an album a day for 18 October - THE BRIGHT ORANGE YEARS

[Charlie O.]

Volcano Suns - The Bright Orange Years

Released 1985 on Homestead Records; reissued 2009 on Merge

Peter Prescott - drums, hollering

Jeff Weigand - bass

Jon Williams - guitar

The full album can be streamed here: volcanosuns.bandcamp.com/album/the-bright-orange-years

NOTE: only the first twelve tracks - "Jak" through "Silvertone" - constitute the original album; the rest are bonus tracks of varying quality. I'm not exactly saying "don't listen to them"... but, you know, the album is the album.

_

An exchange from a Preludin thread called "Underappreciated artists you think should get love" last December:

Dec 23, 2020 3:22:35 GMT Charlie O. said:

Volcano Suns

Dec 23, 2020 9:25:14 GMT ~ / % ? * said:

jeez, they got no love when they were current

Dec 23, 2020 9:33:31 GMT Charlie O. said:

You're more right than wrong.

I loved them. At one point in my life I knew other people who liked them, but I'm not sure any of them loved them; I knew a lot more people who laughed at me when I mentioned the band's name. (Most of these same people fell head over heels for Nirvana's Nevermind some years later. At first blanch that album sounded to me like a mix of Volcano Suns and Squirrel Bait, another mid-'80s indie band that these music lovers had derided me for championing. It wasn't fair, and I held it against Nirvana for some time, which also wasn't fair. I've long since made my peace with all of the above.) I could be mistaken, but the band (and their "people") didn't seem to go out of their way to try to make the public or the media love them. I don't mean that their music was difficult - I certainly didn't think it was! - but as far as I know they didn't tour widely, didn't do a lot of press, didn't put much in the way of info or legible band photos on their releases (even later CD reissues are pointedly cryptic), and in my admittedly limited experience (I saw them twice) didn't banter much with the audiences they played to. Jeff Weigand, the bassist on their first two albums, later recalled: "Jon and I saw the band as a big chance to just fuck around with the order of stuff. If some major label guy wanted to talk to us, we, of course, would do something to destroy that... We saw it as some big Dada project."*

So I'll tell you what I think I know. Peter Prescott, drummer and crucial wild card of Mission Of Burma, started Volcano Suns shortly after that legendary band called it quits in 1983. This new band was largely a vehicle for his own blossoming songwriting. Guitarists and bassists came and went throughout the Suns' run (which ended in '91), but the M.O. stayed pretty much the same: loud, sloppy - but hooky as all get out - guitar, muscular bass, unpredictable but propulsive drums, harmonizing-made-easy! voices hollering lyrics that were goofier/funnier than Burma's except when they were dead serious... all pummeled/bellowed out with the sort of palpable glee and unselfconscious abandon one associates with young children at play, and (unlike MoB) usually recorded/mixed in something less than high fidelity. At a time when most Amerindie bands (let alone British ones) seemed to be taking themselves So Seriously, these guys were Larry, Moe & Curly.

The Bright Orange Years was their first album, and this devoted fan will attest that it's certainly their best. (To borrow a Tom Lehrer back cover joke: If you don't like this record, you will certainly not enjoy...) It did get a few good reviews at the time - Robert Christgau, in his widely-read Village Voice column, said that it made him wish that Prescott had written most of Burma's material as well - but mostly it was ignored, just like their next five albums would be.

I had thought I'd do a song-by-song rundown, but screw it - I'm gonna miss my deadline! Anyway, what can I say about the music that I haven't already said? - you've got ears, and I doubt I could say anything that would make you like it if you otherwise wouldn't, plus I'm still figuring out some of the lyrics thirty-six years later so wouldn't trust myself with direct quotation. I will note, however, the presence of themes that would recur throughout their oeuvre: the simple joys and mind-numbing tedium of rural life (the "Cornfield"/"Animals"/"Stewtime" triptych on Side 2 - I know nothing of Peter's personal background, but I'm thinking a farm might have been in the picture at some point); inscrutable jokes (the appropriately hard-swingin' "I'm Gonna Make You Mine", as in mining); depression/dread ("Descent Into Hell", "Silvertone"); and a hard rejection of Cool, both as it applies to trends ("Promise Me") and to personal relationships ("Balancing Act"). (I was going to add "psychedelically-enhanced personal reflection" to that list, but I can't make out enough of the lyrics to "Cover" to call that anything more than a wild guess.)

ADDENDUM: If you do like this record... you should check out the download-only live document Old Pain(t), a ferocious performance by the Bright Orange line-up who found themselves hilariously mis-booked on a "hardcore skinhead extravaganza bill" (Weigand's description) in New Jersey; half of the audience is appreciative while the other half keeps yelling at them to play faster!, prompting acid-tongued banter a-plenty. (Liner notes here.) Second album All Night Lotus Party is a bit of a "sophomore slump", but only a bit - the best cuts are truly first-rate (and the rest'll grow on you). The other one streamable on Bandcamp is their desultory sixth and final album Career In Rock. I wrote a review of it at the time, praising it to the skies, but... Nevermind was big and I was trying to make new converts for the band; listening now, the material is unmistakably second-rate when it isn't third, and an uncharacteristically clean and detailed recording job (by a pseudonymous Steve Albini) only serves to make me wish it had been recorded live to cassette like Old Pain(t).

* indyweek.com/music/features/even-two-lauded-reissues-volcano-suns-ducks-fame/

[fange]

Cheers Charlie, i like the sound of this. Like you say, loud and sloppy, hooky and fun.

[fearlessfreap]

I was a pretty big fan -- I lived in Boston for a year and a half between 1986-7 and saw them quite often at the Channel and the Rat. I was lucky enough to see Burma in 83 in Boston.  One thing I still find interesting is that the Pixies, who have been seen as gods over the past 25 years, weren't that big a deal in their home town at the time.

[loveless]

Yeah, I listened in full last night as soon as you posted. It's got an untamed element of American post-punk that I really like: a certain art damaged anarchy, like the piano songs on Zen Arcade, or someone mixing Bob Stinson's chaotic guitar tracks just a hair louder on Let it Be. I can see why you mention Squirrel Bait (and there's this sort of link between the "slightly in tune, slightly in unison guitars" that runs through 70s Wire, mid 80s Sonic Youth, and into early/mid Pavement). A youthful energy that manages to be consistently and gloriously vague throughout.



Something like THAT really satisfies me, and...it may be made even more beautiful just by virtue of knowing that it was being created simultaneous to some of the most deliberate, custom engineered, crass, slick product of any era (I can't really shake the entirely self generated contrasting image of people like the Hooters or Mr. Mister perfecting their formulas across town "at that very moment").

[osgood]

Heard the two tracks posted above and loved them. Placed In the queue for the next hours