Everclear

I do not like Porno For Pyros. At all. I know some people are sensitive about them. I know they only have one album (I think; I’m not gonna go look). I just don’t like them. I also can’t remember why I bothered to split my face between the two center panels, or what the change in shirt was supposed to indicate. Maybe I was mad for a really long time. It’s not like that’s a rare occurrence.

In the opening panel, I mention Low Pop Suicide. You’ve probably never heard of them, but they weren’t bad; the drummer was Jeff Ward (Revolting Cocks, Ministry, Lard, Nine Inch Nails, Skafish), until he took his own life via carbon monoxide poisoning in 1993. He was the cop in 1,000 Homo DJs’ “Hey Asshole”.

Low Pop Suicide’s 1993 album On The Cross Of Commerce closed with a track called “All In Death Is Sweet”, which I think is their best song. It’s at 39:03 of the video link below, in case it doesn’t automatically take you to it. The entire album is worth experiencing at least once.

I don’t know if it’s an intentional tribute or a total coincidence, but it sounds very similar to “Weissensee” on the first album from Krautrock pioneers NEU!. Listen to both tracks. Am I wrong?

Anyway… Everclear. The strip is from 10 years ago, in the 10th year of the strip. “Google” was just a search engine. “Belly” was a general store on North Highland Avenue in Atlanta. No one remembered that god-awful “Feed The Tree” song, and if they did they tried to think of other things.

Everclear is also, as you might already know, a brand of grain alcohol, which I find crude and abhorrent. It tastes like poison to me. It was something one drank before one was old enough to know better, and this is coming from someone who enjoys M/D 20/20 on occasion.

The closest thing Everclear had to a good song was “Santa Monica”. It’s pretty much why any of us had a copy of Sparkle and Fade. You know, it goes like this:

The three band members put childhood pictures of themselves on the cover. I consider this a hateful practice; however well-intentioned, it feels weird to have a CD with someone’s old scrapbook photos on it. I don’t like watching the video because it also feels weird seeing a li’l mini-movie  for a song semi-inspired by Art Alexakis’ near-suicide, jumping from the Santa Monica pier. Depression, heroin and suicide, folks. 1994 in music! Except for R&B; that was R. Kelly and underage watersports. TLC (the group) wore condoms all over their clothes to promote safe sex, but it didn’t really work. It just made them look insane and hot to trot.

Everclear has put out ten albums since Sparkle and Fade. I myself have not heard them. Art Alexakis has described himself as a “left-wing Christian”, and Everclear has cut a single called “Jesus Was A Democrat”. As an observer of trends in popular music for over 30 years, I can tell you for certain; that kind of stuff gets you shut out of the Rolling Stone.