Long Stem Rant

Long Stem Rant
Studio album by Giant Sand
Released	1989
Genre	Art rock
Label	Homestead
Producer	Howe Gelb, Eric Westfall, John Convertino
Giant Sand chronology
Giant Sandwich (1989) Long Stem Rant (1989) Swerve (1990)

Long Stem Rant is an album by the American band Giant Sand, released in 1989. ^{[1] [2]} It sold around 15,000 copies in its first year of release. ^[3] The band supported the album with a UK tour. ^[4]

Production

Giant Sand recorded the album over three days, in a barn in Rimrock, California, with many of the songs composed as the tape rolled. ^{[3] [5]} Frontman Howe Gelb and drummer John Convertino were the only musicians to play on most of the tracks. ^[6] Paula Jean Brown played bass on "Searchlight". ^[5] Some of the songs were inspired by the end of one of Gelb's romantic relationships. ^[7] He chose to record the songs with very cheap guitars and amplifiers. ^[8] Gelb referred to the shorter interludes as "miracle minutes". ^[9] He wrote "Paved Road to Berlin" for a West German admirer of Giant Sand. ^[5] Gelb used a water cooler and file cabinet as percussive instruments on "Sandman". ^[5] "Patsy Does Dylan" is sung by Gelb's daughter. ^[10]

Critical reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[10]
The Great Alternative & Indie Discography	6/10 [11]
MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide	[12]
Spin Alternative Record Guide	7/10 [13]
The Virgin Encyclopedia of Nineties Music	[14]

The New York Times said that "the complete songs are structured around traditional three-chord guitar melodies, but Mr. Gelb has the habit of changing the chords without warning, tossing in odd notes and off-key rifts." ^[3] The Guardian noted that "the wide-open spaces of the American heartland have ... produced the oddest and freakiest album of the week ... even [Gelb's] record company agrees that the new set is his most 'difficult' to date." ^[4] The Arizona Daily Star concluded the Gelb "needs an editor, but ... there's a lot of charm in his post-industrialist, suburban landscape of ingenuous honky-tonk art rock." ^[5] Factsheet Five called Long Stem Rant "bouncy music, whipsawing country/folk influences with solid rock". ^[15] The Times labeled the album "the aural equivalent of a scrapbook, and in among the doodles and splodges there is a patchy, perverse brilliance at work". ^[16]

Trouser Press opined that "Long Stem Rant finds both its greatest strength (a contagious, breathless spontaneity) and its greatest weakness (a surfeit of tangled loose ends) in the circumstances of its creation". ^[17] In 2010, The Quietus deemed the album "an inspired mess of fuzzy guitar scrawl, driving rhythms and brilliantly wonky piano playing that suggests Thelonious Monk in Wild West saloon." ^[18]

Track listing

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Unfinished Love"
2.	"Sandman"
3.	"Bloodstone"
4.	"Searchlight"
5.	"Smash Jazz"
6.	"Sucker in a Cage"
7.	"Patsy Does Dylan"
8.	"It's Long 'Bout Now"
9.	"Lag Craw"
10.	"Loving Cup"
11.	"Paved Road to Berlin"
12.	"Anthem"
13.	"Picture Shows"
14.	"Drum & Guitar"
15.	"Get to Leave"
16.	"Searchlight Cha Cha"
17.	"Return of the Big Red Guitar"
18.	"Stuck Dog"
19.	"Real Gone Blue Guitar"
20.	"The Jig Zup"

References

1. Lee, Stewart (November 21, 2010). "The quietest storm of: Hailed by Robert Plant and PJ Harvey, Howe Gelb, aka Giant Sand, is a true one-off, says Stewart Lee". Culture. The Sunday Times. p. 31.
2. The Rough Guide to Rock (2nd ed.). Rough Guides. 1999. p. 408.
3. Schoemer, Karen (July 13, 1990). "Six Nights for Sampling a World of Unsung Bands". The New York Times. p. C1.
4. Denselow, Robin (January 25, 1990). "Rock/Pop". The Guardian. p. 27.
5. Armstrong, Gene (March 2, 1990). "Tucson-forged performers spin new sounds". Arizona Daily Star. p. F13.
6. "Records & CD's". Suburban Voice. No. 29. Summer 1990. p. 48.
7. Le Gouëfflec, Arnaud (2024). Underground: The Illustrated Bible of Cursed Rockers and High Priestesses of Sound. Titan Comics. p. 300.
8. Lloyd Simon (February 16, 1990). "From silence comes ... Giant Sand—sons of the Mojave desert". Post Weekend. Reading Post. p. 9.
9. Nicholson, Geoff (1991). Big Noises: Rock Guitar in the 1990s. Quartet Books. p. 94.
10. "Long Stem Rant Review by Patrick Foster". AllMusic. Retrieved March 27, 2025.
11. Strong, Martin Charles (1999). The Great Alternative & Indie Discography. Canongate. p. 284.
12. MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide (2nd ed.). Visible Ink Press. 1999. p. 482.
13. Spin Alternative Record Guide. Vintage Books. 1995. p. 165.
14. Larkin, Colin (2000). The Virgin Encyclopedia of Nineties Music. Virgin Books. p. 174.
15. "Audio Reviews". Factsheet Five. No. 35. April 1990. p. 105.
16. Sinclair, David (February 2, 1990). "Mystical power of rock 'n' roll". The Arts. The Times. p. 17.
17. "Giant Sand". Trouser Press. Retrieved March 27, 2025.
18. Smith, Stewart (July 22, 2010). "Drinking In the Beauty of Howe Gelb & Giant Sand". The Quietus.