Saturday 28 March 2015

No. 20 Arcwelder - Captain Allen

The final single from the letter A and its also the final Arcwelder single, which was released in 1995 and subsequently turned up on Entropy, their fifth album. It's another solid tune and it's backed with a decent cover of Volcano Suns' White Elephant. I can't find a video for this tune, so here's a link to a (badly synced) clip from Touch & Go's 25th anniversary celebrations, which suggests that Arcwelder  are lovely people too and includes an excellent cameo from Shellac's Todd Trainer. Sadly despite owning most of their back catalogue, I've never seen Arcwelder live - I should have seen them at All Tomorrow's Parties back in 2002, but I managed to miss them, I think because of a clash - whoever it was I saw instead had better have been damned good.

Fact fans will be delighted to learn that Bob Weston IV (now of Shellac) who engineered and produced this was in Volcano Suns (but not when they wrote White Elephant).

Next up, the first submission for the letter B. The tension is almost unbearable...





Tuesday 24 March 2015

No. 19 Arcwelder - Raleigh

March has become a most challenging month professionally in recent years, thus the lack of activity on the blogging front. However the ocean of marking is now behind me and normal service can hopefully be resumed. Anyhow, next up its another fine offering from Arcwelder, the stop-start alt. pop of Raleigh, the band's first single on Touch & Go, which would eventually feature on their third album Pull. Two b-sides feature (Walls and Rosa), which is always good value, even if they're a little forgettable (which they are).

Chicago's Touch & Go Records was consistently putting out great records at this time; the was the era  of Girls Against Boys, The Jesus Lizard, Slint, Man or Astroman and plenty more fine bands. This certainly won't be the last Touch & Go release to feature as I work through the alphabet.

Sadly, I've concluded that this song (probably) refers to Raleigh, the city in North Carolina, rather than the Elizabethan sailor, son of the West Country and populariser of tobacco, Sir Walter Raleigh. An opportunity missed I think.