Taking a Flier

It’s not like we’re short on recommendations for music new and old from our old pal Herb. And his plugs are usually bona fide, far more so than those from pluggers getting paid for their advice. From Ween to Wilco to Cake to the North Mississippi All-Stars to, yes, the Old 97’s, he’s been one step ahead of the curve on plenty of good music, and he’s been kind enough to hurl it at us early on.

But there’s still something about taking a flier on an unknown album. The enjoyment of walking into a store, picking out something with little to no aural knowledge of its contents, and handing over the $14.37 is a unique experience. Okay, it’s not thrill-a-minute, largely because the downside is somewhat minimal; if it all goes wrong, you’ll be disappointed, you’ll be moderately annoyed with your own bad fortune/taste, and you’ll be out the equivalent of a case of beer. But the upside is pretty cool – you’re getting to enjoy music you might not have heard for months, if ever at all. It’s certainly a risk/reward in your favor.

I don’t know if there is a skill set necessary for the successful venturing in this way, but if there is, I don’t possess it. I’m telling you, historically I select the worst all-time records when I go out on a limb. Case in point: three blindly optimistic purchases in the early 90’s. The first one was Boom Crash Opera, a band I spotted on MTV with their video “Onion Skin” one Williamsburg summer, and I trotted off to the music store with my buddy Rob Russell (more on that later) to buy These Here Are Crazy Times. “The next INXS” is what these Aussie madcaps were being touted as, but they weren’t even the next Men at Work. Months later, a CD I was all over was the Chickasaw Mudd Puppies. “The next R.E.M.,” so some publication said when White Dirt came out, and I was such a sucker. Not quite up to the hype, it wasn’t unlistenable, but there was nary a memorable hook in 40 minutes of music, and the singer was pretty lousy. I sold it back, as I was too poor to afford CD’s I’d ignore. Finally, there was Nick Heyward. The former Haircut 100 singer (I obviously ignored this red flag) had a catchy single, “Kite,” off his album From Monday to Sunday, and he was being described as “the next Haircut 100.” While in New Jersey, I walked into a record store with my musical cohort Dave Pellicane, and somehow this album ended up in my hands when I went to the counter. I soon sold it back, despite not needing the money.

On the far end of the spectrum is, or at least was, the aforementioned Midas Russell. When I was buying that album that could’ve been advertised as “Australian for Crap,” he was randomly grabbing the first major release by this L.A. punk band he knew nothing about save a chance viewing of their video. (It was a long and fruitful summer, as you can tell.) Social Distortion was their name, and he very nearly had to go back at summer’s end and re-purchase the CD from wearing it out. After spending some time north of the border in 1992 (presumably to visit his girlfriend from the Niagara Falls area), he brought back a tape of some Canucklehead music from this band called Barenaked Ladies. Good call. Finally, when we were joining and quitting and joining and quitting music clubs galore in 1994, racking up discs like they were bar coasters, I was playing it safe (having learned my lesson) with the Doobie Brothers’ Greatest Hits and such while he was gambling (low stakes, of course) again. I don’t think he’d heard a single song when he hit BMG up for Hootie and the Blowfish’s Cracked Rear View, an album which might not have warranted selling 13 million copies but was far better than the lemming-headed backlash that eventually occurred. The kid was good.

In the years since, Rob may have lost his touch, perhaps due to lack of practice. If I’m not mistaken, Uncle Belgrade recently told me that his selection of Lloyd Cole’s Rattlesnakes record 20 years ago was a “sound-unheard” purchase based exclusively on the album cover. I doubt he’s done that in a while. I myself have had better success of late with fliers taken on bands such as the Dandy Warhols, Spoon, Modest Mouse, and Franz Ferdinand, but I'm still not comfortable with my own good luck when it comes to instinctive music grabs.

The use of iTunes has now made the album buy gamble obsolete, since you can preview all of the songs and just buy what you want. Still, it’d be an interesting little venture if we all agreed to go into a music shop in the next couple of weeks, plunk down fifteen smackers for any intriguing-looking CD based on little or no knowledge of it, listen to it for a fortnight, and give it a review.

If you dullards aren’t game for that, I’d be up for just hearing more tales of unexpected joy or woe from risky selections in the aisles of Tower, Skinnies Records, the Band Box, or wherever you’ve bought music.