HOOVER - 'THE LURID TRAVERSAL OF RTE. 7'There are certain bands that I would, if I were so inclined and not perpetually unable to save money, get tattoos related to or pay more than the original price for shirts thereof. These are the bands that are just so ingrained as awesome in my head that like, it's just an unquestioning fact. A pillar of my own existance. The sky is blue and this band fucking ruled. If you asked me to name these bands I'd probably give you a list after some careful consideration, and perhaps discussion of the way Hot Water Music completely sucked arse after 'no division'. If you forced me to name some bands off the top of my head you'd get exactly four. Mike Kirsch played in three of them. The fourth is Hoover.
I first heard Hoover when I was given a mixtape in 1997. The song was electrolux and I was like 'wtf is this band give me more please'. I got a tape back with Hoover's lurid traversal of rte. 7 on one side and Harvest's living with a god complex on the other. My music taste being slanted towards dumb tough hardcore as it was back then (and still is, yeah, you got me) I listened the shit out of the Harvest side and really only gave the Hoover one a couple of spins. I mean it was like, yeah, I liked it and all but fucking Harvest man! Then I lost it approximately four weeks later anyway. Somewhere 'neath the rotting floorboards, in the rat infested underworld that lies below the year 10 lockers at vermont high there's a killer tape waiting for someone to find it.
(If someone wants to burn or link me a copy of living with a god complex I'll be forever in their debt too).
So 97 to '08 pretty much my sole experience of Hoover - apart from remembering that this record was pretty great when I heard it - was the song breather resist on the all the presidents men compilation LP that old glory records put out. And that song, the 'demo version', actually apparently recorded as part of a live radio set (which I just recently found out Briohazard's brother probably recorded, which is pretty weird in a small word kind of way), is pretty much THE BEST FUCKING SONG IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD EVER MAAANG. They actuall re-recorded it for an odds and ends EP they did following their first reunion in '97 and I've never listened to that version. The shitty production on the original is just too perfect. I remember sitting outside some shitty nightclub in adelaide, talking to a guy who played in one of those three Mike Kirsch bands, about music, about how awesome Hoover were, and about that recording, and he said 'that's the way that song was meant to sound'. Indeed. The poor, bass heavy audio quality, dubious mix, the way the slide guitar comes in out of nowhere and destroys the clean guitar, the almost non audible vocals and the quiet droning of some recording of a preacher talking in the background are like some cosmic, planets aligning, next level mystical shit dude.
Thanks in large part to that song I had an idea in my head of what Hoover sounded like. Like I was talking in the previous post of the idea of a bands sound rather than the actual sound. Hoover was quiet/loud/quiet, perfect for the crackling of wax on the turntable and somehow linked in my head with dark rooms and out of focus powerlines. Maybe I'm autistic and relate to music in terms of visual cliches. But over the past nearly a decade Hoover have been present in my subconscious mostly as the band that wrote breather resist, that had that particular sound and feel, that I didn't even own any records of but it was such a definite fact, I almost didn't need to own the records. It was something so buried in the back of yr head that you just know it's the truth: Hoover were an amazing band.
So chucking on lurid traversal... after finally entering the digital age a couple of months ago and downloading the bastard, I was a little suprised about the first song being so upbeat and spazzy. But by track 3, electrolux, the stop/start fuzz bass awakened memories of lying on my floor listening to this record on sunday afternoons, with the blinds drawn and electric fan dimed to combat the stupid heat of summer, and wondering how the hell such amazing music could exist. How could bands be this tight, this dynamic, and create such an incredible, powerful sound? How could music groove and yet not be shitty university funk? How could these guys take what Fugazi did and build on it when all my 16 year old's attempts to do the same sounded like ska? This was punk rock yet it was so fucking different to all the punk I knew. This was subtle, beautiful music, yet in no-way streamlined or watered down.
Electrolux is a pretty good example of the amazingness of this record. Listen to that shit and then consider that this music was made in 92/93, only two years after repeater came out. Listen to that fucking bass distortion and wonder how the hell they nailed that amazing fuzz sound when everything I've heard resembling 'fuzz bass' on records for the next 15 years has never come close. The song shows the DC/Fugazi influence pretty well actually. The bass part is all kind of evil and dark sounding, somewhat chromatically neutral. Then a definite major key octave guitar part comes in over the top, doubled on both guitars. Something that doesn't quite make harmonic sense but sounds so fucking cool, and a definite trick of repeater/steady diet of nothing era Fugazi guitar playing. Something I also totally hear in Alex's playing in Former Republics which definitely makes them rule harder.
But the definite stand out of the LP for me is the song letter. This is second only to breather resist in defining the sound that occupies the niche in my head marked 'file under Hoover and influenced bands'. Hell this shit didn't start with them, and in terms of guys talking over a guitar building up over a repeating bass line it goes back as far as Moss Icon at least. But these guys on this record got it nailed so tight. It's like, I dunno, math rock or post hardcore or something. It's music I relate to as buildup music. Repetitiveness, heaps of space, guitars that come in and out. Sudden stops and complete crazy freak outs all of a sudden. Hell Slint got there first anyway. But (admittedly great) bands enjoying a posthumous revival like Indian Summer, or random moments of sudden awesome like that 'blue skies, arrival...' clean song on the State Secedes record definitely owe some small debt to lurid traversal of rte. 7. Hoover didn't invent it but they set the bar pretty fucking high pretty early on.
Unfortunately maybe these guys listen to their own well deserved praise too much. Hoover reunited in 1997, and again in 2004 where they apparently kinda sucked, and are playing shows again with a reunited Bluetip this year. I would probably no shit cry if I heard cuts like drugs, letter, electrolux or breather resist live, but some things really are best left in the past. Hoover's music has been with me now for a good chunk of my life and is so inextricably linked to the certain experiences, sensations and memories that all great music that you grow with should provoke in you, that I just don't know man...In those live songs and this LP, Hoover achieved perfection. There's no need to recreate it.
Hoover - 'the lurid traversal of rte. 7', dischord records no. 89, 1994/5(ish?)
nb I've never owned this LP, and never had a copy of the correct tracklisting so I'm assuming this is all cool. Also this might be in print from Dischord still? If you like it, fucking buy it.
Distant / Pretender / Electrolux / Shut / Route 7 / Regulator Watts / Father / Cable / Letter / Cuts Like Drugs / Return / Private / Drive
