Wall of Mouths

oh lord… I love it. True I may be biased, but…
I think it was another instance of Therapy? being ahead of the curve, or more likely of a record company being too stupid to do their jobs well.
I was the co-owner of private radio in seattle, where they did the pre-production before moving on to the amazing bob lang studio to properly record it. Endino did a ton of records at our place, and when he asked me if I wanted to hang out and do some gophering for them… well, I managed to not run around shrieking like I was completely insane, but it wan’t easy. I’d been a gigantic T? fan since the first, but sheeeeesh. Go get pay-per-view footie tickets and coffee for my favorite rock band in the world? uh…yes, I can do that. Pat and I are the pat and dave credited with handclaps on tango romeo (my real name is dubh david black), and Mr. Cairns made sure we were well hydrated :) Dream come true.
Endino does have a very no-bs style of production, some peeps love it, some not so much. But regardless of the production (or the admitted bias I have), there are GREAT songs on shameless. If ark21 woulda been smart, they’d have promoted it some. I don’t think they did— at all. I had to bug record stores in seattle to order it, and I don’t think that made any sense. Crap I could go on for years about all the great bits… but it definitely serves better to listen to it. There’s def. some humor there, but to me it’s like life, some times things seem so fkt that all you can do is laugh… ‘endless psychology’ comes to mind, great contrasting images. ‘Alrite’ sure sounds like now. The ‘yeah yeah’-s and cowbell under the solo? maaaaaaaaan. ‘Tango Romeo’ does have a humorous take on things true, but weirdly (and not at all uncommonly) I myself had a scenario kinda like that in the north of ireland. I love the whole feeling of the record— like driving tooo fast in the pouring rain with your headlights out, trying to get home before the drugs kick in… yeah. “No more drugs for this young man…” Like that! Sheesh, would it be weird if I posted an obsessive song-by-song breakdown of what I love about this record? Hmmm then suicide pact next, then who knows… on another personal level, I got diagnosed with parkinson’s in ‘04, and hearing Andy sing ‘don’t you worry, it’ll be okay’ really truly made everything better. Distortion saves lives!