Song Of the Day: November 1, 2005
The Larch - Free Kick
Flamingo Records 45, 1998
Flamingo Records 45, 1998
I know for a fact that there's a total of 17 people out there who are familiar with this song, because that's how many copies of this single I sold. This was the final release on my label Flamingo Records, which lasted from 1995 to 1998, and to this day, I feel really bad about the way this single just barely limped out, lost in a morass of personal and professional traumas on my part. (A lawsuit against a pressing plant in relation to Flamingo's sole CD release, a reissue of R. Stevie Moore's 1976 LP debut Phonography, was what led most directly to the label's protracted demise.) Although this was not meant to be the label's final release -- I was also bankrolling and producing sessions for two bands in my former hometown of Albuquerque, the Ant Farmers and Luxochamp (three members of which went on to semi-fame as the Rondelles), around this time, until the studio was condemned and the tapes frozen, which is a WHOLE other can of worms -- there were two sadly appropriate portents scratched into the runoff grooves. Side A read "January 11, 1929" (my mother's birthdate; she'd died just before this single went off to the pressing plant) and side B read "Purr purr snag," a tribute to my now-wife Charity's recently deceased cat Toby Dammit and his charming late-life habit of settling in on Charity's chest when she was asleep, contentedly purring for a while and then suddenly sneezing directly in her face.
Anyway, the song. The Larch (yes, they were named after the Monty Python bit) were a New York City band, but the crisp Britpop of "Free Kick" wasn't an Anglophiliac affectation: singer/songwriter Ian Roure was from Portsmouth, England, and the sardonic "Free Kick" sounds like Nick Hornby's football memoir Fever Pitch set to an old Dentists single. Big ups must be sent towards Paula Carino, then of fellow Flamingo signees Regular Einstein, who mailed me the Larch's demo cassette, and apologies again to Ian and the boys for dropping the ball so thoroughly on what I really thought was the best single I ever put out.
-Stewart Mason
6 Comments:
Wow. I had no idea you were once involved with these guys, Stewart. I wonder if it was the same band with that name that sent us demos, probably not too long after this release. Pretty cool stuff, if memory serves.
Great song and I must find more by this group. As a newbie to your site, I can't tell you how thrilled I am to be finding such fantastic music! (Actually, I don't feel all that new, having sampled one-by-one every song you've posted...in two marathons sittings.) Thank you for your incredible knowledge and generosity. I was also ecstatic to get "I Don't Mind" as an mp3, as I've had it for years on a cassette. I saw The Nelsons once in Austin, and their bass player had the most incredible head movements I've ever seen...on a bassist, that is.
I agree with you that this is a great single, but the BEST single you ever put out really has to be Regular Einstein's "Prince of Reichstadt."
"Prince of Reichstadt" was a good one (personally, I think all of the Flamingo singles stand up: 7"s by Vinyl Devotion, the Impatients, and Luxochamp were the other releases, trivia fans), but it was a compromise choice that neither Paula nor I ever felt entirely comfortable with. She wanted to release a new song, the name of which escapes me but it eventually showed up on her solo album, and I was pushing for a three-song EP with "P of R" and its eventual b-side "Wormholes" (which I think is actually the better song) on side two and a great older song of Paula's called "Mid-Life Crisis" on the a-side. I think she thought "Mid-Life Crisis" was too old and no longer consistent with her current songwriting style: it's a really overtly sexual song, and I think she was afraid of getting pegged as a Liz Phair manque, which to be fair is something she was already quite often (unfairly) called. So neither of us really got what we wanted there.
Actually, the RE single was pretty seriously screwed up by the R. Stevie Moore debacle as well.
Hey Stewart,
Thanks for the mention. We're still going by the way, although I'm the only original member left these days. Check out some of our recent stuff, why not:
http://www.thelarch.com/Sound/sound.html
All the best,
-Ian
Fascinating to hear that you were involved with the Ant Farmers. I bought a copy of their Trailer Park Music (on cassette tape) like 12 years ago and still listen to it. I always wondered what happened to them.
More, generally, this is a great blog--one of the best. Keep it up.
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