Buy the Swell Maps reissues! Back in my freshman year of college, I considered my cassette copies of A Trip To Marineville and Jane From Occupied Europe to be the coolest things I owned and a total redemption of all the time I spent perusing the used tape racks at stores. I wanted to use "Harmony In Your Bathroom" as the theme song for my sole auteurist student film Fat Tony's CANCER!* but needed something on CD so I used the Kinks' "Wicked Annabella," which also opens with a drum solo. Had these CDs been available in 2001, the Swell Maps would have been all over the movie. The photos and the videos are a bit weird for me though; I've never really had visual concept of the Swell Maps. I think I prefered it that way, but these albums are still magnificent. If you've never heard them, they basically sound like pre-CR, CR Pavement if that band had a great rhythm section and a better sense of humor. "Gunboats" is the best Sonic Youth song ever! Maybe! And why is "Let's Build A Car" only available as a video rather than an bonus track? Are they re-releasing Train Out Of It? They better!

Get them now!


* thanks to producer Brian Ritchey for keeping my film up at his site! Check it out if you've got RealPlayer! That's actually me singing over the credits. A little tribute to The Postman, which ends with writer/director/star Kevin Costner and Amy Grant covering "You Didn't Have To Be So Nice" after a bronze statue of him is erected. Make sure you stay till the end!