Rock has always been stoned. Chemical influence is as old as the fabled Crossroads where Robert Johnson sold his soul, existed through the hoorah over the "bigger than Jesus" remarks and continues today, even in the face of thumb-twiddling, intellectual bedroom pop.
Those kids are high too. The bedroom door is closed, and Mom can't see.
Perhaps the apex of stoned rock in the last 20 years is 1991's Sebadoh III the harmonious/anti-harmonious shambles of Lou Barlow's frustration with Dinosaur Jr.'s songwriting exclusion. It's the divisive soap opera of indie rock, this schism between Barlow and Mascis, but substantively, the results were astounding on both sides of the aisle. Mascis made Dinosaur Jr. the semi-icon that it was in the 90's, and Barlow burrowed into garages and basements and forged the strange stone of Sebadoh.
III is quite literally the third album by the band, following the mixed efforts The Freed Man and Weed Forestin'. It is their achievement, and the underscored masterpiece of a year that saw Nirvana and Pearl Jam go commercial. The best of this record is found in its wild vacillation between introspection and sheer idiotic metal riffs. Now cleaner, but undeniably low-fi, III is represented as the kaleidoscope of spirited creativity that was born of fabled frustration. No one would deny that the somber, downward stare of "Truly Great Thing" is as heart wrenching as "Scars, Four Eyes" is catchy, near radio pop. Then turn all of those expectations around and make sense of "Limb By Limb" a disjointed, scattershot of raw noise. Were they high? Sure. "Smoke a Bowl" tells us that quite literally, but the haze of blue dusk light is as thick on cowboy pop "Black Haired Gurl" and the hypnotically engaging, "Wonderful, Wonderful" full of tripped out eastern influences.
Even without the extras, there is a treasure trove of brilliant experimentation on III and that is, again, its claim to genius. If even half of the 23 original songs are worthwhile, the album is still a bona fide classic.
It bears mention that the extras comprising the second disc are credible, valuable pieces of garage pop history. They represent just how fertile the collaboration between Barlow and Lowenstein was around the time of spandex and Bush I. The rough shod "Gimmie Indie Rock" EP (originally released on Homestead) opens with a characteristically sludge stained sound, panning the icons of early 90's underground with blatant (look out Thurston Moore and, of course, J. Mascis) references in mocking voice. Of the 18 total tracks there are noise collages (an unedited 11-minute opus called "Showtape '91"), the 4-track demo of "The Freed Pig" and much, much more.
A re-release of Sebadoh III shows that the stocking capped stoners in the basement should sometimes be left to their devices. |