Shellac - A Retrospective
By: Thomas Hannan, Matt Reed
#1: The Rude Gesture: A Pictorial History (1993): The first record from Weston, Albini and Trainer comprised of a teasing three songs ('The Guy Who Invented Fire', 'Rambler Song' and 'Billiard Player Song' - all still live favourites fourteen years later) packaged in elaborately folded cardboard which also contained specifications of every microphone used in the recording related in meticulous, geeky detail. The cover featured root beer smeared over the front by the hands of the band themselves, and the incredible music set the tone for their entire career to follow - sarcastic, caustic, innovative and vital.
#2: Uranus (1993): Very much a sister record to 'The Rude Gesture...', 'Uranus' came just a few months after that hugely influential first release, but was again a vinyl only effort featuring only a handful of songs - 'Doris' on Side A and 'Wingwalker' on the flip - a fantastically imaginative, semi improvised, bitter and childlike train of thought about pretending to be a plane over a menacing bass line that would sonically set the template for the likes of the similarly flight-obsessed 'Crow' to follow. No root beer this time, but the fiddly cardboard packaging remained, as did the geeky detailing of the recording process - this time you're treated to a sheet of notes containing everything you'd ever need to know about the recording tape, tape machines and mastering equipment used.
#3: The Bird is the Most Popular Finger (1994): Shellac's third seven inch release (every single one of their records is, handily, numbered) was their first for a label other than Touch and Go, this time released on Drag City Recordings, and found the band taking a more experimental and sketchy approach to recording. Both of the instrumental songs here, 'The Admiral' and 'XVI', would find themselves appearing in altered versions on their debut album proper, the former being given lyrics and the latter finding itself renamed 'Pull The Cup'. Recorded in drummer Todd Trainer's loft, the liner notes meticulously detail in photos the exact surroundings in which the sessions were birthed, as well as every musical instrument and piece of recording equipment that lead to the eventual existence of this hard to find 45.
#4: At ActionPark (1994): The band's first full length LP (and the first album Albini had contributed to since 1988's 'Two Nuns and a Pack Mule' with his previous band Rapeman) is a bona fide modern classic. Pulling no punches, Albini felt no need to tone down his infamously caustic wit, and in fact brought it to the forefront in songs like 'My Black Ass' and the story of a sex worker with a "cock like a stallion and an iron will" that ended the record, 'Il Porno Star'. However, for once it was not the lyrics to his songs that garnered the most attention, but finally how brilliant the band sounded; the rhythm section of Trainer and Bob Weston hammering every point home with both painful accuracy and devastating intensity.
#5 - Live In Tokyo (1994): One of the most difficult Shellac releases to come across, this live set was recorded toward the end of 1993, on a break from recording 'At Action Park'. Limited to either 500 or 1000 releases, either on vinyl or CD (reports differ), the record (put out by KK Null) features one of the few live performances of 'Doris' available (the band since claim to have forgotten how to play it) and was strictly for the Japanese market only. You guys have got BitTorrent, right?
#6: Mantel / Billiardspielerlied (1995): Whereas you've half a chance of getting hold of the aforementioned Japanese live album, chances of your grubby mitts coming in to contact with an original copy of this bad boy are extremely slim. Given away free at a gig in Amsterdam, every one of the 2000 copies of this record that exist has a live version of 'Billiard Player Song' on the A Side and a between song interlude where the band asks for the return of Bob Weston's lost coat on the B. The liner notes detail exactly what each member of the band was wearing that night. It's unclear whether Weston got his coat back or not.
#7: '95 Jailbreak (1995): A contribution to Skingraft's AC/DC tribute record, Shellac showed their ever present love for the simple act of rocking out with a cover of Angus' and co's 'Jailbreak' delivered in their own inimitable style. The seventh Shellac record, it came bang in the middle of a between-album period in which the band would intermittently release limited run records with little or no fanfare.
#8: The Rambler Song (1997): A split single with the band Mule on Touch and Go offshoot 'Laff 'N Go', this 'joke' seven inch sees Shellac contribute what is meant to be a 'soul' version of their classic 'Rambler Song'. Differences between this take and the original are many - you can hear the lyrics, it isn't terrifying, and it's essentially a country song.
#9: The Futurist (1997): One of the most fascinating releases in their history, this is another one which you'll only get off file sharing networks - that is unless you're one of the 779 people named on the front cover of the record who each got a copy of the record (no more were made) with their name circled, so that if one ever came up for sale, the band would know exactly which so called 'friend' had deemed the record not worthy of their ownership. A wholly instrumental, wildly experimental, noisy and wonderful album, it was written as the soundtrack for a performance by a Canadian dance troupe which never materialised, but was deemed by the band not to be up to their usual standard, and so (tragically), it was never commercially released.
#10: Terraform (1998): Shellac's second album proper featured a more tongue in cheek approach, teasing the listener with twelve minute songs consisting of little more than two bass notes repeated ad nauseum, and songs that according to their makers revolve purely around two concepts - baseball, and Canada. A mere eight songs long, it remains unfairly the Shellac record that's currently shown the least love either by the band (who rarely play any of these cuts live any more) or critics, who bemoaned the lack of change in the sound between this and its preceding, debut LP - recorded four years previously.
#11: 1000 Hurts (2000): Billed as a more mean spirited album bereft of twelve minute songs and featuring for the first time the drawling voice of drummer Todd Trainer (who suggests a 'New Number Order', to "make... things... in...ter...es...ting..."), Shellac delivered their masterpiece with their eleventh release. Featuring the now infamous 'Prayer To God' to open the LP (if you bought it on vinyl, you got the CD for free), it was a song in which Albini wished death upon an ex-lover and her new found squeeze in the most direct and violent of fashions, and a track that began what could almost be deemed a concept record about human relationships, set to the backing of the band on the finest form of any of their careers - this has been called everything from math rock to post-noise, minimalist to punk, and nothing has ever come close to capturing in words quite what it is that's so inarguably brilliant about this perfect, perfect record.
#12: Agostino (2000): Instead of, say, releasing 'Watch Song' from '1000 Hurts' as a single and becoming indie legends, Shellac, the cantankerous bastards, followed their most readily available effort to date with the release of a single you could only find if you bought the Dutch comic book 'Sex, Drugs and Strips' by Barbara Stok (a fan of the band). A split with the band 'Caeser', Shellac contribute the characteristically sparse 'Agostino'.
Compilations and Bootlegs (2000 - 2007): In between 'Agostino' and this week's release of 'Excellent Italian Greyhound', Shellac have been quiet, but not silent as some would have you believe. 'The Copper Song', a different version of 'Terraforms' 'Copper', can be found (if you're willing to do some digging) on the 'Ground Rule Double' compilation CD, and the fantastically virulent 'Killers' has a home amidst the 'Lounge Ax Defence and Relocation Disc', a compilation put together by bands in an attempt to save one of Chicago's (the band's hometown) finest alternative music venues. A bootlegged seven inch of Peel Sessions from 1994 was also released in this time, and features three previously released songs alongside the never before available 'Spoke', Shellac's most direct rock and roll number which despite being recorded thirteen years ago would not find its way on to a Shellac album until 'Excellent Italian Greyhound' this week. To tidy things up and make some of their most difficult songs a little easier to get hold of, the 'Pack of Three' compilation seven inch was released, which collected the rare-as-hens-teeth 'Mantel / Billiardpspielerlied' and 'Agostino' releases all in a tidy red sleeve.
#13: Excellent Italian Greyhound (2007): The title being a reference to drummer Todd's dog Uffizi, Shellac finally step back in to the limelight this week with the release of what's only their fourth album proper in nearly fifteen years. Many of the songs however will be well known to attendees of the band's sporadic live shows, none more so than the stunning 'End of Radio' which opens the LP. Seriously, for those who've heard it, just the thought of the first words emanating from that piece of vinyl (yep, you get the CD for free again!) being "is this thing on?" is enough to get you proper giddy in the tummy.
Artists in this article: Shellac