Americana

The other day I cleaned all the CDs out of my car and grabbed 3 new ones to put into rotation. I didn't realize until later that I had just happened to pick 3 of my personal top 10 albums. I just happened to pick out Abbey Road, A Picture of the Eighth Wonder, and Americana
Americana is the third and last in this opening "era" of Starflyer 59 albums with solid-color covers. (One last solid-color album would emerge years later with mixed results.) As I listened to this out-of-print CD in my car, I found myself thinking that more people need to hear it. In fact, "You Don't Miss Me" may very well be in my top 10 favorite songs.Jason Martin has since taken SF59 in a very 80's and perhaps more mature direction (Changing of the Guardis released today), but this album especially, from the first "trilogy" of albums could easily pass for a covers album of 50's and 60's tunes. It's all guitar, with vocals turned down to their absolute minimum and pumped full of reverb. Listening to Americana, while there is a variety of guitar sounds, there are 3 basics. The first is the rhythm guitar, which sounds like it's amplified through an industrial sawmill. Then there's the undistorted lounge/surf guitar, drenched in reverb and/or vibratto. Finally, guitar solos take advantage of that long Les Paul sustain intoned like I imagine Grace Slick would sound if she was a guitar.

But the real treat on this album ends up being Gene Eugene on Hammond B3 organ, vibraphone, and production. The organ first shows up late in the rocking opening track, seeming to underscore the final guitar solo, then to take over the solo, then continuing support as guitar goes berserk and fades out without finishing the solo. On "You Don't Miss Me", the organ is a constant background drone, adding depth and texture to Martin's guitar, which gives us another of those berserk solo fade-outs. The album goes back and forth between loud and the quiet, never very fast, but often extremely slow and laid-back ("You Think You're Radical", "Help Me When You're Gone")...cue the lounge guitars. Americana finishes up with a terrific pop-rock track that could easily pass for a Buddy Holly cover.

Yes, Starflyer's early albums just beg for comparisons to Weezer or My Bloody Valentine, but Jason Martin and Co. manage to create songs and tones unique to themselves (or himself), while providing that 90's sound we love.