O Happy Day
I was a radio DJ in college. Of everything I did, this I missed the most after graduation.
My show was 6-9am on WDCR-AM. Total college rock with a collection of albums by twenty thousand bands, most of whom released one record and returned to oblivion, as well as all the New Order, Skinny Puppy, Robyn Hitchcock, Dead Can Dance, etc. Nifty stuff. I'd often be the first one into the building at 5:40am to make some abysmal coffee in the rusty Bunn and raise the transmitter.
(The college also runs a highly polished FM classic rock station. It was my duty to do shows there during the summer I interned at the station, but it bored the heck out of me. Same number of records in the library, but all Stones or Zeppelin.)
This was the one evanescent period in my life I knew anything at all about indy music. I preferred noises released on Wax Trax. The more cacophanous, machine-like, and ersatz-teutonic the better, as long as you could still dance to it.
The townie goth (he was kind of urban primitive, but you can't really call someone 'urban' in a town of 6300) who was an honorary member of my co-ed fraternity and worked in the record department of the Dartmouth Bookstore introduced me to an excellent EP* by Think Tree, a new Boston band who had just won song of the year in some local competition.
It was very popular on DCR, particularly the first two tracks, which are pretty catchy. If you had to take a break to eat or run down to the restroom on the floor below, you could throw on the last track, which is 13 minutes of some sort of religious satire spoken word thing over a driving beat. Also good if you were in a mood to alienate the 6 people currently listening to your show.
For some reason, I didn't buy or dupe the EP. After I graduated, it went out of print. I'm not even sure it was ever available outside of New England. Caroline picked them up and they released a more conventional, and wholely mediocre full-length album. Bah. And that was it.
The quest began. Every time I visited a used record store, I'd check forelornely under 'T'.
Nada, nothing, no dice.
About 3 years ago. A pristine copy showed up on eBay. I bid. I won. I rejoiced. I accidentally had it shipped to Yahoo! (client at the time) where it was apparently lost in the mail room.
...Sadness. I even e-mailed on of the members of the band to ask if he was ever planning on releasing the MP3s. The answer came back "eventually".
This evening, I was relaxing with a bit of online music shopping, noodling around on emusic, searching for things I've been searching for, and on a bootless lark, I typed in the name.
Results found! The whole darn EP.
So, I'll stop boring you with the story, and bore you with the music, which I don't expect you to appreciate, or enjoy.
Give a track a listen, then return to staring at your sad, sad shoes.
The first one is Hire a Bird and the second is The Lovers. I can't figure out how to title them right.
*Self-published I believe, not on Wax Trax.
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