Classic Albums: Last Splash by The Breeders

So, I’m up to part twenty-five of Classic Albums today. Amazing, I real didn’t think I would get this far at all, you know I was thinking I’ll just bored and not even use this blog thingy at all. It’s pretty amazing these posts have sometimes almost become auto-bio, kind-off not just my views on music but my life and the artists/band/albums that go with it. I guess that old saying soundtrack of your life or something is true. I can’t wait any longer to write about this which so important, it’s yet another 90’s album.

Guys from Teenage Fanclub and Kim (right) @ Big Day Out 94

This time 1993 and this also covers my first Big Day Out so the first Festival I ever when to and then with The Breeders‘ Cannonball was the first song I when crowd-surfing too. So important is a bit of understatement. It was Aussie summer of 1994 down at Freo Oval and he line-up that year was pretty crazy, pretty amazing with the Aussie bands as The Cruel Sea, Severed Heads, The Meanies, Tumbleweed, New Zealand’s Straitjacket Fits and from overseas was Smashing Pumpkins, Teenage Fanclub, Björk, Ramones and Soundgarden as the headliner. Off course The Breeders made the most impact and that’s what I’m talking about today maybe I’ll write about those other artists at some later date.

Kim (Rush) right in the middle with three Ramones guys and two Soundgarden guys on the ends @ The Big Day Out 1994

So Kim Deal is also from Pixies, you know? Don’t just call this a side-project, I would pick The Breeders over Pixies any day of the week. Do you know how she ended up in the Pixies? She was the only person who answered the newspaper ad and she didn’t even have a bass at the time, they wanted a bass player but she was a guitar play too. So sorry Frank Black, I love The Breeders so much more than Pixies but maybe Pixies might end up here in my list but not just yet, as for his over rated solo albums I can tell you right now that zero are going to be on my list. The Last Splash was the second album by The Breeders, Pod was the name of the debut album which was out in 1990 which just after Doolittle by Pixies. The Breeders did Pod album in-between Pixies stuff because that was Frank’s band Kim started The Breeders for her songs to go somewhere because she didn’t get to write for them, then Pixies in 1991 released the last studio album with Trompe le Monde. Last Splash album was released at the end of Aug. 1993 but it did get started to be recorded way back in 1990 while the Pixies where still together but the Safari EP did come out before it in Apr. 1992 and then officially Pixies broke-up in early 93.

It seems really so unfair that Kim after co-writing and even singing the lead single from Pixies’ Surfer Rosa in 1988, the song called Gigantic then wasn’t allowed to do anything after that. It seem really wrong, anyway if Frank wasn’t a total asshole/dickhead maybe we wouldn’t even have The Breeders? Frank off course when solo after Pixies broken-up but now he’s got them back together and have released two pretty bad new albums. Kim was in the line-up to start the reunion and that tour but left before those two new albums, thank god. The Breeders did they own reunion, playing Last Splash album in full and the reissue LSXX came out, the two crosses stand for 20 years and I’ve got that plus I did get to see The Breeders on that tour twice too, at the Melbourne and Perth shows.

If you don’t know the line-up of The Breeders for this album is Kim Deal as the singer-songwriter and guitar play, her twin sister Kelly Deal on guitar, Josephine Wiggs on bass and drummer Jim Macpherson. Even so Kim is only member of this line-up who’s then on all the other Breeders albums. By the end of 94 they did have out the Head To Toe EP but Kelly’s drug arrest put at end to the band for a while. Kim then formed another band called The Amps with Jim on drums from The Breeders and Luis Lerma, Nate Farley. That was to be the last of 90’s albums from her with Pacer album in 1995, which was a one and only album by The Amps but was pretty fuckin’ great and very under rated too. The Breeders didn’t have a new album until 2002 because of Kim own drug/rehab stuff. It’s amazing looking at how much work Deal did get done in that time from the early to mid-90’s: two Breeders albums, two Pixies albums and The Amps one, it’s like one record a year for five years plus a few EPs also I can’t forget to say about in 95 was when Kim sung with Sonic Youth too. The classic line-up which made the Last Splash album has now been making a new album and it seems it’s being finished-up now.

It’s funny how people come and go in your life but music is always here, those two Breeders show twenty years apart I had two different gf at each gigs. Anyway this is not the first time Kim’s been in one of these post, the very first 90’s album I included she made it into that and now this is the fifth 90’s albums into that list. So now after all that I’ll say really briefly Last Splash album is just the ultimate Indie Rock album better than any grunge/punk record of the time. For some unknown/dumb reason it’s not on Rolling Stone 500 Albums of all-time/1001 Albums Hear Before You Die lists maybe because it’s not made be all male bands like pretty much alot the bands on those lists are. I can’t believe that book 1001 tells everyone to listen to Bossanova and even Teenage Of The Year by solo Black but not the Last Splash album! Then Pitchfork listed it at only at number 64 on The Top 100 Albums of 90’s sandwiched in-between Daft Punk and De La Soul but then off course their top ten is made up with Radiohead, The Flaming Lips, Nirvana and two Pavement albums plus then Bossanova was at number 28 so fuck off! It’s number 200 in NME 500 greatest records of all-time, thank god it made it onto that but it should be alot higher. It’s music I guess is so wildly experimental so maybe that’s why it’s not talked about more but it did totally fucked with mainstream rock when it did cross over thanks to the Cannonball single which came in as the top song in NME, Melody Maker and The Village Voice’s annual year-end critics’ polls and listeners of Triple J’s first ever Hottest 100 of the year voted it as number five.

Recorded mainly at San Francisco’ Coast Recorders and then a bit extra done in Dayton, Ohio as well. 15 tracks is on it with the longest at close to four and half mins and the shortest at almost 50 secs and as a whole album running time is just short of forty mins. It really should be remembered more as one of the greatest Indie Rock records ever, maybe just Rock albums of all-time.

The Breeders’ Kelly, Josephine, Jim and Kim (left to right)

So next up for my Classic Albums list is any style of music I’ve not yet included here, just to prove the point that they’re something great in any kinds of music you can possibility wanted to listen too, which I do.

Last Splash track listing and times:

1. New Year – 1:57
2. Cannonball – 3:34
3. Invisible Man – 2:48
4. No Aloha – 2:07
5. Roi – 4:12
6. Do You Love Me Now? – 3:02
7. Flipside – 2:00
8. I Just Wanna Get Along – 1:44
9. Mad Lucas – 4:37
10. Divine Hammer – 2:41
11. S.O.S. – 1:32
12. Hag – 2:56
13. Saints – 2:32
14. Drivin’ On 9 – 3:22
15. Roi (Reprise) – 0:43

 My Classic Albums so far are in the order of published but for today I’ve now added how each album/post is going with rated places of how popular each album/post is from first to last:

(3rd) Tales From The Australian Underground – Volume 1 & 2 by Various Artists

 (7th) Station To Station by David Bowie

(11th tied) Unplugged In New York by Nirvana

(1st) Rust In Peace by Megadeth

 (8th) Gunfighter Ballads And Trail Songs by Marty Robbins

(4th) Henry’s Dream by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

(12th) Whatever You Love, You Are by Dirty Three

 (2nd) Gala Mill by The Drones

(9th) Black Monk Time by The Monks

(13th) Ex Tropical by Lost Animal

(5th) Work (Work, Work) by HTRK

(18th tied) In The Wee Small Hours by Frank Sinatra

(6th) The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn by Pink Floyd

(11th tied) Songs Of Love And Hate by Leonard Cohen

(17th) Warm Leatherette by Grace Jones

(16th) The White House by The Dead C

(15th tied) Silence Is Sexy by Einstürzende Neubauten

(14th) Lulu by Lou Reed & Metallica

(19th tied) Kaira by Toumani Diabaté

(18th tied) Kings Of The Wild Frontier by Adam And The Ants

(10th) Drowning In The Fountain Of Youth by Dan Kelly And The Alpha Males

(20th) Aerial by Kate Bush

(15th tied) The Future by Leonard Cohen

(19th tied) Rock For Light by Bad Brains

(Not counting it) Last Splash by The Breeders

So, this was the reason I started this blog. The idea is simply to write post about one of my fave album each that I consider a classic album. Please leave your comments below about each album because I would love to hear what you think about each album too, cheers!

Advertisement