's funny how things work out. I'm beginning to think that Pell Mell may just be the great, "lost" American band of the last 25 years. Yeah, I say that kinda shit a lot. I'm obsessed w/ 'em. Of course, it's not often that a band who's "lost" winds up w/ a bunch of records on some big-time indie labels (SST, Matador), one on a major (DGC), a song on a Microsoft ad and a track on Six Feet Under... but I'll still call 'em "lost", if only because just about every release of theirs is currently out of print (all of them except for that release above, a Starlight Furniture reissue of a 1982 live cassette), and I guess because not too many people talk about 'em these days. I had their Bumper Crop LP back in high school and foolishly sold the thing over 10 years ago. I just bought it back last week... along w/ every other longplayer they released: '91's Flow, '95's Interstate, '97's Star City and '82's It's A Live Cassette. Slovenly's brilliance never made a dent w/ most folk. Same goes for The Scene Is Now. Pell Mell, TSIN and Slovenly are, come to think of it, three fairly similar sounding bands: combinations of slick-dick musicianship and highly inventive and completely non-generic interplay between the members. You could say they remain the ultimate post-Beefheart/'Ubu art-pop outfits. In fact, I just did. I hope that's recommendation enough.
's funny how things work out. I'm beginning to think that Pell Mell may just be the great, "lost" American band of the last 25 years. Yeah, I say that kinda shit a lot. I'm obsessed w/ 'em. Of course, it's not often that a band who's "lost" winds up w/ a bunch of records on some big-time indie labels (SST, Matador), one on a major (DGC), a song on a Microsoft ad and a track on Six Feet Under... but I'll still call 'em "lost", if only because just about every release of theirs is currently out of print (all of them except for that release above, a Starlight Furniture reissue of a 1982 live cassette), and I guess because not too many people talk about 'em these days. I had their Bumper Crop LP back in high school and foolishly sold the thing over 10 years ago. I just bought it back last week... along w/ every other longplayer they released: '91's Flow, '95's Interstate, '97's Star City and '82's It's A Live Cassette. Slovenly's brilliance never made a dent w/ most folk. Same goes for The Scene Is Now. Pell Mell, TSIN and Slovenly are, come to think of it, three fairly similar sounding bands: combinations of slick-dick musicianship and highly inventive and completely non-generic interplay between the members. You could say they remain the ultimate post-Beefheart/'Ubu art-pop outfits. In fact, I just did. I hope that's recommendation enough.
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