Phasing in and out like some sort of monster tide, I always have a revisit to my interest/obsession/love affair (words might be a bit strong there) with the band U.S. Maple. Their music stands out like a sore thumb in my years of listening; and describing it is even worse. Perhaps this description is suiting:

You’re 17 and it’s a hot summer night somewhere in Ohio. You and your girlfriend just went to go see some classic rock concert (insert any one here: AD/DC, ZZ Top, Foghat, etc.). You had a little bit too much to drink and someone slipped some weird shit in your drink. It’s now nighttime and you’re trying to find your way to the bus stop. You keep tumbling over and over yourself; slurring your words, not having any sense of rhythm and direction, feeling strange, slithery, and sensual. It’s a classic American atmosphere but somehow dark with an almost “Twin Peaks” atmosphere. You wake up in the morning, together passed out on a porch; beer cans and garbage strewn up on the lawn…

I could take that analogy a bit further but that’s the best description to come to the emotions I guess — U.S. Maple are likely my fave “classic rock” band although any classic rock listeners may think I’ve lost my ability to think correctly. They in some way have weaselled their way into the way I think about writing music, even if the music I work on doesn’t remotely sound anything like them.

The triad of albums I find most representative are Sang Phat Editor (1997), Talker (1999), and Acre Thrills (2001).

Apparently there’s a documentary being written about this band, this following clip being the trailer. There’s also, by searching through the digital trashbin that is the domain of YouTube, a 30-40 minute documentary of the band in the studio recording their record Acre Thrills and how the members work with one another: refined, eccentric, focused…

The second clip is a segment of a live rendition of “La Click” from the Album Sang Phat Editor. It is one of the many live clips online. The theatrics of the breakdown building up to the 1:28 minute mark are great and then the song explodes again, Al Johnson lunges out from behind the guitarist. Mark Shippy,  and lets the song spill out from a hand feeling the air like a necromancer’s claw (ooh… the imagery).

The singer Al Johnson has a bit part in the film High Fidelity; the mousey man skulking in to buy a Captain Beefheart record…