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Insomniacs Vent Hole: Enter the Vaselines [1]
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Date: 2022-09-15
Francis McKee, Eugene Kelly - The Vaselines
Tonight’s selections from The Vaselines. In their first incarnation they recorded two EPs and one LP between ‘87 and ‘89 then split up for 20 years.
Son of a Gun [1987]
Famous superfans are both a blessing and a curse-- just ask the Vaselines. In 1992, at the urging of ardent admirer Kurt Cobain, Sub Pop released The Way of the Vaselines, a compilation of the short-lived and then-little-known band's extant recordings (a whopping 19 tracks). Hooray for them, right? Maybe. If the Vaselines originally slotted neatly into the mid-to-late 80s Scottish shambolic pop underground of the Pastels, Shop Assistants, and BMX Bandits, their origins-- and the band's actual recordings-- became overshadowed by a single factoid: They influenced Nirvana. Nirvana's (good-intentioned, I'm sure) covers of "Molly's Lips" and "Son of a Gun" were more-or-less faithful, bouncy renditions, but they lacked the humor, menace, and complexity of the naïvely played, ambivalently sung originals. And "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam" has long been associated with Nirvana's funereal MTV Unplugged performance, during which Cobain caressed the sweetly sacrilegious song with the reverence due a cultural relic-- something it neither wanted nor deserved. As the former romantic couple has repeatedly asserted in interviews (including one conducted for inclusion in the set by Pastel Stephen McRobbie), the band was originally a lark, and many of their songs were written for a laugh by horny but essentially pretty wholesome kids with time on their hands. Early tracks-- "Rory Rides Me Raw", with its charmingly awful double entendres, and Divine cover "You Think You're a Man" with its juvenile, erm, climactic ending-- succinctly make that case. (They never abandoned the sexually provocative, however, going on to record songs like "Monsterpussy" and "The Day I Was a Horse".) — Pitchfork
Molly's Lips [1988]
Rife with double entendres, the songs' subjects run the blasphemous, licentious gamut, from horses and sex ("Rory Ride Me Raw," "The Day I Was a Horse") to sacrilege and secular redemption ("Teenage Superstars," "Sex Sux (Amen)"). Their barbed version of twee pop was certainly a spiritual antecedent to later sordid excursions by fellow Glaswegians Belle & Sebastian (See If You're Feeling Sinister's "Judy and the Dream of Horses"). But it never lacked in pathos, most poignantly illustrated on the scarred balladry of "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam," as profound and subversive a rock ‘n' roll invocation of Jesus Christ since Patti Smith brazenly intoned "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine" at the outset of Horses. — Under The Radar
Teenage Superstars [1988]
What do you think sets aside this incarnation of The Vaselines from when you did it the first time around?
Eugene Kelly: When we started it was a two piece and we played to a backing tape so it was very naive and primitive. Wasn't that what made it so great in the first place?
EK: I think so. Most people got bands together to try and play shows and we just thought we'd just get started now without worrying how to find other people to play these songs. When we got a drummer and a bass player it became a bit more raw and a bit more edgy and spontaneous. Does it surprise you that people are interested now when back then you flew so low under the radar?
EK: It does a wee bit. People tell us that the Vaselines are well known around the world and we didn't know this until we started to play again and found there was an audience for us. That's when we went, 'Oh my god, what's happening here? This is not like the old days. People aren't booing us.' You once said that there were three key players in The Vaselines' history: Stephen McRobbie from The Pastels for putting you your records; Calvin Johnson for playing your them on his radio show in Olympia and then Kurt Cobain for covering your songs. Is there a little part of you that's resentful that it took so long for you to be recognised?
EK: Not at all. It's just the way things happen. At the time we weren't sitting around going, 'Oh, the record is great. Why aren't we getting front covers on magazines? Why aren't we getting tours?' We never thought like that. We just thought we'd put the record out and some people will buy it and most people won't and that's it. We kind of knew we weren't the greatest band in the world. It's fun now that 20 years later there are people wanting to see us. We're very happy and surprised by it all. — The Quietus
Rory Rides Me Raw [1987]
WHO’S TALKING TO WHO?
Jimmy Kimmel: Sam Rockwell, Beto O'Rourke, Death Cab for Cutie
Jimmy Fallon: Fred Armisen, Letitia Wright, David Blaine
Stephen Colbert: Queen Latifah, Nina Totenberg
Seth Meyers: Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, Beth Ditto, Rick Smith
James Corden: Elisabeth Moss, Diego Luna, Caitlin Peluffo
The Daily Show: George Stephanopoulos
INSOMNIACS VENT HOLE: SPOILER WARNING
A late night gathering for non serious palaver that does not speak of that night’s show. Posting a spoiler will get you brollywhacked. You don’t want that to happen to you. It's a fate worse than a fate worse than death.
Nirvana covering a Vaselines song
Nirvana :: Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam (MTV Unplugged) [1993]
And a Divine song covered by the Vaselines. Surely everyone recognizes Divine from Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, etc.
Divine :: You Think You’re a Man [1984]
LAST WEEK'S POLL: FRENCH FRY TOPPING
Cheese 5% 1 vote
Chili 15% 3 votes
Ketchup 35% 7 votes
Malt Vinegar 10% 2 votes
Mayo 5% 1 vote
Other 30% 6 votes
[END]
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