various artists - Particle Theory (A Compendium Of Lightspeed Incursions And Semiotic Weapons From Warner/Reprise)

Ah, yes; the rare place to find Elvis Costello, Boredoms, Sven Väth, and Julee Cruise all in one place.

The Warner family of labels, circa 1993, was a pretty rad assembleage. There was big daddy Warner Bros. Records, who released "The Juliet Papers" that year, a weird concept for 16-year-old me to wrap my brain around. Elvis Costello with a string quartet? Don't worry; I get it now. They'd also put out records from the Flaming Lips and Goo Goo Dolls, which actually got daytime airplay on the one rock station in town. Then there was Ms. Cruise, who, at the time, I wasn't actually aware had worked with David Lynch on the Twin Peaks soundtrack.

Reprise was still flogging Mudhoney's first major label record, put out a Boredoms record in the States, which tickles me to no end, and were still trying to break Babes In Toyland big. Their release slate in 1993 was a bit mixed in quality, but I like how weird a mix it is. You just don't see folks throwing around major label advances on odd shit anymore.

There were also co-releases from Sire, 4AD, Giant, Blanco Y Negro, and American Recordings, all bearing either the WB shield or lower-case R. "Alternative" was a pretty big tent back in 1993, and the majors hadn't had a chance to cock it all up yet. For me and many other future college radio DJs, it was a good time to catch a shotgun's blast worth of genre music and absorb it all, even if you weren't totally into it right away. And, hey, this one could have turned out worse. Candlebox put out a record on Sire in 1993 that sold a metric fuckton and very well could have been represented here. The compilers got it right on this one.

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various artists - ...Think I'm Getting The Hang Of It

I've been coming across a number of these sort of 90s cardboard-sleeved samplers lately, and this is probably the best of them. A Warner giveaway, moved through The Body Shop, licensed from 4AD. A very clever way to get cool UK-curated music into the hands of American women.

Are they going to enjoy the likes of Liquorice, Air Miami, the Wolfgang Press? Will they experience the subtler qualities of Mojave 3 or Red House Painters? Who can say? Someone at Warner Bros. Records sure thought so.

What I know is this: when I plucked this from a stack of unremarkable CDs at a local thrift store, I found delight. And thus I share it with you.

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Sense Field - Under the Radar

I'm definitely in "writing-for-the-sake-of-writing" mode. For one, I spent five minutes explaning the thought process behind this whole thing to my boss, who, as is his wont, proceeded to shit on it. Well, fuck 'im. And fuck a rock star posed picture, like you see above.

I threatened to post something about Sense Field about a month ago. The initial threat took place on a posting of the Fabric 7" on Zen and the Art of Face Punching (which is maybe the worst record I've ever downloaded...ever). Please. Let me explain something. Most of us are either young now, or were young not too long ago. There are a million musical skeletons in our collective closets. You could be Craig Finn or Ian MacKaye or some other god of rawk and you probably listened to some miserable, embarassing shit when you were 17 like E.L.O., 7 Seconds (circa '87), Madonna or the Spice Girls. Hell, Lemmy played for four years in Hawkwind. Well, I was 17 in 1994, and I listened to Sense Field. A lot of it. More of it than was good for me. And I fucking loved them.

I used to bomb around the Maryland/Pennsylvania border, back in '97, up by Conowingo Dam, blasting Building out of the shitty factory speakers of Ben Casey's Jetta. I was young, fer Crissake. I didn't know trite from a hole in my head. They were a pop band...no different from Journey to my ears. And I was stoked for their first record due out on Warner Bros. I waited 3 years for that record, which never came. The label didn't hear a single, or so I was told. And the decision was made 2 weeks before the release date! What the hell was that? A friend of a friend burnt me a CD of the promo that had leaked out. In those pre-Torrent days, this was a true coup. And the record wasn't bad? What was management at the WB thinking?

A few years later, long after the excitement of getting that burnt CD had worn off, I found a promo copy of Under the Radar in the dollar bin at the now-defunct Joe's Music Emporium on Harford Road. So the rip here comes from that. I've never felt so nerdy as to play this side-by-side with Tonight & Forever, the 2001 Nettwerk release that announced Sense Field's return to recorded media. Supposedly, T&F is a re-recorded version of UtR. I dunno...make up your own mind. It's weird to me how eminently forgettable bands who I once loved now sound...

Sense Field - Under the Radar

RIYL: the In-Flight Program sampler, alternative radio in 2002, emo as a slur