ON BECK, MUSICIAN: THE LONGEST TUMBLR POST EVER

On Beck.

So, seriously, I am not joking: what follows might be among the longest Tumblr posts ever. And if you created a ratio of wordlength:garbage, this post might be the most painfully worthless collection of words ever generated by a human.

What is it?

About seven years ago, not long after I started blogging on slangeditorial.net (RIP, Slang. Poke around if you wanna see my old writing. And fuck you Blogger), I began what I thought would be a modest post on the favorite musician of my adolescence, Beck. Beyond the impressive creative zaniness he imparted on his six official albums from 1993-2000, the man had also been insanely prolific, putting out tons of b-sides on singles, comps, EPs and a variety of other outlets. And these were complemented by an innumerable amount of self-recorded lofi cassette tapes he self-released prior to Geffen picking him up for Mellow Gold in 1993. My purpose for this post initially was to just talk about the songs, but after getting started I decided that a song-by-song evaluation would prove more interesting and valuable to the eight humans on earth who might give a shit about this kind of thing.

The long and short: I failed.

My terrible combination of ADHD, mild OCD, a lack of focus, disappointment with my writing and terrible procrastination led to this post maintaining permanent “Draft” status. I would slowly added more and more but then would go six months or more without updating it and upon reading would decide I’d need to re-write the intro and update all the song entries. And of the song entries… well, by 2005 Beck had finally put out another record and there were a host of new b-sides and I spent time debating whether or not I cared enough about them to include them as well. 

Finally, in the winter of 2008, after beginning my life-resuscitating Hyperliving project, I decided that I would attempt to undertake the task of finishing this bitch. I got as far as doing a career-spanning intro and no further. I failed again.

At that point, more than 3 years in, I acknowledged that I’d never finish writing it and just gave up.

But despite that… I’ve always felt annoyed with myself that I started something so big and dumb and never got around to finishing it, just hanging over me. So I’ve decided now to just get it out there, and out of my life and karmic heartbrain. What follows is a literal copy-and-paste of the HTML from the Blogger entry I started on Slang Editorial so long ago. There is probably not even one single sentence worth reading here, and I’m not even going to bother finding out because I know I’ll just cringe too much. Also half or possibly all of the links are dead because they were largely from random websites many year ago.

Some points since I started this nonsense seven years ago:

• Odelay and One Foot in the Grave have been reissued, making a bunch of these bsides widely available again
• Beck shut down the comprehensive Diskobox discography on Beck.com
• We have learned Beck is a scientologist. Ungh.
• Beck has established an interesting side-career doing other shit (helping Charlotte Gainsbourg and Jamie Lidell record, fucking around with his Record Club, most interestly)
• The internet went from blown-up to really blown-up as seeking became an obsession and so much of what was hard-to-find here, both music-wise and infowise, is pretty easy for an 8 year to discover
• Other people have done ALL OF THIS much much better at whiskeyclone.net, including basically taking Beck’s old discography and making it available again.

Ok, if you’re still interested, go for it! I’ll post the entire playlist of B-sides etc tomorrow…..

BECK, AS THOUGHT ABOUT BY A BOZO

So damned cute! The terrible thing about being lazy is that you’re Continuing on the recent theme of 90s Indie Rock Dinosaurism, we’ve got news that Radiohead is recording a new album and that there’s gonna be a retrospective of Beck videos this fall at the ResFest in NY 9/17. Can’t say that I’m excited, given that ten (??!!?) of the eighteen videos are from Sea Change and Guero (“Pay No Mind”, dudezz?); still, can’t say I won’t be there to check ‘em out either. Click this link to see the complete listing of Beck videos being shown.

What gives, you might be saying, am I backward-looking snob afraid to face the future? Well, fuck, of course I am. But this fact is beside the point when it comes to discussing Beck, because a) his recent material really does suck (in light of his past), and b) I haven’t given up hope that someday he’ll do The Good Shit again.

The weird thing for me about what I see as the tragic decline of Beck, My God is that he didn’t just take a precipitous artist-death fall off the ledge into the major label pit of despair; his was more of a Replacements-esque Tim, Pleased To Meet Me, and Holy fuck what happened! sort of deal. Actually, it’s more like he did the Rolling Stones thing at a way advanced age (i.e. come out with enough decent numbers every once in a while to make people think you’ve still got it in you, even though yr gassed).

Before the collective masses come after me with a spike and spit, let’s get this right: I am not a musician or an artist, nor have I ever been. Beck Hansen, pka Beck, is, and always has been. He also is and always has been great. He will always be great. He’s just not making great music anymore. To me I see it this way: these days when Beck Hansen wakes up, he don’t put on no gritty underpants. He’s tired of being dirty, tired of being “zany”. He’s tired of the expectations and tired of the demands. If he’s a real artist, he thinks, why can’t he suit up with Versace briefs if he so chooses? It’s not like the clothes make the man, right? I won’t pretend to have an answer to that question. I do know, however, that whatever clothes he’s wearing these days don’t seem to be helping his cause.

Hold your horses!, you say, I see what shit your trying to pull on me.isten dude, Beck is great, and he’s like so original my ears bleed when I hear him.

Well, I say that blood must be coming from an ear infection or something. It’s true that Beck was once the mad sangria, but that day is long past. Pitchfork’s Marc Hogan hit the mark in his discussion of Blitzen Trappen in asking, “Remember Beck before his career devolved into magazine-pleasing genre exercises?” Well, right now I’m sitting here listening to Gayro, erm, “Where-o”, and all I can think about is how sad it is that this dude once commanded my attention on the same level as David Lynch or Lindsay Lohan. Sure, Guero has some good songs, but no one is gonna convince me that near any of it is great, and most of the album is just mediocre, riding the electric surge of his astonishing past. He is today, I regret to say, music’s 1993 Chevy Chase (actor, dun).

Which, I assure you, makes me very very sad, because this is not just a musician I’ve respected, but one I’ve loved - loved so much that even now I haven’t given up on him, despite the fact that he seems to have lost his way. But fuck it - for all intents and purposes of today, I’m saying that Beck got a little too freaky while driving in his car one night in 2001 and drove off the road somewhere up on Mulholland Drive, crystallized in time like Hendrix as a dude known only for ripping shit apart. Nearly everything Beck released was solid gold, and everything else at least had merit because it was brainfart-level weird (except “Beautiful Way” - which, beyond the fact it came bundled as the Windows Media Player demonstrative video for factory editions of Microsoft Windows ME, was probably a sign dude’s creative juices was dwindling).

I’ve mentioned before how some artists’ personalities are so compelling that they at least wanna make me listen to everything little thing they do, but Beck’s is so compelling that it makes me love everything he does; I’ve just talked a lot of shit about him, but it says a lot that he hasn’t dropped an album I’ve dug in over five years but I’m still able to believe he could do it again.

Thankfully, even dead, we’re still able to have this (and many more) discussions on Beck, because, as you may or may not know, he was once the hardest working man in show biz, leaving us with enough shit to keep us busy for years. While five Geffen albums (and only three of which I’ve labeled as great) may not seem like a lot of work, most people know by now that The Man also dropped four indie-label albums and - our steez here - countless countless treasure-trove b-sides. And when I say treasure-trove, I mean glorious, awesome, cum-dripping nuggets. Not counting remixes, our man over sixty luscious, juicy non-album cuts. And I tell you: if you love Beck as I do, you need them, all.

And so, these are the Beck B-Sides, in parts!

Erm. That sounded weird. I feel like I’ve been working on this thing for ten years. Erm.

Also: admittedly, this list does extend into the period where I’ve just defined Beck as being dead, but apparently dude had enough left to get it up when no one was looking.

Pre-reading Notes: Usually I’d list this shit at the end, but because this list is so long and so many of these songs have been released like eight times, I thought it might be nice to provide a few handy reference links before we get started. It’s not like I missed anything (psyche!), but they’ll probably be handy - and fun!! - to check shit out as you go along.

- “Beck Discography”: A comprehensive list of Beck up to ‘97, aka midtrickle of the Odelay singles. This site is old and outdated - I remember looking at it in high school - and apparently hasn’t been updated in years. Still, though Beck Discography may seem shitty in these high-tech days, it’s actually cool, because a)it’s all on one page, b)thorough, c)has some neat lil notes, and d)even though it has no pictures, is cutely amateur in that great pre-blog late ’90s sort of way - it’s even hosted on Angelfire! Still, it does pale in information compared to…

- “Diskobox”: The big boy’s own. Most of the time we’re luckily if an artist site lists song titles, let alone provides you with a discography, but this shit is worthy. I said before how Spoon’s site disco is thorough, but Beck’s is shockingly complete, to the point of adding to the speculation that he’s fallen so heavily is because his ego has grown larger than Jay Leno’s chin. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that “Diskobox” has been the OCD companion to my guide. For your hypertextual enjoyment, I’ve attached links to Diskobox for all listed releases.

- “Almost a Ghost”: Part of the Whiskeyclone.net ring of sites, this one provides alarmingly thorough coverage to all the songs Beck’s ever done, all the way down to the ultra-obscure tapes to frequent live numbers that never found tape. Not only do they have the lyrics covered, “Almost a Ghost” also has a listing of any and all recorded appearances, and, if rare, live appearances, PLUS a detailed description/evaluation of the song and how it is played live (if it is at all); see “Girl Dreams” here for an example. It actually freaks me out how obsessively thorough this shit is, and spending some hours here reading about your favorite new songs will probably give you a few arguments to rip new assholes into my own. There’s no way in hell that I have as much time as these dudes to devote to Beck, and so I imagine that you can probably trust anything they say more than anything I say (after taking note of the fact, of course, that they are clearly delusional Beck fans who could never be impartial judges, in contrast to I, Paragon of All thee Fair and Juste). In any event, despite my fears of not measuring up, I’d be a total dick if I deprived you of this veritable resource of Beckology. Just to show how egalitarian I am, I’ve included an “Almost a Ghost” link to each song.

- Also, I recommend using a browser like Mozilla Firefox or Apple’s Safari or something that allows you to do tabbed browsing to get the full hypertextual/schizophrenic Beck experience while you listen along, so you can hear him and see my shit side-by-side with everything else and shout “Loser!” repeatedly.

(Nearly) Last Words: You may note that it seems like i’ve left a bunch of shit out. Sorry dudes, but duh! The forthcoming list does not include any of the tracks from Beck’s four aforementioned indie-label albums (which are, chronologically: Golden Feelings, A Western Harvest Field By Moonlight, Stereopathetic Soulmanure, and One Foot In the Grave). Of the four, the first two are rather inessential in terms of musical genius - interesting bits, and certainly of worthy to the Beck-loving musicologist, but missing out on them is entirely excusable. The latter two, on the other hand, released in the months before and after 1994’s Mellow Gold, have some absolutely fantastic shit and each are albums that many Beck fans claim to be their favorite. One Foot In the Grave in particular is much-loved, as it displays Beck spending an entire album exploring the endearing hipster-folk of K Records, and, outside of two unnecessary razzers (“Burnt Orange Peel” and “Ziplock Bag”), is an alluring and irreplaceable piece of Beck history. Stereopathetic Soulmanure is much more off-the-wall, ranging from screeching noise to metal to true country to recordings of strangers playing guitar off the street. Here the razzers are more welcome, because, well, the whole thing is just so fucking strange already. If you smell my scratching here, you understand which of these two albums I treasure more dearly.

Beyond the indie albums, this list also does not include anything from Beck’s unofficial tape releases of the early 90s (Banjo Story, Fresh Meat + Old Slabs, Don’t Get Bent Out Of Shape, etc). Why? Beck has, over his 13ish year career, performed or recorded hundreds of songs, and covering it all (for free) would be insane (click here to get a sense of why). I therefore haven’t included the tape material because, in the interest of time and good sense, this list is designed to cover the overlooked treats the man’s released, not auditorally shat; so, as there are already many of these songs, it just makes sense to avoid the tapes. After all, you gotta draw the line somewhere - otherwise it’s like: Well, if I include the tapes, how about outtakes too? And HQ radio performances? Perhaps I’ll cover them individually some other day, but for now, just track them down yourself and let the other sites guide your wisdom. What you will find here are the little song sparrows without contextual homes, song cookies that don’t need milk to be downed. Hopefully this list may finally give them a place to hang out and chill.

And so, thee liste…

Beck: B-sides, Etc.

MTV Makes Me Wanna Smoke Crack
To See that Woman Of Mine
Steve Threw Up
Blue Cross
Twig
Put It In Neutral
It’s All In Your Mind
Feather in your Cap
Whiskey Can Can
Girl of My Dreams (Poop Alley tapes version)
Totally Confused
Got No Mind
Asskizz Powergrudge (Payback! ‘94)
Corvette Bummer
Fume
Alcohol
Soul Suckin’ Jerk (Reject)
MTV Makes Me Wanna Smoke Crack (nu)
In a Cold Ass Fashion
Bogusflow
Mexico
Diskobox
Clock
Little Drum Machine
Devil’s Haircut (Noel Gallagher mix)
Groovy Sunday (Mike Simpson mix)
Richard’s Hairpiece (Aphex Twin mix)
Electric Music and the Summer People (original version)
Lemonade
Feather In Your Cap (Suburbia Version)
Leave Me On The Moon
Burro (mariachi version of Jack-ass)
Strange Invitation
Devil Got My Woman
Brother
Deadweight
Erase the Sun
SA-5
Electric Music and the Summer People
Halo of Gold
Diamond Bollocks
Runners Dial Zero
One of These Days
Diamond In the Sleaze
Black Balloon
Your Cheatin’ Heart
Sin City (w/ Emmylou Harris)
Drivin’ Nails in My Coffin (w/ Willie Nelson)
Arabian Nights
Dirty Dirty
Boyz
Midnite Vultures
Zatyricon
Salt in the Wound
This is My Crew
Diamond Dogs
Sexy Boy (remix)
Alarm Call (Bjeck mix)
Seven (Beck mix)
Frontin’ On Debra
Some Things Last a Long Time
Ship In a Bottle
True Love Will Find You in the End
Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime
Guero trax:
Send a Message to Her
Chain Reaction
Clap Hands
Girl (Octet remix)
Broken Drum (Boards of Canada remix)
Still Missing (Royksopp mix)
Wish Coin (Diplo mix)
Scarecrow (El-P mix)
Heaven Hammer (Air mix)
Ghettochip Malfunction
Gameboy & Homeboy
The Little Drum Machine (full version)
Debra (live)


Section 1: Early Beck, 92-94 (singles>Mellow Gold)


1. MTV Makes Me Wanna Smoke Crack
2. To See that Woman of Mine
Oh shit. Here we go, with the original, donkey-dick smoking Beck. The splendid MTV Makes Me Wanna Smoke Crack split single (the other half with friend Steve aka Bean), released on Flipside in 1992, pretty much provides the subheading for “Beck, ‘92-94”. Just The Boy, his acoustic guitar, and trusty ole harmonica, spitting out nuggets like “And I’m checkin’ out the furniture / I wanna buy a sofa / Might buy a wheelchair and roll out of this town / And MTV made me wanna smoke crack / Fall out of the window and I’m never comin’ back”; made even more perfect by the shitty audio quality and Beck’s warbly, young, non-studio processed voice. Halleluhah, kids.

In a bout of sad irony, this song was safely redubbed “MTV” when it later appeared on a promo-only retrospective comp handed out to radio and retailers, but nothing gonna tarnish this magic. Not to be confused with later “Lounge Version” (see separate listing).

The other song, “To See that Woman of Mine”, is a kind of charming Dylan-does-acid blues-folk song in the same vein as its a-side. Although, strangely enough, it’s also a straight-rip of the chord progression to Wilson & Co.’s “Surfin’ USA.” This doesn’t, however, mean that it’s not good.

3. Steve Threw Up
This song, released as a single in ‘94 on Bong Load, describes in detail the experience of Beck’s friend Steve, aka Bean, undergoing the aftereffects of a bad day on acid. Not by any means a great song or even a sort of good one, but one that falls squarely into the previously mentioned category of Beck that is at least worthy for being truly weird.

From Beck Discography: “Steve was asked if the acid he took that day was really that bad, he made a funny face, and said ‘Yeah, I was really fucked up.’”

Click here to read an interview with Steve from The Land Beyond.

4. Blue Cross
A Geraldine Fibbers song from their album Get Thee Gone, it was co-written by Beck. Although “Blue Cross” isn’t a feature-piece Beck song, the music is so ‘92-94 Beck that it merits inclusion and least a listen or two. Primitive and droning (ie, repetitive) early 90s quasi-backcountry instrumentation with a nice little solo/bridge breakdown. Also noteworthy as it is the first of a couple collaborations between Beck and his friend Chris Ballew, the more-indierespectable-than-you-might-have-thought former frontman of 90s middleschool darlings The Presidents of the United States of America.

5. Twig
This track is one of four that make up the Caspar and Mollusk 7”, Beck’s second collaboration with Presidents of the USA leader Chris Ballew, released in ‘94 and “recorded in bedrooms in Seattle and Los Angeles on some four trax.” I can’t say this acoustic-grungy number is all that great, but it’s at least fun and certainly of value to anyone who enjoys the early, weird phase of Beck. “Twig”, was re-recorded for the Presidents’ second album, sans Beck. Can’t say I’ve heard it though (has anyone??). This version features both Beck and Ballew on vocals. Diskobox has this to say about the recordings that lead to “Twig”: “Chris was recording a song about Beck being a ‘twig in the wind’, when Beck came out of his bedroom, grabbed the mic and started making some noise. This is the end-product.” Genius, farting?

6. Put It In Neutral
An acoustic guitar only song, this early Beck didn’t show up until much later on a “soundtrack” to a movie about cars called A Hot Wild Drive In the City (which also features a song by the aforementioned Bean). Sounds kinda like some of the darker moments on Mellow Gold, but spared down and not as cool. Kind of unpleasant actually, but it’s at least short and still very Beck.



It’s All In Your Mind
Feather in your Cap
Whiskey Can Can
These three tracks were included as bonuses on - what else - the Japanese version of One Foot In the Grave, as they are outtakes from those sessions. For those of us in the U.S., however, they are better known as the tracks that make up the K records 7” It’s All In Your Mind (which was included with some early vinyl copies of One Foot in the Grave); all of them are excellent.

“It’s All In Your Mind” is, yes, the original version of the more familiar (and somewhat shitty) song on 2002’s Sea Change. Rumor has it that the song was added to that album after producer Nigel Godrich heard Beck strumming it in the studio during break, but unfortunately, he fucked it up with the same sort of syrupy schmaltz that fucks up (most of) the rest of the album. This version, then, can be seen as the clean-slate, with melodramatic strings stripped away to only Beck and his guitar. Rather than sounding like self-consciously wistful New Country, here “It’s All In Your Mind” sounds uncertain and fragile, revealing the exposed side of Beck The Songwriter that we’ve always loved but who has disappeared under the weight of Beck The Magazine Pleaser. Ungh. At least we’ve got the memories.

The EP’s next song, “Whiskey Can Can”, is the only one of the three not to be re-done, which I guess is probably a good thing, as it is too remarkably quaint that I can’t really imagine it being done over any other way. Beginning with strummed chords on a shitty electric guitar (set on the high-register pickup with the treble turned all the way down - is there a term for this setup??), “Whiskey Can Can” has a pleasantly droning quality to it that makes it a favorite of mix selections, as well as for when one needs to just have him/herself a good time. Also noteworthy for featuring one of Beck’s three most commonly used words in its title (the others being “beer” and “diamond”).

Like the title track, the single’s last track, “Feather In Your Cap” was re-recorded later on, this one released on the Suburbia soundtrack (and again on the Sissyneck single) (see separate listing). This version, however, again like the EP’s title track, is a clean-slate demo of just Beck and his guitar. Though this version is more raw and less melodic than the original, it’s still got good feeling a-plenty.

Girl of My Dreams (Poop Alley tapes version)
This song is an alt version of the song “Girl Dreams” featured on One Foot In the Grave. While I definitely enjoyed that version, this one is fantastically superior, to the point of making me sad each time I hear the original. The major difference is an additional verse is added, as well as vocals and violin by Petra and Rachel Haden of the band that dog. (and later, of WSPN-fave Matt Sharp’s post-Weezer group, the Rentals). The contributions of the Hadens are great, and this track is well-worth tracking down.

[Side note: that dog., made up of the Hadens and Anna Waronker, was a cute but forgettable “alternative” band of the mid 90s on Geffen. (Not coincidentally, they too have a track on the DGC Rarieties Vol. 1 comp.) The band is of note more than anything because the Hadens are daughters of jazz legend Charlie Haden, former bass player for Ornette Coleman, and Waronker is the daughter of Warner Bros. mega-exec Lenny Waronker and sister of future Beck drummer Joey Waronker. I’m probably not going out on a limb by suggesting that said lineages are the directly related to these kids getting a major label record deal. After petering out with two mostly ignored albums, the Hadens went on to do the Rentals with Weezer’s Sharp and drummer Pat Wilson, and Waronker made a failed attempt at becoming the next Liz Phair (which, in retrospect, makes sense given that Liz Phair has failed at being Liz Phair). Just another note on the twisted, incestuous scene of bigtime music.]

Click here for to listen to a live version of Girl Dreams, from 1997.



Totally Confused (aka Totally Kunfused)
Got No Mind
Asskizz Powergrudge (Payback! 94)

We’ve now reached Mellow Gold territory. One of two treasure-trove EP/singles from the Mellow Gold era, the Beercan EP revisits a favorite as well as offering another opportunity to grab one of the great early Beck songs. A final song, “Spanking Room”, is also included, but I admit that I’ve never heard it. The impression that I have is that it’s amateur noise… which mean that I should probably pick it up then, yes?

“Totally Confused” is a nifty slow acoustic song, with the very mid 90s K Calvin Johnson bass/drums sound (think Normal Years Built to Spill), though it was not recorded there but in Tom Grimley’s Poop Alley Studio. This song, originally found on Golden Feelings, is one of the first proper Beck b-sides, in the sense of truly great songs he was apparently shitting out of his mouth while bored; the re-recorded version appearing on Western Harvest is the classic, featuring some nice violin and background vocals by the that dog. girls Anna Waronker and the Haden sisters - absolutely essential early Beck. Included here because it was re-released again on the Beercan EP after Mellow Gold (as “Totally Kunfused”) and again on one of the many versions of the Loser single. Postmodernist inflections? How about breaking the melancholy with an audible “click-psst!” of a beercan opening, after the lyric, “Put me in a suitcase with a can of beer.” GET IT. Click here to listen to a live version of the song from 2003.

“Got No Mind” could effectively be seen as “alt rock/grunge version” of its original, “Pay No Mind”. Instead of High and Lonesome folk-singer Beck, alone with his acoustic, we get the full band treatment, sounding much like… Hayden? [Ref: mid 90s Canadian indie rocker, known mostly (to me, anyway) as the composer of the theme to Steve Buscemi’s mid 90s directorial debut, Trees Lounge]. “Got No Mind” is actually an enjoyable deviation from the standard, but it is also a)pinned sonically to the year it was recorded, and b)not by any means a replacement for the original. What is most interesting about the song is that most of the lyrics have been altered or replaced, including the original line of “Give the finger to the rock and roll singer /As he’s dancing upon your paycheck”; Beck now intones “Give the finger to the folk singer /I’m sure he’ll appreciate it deeply”. In doing so, Beck turns the song into a bit of a self-aware Fuck You to the industry, followed by this line “Makeshift scene, mildly insulting / You really said it when you said I was just a scavenger”, followed by the maybe Kobain (?) line “There’s a headbangin’ corpse, just take it to the source” Rarely at this point in his career did Beck get as personal in his lyricism as he does here, which is most likely why few have heard this tune. Hmm. But still, good for a what-could’ve-been trip down mid-90s lane…

“Asskizz Powergrudge” on the other hand, is somewhat more left field. A more spirited (and better recorded) “Put It In Neutral”, I have to say I was suprised and a little disappointed when I first listened and discovered that it was not a “Pink Noise” / “Burnt Orange Peel” trasher, but instead more like acoustic Nine Inch Nails. The song features some rather un-Beck like lyrics, such as: “The honchos and the pigs, the uniformed legions will conspire, slacking off is nil /The point is now to kill, to grind the whining bastards in their tracks, new jack baby /It’s just a grudge, it’s just a little grudge, just a grudge, just an asskiss payback,” all accompanied by a bizarrely organo-industrial beat. Hmm. Totally confused, by you?



Corvette Bummer
Fume
Alcohol
Soul Suckin’ Jerk (reject)
These songs comprise the b-sides on the most prevalent version of the Loser single/EP, which is conveniently available from the iTunes music store. I recommend buying it - it’ll only set you back $5 and you’ll be the better for it.

“Corvette Bummer” is a great song that, after first appearing on Loser, showed up again on the bizarre “clean” version of Mellow Gold sold in stores like Wal-Mart (in place of three tracks that apparently couldn’t be cleaned up). This song is notable as it is the first b-side to feature the honky-funk that later defined Beck throughout the mid 90s, as well as for the fact that it has absolutely totally fucking ridiculous lyrics. Choice golden showers: “All my days I had moldy bread / Robot brains and the flying airplanes / Hollowed out, and filled with dust”; or “Yellow cat laying flat on the road / Molten lead shooting out the ground / Tinfoil witch burning under the bridge / Flap your wings and leap out the window.”

Of all the great b-sides on this single, “Fume” is my favorite. I love this song, with an exclamation point. It’s a track about a couple of kids getting together and huffing nitrous inside the cab of a windows-up truck. How American! Beck: “I said, ‘Let’s get out the nitrous and let the windows go up.’ /Now I can’t stop laughing, can’t stop laughing. /And there’s a fume in this truck and I don’t know if we’re dead or what the fuck?”. This is easily one of my favorite Beck songs of all time, and encapsulates everything great about Beck the music-making genius of the mid 90s - shit is quirky, creative, and catchy as fuck. The fact that he’s not too cool to mention that he’s listening to Molly Hatchet helps, too. Sadly - or maybe not, what do I know? - this song is one of many early Beck tracks that diverge into insane noise; after an apparent ending, followed by a few seconds of quiet feedback, the song suddenly picks up again and replays as twilight alt version bizarre noisecore. This was probably more listenable for me six years ago, but at least I can still say now that it has spirit.

“Alcohol” is “another acoustic guitar only song”, but at least you know he’s evolving. Sounds a little like a more laid-back and melodic version of Mellow Gold’s climax “Blackhole”, but really is probably better seen as an anticident to the soon-to-come 60s psych-folk of Mutations. Which means that “Alcohol” is really good, save for the fact that the conclusion rather rapidly dissolves into a weird Tom Waits Island Era-esque tribal drum thing (plus distorted noise). Probably better than a straightup noisecore reprise, but let’s just be thankful this end-jaunt is only fifteen seconds long.

“Soul Suckin’ Jerk (Reject)” is an alt take of the Mellow Golder, replacing the spooky white-trash feeling of the original with a bassline-into-drums that sounds almost exactly like the beginning of “Corvette Bummer”; and then, as the song winds down, a soulful “Where It’s At” organ appears (which at least seems less shady than the “Corvette” bassline given that “Reject” appeared a few years before that great Odelay single). Again, I’d say this is worth hearing, but it’s nothing fantastic and certainly doesn’t outdo the standard version.

MTV Makes Me Wanna Smoke Crack [nu versh]
This shit is just weird. I first came across it back in the days of Napster when looking for the original. It starts out nice, basically the same (sans harmonica) as the original, except cleaner and more polished-sounding… until suddenly Beck says, “Ahh, stop the tape,” and he starts over again with showtunesy piano and song. I assure you that if you haven’t heard this version before - and especially so if you have heard the original - that “Redux” is legitimately strange. “Aww yeah, weedwack that thang!” Right on, Beck. Available on the UK version of the Loser single.

In A Cold Ass Fashion
Apparently Beck was originally going to title Mellow Gold by the name of this song, which would’ve been cool (although more corny and less kooky). Sadly, both title and song disappeared, showing up only on the relatively obscure indie comp Jabberjaw: Good to the Last Drop.

“In A Cold Ass Fashion” is another folkhop/honky-funk song ala “Corvette Bummer”, and it’s great. A banjo line fade-in leads to Beck shouting, “Fly like an eagle, flllyyy like an eeeeeea-gllllllle!”, this shit bumps in the gritty way best suited for Upstate Somewhere hipster pickups. Listening to this track makes me imagine riding around the American countryside stoned in said truck with Found Magazine’s Davy Rothbart, huffing nitrous while we cackle at fat people and our own pathetic lives. Most likely I’ll have flecks of maple syrup stuck to my facial hair (this sort of thing happens when you huff nitrous and frequent diners at 5am). Squeegee!

Lyrics of which the stuff of dreams are made:

“Went to sleep, woke up in a coffin
Took out my eyeballs and put ‘em in a condom
Your daddy’s got laxatives on his brain
Gettin’ savvy on the back of a train
Mojo weedwhacker cuttin’ space
Hot dogs rottin’ in the bottom of the suitcase
And your mouth, it smells like hair gel
I love you, but you don’t know how to spell
Where can you duck when they shoot you full of pigeonholes?
And there ain’t nothin’ like the real artificial O.G.
Original Gluesniffer!”

Bogusflow
Yeah, another acoustic guitar only song. Unlike “Put It Neutral”, however, “Bogusflow” has enough of the charm of surrealist Beck to make it worth a few listens. Originally appeared on the comp DGC Rarities, Vol. 1 (yeah, i don’t know what happened to Vol. 2 either), which you probably owned in middle school.

Mexico
The haunting tale of a trip to Mexico gone awry, this track, the live version of which appears on the ‘94 KCRW comp Rare On Air, is a prime example of a very early Beck track that has popped up in different forms in many different places. After appearing on both Don’t Get Bent Out of Shape and Fresh Meat + Old Slabs, it almost appeared as a new version on Golden Feelings, but was canned, pushing it to yet another tape Golden Leftovers, before finally appearing as a live version on this comp (and also again on the “Tour sampler bonus disc” distributed with copies of Mellow Gold in Australia during the ‘94 tour there). Though the live version lacks a bit of the lo-fi deathtale weirdness of the earlier versions, there is something pleasant about hearing a slightly older Beck revisit this absolute fucking nuttiness of his earlier 90s folk years. Beginning with the old folk song lament of “Gather round y’all”, Beck spins a pleasant yarn about the trials and travails of a shitty life as a McDonald’s employee, leading him to eventually gather up some friends to rob the place and hit the road for Mexico. Of course, being the cautionary fellow that he is, the story concludes by where it starts, with:

“We all got really wasted. Down South, Dave got a case of the runs /
We were all really hungover and gettin’ low on funds. /
Dave and Steve called their parents and took the bus back home. /
Me, I got a job at McDonald’s down in Mexico.”

That’s why I always say watch out for them corporations, dude. You can’t hide after they get ya the first time.

Section 2: Odelay Era

Diskobox
This track, produced by Jon Spencer of Blues Explosion fame, is a great, sweaty cooker in the mold of Odelay’s “High Five (Rock the Catskills)” (a great song in it’s own right if only for the title). While the previous two tracks are included in the “Odelay Era” due to time of release, “Diskobox” is the first b-side to have been recorded during this time. And you know, if there was a single track on Guero with the creative passion of this one, that album wouldn’t suck half as badly. “Diskobox” is so good that it’s even better than “High Five” and probably should have replaced it as Odelay’s penultimate number; sadly, this gritty wonder was only made available to folks lucky enough to pick up the import version of Odelay. Or forrnerrs.

Clock
A ticking number that seems like it has a clocklike feel to it, but I realize now that this is probably due as much to the power of suggestion as anything else. While “Diskobox” appeared as a bonus on all the import versions of Odelay, you might say that “Clock” i’s the Super Extra Special Bonus, as it can be found only on the Japanese version of Odelay. [Yes, those fucking Japanese get everything - I don’t know why, but they do. FUckers. I was reading an article about Jay-Z in the Times last Sunday and there was a brief part about how Jigga was being hassled to come up with a bonus Kanye track for the release of his new album. I guess the shitty part about getting bonus tracks is that you don’t get guns to blow people up. Life’s little trade-offs.] “Clock”, which can also be found on assorted versions of the Where It’s At and Devil’s Haircut singles, is a nice little hummer that should keep your day special. Not as good as “Diskobox” in terms of shoulda-been-on-an-albumness, but again, coulda made Guero more spirited.



Devil’s Haircut (Noel Gallagher remix)
Groovy Sunday (Mike Simpson mix)
Richard’s Hairpiece (Aphex Twin mix)
Odelay is the first album where tons of remixes of Beck tunes started showing up, many of which Beck released as b-sides to his album singles. Among these is an absolutely dreadful twelve minute UNKLE remix of “Where It’s At” - I’m not kidding - which sort of exemplifies how the en vogue can hoodwink you and hindsight is 20/20 and all that. Most of these remixes are about as essential as the Butch Vig mix of “In Your Room”, and so I’m not including many on this list; these few exemplify the deal well enough. In all cases, I’d say they run inferior to the album original, but I guess that’s not really the point. [It’s worth noting that none of the many Jack-ass singles include all three of these together. Oops.]

The “Noel G. mix” is probably not very far from what your immediate reaction may have imagined it to be: a melodramatic beginning of maracas and guitar feedback, the guitar line coming in like “I Might Be Wrong” or Gallagher’s other ‘96 experiment, “Setting Sun”. Beck’s Diskobox refers to the track as the “much criticized” version, but it probably just suffices to say that its overblown in the way that Oasis has to be, and maybe you enjoy that.

“Groovy Sunday” is more of a “10 am, Monday morning” to me - essentially some late 90s David Holmes, the antithesis of Noel’s version and equally if not more trashable.

Of all the Devil’s Haircut remixes, “Richard’s Hairpiece”, is easily the most noteworthy and probably the most interesting musically. Actually, it’s fucking MENTAL. Of all the remixes I’ve heard, it’s easily the “least Beck” of them all; but then, that shouldn’t be surprising given that it was doctored by the Aphex Twin aka Richard D. James, a man notoriously famous in the mid 90s for doing “remixes” of songs without using any source material (much of which is documented on his pleasantly listenable 26 Mixes for Cash comp). Knowing then the supreme cheek of the AFX, it must mean a lot that at least some of the original Beck song can be heard here. The first thing that can be said about “Richard’s Hairpiece” is that it is loud - a thrasher in the vein of “Come to Daddy”, which was recorded around the same ‘97 period. Like that song, this one is grating enough from the get go that many people will be unable to stop themselves from hitting (or smashing) the stop button, but listening all the way through does offer a bit of a payoff, as midway through the industrial skreen, melodic clouds part a passage through the sky that is quite nice. Or you may just want to gouge your eyes out.

Electric Music and the Summer People (original)
It’s amazing that there are two versions of this fantastic song and yet neither can be found on a proper Beck album. This version, the first of the two, originally appeared in ‘97 on the New Pollution single, and functions as a kind of precursor to the Guero single “Girl”. Featuring a choogling, distorted guitar riff, this song has everything a summer day should have: grinding guitars, cooing background vocals, and yes, handclaps. “Electric Music” is incredibly fun, the kind of let-yr-hair-loose exuhuberance that we rarely see from Beck anymore. Unfortunately, however, this track is yet one more Beck number concluded not with a fading chord but instead a bizarre bit of extended noise (this time under the guise of “electronic funk”).

Lemonade
This is one of the Beck b-sides that I tossed aside and never really listened to for a long time because i just imagined it was throwaway noise. “Lemonade” starts with over-EQ’d drums and distorted vocals, but then the chorus has a rather nice little dark acoustic-strum that makes me think of melancholic Mutations stuff. If I’m in the right mood, this track does me right. Also released on the Jackass single, and then again on various versions of the New Pollution single.

Feather In Your Cap (Suburbia version)
As mentioned earlier, this song is a re-recording of an original from the It’s All In Your Mind EP, featured on the soundtrack to Richard Linklater’s film version of Eric Bogosian’s play Suburbia (which also features some other nifty stuff by Sonic Youth, et al). While the original “Feather In Your Cap” was spare and One Foot In the Grave-sy, this version has some spacier bass and nicer recorded vocals, making it a welcome addition to small collection of non-Sea Change Beck melancholia.

Leave Me on the Moon
This track is from a mid 90s film called Kill the Moonlight, which I’ve never seen or even really heard of. It’s a boozy country song, with some fun, rollicking bar-piano. I’d say it sort of epitomizes the best way that Beck can do country: fun, respectful, but never too serious and always a little off-the-cuff.


Burro (mariachi version of Jack-ass)
Strange Invitation
Devil Got My Woman
Brother

The Jackass single/EP, the last of five Odelay singles, was released over a year after Odelay, but is yet another fantastic packaging of goodies for the kids. In addition to not one but two Butch Vig remixes of the song (which you’ll notice I’ve ignored here; see comments on Devil’s Haircut”), there are also four others, including two “alternate” versions of Jack-ass, a swell cover, and a great b-side.

“Burro”, the first of the two “Jackass” re-envisionings, is precisely what the title suggests, a straightforward “mariachi” version of the original song. Thankfully, it’s not overproduced, but other than that, there’s not much to comment. I will say though that while I originally felt total disinterest in “Burro”, age has seen it grow on me, as it’s really quite pleasant if, yes, innocuous. Interestingly enough, this track has shown up on numerous latin music comps. Guess they gotta please the gringos somehow.

“Strange Invitation”, on the other hand, is a genuine song, with a distinct identity from both its status as discarded alt take and from the original itself; I see it actually as what “Jackass” would have been had Odelay been an entirely different album (perhaps the rumoured “quiet album” he’d been working on after Mellow Gold). Described as the “orchestral version” of Jackass, it’s really much more than that, as listening to it makes me think, “Holy shit, he really had the world in the fucking palm of his hand, didn’t he?” Probably he could have done this song fifteen ways that would’ve all sounded great, but this one is so good that it’s a shame he didn’t include it again on Sea Change or something.

“Devil Got My Woman” is a Skip James cover, and it’s a pretty faithful cover to the original. After the Mellow Gold tour, Beck headed to Sun Studios in Memphis to do a few numbers and this is one of them. One of many many songs Beck has recorded featuring the word “Devil”.

The last track on the Jackass single is “Brother”, and it is sad to me that probably only a few Sea Change lovers have heard this song. Recorded in January 1995, “Brother” is a piano and acoustic guitar ballad and one of the first Beck songs to utilize the Serious Melancholy style later featured on Mutations. More specifically though, the tone and mood of this song look past Mutations all the way to Sea Change, making this a rare instance where proto doesn’t necessarily equal lesser. Featuring some of Beck’s most sincere and emotional lyrics (“Brother, are you trained to spy? / One eye open, one eye dry? / When I die, will you be my neighbor?”) - despite the fact they aren’t necessarily any more direct - this sadly sweet song about One Who is Lost is so excellent that it inspired me to try and come up with my own, alternate Sea Change.


Deadweight
Erase the Sun
SA-5
These songs make up the Deadweight EP, the title song of which appeared as a single from the Life Less Ordinary soundtrack (movie, whoa, AVOID), and is a nice slice of “Tropicalia”-esque pop. Thankfully, the fact that the song received “single” status spawned** the release of a proper single, providing us with these other two songs. It’s very easy to imagine “Deadweight” tucked in somewhere on Mutations, as it certainly was drawn from that albums scheme, but I think “Deadweight” might even be better than those, catching Beck at a beautiful point of laid-back self-assurance. [** Don’t you wish the word “receive” was called “secieve” instead? Song seceived single status spawned… fun shit.]

Like “Lemonade” previously, “Erase the Sun” is another Beck b-side I initially shelved because the first five seconds are kind of uninteresting, dirgy noise. I should have known better that anything released after ‘97 would be beyond that sort of stuff, and this song certainly is, warming up as the chorus comes in and turning into something that’s actually quite interesting. I suppose this is one more testament to why having an attention-span that extends beyond five seconds is important if one hopes to enjoy life’s small treasures.

“SA-5”, the last track from the Deadweight single, may be the best. Some scratchy vocals, a very simplistic acoustic guitar and Casio 4/4 drum machine beat are all that this song is (plus the occasional electric piano flourish), creating a 1:45 pulsing throb that has lead me to put on repeat many times over. Short, great and absolutely essential.

Section 3: Mutations Era


Electric Music and the Summer People
Halo of Gold
Diamond Bollocks
Runners Dial Zero

These four tracks, all of which also appear elsewhere, make up another swell collection of non-album Beck, the Cold Brains EP. While Diskobox says the EP was a promo-only issue, I’ve seen in enough records store used bins and hands of friends that I wouldn’t quite classify it as unfindable. But again, if you can’t track it down, each track can be found on other releases.

“Electric Music and the Summer People”, the first following the requisite album title number, is a different version than the one which appeared on the New Pollution single. This version is lighter and more effervescent and begins in a pop-the-top kind of way not unlike the Guero single “Girl” that would follow many years later. I think I probably prefer the original, but this one is pretty great too.

The next track, “Halo of Gold”, is a cover of the Moby Grape’s Skip Spence. Beck’s version appears on the More Oar tribute comp, which (I believe) was released to coincide with the reissue


Diamond Bollocks
One of three Beck songs with the word “diamond” in the title, and probably number three of those on the swell-o-meter. “Diamond Bollocks” isn’t technically a b-side, as it a normal bonus track on all versions of Mutations (save the LP version, which instead came with a 7” also featuring “Runners Dial Zero”), but you have to get through a few minutes of silence to get to it, and who wants to do that? I think I listened to Mutations twice before I realized my oversight. Damned impulsive fingertips.

Runners Dial Zero
Included, as I said, on the 7” bonus that came with the LP version of Mutations, this track is also available as a bonus on import versions of that album, as well as on the back-sides of a few different Euro singles.


Nails In Your Coffin (w/ Willie Nelson)

Your Cheating Heart [DO I WANT TO MOVE THIS ONE??]
This track was featured on a nice Hank Williams tribute from 2001, and it’s alright, but a little too sleepy for me. You can see Sea Changes creeping in and the magic aura of Beck draining out, and it’s a little sad. (Obviously this shit is out of order, but it makes sense as back-to-back country tunes).

As you will see upon conclusion of this list, the dearth of b-sides from the Sea Change period make this effort more of a spiritual than actual effort, but I have faith in it all the same. Therefore, here’s my Sea Change (Revisited)
1. Golden Age
Paper Tiger
Strange Invitation
Brother
Ship In a Bottle
Guess I’m Doing Fine
One of these Days
Runners Dial Zero
Lemonade (????)
It’s All In Your Mind (original style)
Feather In Your Cap (Suburbia version)
MORE?!???

[WRITING CONCLUDES]

NOTES:

- Some comment about not having to pretend Earthquake Weather is “a really great song”
- list “extra” songs, like my live “Debra” and “Things Last a Long Time”
- talk about how i excluded indie album tracks
- talk about how excited i am for other people to hear this album because i’ve heard these tracks forever
- talk about how the bonuses at the end of his albums led me to find about his b-sides and care about them
- talk about his deal with Geffen to release indie albums while with Geffen.
- Look up Poop Alley tapes “Girl Dreams”
- shit loads of remixes, mostly ignored by me
- don’t forget to include “Richard’s Hairpiece”

——————————————

OK THAT’S IT DUDES

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   meet its parents,

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