Swinging Singles Club MN

  This is the sixth post on this particular mess. It's the last one about 12 Rods. That's unfortunate. I wish I had more.   Lost Time (2002)   So they followed up getting dumped by their label and an album that everybody hated by putting out a record that otherwise should have made them stars in some alternate universe where there was some kind of actual justice. Even those fickle pretentious twats over at Pitchfork like it. Stem to stern potential hits. Just listen for yourself. Raise a fist and bellow along with "Time is Right (to be Wrong)"  It's Ok, nobody's watching.

 Continuing with 12 Rods.... So between the first album and the second they lost their drummer and filled in the meantime with a drum machine which lead to this live performance for a Duluth TV station. Sometime after they picked up Dave King to fill the drum throne.  Good choice. That leads us to V2 for some reason eating up their advance money to send them to Hawaii to work with Todd Rundgren to record the follow up. Separation Anxieties (2000) Pitchfork fucking hated it.   12 Rods hated making it.   “All he would do was press the ‘record’ button and go back to doing crossword puzzles,” said Ev Olcott, who, like his brother, wound up producing records for other bands. “Some of those song...

  We continue... Split Personalities (1998) In general when I've posted stuff I've tried to avoid putting up things that were released on major labels because I don't want to draw attention to this weird gray area I occupy posting out of print material into the aether. But this has been out of print for nearly 20 years with no likely reissue in sight. Copies can be had for under five bucks. (which I recommend.) And damn it, it should be listened to and reconsidered. It's the major label debut of 12 Rods. Self recorded and produced. Never available on vinyl. Well received at the time and long since forgotten. But damn, I can listen to this over and over. "Red" and "Make-Out" music make the transition from "Gay?" for another go. (the latter of which should have been the second single after the title track.) Contemporary video evidence shows what a monster the original drummer was. What's not to love?

  The whiskey I poured in the last post is deliciously kicking in....   Gay? (1996) If you'd asked me what I thought about this and this band in 1996 my reaction would have likely been "Blech". It was very far removed from where my head was at the time.  I'm pretty sure I was in the middle of a rockabilly phase with a side order of Perez Prado, Elephant 6 releases and older Flying Nun. I don't know. It was long time ago. I was all over the map and not really paying attention to a lot of stuff I wish I had at the time. So here's 12 Rods . This was their 2nd release locally following a much more shoegazey independent cassette called "Bliss". A pretty gutsy release in the middle of the still kind of sexually repressed 90s called "Gay?" The band was a big deal because they were one of the first bands signed to Richard Branson's V2 label so people were paying attention. V2 rereleased "Gay?" and Pitchfork fucking loved the band. Th...

  Hold on a sec while pour myself some Irish whiskey... Fiestas + Fiascos (2000) There that's better. Typing is always easier with a bit of whiskey warming the throat and loosening the brainpan. This was the thing that first caught my ear. "Space Humping $19.99" got played a lot on the local college AM radio station. Next thing you know you're walking down the street with the line "Woke up in the grass with the assless chaps..." is running on a loop in your brain. This was the proverbial nail in the Lifter Puller coffin. Short and sweet and full on tales of the usual suspects among the seedy characters and urban drug induced shenanigans that drifts through their entire catalog. Slips Backwards (1995) Second single with different versions of songs that would eventually appear on the first two discs (self titled and "Half Dead and Dynamite") that didn't get on "Soft Rock" I think I may prefer this version of "Nassau Colliseum"...

  So here were are. The deal is that I've got too much fucking stuff that I think people ought to hear and not enough time or space in which to do it on one blog. I've also been in the Twin Cities for a long ass time and have seen, heard and played with so many really good bands that it seems a shame that nobody has heard them. So I've made this even dumber blog thing to flog the local tomfoolery for your dancing and dining pleasure. Even in Minnesota, they could really give a rat's ass about your local band until you get enough recognition somewhere else that they'll proudly claim you as "From Minnesota". I mean, if you take someone iconic like Bob Dylan, who generally needs no introduction, he's inevitably referred to as "Minnesota Native Bob Dylan" any time he's brought up on local media. It's kind of annoying, but leads us into this inaugural post. Soft Rock (2002) Once upon a time there was a band called Lifter Puller . They exis...