My grandpa was an Oddfellows, I think. I heard rumors of it, but he never much talked about it. I guess Pee Wee didn’t take kindly to people talking about Oddfellows. The first rule is…
For the longest time I hated Out of Time. And I can’t say why. Losing My Religion got overplayed, Shiny Happy People… well, it’s not as bad as Wendell Gee, but yeah… Shiny Happy People… I guess it was one of those albums that got put away and when I listened to R.E.M. I’d listen to anything but that one.
But that’s no reason to hate on the rest of the album. The other nine songs are really amazing. I posted Texarkana last month and I have four songs from OOT in the queue for this month. This is the fist and it’s one of my favorites by them. Low is just… so dark but beautiful. I love the strings, the funeral organ, the chunky guitars, the bongos. They probably shouldn’t go together, but they do. I rediscovered this album last year and wish I had done so sooner.
Another great from Lifes Rich Pageant. I said before I wasn’t really taken with this album, but that’s mostly in comparison to the rest of their output.
And as a bonus, here is one of the strangest songs the band has recorded “Underneath the Bunker.” Given how stagnant the band has become in later years, maybe an album of cha-cha music would pull them out of the doldrums (I’m dead serious, no fucking around here. If Stipey or anybody else in the band is listening…)
Typically I think musicians need to STFU about politics, but this song isn’t too bad. Also, I don’t like posting live videos, but this is the best version I could find on YouTube. Sounds pretty good for an audience recording.