Blissed Out in the Hissed Out

Bruce recorded Nebraska on one of these.
Damn - should we blame him for indie rock AND
 Eddie and the Cruisers! 

Music reviewers of a certain age, especially those without girlfriends, have long professed their love of the low-fi “genre” of the mid-90s. Though the low-fi label was attached to many of that decade’s prominent indie rock bands - Guided By Voices, Sebadoh, Pavement, Superchunk, all of the Elephant 6 weirdos, etc – it was really not a genre of music, rather a shared mix of ambition and economic reality. In the do-it-yourself spirit, unfunded bands recorded and released material with available means. They put out hissy, muddy 7" singles, vinyl albums and cassettes that captured the energy and heartstrings of the songs (along with feedback, punch-ins, count-ins, chair squeaks, etc). To the average listener, it sounded amateurish (it was by definition) and made no sense to their radio-trained ears. To record geeks, it was blissfully different and challenging and interesting and obscure. It was inclusive, underdog art and we couldn't get enough. These bands were home-fidelity operations, they did everything themselves - the artwork, the mail-outs, the pre-blog whisper campaigns - it was small i industry. And when many of them scored major label record deals and then mostly subsequently lost those big companies a ton of money, it was a harbinger of the end of the ruling labels and their grip on who gets to make a career of playing music. 

Dean Wells of The Capstan Shafts
and loud springs (not The Cure)

Most of those artists are either gone or reunion touring or running highly successful labels that chug along smartly in the brave new digital world. Dean Wells still flies the lo-fi flag. He has been putting out clever & catchy & noisy (just how we like it) blasts of psych power pop for more than ten years under the name The Capstan Shafts. Predominantly a one-man band, Wells’ first-crack recording aesthetic and happily reckless performances splash sticky cola goo on his short, sharp, British invasion styled tunes. Think Morrissey fronting Converse-era GBV. Like Bob Pollard, Well’s has a lyrical gift that cloaks the emotional themes in his songs with wordplay. It allows you to write a ton of songs and not have people say just get over her already! Amidst the clang & clatter are stellar songs with stellarest names: "Chandelier of Bad Ideas”, “She Makes Amazing Look Stupid” and the perfect “Sleepcure Theory Advancer”  from 2006’s hit-machine full length “Eurodice Proudhun”, which features the typically great lyric 'you must have a lead coat over your angel’s wings'. 2007’s “Environ Maiden” and the following year’s “Fixation Protocols” were consistently high quality in terms of song craft and lovingly shambolic quality in terms of sound craft (“She’s Kick People”, “Low Ceilings for Bedhoppers”  , “Her Novel ‘Canal Zone Poetry’” , “Squeals of Resignation” ).

What with all of the chronology? We’re on our way to the now. On 2010’s “Revelation Skirts”, the Shafts took a swing for the fences, or at least the warning tracks with a full-band, mid-fi effort that came up a few feet short. It hit the highs – the shimmering REM jangle of “Your Wasted is a Talent Here”, the winning chorus of RBI single “Quiet Wars” and the line drive “Heart Your Eat Out” are standouts – but overall, Well’s songs seemed slightly misrepresented and lacked the exciting, too-loose-to-lose style. Free from the ramshackles that demand the listener dig with their ears for the fancy hook and the killer lines, it just kinda seemed ordinary.

In 2011, Dean took to DIY web-label bandcamp to release the 14-song / 23-minute “Kind Empires”. From the ringing guitar line of opener “Degenerate Era Sweetheart”, it is clearly a return to extraordinary form. The sweet chaos and pop rock rush of the earlier Capstan Shafts material races through the songs, and Dean’s tightened guitar work transforms him into a one man Superchunk on songs like the smokin’ “Like Theme from Art House Floozy”, “Come Wilder” and the terrific “She’s Kind Empires” with its inverted "Turning Japanese" opening riff. He no longer plays like a guy trying to get kicked out of his own band.

Lionel Richie could have
these on the ceiling.

This August, Dean brought the crazy back and its awesome! He went back to bandcamp under the name loud springs to release two new 4-song EPs: “wheels to ceiling” and “trinity blast suite” and just last week came the third – “mean forever”. Dean described the distinction between the two band names via email thusly: “(loud springs) is played live with a drummer, then I add bass and a vocal. Everything is miked. Nothing digital or direct, so it’s a bit different … and all the songs are about roller derby ladies”. So there you have it. His fun with language continues with great song titles like “out with the win for trying crowd” and “full contact reiki”. The sound is live & raw & high energy. He should have piped in some audience screams for full Kiss Alive effect, cuz it feels like a fun party. And its shots, not pints: the longest 12 songs is 2:06 and gems abound, especially “lip impressions”, “full contact reiki” and the tasty “wheels to ceiling”, a promise for one of the aforementioned roller derby babes - ‘I’ll get you wheels to ceiling someday’. Go to bandcamp to check it out and pay what you can to keep it. This guy is a prolific songwriter with a keen knack for pure melody and noise. And I can drink to that.