Jamboree | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | January 29, 1988 | |||
Recorded | 1987 | |||
Genre | Indie rock, twee pop | |||
Length | 23:58 | |||
Label | K, Rough Trade | |||
Producer | Steve Fisk, Mark Lanegan, Gary Lee Conner | |||
Beat Happening chronology | ||||
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Jamboree is the second album by American indie rock band Beat Happening, released in 1988 through K Records and Rough Trade Records. All songs were produced by Steve Fisk with assistance from Screaming Trees members Mark Lanegan and Gary Lee Conner (who plays a brief guitar solo on "Midnight a Go-Go"), except "Cat Walk," produced by Patrick Maley, and "The This Many Boyfriends Club," recorded live by Rich Jensen.
Despite frequent appearances on compilation albums by K Records, the band did not release any releases of their own until 1987, with the arrival of the "Look Around" single. This was soon followed by the "Honey Pot" single in early 1988. [1]
The album marks a darker approach to the twee pop for which the band is known, due largely to a increased use of guitar distortion, more professional production, and increased emphasis on Calvin Johnson's deep voice than in the group's earlier recordings. The majority of the songs are sung by Calvin Johnson, while Heather Lewis only provides vocals on two songs, the uncharacteristically brash "In Between" and the more typically understated "Ask Me." At the time of the album's release, Johnson described Jamboree's sound as "dark and sexy." Still, the band retained their emphasis on exuberance over musicianship, as Bret Lunsford stated in an interview that, while recording album opener "Bewitched," his guitar string got stuck on a protruding screw and he continued to play through the song, hitting the string a bit harder until it became unstuck. Author Dave Thompson, in his book Alternative Rock (2000), wrote that it "captur[es] the same aura of unamplified amplification" as on Rock 'n' Roll with the Modern Lovers (1977) by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers. [1]
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [2] |
Alternative Rock | 8/10 [1] |
NME | 9/10 [3] |
Pitchfork | 8.6/10 [4] |
Tiny Mix Tapes | 5/5 [5] |
The Village Voice | B− [6] |
Jamboree and the accompanying Crashing Through EP were Beat Happening's first releases to garner wide-spread distribution, as the result of K Records linking with Sub Pop. Johnson had previously contributed to a fanzine put out by Sub Pop prior to the existence of the band. It got additional attention thanks to Fisk, Mark Lanegan and Gary Lee Conner of Screaming Trees working on the album. Beat Happening and would later issue a split EP, Beat Happening/Screaming Trees , that same year. [1]
AllMusic said of the album: "...each cut is a marvel of innocence and ingenuity." [2] Thompson saw it as a "rougher, more varied set than the defiantly monotone debut, where ghosts of The Cramps and the grunge-to-come collide in deft delirium." [1]
Two tracks from Jamboree, "Bewitched" and "Indian Summer," were listed as essential listening in Pitchfork 's 2005 article on twee pop entitled "Twee as Fuck." [7] "Indian Summer" is perhaps the group's best-known song, as it was famously covered by dream pop group Luna, whose lead singer, Dean Wareham, joked in The Shield Around the K: The Story of K Records , a documentary film on the history of Johnson's K Records, that the song was "indie's 'Knocking on Heaven's Door'-- everybody's done it." The song was also covered by Ben Gibbard for the soundtrack to the Kurt Cobain documentary About a Son ; Jamboree was reportedly one of Cobain's favorite albums. [8] [9] [10]
All tracks were written by Beat Happening.
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Bewitched" | 3:06 |
2. | "In Between" | 2:21 |
3. | "Indian Summer" | 3:05 |
4. | "Hangman" | 2:31 |
5. | "Jamboree" | 0:58 |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "Ask Me" | 1:16 |
2. | "Crashing Through" | 1:16 |
3. | "Cat Walk" | 1:58 |
4. | "Drive Car Girl" | 2:00 |
5. | "Midnight a Go-Go" | 2:18 |
6. | "The This Many Boyfriends Club" | 3:18 |
Total length: | 23:58 |
Beat Happening was an American indie pop band formed in Olympia, Washington in 1982. Calvin Johnson, Heather Lewis, and Bret Lunsford have been the band's continual members. Beat Happening were early leaders in the American indie pop and lo-fi movements, noted for their use of primitive recording techniques, disregard for the technical aspects of musicianship, and songs with subject matters of a carefree or coy nature.
Calvin Johnson is an American guitarist, vocalist, songwriter, music producer, and disc jockey. Known for his uniquely deep and droning singing voice, Johnson was a founding member of the bands Cool Rays, Beat Happening, Dub Narcotic Sound System, The Go Team and The Halo Benders.
Screaming Trees were an American rock band formed in Ellensburg, Washington, in 1984 by vocalist Mark Lanegan, guitarist Gary Lee Conner, bassist Van Conner, and drummer Mark Pickerel. Pickerel was replaced by Barrett Martin in 1991. Screaming Trees became known as one of the pioneers of grunge along with Melvins, Mudhoney, U-Men, Skin Yard, Soundgarden, Green River, and Malfunkshun, among others. Although widely associated with grunge, the band's sound incorporated hard rock and psychedelic elements.
Incesticide is a compilation album by the American rock band Nirvana. It consists of their 1990 non-album single "Sliver", B-sides, demos, outtakes, cover versions, and radio broadcast recordings, and as such is not the official follow-up to the band's breakthrough album, Nevermind. The album was released on December 14, 1992, in Europe, and December 15, 1992, in the United States. It eventually reached number 39 on the Billboard 200.
Bleach is the debut studio album by American rock band Nirvana, released on June 15, 1989, by Sub Pop. After the release of their debut single "Love Buzz" on Sub Pop in November 1988, Nirvana rehearsed for two to three weeks in preparation for recording a full-length album. The main recording sessions for Bleach took place at Reciprocal Recording in Seattle, Washington between December 1988 and January 1989. It is the only Nirvana album released on the Sub Pop label and their only album to feature drummer Chad Channing.
Steve Fisk is an American, Washington-based audio engineer, record producer and musician. As a musician, he has been in bands such as the instrumental alternative/indie rock band Pell Mell and the electronic band Pigeonhed. He has long been associated with the Pacific Northwest music scenes, including grunge and the Sub Pop indie record label.
K Records is an independent record label in Olympia, Washington founded in 1982. Artists on the label included early releases by Beck, Modest Mouse and Built to Spill. The record label has been called "key to the development of independent music" since the 1980s.
"You Know You're Right" is a song by the American rock band Nirvana, written by lead vocalist and guitarist, Kurt Cobain. It is the first song on the greatest hits album Nirvana, released by DGC Records in October 2002. It is also the final song the band recorded before Cobain's suicide in April 1994.
Mark William Lanegan was an American singer, songwriter, and poet. First becoming prominent as the lead singer for the early grunge band Screaming Trees, he was also known as a member of Queens of the Stone Age and The Gutter Twins. He released 12 solo studio albums, as well as three collaboration albums with Isobel Campbell and two with Duke Garwood. He was known for his baritone voice, which was described as being "as scratchy as a three-day beard yet as supple and pliable as moccasin leather" and has been compared to Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, and Nick Cave.
"Sliver" is a song by the American rock band Nirvana, written by vocalist and guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic.
"Negative Creep" is a song by the American rock band Nirvana, written by vocalist and guitarist, Kurt Cobain. It is the seventh song on their debut album Bleach, released in June 1989.
The Raincoats is the debut studio album by English rock band The Raincoats. It was released on 21 November 1979 as one of the first records issued by the London-based independent label Rough Trade. The album is perhaps best known for its off-kilter cover of "Lola" by the Kinks. The album's sixth track, "The Void", was covered by Hole in 1994.
"Been a Son" is a song by the American rock band Nirvana, written by vocalist and guitarist Kurt Cobain. It was originally released on the Blew EP in November 1989, which charted at number 15 on the UK Indie Singles chart.
"Opinion" is a song by the American rock band Nirvana, written by vocalist and guitarist, Kurt Cobain. Never performed in concert and not confirmed to have been recorded in the studio, the song was initially survived only by a heavily-bootlegged solo acoustic version, recorded by Cobain during his appearance on the KAOS (FM) Boy Meets Girl radio show on September 25, 1990. In 2015, a brief clip of a second version, believed to be a demo, appeared in the Cobain documentary Montage of Heck, directed by Brett Morgan.
Other Worlds is Screaming Trees' 1986 debut EP. It was produced by Steve Fisk and recorded in 1985 at his studio in Ellensburg, WA. It was released on Velvetone Records the following year as a cassette only release, and distributed by K Records. The album was later re-released on CD and 12" black vinyl by SST Records in 1988.
Invisible Lantern is the third studio album by alternative rock band Screaming Trees, released in 1988 on SST Records.
The Winding Sheet is the debut studio album by alternative rock artist Mark Lanegan. It was released on May 1, 1990, on Sub Pop. The album was Lanegan's first solo work, and is notable in its departure from the characteristic sound of Screaming Trees, the band he fronted from 1985 until 2000.
Mark Pickerel is an American musician best known as the original drummer for the alternative rock band Screaming Trees. He is also an active session musician and has released several solo albums as a singer/guitarist.
Beat Happening/Screaming Trees is an EP and a one-off collaboration between Beat Happening and Screaming Trees. The 12-inch EP was originally released on Homestead Records in 1988, and it was later reissued as part of Beat Happening's box set Crashing Through in 2002. The journal of Kurt Cobain contains a draft of a letter sent to Mark Lanegan, in which he described "Polly Pereguinn" as his favorite pop song of the 1980s.
You Turn Me On is the fifth and final album by the American band Beat Happening, released in 1992. The band supported the album with a North American tour.
Citations
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