nice vocal performance of “You wait for me and I will pick you up right here” with too many vocal effects on the other lines, “Dull Knives” loves/hates love with trite lines like “Push and shove, they fuck the pain away / They kiss the hurt away,” and “Confetti” is more memorable for its (admittedly awesome) descending guitar lead and acoustic outro than any of the lyrics. Add two solid instrumentals (“The Pain Don’t Hurt” and the album-closing “Li’l 4 Notes”) and a reasonably good song dating back to 2003 (“Catching Crumbs”) and I’m left wanting more to chew on. The three bonus tracks from the Japanese release—two remixes and the instrumental “Life Is Pleasure”—aren’t any help.

I’ve listened to Tragic Boogie a number of times and I’m still hearing new sonic touches, new overdubs, new vocal harmonies, so if you’re more interested in how the record sounds, it trumps anything else The Life and Times has released. Yet only half of the record has stayed with me from a lyrical perspective. I half-expected this change in musical priorities after the aesthetic-first approach for some of The Magician, but a large part of what appeals to me about Allen Epley’s music is how Shiner’s mammoth riffs and The Life and Times’ layered compositions interact with the lyrics. Epley’s three best records—Lula Divinia, The Egg, and Suburban Hymns—rely on this combination. Tragic Boogie, however, is only 75% there. I still rank it well above Starless, but it does remind me of the eventual disappointment over that record. Maybe I’m being too hard on one of my favorite musicians, but I personally hope The Life and Times will re-enter their home studio less enamored with the tricks of the trade and more comfortable thanks to a stabilized label situation, and with the critical insight of an external producer like Robbins or Malinowki, produce another album that ranks among Epley’s finest, not slightly below them. The aesthetic blueprint drafted here is ready and waiting.

I’d visited Everyday Music during my last trip to Seattle, although it’s moved locations since that visit. Last time I got Chavez’s Ride the Fader LP, Hot Snakes’ Audit in Progress LP, and at least one more album if memory serves. This time around I found my two LP purchases (and the vast majority of things I considered purchasing but passed on buying ) in the just-in bin, which was organized by day (!). The general rock LP stock felt somewhat picked-over, perhaps because of the prime location by the Jimi Hendrix statue, but the seven-inches had some fine stragglers from the glory days of 1990s indie rock.

34. Cocteau Twins – Lullabies LP – 4AD, 1982 – $6

After seeing an LP copy of Blue Bell Knoll for $20 at Sonic Boom, I was a bit concerned that any Cocteau Twins material I’d find in town would be grossly overpriced, but six bucks for this EP seems entirely reasonable. I couldn’t remember if the songs on Lullabies were included on The Pink Opaque, their early singles compilation, but I checked their Wikipedia and found out that they’re not. I’ve passed on a few of the EPs because of that reason—as much as I love “The Spangle Maker,” I don’t need it on multiple LPs—but I I’m glad to have more of their early work. I still need to track down Garlands, which I found at Looney Tunes in Cambridge, but it turned out to be sleeve-only, since the LP inside was a different Cocteau Twins release. Maybe I’ll even find a copy of Heaven or Las Vegas one of these days.

As for Lullabies, it’s more aggressive than I anticipated, perhaps because of original bassist Will Heggie. “Feathered Oar Blades” is downright driving, with a nearly cacophonous drum conclusion, “Alas Dies Laughing” is woozy concoction of edgy guitar leads and Liz Fraser’s repetitive phrases, and “All but an Ark Lark” pushes forward for eight minutes before finishing off with Fraser’s whoops and Robin Guthrie’s guitar feedback.

35. Modest Mouse / 764-Hero – Whenever You See Fit LP – Up / Suicide Squeeze, 1998 – $8

Modest Mouse vinyl goes for gross amounts on eBay, especially the double LP, double sleeve edition of Lonesome Crowded West (I recently saw an auction for just one of these LPs), but I’m not sure of the value of this release, especially since the store had two copies of it for eight bucks apiece. I grabbed Everywhere and His Nasty Parlour Tricks from Mystery Train last summer with the intent of selling it, but it’s becoming quite apparent that I’m not particularly apt at the money-making aspects of collecting records, unless I have absolutely no interest in the group.

That isn’t the case here, since I am fond of early Modest Mouse. I don’t, however, recall having heard this collaborative release between them and the forgettable 764-Hero. I saw 764-Hero and a pre-Oh Inverted World version of The Shins open) for Modest Mouse at the Highdive in Champaign and heard at least one of their records, but my only impression of the group was generic Northwestern indie rock, like some extrapolation of Built to Spill and Modest Mouse’s aesthetic without the charisma. Maybe time has been kinder to 764-Hero than I imagine, but I have a feeling this will be the only release of theirs I pick up. Having now listened to the song (not the two remixes, I’ll save those for a rainy day), it’s an endearingly shambling combination of both bands, with Isaac Brock’s vocals and guitar trumping most other elements in the song. I am disappointed that these two groups could only string “Whenever You See Fit” along for fourteen and a half minutes.

36. Shiner – “Sleep It Off” b/w “Half Empty” 7” – Sub Pop, 1997 – $1

For a group that only pressed one of their full-lengths (their debut Splay) on vinyl, Shiner managed to put out a number of great singles, especially their Sub Pop single for “Sleep It Off” and “Half Empty.” The former made the re-release of Lula Divinia along with “Two Black Eyes” (which was originally included on a Law of Inertia compilation that also featured an early version of Durian’s “Four Mile Drop”), but “Half Empty” is just as good. “Brooks” b/w “Released” isn’t as essential, since both songs were on Splay, but “Cowboy” b/w “Floodwater” is worth hearing if you enjoy Splay-era Shiner. The split singles with Molly McGuire (“Crush”) and The Farewell Bend (“Spinning”) aren’t essential, but the former is exclusive and the latter is a slightly different version from the one on Starless. Ditto for “Semper Fi,” the best song from that album, but “A Sailor’s Fate” is a woozy, somewhat Louisville-influenced take on that era of Shiner’s sound. I tend to think of Shiner foremost as a live band, then an album band, but there’s good material on these singles and it’s a shame that some of them can be hard to track down.

A potential Shiner singles and rarities compilation could also include “Dirty Jazz” and “I’ll Leave Without You” from the Japanese pressing of The Egg, their cover of “Only Shallow” from the Grand Theft Autumn compilation, and a few unreleased tracks. It would provide fitting closure for Shiner, especially if they paired it with a DVD of their final performance in Kansas City. Considering that the group is working on a DVD release at the moment, this suggestion doesn’t seem to be unrealistic.

It shouldn’t be any surprise that I already owned this single, having ordered it from Parasol when it came out, but buying a second copy of a buck seemed like a no-brainer. I passed on a second copy of the Molly McGuire split single since I’m not exactly wearing out Shiner’s “Crush.”

37. Vitreous Humor – “My Midget” b/w “New Victoria Theater” 7” – Mute, 1996 – $2

I have Vitreous Humor’s first single, but I can’t remember much about it beyond a vague recollection of that Crank!-style of Midwestern indie/emo. I had no idea that they’d signed to a major until I saw this single, but apparently their time on Mute was limited to this slice of wax. Neither of these songs sounds remotely like a cash-grab and “My Midget” even begins with some lengthy instrumental interplay. Time to check out their self-titled EP and aptly titled Posthumous CD.

After Vitreous Humor broke up, three of the members reconvened in the short-lived The Regrets, whose lone CD, New Directions: Result Beat Boasts, was pulled out of the Reckless dollar bin a few years ago. I have even less recollection of that CD except that it was somewhat poppier than the Vitreous Humor single. A year after the Regrets split, one-hit wonders Nada Surf covered Vitreous Humor’s “Why Are You So Mean to Me?” at the behest of their label, which even slotted it as the lead single for their second album. Please cover this obscure indie rock band’s song. We know it’ll be a hit. It sounds like they hired me as an A&R guy.

38. Wider – “Main” b/w “Strapping ½” 7” – Third Gear, 1995 – $0.50

I’d seen Wider cross-referenced a number of times in relation to Chavez, since James Lo played drums and Matt Sweeney played bass in this group prior to joining Chavez (although the latter doesn’t appear on this single). I’d never actually heard Wider, though, and it’s entirely possible that I’d never seen one of their singles before, either. There’s another 7” floating around for “Triangle” b/w “Bloom,” which seems to come up exclusively through eBay searches. Is there a full-length floating around as well? Wider isn’t the most Google-friendly band name.

The music, to my expectations, is typical early-to-mid 1990s aggressive math-rock, with vocals only on the A side. Buying this single right after Don Caballero’s For Respect makes a lot of sense to me.

To prove that I’m documenting every physical piece of music acquired in 2009, here’s what I bought at the Hum / Life and Times / Dianogah show.

1. The Life and Times – Suburban Hymns LP – Hawthorne Street, 2007 – $12 new

I can understand how some Shiner fans might have lost interest with the second incarnation of The Life and Times during the group’s transition to a shoegaze/math-rock hybrid, but Suburban Hymns is my third-favorite Epley album behind Lula Divinia and The Egg. I enjoyed The Flat End of the Earth EP, especially “Raisin in the Sun,” but I can’t fathom Epley releasing album after album of relatively dry, restrained indie rock. “Houdini” is essentially a shoegaze song stripped of its aesthetic, so the progression to the shoegaze-inflected Suburban Hymns made sense.

With the exception of the overly similar “Running Red Lights” and “Charlotte Street,” the variation from song to song keeps Suburban Hymns fresh. “Coat of Arms” revives War-era U2 drum fills, “Mea Culpa” is a pulsing, dynamic rocker reminiscent of Shiner’s epic “The Simple Truth,” “Muscle Cars” is a chiming, melancholic lament, “Skateland” lurks with seething menace, and “A Chorus of Crickets” somehow makes the apocalypse a rousing event. While there are moments of levity, like the rare Epley love song “Shift Your Gaze,” I tend to be drawn to the songs lingering between resigned pessimism and detached malaise, just like Shiner’s best single, “Sleep It Off” b/w “Half-Empty.”

If you haven’t picked the album up, Hawthorne Street’s clear vinyl pressing is a fine option. (The Magician is pressed on translucent yellow vinyl.) It would have been nice to have a gatefold sleeve with more artwork like the point-on cover, but considering that only one Shiner album (Splay) was pressed on LP, I won’t complain about the lack of frills. Not every group can be Pelican, after all.

2. The Life and Times – The Magician LP – Hawthorne Street, 2008 – $10

Unlike Suburban Hymns, The Magician takes a full step toward shoegaze, particularly on the first two tracks, “I Know You Are” and “Hush.” There’s too much low end to lump them in with most “nu-gaze” groups—Jon always complains about how Loveless needed a proper drum recording—but Epley’s effects-laden vocals and drifting guitar lines are a long way from Shiner’s “Brooks” and “Released.”

While I enjoy those shoegaze tracks and the up-tempo “Ave Maria,” “The Sound of the Ground” stands above the other songs on this EP. The melodies are clearer and more memorable than those on the other songs (“Ave Maria” is closest). The primary guitar line, drenched in delay, is completely absorbing. Just as important, you can actually understand Allen Epley’s vocals. My biggest issue with the shoegaze version of The Life and Times is how it detracts from Epley’s lyrics, since Shiner songs like “Fetch a Switch,” “The Situationist,” “Cake,” and “The Egg” are so compelling because of the combination of the lyrics and those mammoth, churning riffs. I can live without the weight of those riffs—begrudgingly—since there’s something filling the void, but placeholder lyrics are a disappointment.

It’s funny that my first two purchases of the new year are double dips—I own CD copies of both of these releases—since that’s something I’ve been trying to avoid doing. In this case, I try to support The Life and Times whenever possible, and I hadn’t seen them since the vinyl had been pressed.

Ever since I missed the majority of an epic Penguins–Flyers playoff OT tilt (the 5/4/2000 5OT classic) because of a National Skyline show and, more brutally, the Illinois comeback against Arizona in the 2005 Elite Eight because of a Slint reunion show, I’ve been wary of sporting events coinciding with major shows. Fortunately this show only caused me to miss out on a predicted Duke loss to VCU in the first round of the NCAA tournament, not the greatest game in the history of sports, so things worked out fairly well.

I managed to catch the last three songs of Caspian’s set, which piqued my interest in their upcoming full-length. They managed to shed most of the Explosions in the Sky comparisons when they stuck to more violent, riff-oriented post-rock on penultimate song of their set, but the set closer was more of a slow burn crescendo into a drum circle. Drum circles, eh? The only one of those I remember enjoying was XBXRX, since it comprised half of their eight-minute-long set and did not involve their guitarist climbing on my shoulders and riding me around the Fireside Bowl. Despite this tangent, I’ll gladly see Caspian headline in the future and hope that The Four Trees gets a vinyl pressing. (I e-mailed the band and learned that they also hope the album gets a vinyl pressing, but nothing is guaranteed at this point.)

Harris played next, enjoying a hometown show with their parents in the audience. Aww. Their MySpace lists Braid and the Dismemberment Plan as logical comparisons, but I thought more of their emo peers circa 1998 or so; a bit of the Get-Up Kids keyboard-laden enthusiasm on a few tracks goes a long way. They succeeded when their enthusiasm didn’t overwhelm, but the keyboard player ruined his otherwise excellent contribution to their set with some rap-shouting in the middle of the song about parking spaces and dumping urine on the roof of a car. Nothing against the lyrical concept, mind you, but “rap-shouting” is perhaps even sub–drum circle.

I went to the show to see the Life and Times and, much like the previous five times I’d seen them, they didn’t disappoint. No “The Sound of the Ground,” but “Mea Culpa” and “Muscle Cars” both have great new intros and blow away their solid recordings. The sound was considerably more balanced than the last show at T. T. the Bear’s, meaning that I could hear both guitar and bass at the same time. The only bummer of the night was when Allen played a few bars of the Jesus Lizard’s “Mouthbreather,” not the whole thing. I don’t know how well that song would have fit into the muscular shoegaze of the rest of the set, but risking potential audience alienation is a decent price to pay for goddamn “Mouthbreather.”

I saw the Appleseed Cast in Champaign at the Cowboy Monkey in 2003 and largely enjoyed their set and this performance didn’t stray too much from that memory. Unlike the Life and Times, who got to the shoegaze aesthetic through a math-rock emphasis on rhythm and riffs, the Appleseed Cast came from a more strict second-wave emo approach (defined by the first two Sunny Day Real Estate records in my view) and their set vacillated between instrumental jams with post-rock dynamics and relatively catchy emo songs with shoegaze overtones. Amazingly enough, the kids seemed to be more into the yearning songs with vocals.

I was pretty stunned to learn that the next show of the tour (Friday night) was in Poughkeepsie, New York—i.e. roughly where I grew up—since shows of this particular standing rarely came through town when I was in high school, but hopefully that one went well despite a poorly timed Nor’easter. If you can catch any of the remaining shows of the tour (and there are plenty), I recommend doing so.