1. I second the request to put the new stuff on Napster. Please, if
you've got "Rising Tide", share it. While you can, that is.
2. It seems like just yesterday people were complaining that Sub Pop
didn't do anything for Sunny Day (and they didn't), and now some are
bashing Time Bomb for doing what amounts to "too much." I definitely
think the label's (over) enthusiasm is a bit weird, and it is a real
pain to keep having to jump through all those hoops to get to the new
stuff, but at least they're not holding it above our heads like Sub Pop
did. I for one like Time Bomb so far, and hope they keep up the interest
in marketing the band. (This is the first time I can remember
"marketing" being used in the same sentence as "Sunny Day".)
3. The new songs (all two of them we've heard so far) have been bashed
as "overproduced" by everyone's sister's second cousin-twice-removed's
half-step-grandparent. But to these ears, the songs are a VAST
improvement over the primitive dankness of "Diary" (like it or not,
it's dated, and I have wished long and hard they'd re-record it in a
real studio with some ambience), the positively poor production of the
pink album (those drums sound like wet fish slapping on a slab of
greased plastic as recorded by a Realistic kiddie mike), and "How It
Feels' " almost skin-tight, cellophane-wrapped air (why is it that the
more I turn up the volume on "Pillars", the more distant the music
seems to be). Far from bitching about the production of the three
records prior, I'm simply saying that from what I've heard so far, the
band has finally made a friend of the studio, and have dressed their
songs in a style and character that seems to fit their complexity. Let's
give the thing a chance before crying "sellout" (imagine that!!), and
wait until we can really get a feel for the thing as a whole.
I for one am looking forward to this month's revelations, and hope
nobody waiting to play spoil sport simply because it doesn't sound like
"8" can let us savor the moment and inspect the good upon (complete)
arrival.
