ROCKET FROM THE CRYPT: PAINT AS A FRAGRANCE
ALBUM REVIEW: In 1990, alongside Nirvana, Mudhoney, Dinosaur Jr etc., San Diego's Rocket From The Crypt were at the start of an on/off 35 year career. This is where it all began.
ROCKET FROM THE CRYPT: PAINT AS A FRAGRANCE
HEADHUNTER RECORDS
1991
1991
I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but it’s a hill I’ll die on: in 1991 there was much more to “Grunge” than Sub Pop.
Of course, Nirvana, TAD, Mudhoney et al were flag-bearers, but, at least in my peer group, the retrospective big names - Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots - even, to a lesser degree, Soundgarden - were considered to be just watered down corporate rock. Rightly or wrongly, we saw them as bands without the punk rock credentials to drag them far enough away from the drab metal of the time to be as cool as their more raw and interesting cousins.
Pearl Jam etc. were just Grunge for the un-discerning listener and high street rocker.
But once the ‘real’ Grunge oyster was cracked open, there was an entire ecosystem of (ahem) pearls, that were all filed in the same place in the record shops. You just had to be curious enough to take a chance on them.
There were a multitude of labels just as reliable and tasteful as Sub Pop, which, once discovered, would yield hundreds of new leads for bands to discover. Everyone could create their own unique sonic web of artists based on sleeve-notes, family trees, shared knowledge and label relationships. It’s how I discovered so much music at that time.
Amphetamine Reptile was my favourite - the bands Tom Hazelmyer was signing, mostly from in and around Minnesota, were rougher, more abstract and less commercial than the Sub Pop royalty, but would happily fit on a live bill or compilation alongside them.
Check them out - Cows, Tar, Helmet, Helios Creed, God Bullies, Hammerhead and Tom’s own Halo of Flies… that first wave of Amrep bands were incredible.
Touch & Go offered a similar enticement in Chicago, with all the Albini bands, Jesus Lizard, Arcwelder, Slint, Killdozer and The Butthole Surfers.
But Headhunter, in San Diego, had a rocking lineup of bands whose aesthetic was more brazen than most. They had a long run of great releases in the early 90s that tend to be either forgotten about or ignored these days. They came a year or two after Touch Me I’m Sick, but still, too many great releases from the label are lost to history.
Bands like the lo-fi Creedle, the anthemic grunge of Smile, the punking Fluf, Uncle Joe’s Big Ol’ Driver… Morning Glories, Drive Like Jehu and Rocket From The Crypt.
Rocket From The Crypt
Each of the Headhunter bands could go toe-to-toe with any of the headline grabbers from up north.
RFTC especially, could wipe most of them off the stage completely.
Formed from the ashes of the rather wonderful Pitchfork, as a simultaneous project with the noisier and more discordant Drive Like Jehu, Rocket From The Crypt were clearly destined for greatness from the moment you heard them. Something about their sound instilled a sense of pride and loyalty in the listener which would serve them well for more than three decades.
You couldn’t help it; you wanted to be part of their gang.
It was a cool gang too, especially on their debut, before horn sections, matching suits and too much hair oil commercialised their sound to an equally compulsive rock and roll revue. Paint as a Fragrance is raw. It’s cut up and bitty. Recorded for just $1000, there’s a fantastic first-take energy to it. The ramshackle rough edges adrenalise the songs.
The band had only been existence for six months before this was recorded. I get the sense it’s not frontman and songwriter John Reis’s proudest moment. It’s the lone RFTC album that’s not on streaming channels. Getting information and archival photographs of the band at the time is difficult. I think a slightly moderately rewritten history pastes over Fragrance, seemingly preferring a tidier and more easily definable Ground Zero with 1992’a Circa: Now. It’s only supposition, but it’s how it feels.
To my ears, that’s doing a great disservice to the incendiary, boisterous and accelerated punk rock of Paint As A Fragrance. It’s the only album this original lineup of the band recorded. It’s a shame, because the occasional backing vocals from Elaina give the songs a bit of a Pixies vibe in places that feels different enough from the rest of their catalogue to really stand out, where other albums might feels slightly homogenised in places.
Paint As A Fragrance
I remember picking up Paint as a Fragrance, their debut album, on spec from my local record shop at the time. It may well have been recommended to me by Rob Edwards behind the service desk - but my mind’s eye can still see it in its Grunge/Post Hardcore bin - it’s totally surreal title and artwork immediately jumping out at me.
I paid a high price for it, according to the sticker on the sleeve. £8.49.
The album begins with a scanned radio being tuned into and finally resting on “Here’s the new one, from Rocket From The Crypt!” and we crash straight into French Guy: “School ain’t shit… I read in a book…” it swings from Bleach-esque riffs and feedback driven rolling bass lines to doo-wopping oozenahs. It’s a stop-starty epic to begin the 28 minute flurry of activity of Fragrance. Stopping chaotically with a yell and a crash, a piano slide and adrenalised guitar riff, the hyper-nagging Maybelline follows. There’s so much energy in Speedo’s screams and incessant riffage. What a breathless punktastic slam.
Shy Boy is up next, and it’s the track that most clearly defines the direction of the riffage that the band would build their career on. Three chord rock and roll repetition that worms it’s way deep. It’s the first track of the album which really shows off Elaina’s backing vocals in the dropped-back chorus, elevating the tunefulness of the composition. Basturds follows, and is the only slightly throwaway track on the album. Speedo speak-sings over Elaina’s blissed out backing vocals and Pixies-esque guitar lines. The lyrics are a bit cringey and the music a bit derivative. A sarcastic pome to swearing like a punk rocker. Still, it’s the only skippable track of the album and it’s not that bad.
It goes on for too long though. When it (finally) leaves us, we writhe into the underplayed Velvet Touch. An unsung highlight, once again brought up to spec by Elaina. It’s a mid-paced song that echoes early Afghan Whigs with its wiry guitar lines and chug-picked guitars. Evil Party follows, and feels like a precursor to sophomore LP Circa: Now’s Don’t Darlene - hyper kinetic, screamed, a discordant fun hardcore-influenced wrecking ball.
The wall it smashes through as it concludes its minute-long frenzy is Stinker, which is quite clearly the best composition of the set. The run-of-the-mill verse riff works especially well, because its ignorable familiarity provides the perfectly contrasting platform for the band to leap from for that to the songs surging chorus; “You don’t bring me flowers anymore; just rusty nails at my door - don’t bring me flowers anymore…” with Elaina screaming “Don’t bring me flooooowwwweerrrrrs!” behind Speedo perfect anthemic main line vocals and harmonious guitar picking.
Then, before it’s really begun, it sadly dissolved into a discordant piano collapse, leaving you breathlessly wishing there was more of it. Just one minute more…
The art of the two minute anthem.
Jiggy Jig and Weak Superhero continue the theme of crunching riffola and lifting guitar lines with naggingly addictive choruses, until the band finally signs off with Thumbmaster, an ode to playground digit wrestling.
If there was no such thing Stinker, Thumbmaster would be the track of the album and is a real high point to end on, with its jittery guitar riff and gang-vocalled “I am the Thumbmaster!” chorus.
Conclusion
Compared to the rest of the band’s catalogue, Paint As A Fragrance is more experimental, dirty and punked up. The depth of vocal harmony provided throughout - rough as it is - showcases a different aspect of the band than what would be evident on the releases that followed, which would feel more masculine. Not macho, but there’s a levity to their debut that they lost a bit afterwards, no matter how much I enjoyed the brilliant Circa: Now, Hot Charity and commercial peak, Scream, Dracula Scream!.
They’d never go back to the looseness of Fragrance. And fair enough, but it would have been great to see what else this particular lineup had up their collective sleeves as a fundamentally raw and insistently immediate sun-kissed, South Californian alternative to the grizzled and drizzled flannel of Our Friends In The North.
There’s nothing special about the record itself, apart from the personal nostalgia I have for its sleeve. The pressing, as with the majority of records pressed when analogue techniques were employed to record them, sounds rich and deep, despite its low budget, the inexperience of the band and Speedo’s production naivety. It’s still a lo-fi thing to hold and caress. I love that I never removed the price sticker. Standard black vinyl. Amusing B-Side label depicting a gentleman’s emulsion-rolled buttocks.
They’d go on to record Circa: Now a year after this release. There’s a lot to be said for it. Arguably more consistent, well-produced, stronger songs and more “together”.
I don’t know that it’s better, though.
Nowadays, RFTC still play occasionally, but most of Speedo’s time is spent running Swami Records (link below) and playing in the super-credible Hot Snakes.
Now: Go rock, Swami. ROCK!
We saw these play in a HMV record store entrance, so you remember? They sang the whole Troublegum album. They were simply awesome!