The Brian Jonestown Massacre: Tepid Peppermint Wonderland: A Retrospective

The Brian Jonestown Massacre: Tepid Peppermint Wonderland: A Retrospective

2004

Tee Pee Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing:  Disc one: 1. All Around You (Intro)  2. Who?  3. When Jokers Attack  4. Servo  5. Open Heart Surgery  6. If Love is the Drug  7. IT Girl  8. Sailor  9. Straight Up and Down  10. Anenome  11. Wisdom  12. Just For Today  13. Stars  14. Vacuum Boots  15. Prozac vs. Heroin  16. She's Gone

Disc two: 1.  Nailing Honey to the Bee  2. That Girl Suicide  3. Nevertheless  4. Evergreen  5. Starcleaner  6. Let Me Stand Next to Your Flower (live)  7. Hide and Seek (live)  8. In My Life  9. Mary Please  10. Talk - Action = Shit  11. Oh Lord  12. This Is Why You Love Me  13. Not If You Were the Last Dandy on Earth  14. Swallowtail Live  15. Feel So Good  16. Fucker  17. #1 Hit Jam  18. Ballad of Jim Jones  19. Free and Easy, Take 2  20. Stolen  21. Mansion in the Sky  22. Sue




I was very excited to learn that ex-Stones guitarist/sitarist/zitherist/marimbaist Brian Jones  was back with a new band after he died mid-backstroke during a late-night swim in 1969...

I, like many other people had assumed that incident would be the end of his career, and rightly so...A lot of entertainers don't rebound from an affliction as serious as death itself, which makes his comeback in The Brian Jonestown Massacre all the more triumphant. He sounds rejuvenated and vital again, even if some of the tracks are merely re-writes of his own past glories (I mean, compare "Straight Up and Down" with "I'm Free" to see an example of self-plagiarism at its most blatant...)

Wha-? He's still dead? Oh never mind then, let me start this over...ahem...

I checked this band out on the recommendation of my friend Emily. I decided to head straight to the record store as soon as she told me they had an album called "Their Satanic Majesties' Second Request"...



I wasn't able to find "...Second Request" but I did find this double-disc greatest hits thingy at Zia Records and decided it looked like a good place to start. I had previously been aware of their existence, coming across the name periodically in magazines and somewhere in the mid-2000's I had heard of the film "Dig!" where supposedly this guy was a real asshole or something...



I dunno...Haven't seen it...I'd chuckle at the name of the band and laugh when someone would tell me about a particular scene from the "Dig!", but I never got around to listening to their music and I now I wish I had...This is right up my alley...There's definitely a detectable trace of Brian Jones era Rolling Stones ("Talk - Action = Shit" in particular might have fooled me in the blind taste test ) but there's also a ton of Velvet Underground, Spacemen 3, Byrds. 80's-90's Shoegaze and lo-fi in the mix...Lots of grimy, swirling, beauteous drone... I had a blast getting lost in the narcotic haze of 7 and 8 minute buzzathons like "She's Gone" and "Sue"...Hell, I might even do heroin now!

 No, wait...You need a spoon for that and I don't particularly feel like doing dishes right now...Oh yea, and it makes you want to eat candy and I'm trying to start a new diet, so upping my sugar intake isn't advisable right now...

Nah, I'm just funnin' you guys, you should not take heroin under any circumstances...Even if you're bored and there's nothing on TV...Plus, if you start doing it there will be less of it around for the Brian Jonestown Massacre to do! And they need it to make their blissful, spaced-out music!

Oh yea, I should mention the live tracks on here are real standouts...Usually when you see live tracks scattered on a greatest hits set you kind of groan and say to yourself, "Must be an issue obtaining rights or something..." but these steal the show! The fidelity is excellent (they were recorded for the legendary WFMU radio station, besides their studio recordings often veer towards lo-fi anyway) and it makes me suspect that the Brian Jonestown Massacre are one of those bands that are better live than on record...Again, I don't know...I'm new to the band so I've never seen them live and come to think of it, I've never heard any of their records (besides this compilation)...But "Tepid Peppermint" absolutely inspires me to dig a little further...

Let's check out "Let Me Stand Next to Your Flower (live)" by "the Brian Jonestown Massacre" enjoy...