Haywood: "Trash Park"

Hmmmm... it's always strange to pick up these 7"'ers and then go and google these bands and see what became of them (as you can tell I mostly ignored indie music in the '90s in favor of videos and DVD collecting).

Anyway, these guys (Haywood as in "Hey! Wood...") went on to semi-respectable heights before breaking up in 2000 or so.

I've listened to the songs they have up on Myspace.com and while I don't see my self downloading them for posterity, they're okay in a indie pop-rock sortsa way. AS they go in Hitchhiker's Guide, "mostly harmless..."

Surprisingly, they seem to have enough of a following to command healthy prices on their out of print CDs (and this 7") and they have laudatory Epitonic bio (although don't the record companies pay for that shit? I dunno).

"Trash Park", I'm amazed to say, is so much better though, than what I've sampled from their later stuff. Produced by one of the members of Eggs, it toys a bit with the Teen Beat low-fi sound and has a "K" girl-boy lyrical theme. But you can tell the band prefers a much, much bigger and fully meshed sound tho' with tons of inneresting guitar noise, swirling sections and use of dynamics way long before it became a staple in the current young degenerates who populate MTV's early morning video trials. Their Wiki entry compares them with Superchunk (and band I know little of, sorry) and Modest Mouse (hmmm, Haywood isn't as anti-social...).

"Trash Park" then - it's a nice guy indie love song rock about hanging out with your girlie near the garbage dump. Simple and too the point. He likes looking at trash and he likes holding Jenny's (or whomever's) hand.

Pop-wise, it's not entirely memorable but then I hate songs that play over and over in my head!!!! --- At least while its playin', I'm tapping my athritic foot and boppin' my fat head - in fact, it's pretty downright sweet (as in the rocker vernacular - "sweeeeeeeet") although, uh, predictable in that pop-rock sorta way - although it's unfair to say that, I guess, as it probably wasn't as predictable when it first came out.

The flip side "Nerf Dreams" continues to mix twee girlfriend-boyfriend lyrics with heavy loud pop rock. It's also quite good. You can download it from the Epitonic site and check it out yourself.

These songs were released on Model for a Monument but that's as out of print as is this 7" so good luck (see Gemm link above). They do have other CDs still in print (see their Myspace, um, space).

SONG:
"Trash Park" - Haywood

Tell me what you think? Super lame as in let's bury these guys or where's the Haywood reunion gig? As you can tell, I'm somewhat in the middle - if I find Model for a Monument in a used bin for a decent price, I might splurge but not so interested in their latter stuff.

A Sort of Opposing View Point: Mark from Music for Robots hearts Haywood including the latter stuff that I have so casually and ignorantly dismissed - he loves them so much he put them on his first compilation. Yay, Mark.

Super Cool Bonus Link: Two Haywood members (Rob Viola and Ted Pauley, I think) and their Brooklyn pals have their own MP3 blog - Two Pounds and a 1/2 Pounds of Bacon.

It's sort of like a Vinyl Mine for '90s music (except with the lower standards one one needs to enjoy most 90's music - remember during most Democratic administrations: music bad, movies good and during Republican administrations: music good, movies bad). I'm just hurt they haven't blogrolled me - bastids. It only took me 14 years to review this promo, ha ha ha.