All this week I’ve been reminiscing on my first days in Los Angeles. Seven years ago this week I arrived here. At the time I’d only expected to stay six months. There was some hesitation about what would happen if I’d failed to find a job. I would have to return to New Jersey with no money (I’d saved up during the two years after college just to give myself the opportunity to move west) and having failed to start a new life in a new city. Of course, none of that came into play because I wound up finding a job and I’ve been here ever since, but during those first few months it was a very real possibility. So as much fun as I was having out here making new friends and going out on the town and learning my way around LA, it’s not like I came here with pockets deep enough to sustain an unemployed lifestyle for very long. And I certainly didn’t have much money to spend on useless artifacts like records. So what little I purchased in those days had to have some serious meaning (or extremely high resale value) in order to justify the purchase.
My first time out record shopping in LA I purchased three records for about $20. Those three records have been highlighted in the three blog posts previous to this one. The Fun Of Watching Fireworks by the American Analog Set, When Your Heartstrings Break by Beulah, and His Absence Is A Blessing by Silkworm. For a few weeks those three records sat alone in my bedroom propped up against the wall (I don’t even think I’d gone to Target and purchased a milk crate yet). Roughly two weeks later — May 25-27th, 2007 — the Bottling Smoke Festival (sponsored by Digitalis Industries) arrived in Los Angeles. A free event (there was one night you had to pay $8 to see a handful of great acts) that was held mere footsteps from my front door, the bands scheduled to appear were pretty much how I might describe a musical wet dream during that period of my life. Tarentel, Xela, Ghosting, The Alps, The Holy See, White Rainbow, The North Sea and Heavy Winged were the big names that stuck out to me at the time. Of course, after the event previously unknowns such as Ilyas Ahmed, Gregg Kowalsky, Robedoor, Pocahaunted, and Starving Weirdos would be permanently affixed to my radar.
On the festival’s first evening of the festival several bands performed inside Echo Curio. The following day several more appeared, and out behind the gallery/venue there was a tent set up where you could buy various Digitalis/Foxglove/Root Strata and related CDs and albums and other ephemera. At that time I think I only purchased CDs. Later that night at Mr. T’s Bowl most of the heavy hitters took the stage. At one point I found myself talking to Jefre Cantu about his record label (Root Strata), and when I asked which of his releases I should buy he handed me two records and told me to take them home and enjoy them. The first was one I’d already heard (and fallen in love with, and had purchased on CD just a few hours earlier), Stone Academy by Zelienople.
I’d first read about Stone Academy on he Aquarius Records mailing list back in 2006. Their first appearance on one of my Sunday Mix Tapes came on October 29th of that year. The AQ description of the record gave it required listening status, and I searched far and wide for a digital copy (I think they were sold out of the vinyl really fast and I thought I’d hold out for that instead of buying the CD) and luckily found it…probably on SoulSeek or one of those services. They described the album thusly:
Stone Academy, at its core, is basically a stripped down folk record. Simple strummed steel string guitar, wavery plaintive vocals, warm swells of ambience, wrapped in TONS of thick reverb, like it was recorded in a cave or a gymnasium or empty swimming pool, and while each song has this strummy folk center, each track evolves or devolves in a totally unique way, into a barely there minimal crawl, into grinding washes of distorted guitar, into warm thick swirls of My Bloody Valentine like buzz, into weird 20th century abstract clatter, into Murky Dead C like blurry noise rock, and sometimes into nothing at all, just sort of quietly and contemplatively drifting along, shimmering in a druggy haze of warbly ephemeral folk and whirring ambient rumble. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES! Each copy hand numbered. Thick brown sleeves, each with an original ACTUAL photo by Diane Jones affixed to the front. Five different, equally striking images. So lovely.
So, yeah. Mine’s number 180 out of 300 and it was given to me by Jefre on May 26th, 2007 at Mr. T’s Bowl here in Los Angeles. I think the only release of theirs I don’t own now is His/Hers, which is odd because it came out on Type and I remember passing it up at the time because back in 2007 I still didn’t have much expendable income and Type records were expensive to buy as imports. So I missed the pre-sale for the white vinyl edition and decided not to buy it unless I could find that variant. It’s since been seven years and the price of the white vinyl has gone up so at some point I’ll begrudgingly have to pay fifty bucks or so for it. As good as that album is, though, it doesn’t hold a candle to Stone Academy. This is a great album by a great band that I will champion (oh man did I just say that? who the fuck do I think I am, John Peel?) for as long as I find joy in music. These guys are fucking phenomenal. And I’ve been saying it since 2006 but, CAN YOU PLEASE PLAY A FUCKING SHOW SOMEWHERE NEAR ME BEFORE I DIE? THANKS!
Zelienople
Stone Academy
(Root Strata – RS#14)
A1. Plaster Dog
A2. Fuck Everything
A3. Elephant
A4. Fire Machine
B1. More Mess [MP3]
B2. Southside
B3. Pissing
B4. Bird’s Face
B5. When You Were 9
