Regular readers of (Bad)MonkeyX won’t be surprised that the Yellow Jacket Avenger is one of my favourite acts of the decade. I discovered him (Geoffrey Pye is the YJA, pulling in others as necessary) via Jack Breakfast, who was the only interview I ever did, way back in the very early BMX days. I picked up a CD by The Killers (not that The Killers) who had opened a Jack Breakfast show at Holy Joe’s; I fell hard in love with it.
There was much confusion for a while over the band’s name, as Geoffrey Pye’s presence on the internet was almost zero. It was through asking questions on discussion boards that I finally learned that he was more regularly known as the Yellow Jacket Avenger, and a long time before I got my hands on any other recordings by him. I’m glad I did: the guy’s amazing.
Over the decade I wrote about him plenty often, and happily celebrated his best release yet, 2008’s Double Nature (left). That album alone would put YJA on this list – I love it. Go here to find out more about that.
But there are gems all over in his scattershot releases, single tracks worth the price of admission anytime. Pye releases YJA music oddly – on CDs of strangely chronologized fashion (Mindball is an anthology of the years 1993 – 2005; We Are Geoffrey Pye is an anthology covering 1997 – 2003; Success! covers 1993 – 2004; the latest release, a new compilation on Zunior peels it back to 93-98.
But on each, there are enormous tracks (hear below), and the collections as a whole give a fine, accurate impression of his odd wonderfulness. (For more on the oddness, check out the videos on his site: one’s for a song (Emergency) but the other two are of, respectively, him taking the piss on a karaoke stage and him playing basketball on a farm. They’re awesome.)
I’m glad he’s hooked up with Zunior (a fine, fine Canadian mp3 selling website – like iTunes without the gross feeling). You can pick up (and really should pick up) Double Nature there, as well as this latest early-period collection. I myself look forward to the day when Double Nature comes out on a nice vinyl platter. That’d be awesome.
He’s got a new record in the works, and I look forward to hearing it. A lot. I’ve said it before and I am always, always right: YJA’s among Canada’s best-ever offerings, and waaay more people should know about it. Here’s some solid reasons for you to get yourself some YellowJacket Avenger music. And here’s his site.
The Special Fate (from Double Nature)
El Paso Refinery Flames (collected on We Are Geoffrey Pye)
To Cure It (from that early 4-song Killers ep, also collected on We Are GP)
The Vic Chesnutt show I can only barely describe; there are no recordings I know of as powerful as what the band – the huge band – did onstage that night. No less than 4 guitars, a double bass, percussion and an occasional violin created a huge soundscape in between Vic’s typical tiny guitar/vocal delivery. His MySpace page has
Clare and the Reasons ironically followed my boringly proclaiming that I resent opening bands – because they’re rarely worth the time… Enter the Brooklyn band, a four piece lineup fronted by a whistling, guitar playing babe – really the prettiest whistler you’ve ever seen. The other three played a bunch of instruments, including kazoos, a tuba, a trombone, and a laptop. Their mic stands were decorated with tree branches painted white, and the band stood all in a line… They played really pretty songs, too – I wanted to take the whole stage home and make out with it on the couch.
I’ve had an on and off relationship with Wilco over the decade, but they have won in the end: I think they’re brilliant – on record and on stage. But the best moment for this band, I think, during their 8 album career, was the Jim O’Rourke produced A Ghost Is Born, the follow up to the very famous Yankee Hotel Foxtrot record. It’s easily towards the top of my favourite Oh’s records, and is one of my picks that migh possibly match up with other people’s.

Monkey Power Trio sent me a record to review waay back at the start of the Oh’s, no doubt because we both had simian names. I was quickly smitten by them, because the record was nuts, and it had balls, and because the MPT had a vow. Any band with a vow is okay by me. Their vow was (is) to get together once a year and record some spontaneous music and release it on a record – for the rest of their lives.
For a while they sent me their records for free – which was, incidentally, the scheme behind starting an online reviews thing – but that stopped when they heard the podcast. Because they found out that I was listening to (some of) their records at the wrong speed. (Because they didn’t put the recommended speed on their records, and some of it was mental enough that I couldn’t tell. Hear the podcast for my side of the story.) At least some of the five man trio were mad; I thought it was really awesome and funny. Now I have to buy their records, but I made my mark on rock history, because
I don’t like to write negative reviews – I kind of hate that tendency in music writers – but how can I look back on a decade like this last one and not complain a bit? There’s no way of discussing what I dug about Ryan Adams without mentioning how he panned out as an artist. I’m including Heartbreaker in the Top Whatever list for the decade, so the bad comes with the good.
They’ve had organ player/singer Sarah Kirkpatrick for a while, but her integration into the sound and show seems to be complete now. Last time I saw them, she seemed to be accompanying a duo; this time Catl were a full and powerful trio. Her playing is fucking fantastic, and adds an element to their sound that seems (to me) to really complete it. I called it “a little new wave” to some scorn at the show, but I think I’m right: there’s some early dirty, gritty B52’s in there.
And this is just the start of the season! Yo La Tengo have a new record, Popular Songs, which we are listening to with coffee this morning. It’s the best thing I’ve heard by them since …And then nothing… early this decade (I quite enjoyed Sounds of the Sounds of Science too, but it was an instrumental soundtrack). The record’s pretty evenly divided between their pop sweetness and their noisy jams, and all of it is great. We’re going to see them at the Opera House in a couple of weeks and I can’t wait. Their Phoenix show on the I Am Not Afraid of You tour was one of the best shows I’ve seen.
AND there are TWO Vic Chesnutt records arriving this fall – one, At The Cut, due out next week on Constellation featuring the Montreal crew who made North Star Deserter such a fine (and career refreshing) record, and another – Skitter on Take Off – recorded by Vic pals Jonathan Richman and Tommy Larkins. We’ll see Vic with the Montreal band at Lee’s on November 7th. Mister Billy Bragg’s playing a week later, and we may hit that too, because that old commie still has it.