When I first heard about this Xray flexi disc by Golden Boots from PIAPTK, knowing how innovative Mike has been about pushing the vinyl format, I just assumed this was the first time sweet rock and roll was cut into Xray film. I was completely wrong. I had never even HEARD of the insane history of the Roentgenizdat practice in the soviet union of smuggling in western recordings by lathe cutting or pressing this readily available source of thin plastic. Incredible, changed this whole release from PIAPTK for me. This release in particular even started out with Nathan writing the original track, "White Skeleton" in honor of the xray records which Mike first made with regular clear lathe cuts and gluing an xray on the reverse...so years later they both took another stab at this along with Pirates Press and actually pressed some xray flexi's exactly the way they would have been made those years ago behind the iron curtain. So what track do you put on this latest incarnation? Well, the live version of the original track of course.
The studio version took a weird drum machine percussion pile and loose lines of jangle electric in a junkyard pop style. Bits of digital hits of conga and shakers sounding compressed and glitchy with a real country spirit nonetheless and when everyone came in on that chorus it's combining both of these weird worlds in a great way. Sort of in the spirit of the Flaming Lips or Beck with homemade crafts jammed together in a purely experimental way but ending up with something accidentally great. Bass notes struck as hard as possible twanging out with a real slow BOING. It devolves for a second into a capella scat...pretty crazy for what I've heard from their usual offerings.
The live version included on this flexi takes that studio blend and truns it into a rolling along countrified number, the band coming in with a honkeytonk ensemble style. The guitars jangling along faster than ever, ramping up the speed. The kind of track that plays witht the dynamics, taking it down slow to build it back up with slide guitar taking a stronger place in this composition.
It sounds like live they're even having some fun with this, making sure to keep it a loose folk song that they managed to drag out of the bedroom and out on to the porch just as the sun is going down.
Get it from PIAPTK.
The R. Stevie series has ended by the way, incredible effort, and I hope you got a chance to pick sme of those up, I'll admit by the time I went to check Sunday evening the 24 hours was always over....I'm the worst.
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