One of my favorite parts in an admittedly not-90's movie, High Fidelity (2000), is when Jack Black gets his panties in a bunch because a dimwitted customer does not own Jesus and Mary Chain's "Psychocandy." And how right he is. The 90's were the last time that music was listened to in 60-80 minute blocks in a predetermined sequence, unlike in our currently singles-centric, iPod-driven technological age. I Can't Believe You Don't Own This F'in Record concerns itself with the full-length albums that shaped the musical landscape of the 90's.
KYUSS - ...AND THE CIRCUS LEAVES TOWN (1995)
There are some bands from the 90's that are so damn good they make me want to cry. In the 90's, back East, I had never been to a desert before. Kyuss, to me, sounded like what I imagined the desert to be like: arid, trippy and overwhelming all at the same time. Kyuss, from Palm Desert, CA, was hailed as something of a Velvet Underground of metal...they held an underground cult status in the metal and rock scene, and eventually were recognized as the standard bearers for a certain kind of sludgy, Black Sabbath-esque hard rock.
Really, all of Kyuss's albums should be featured since they spent such a relatively short time as a band (1989-1995) and had such a consistently fresh and exciting take on bottom-heavy metal. ...And The Circus Leaves Town is special to me since it introduced me to the band shortly before they broke up and morphed into the fire-breathing superband Queens of the Stone Age (which formed in 1997), and it contains what is one of my top ten favorite songs ever: "Catamaran":
Beautiful.
John Garcia was one of my favorite lead singers in the 90's. His voice had a uniquely rough, yet oddly vulnerable quality to it that was a great contrast to the rumbling guitars, kind of like Danzig without the fascination with Elvis. Even when his singing was "tough," it felt like he could get run over by those Mack truck guitars at any time. Listening to this record was like discovering Sabbath's Master of Reality album all over again, with the lead vocalist singing as if he spent his youth inhaling desert sand and cactus needles instead of ashes from Birmingham factories. Heaven on Earth.
Many of Kyuss's songs had an innate groove to them as well that I was attracted to: I mean, just because I embraced punk, metal and hardcore didn't mean that I had disavowed the need to shake my thang every now and then. Many of the low-end bands that followed in their wake, especially Fu Manchu, didn't quite seem to pass that test for me. Kyuss had a slinky, sensual vibe to all their music that a teenage girl truly appreciates when she's listening to her Walkman late at night. Here is a video for "One Inch Man" off of this record that perfectly illustrates what I mean:
John Garcia did not follow the path of Queens; instead he moved on to the (unfortunately) short-term project, Slo Burn, from 1996-1997. They put out an EP in 1996 called Amusing the Amazing, which is actually worth checking out because it sounds exactly like Kyuss, and features this amazing song, "Pilot The Dune":
Guitarist Josh Homme, of course, leads the very successful outing, Queens of the Stone Age, with Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters even playing the drums for the entirety of their excellent 2002 album, Songs for the Deaf. I, however, recommend Queens's self-titled first album if you are a Kyuss fan, since their sound had not quite developed into the kind of more mainstream rock that Queens is known for today; it still stays quite close to the more dank immersion into metal that is Kyuss.
The very tasty Josh Homme, friends
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