| Everything Was Beautiful And Nothing Hurt | 1990 |
| Dad | 1991 |
| Love Gift | 1992 |
I don't really know what 'art-punk' is, or even if Breakfast With Amy qualify for the title. I really dislike The Fall, and they're supposedly art-punk, whereas on the other hand I can find a LOT to like in Breakfast With Amy. BWA were a semi-Christian (which is to say that they had no trouble performing a gospel sounding punk tune, but they never got very preachy, at least not on the debut) outfit out from California, who stepped up, released a couple albums, then broke up. These remained completely unavailable on the market until as rerelease in the late 90s. Now they're still extremely hard to find, but hey, I suppose you can't ask for everything. According to AMG the album Love Gift followed in 1992, but I saw no mention of it on their web site.
--Robert Grazer
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COMMENTS
Hi Bob Grazer,
Mr. Rhumba here x-manager, babysitter and Bwamy hanger-on. I think you really underrate DAD but that is your bizness.
Henrietta is really meaningful if you knew how it was recorded and what it was about. Chris and Dave constantly fought. Dave knew we booked the studio for a certain time. Dave got there and had nothing ready. Chris played back a ruff track that had been being worked on and made Dave read/yell the only stuff he had written. It happened to be a poem about CS Lewis. So there it is. You may be the only person other than Chris, Dave and Me that know :-)
You are right about You and Mermelstein. The latter being the greatest piece about xian sloganism ever. Anyway, nice page and your call on reviews...its your page right!
Oh and remember that Everything... is really 2 Demo tapes. They are sequenced backwards on the CD. Funeral to SS is the 1987 demo tape and Icky to Edd was the tape recorded at the legendary Casbah studios (of Social D fame)... The Early tape is my fave. Far better, more Echo and the Bmen in sound...
And YES Love Gift does exist in at least 2 forms. I'll tell you the story someday, if you want.
There is also a LIVE Bwamy album called Live at the hawleywould bowl. It is great if you ever saw them live. It mirrors the poor performances and bad sound perfectly! I frankly love it but most reviews bitch about how "tinny" it sounds and how "bad" the band performances are. Both of descriptions fit very well and typify the truth about the group.
They were around from 1986 to 1992. Chris is in LA/OC CA area somewhere. Caryn is in Nashville (they divorced about 7 years ago). Dave is in Fullerton CA. Bob is in Nashville and Paul is somewhere in LA, CA too.
I am a reference librarian in Corvallis Oregon.
Enuff yakin, have fun and eat more cheeze weenies.
mr_r
(reviewed by Robert Grazer)
HIGH POINTS: Cavewoman, Abandoned Houses, Icky, Ferris Wheel, This Train, Power, Social Studies, Funeral. LOW POINTS: None.
Well now, how's this? My new #2 favorite punk album. On a good day I'd say it's even better than my beloved Unknown Road. That is if you want to call this punk. Certainly it's more punk than, say, London Calling, since the theme and punk attitude runs (to some extent) through most of the songs here. But it's hard for me to label as punk an album that's so damn diverse. From the ten songs here you'll find six or seven different styles explored, and even if at heart it's still punk, I haven't heard too many albums like this. The real trick is that, no matter what the band sets out to do, no matter what they're trying out in whatever way, they manage to succeed.
Interesting story behind how I actually discovered this release. Well, not really interesting, but it's worth telling anyway. It was actually back when Napster was still big. I'd slowly realized that I could find all sorts of really really obscure songs that I hadn't heard in years and, if memory served correctly they were pretty damn good. Then one day the line "There's a lady that lives on a hill" comes parading back into my mind so, hey, that was Breakfast With Amy, right? "Cavewoman"? I found it odd, since I'd probably only heard the song once or twice before. I actually never found it on Napster, and had to wait a long time before it was available on Audiogalaxy, but I got it. And oh, man.
How is this "Cavewoman" song? It's far from anything having to do with punk rock at all, and I would've doubted that a punk band could pull out such an amazing work of art. It begins beautifully and works on through to an acoustic guitar solo in the middle which is, quite frankly, one of the best guitar solos I've ever heard in my life. And it doesn't stop there. The acoustic guitar backs the electric riff and vocals throughout the entire song, but the sad lines during the final verse actually sound like tears falling, and the final pleas of "Won't you come out?" leading into the fade out are truly something to be impressed by. One of the best songs of the 90s, without a doubt.
So you have to try to understand my shock when I put on the rest of the album and discovered how much of a punk release it really is. Not really through the first half of the album, though. We open with "Icky", taking it back to the 50s, or so they say. A strong opener, it foreshadows the all around eccentric and insane qualities to be found all over this album. "Power" clocks in as a hard rock tune, with a great riff in a classic hard rock style, while "This Train" is the gospel/spiritual-style song I was referring to in the intro. Certainly one of the most interesting songs I've heard in awhile, I can see it both being sung in a Southern Gospel church and rocking out in a punk show. Rounding off the first half is the biggest taste of punk, though, with "Mr. Ed" which is one of the best 'fun' tunes I've ever heard. Especially with that line about having a good steak, or something.
The second half of the album is no slouch, with highlights like "Ferris Wheel", which builds around a moody, almost Floydian build up to some a tense chorus, with some impressive guitar work as well. "Abandoned Houses", though, is probably my second favorite song on the album. It's dark, almost gothic, with a guitar line that sounds almost U2-esque. A haunting refrain finishes off the song with "the outside... the outside..." A fine little gem there. The almost hardcore punk of "Social Studies" pounds away, closing the album in the same way it began: showing the listener that with a work like this, you shouldn't try to guess what's coming next, because it probably isn't what you're going to expect.
And what an album this is. It's a hugely entertaining work, ranging from powerfully moving to light-hearted fun to serious aggression to flat out silliness. It's impressive to see a band do this so successfully, blend several different syles effortlessly and still sound unpretentious and punk-like. And while eventually their sense of experimentation and diversity would replace their actual musical quality, on Everything Was Beautiful And Nothing Hurt the band is comfortable, enjoying themselves, and making great music. I couldn't really ask for them to do more.
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(reviewed by Robert Grazer)
HIGH POINTS: Mermelstein and the Disappearing Sink, Your Name. LOW POINTS: Tell Mama, Come On, Joan, The Short, Happy Life of Henrietta.
Even crazier than before, in some ways, as they're now branching out to just as many syles and even hitting into some sound collages and such things, but somehow I'm MUCH less thrilled by Dad than I was before. In places it sounds forced. I dunno. It doesn't have this nonstop energy mixed in with endless ideas that the last album had, and too many songs just sort of sit on a mediocre level, a few highlights and a couple pieces of shit here and there. Which make it an extremely boring album to type up a review for, but what the hell. As long as I don't have to mention the filler like "Sea Shanty of an Icelandic Midwife" (which is actually kinda interesting on first listen only) and such or listen to some of the lesser tracks on here, I think I'll be alright.
First the bad news. Everything Is Beautiful And Nothing Hurt went out with a bang of energy in "Social Studies", but "Come On, Joan" really does little for me at all, drifting far too close to generic punk for my liking, complete with a dull riff and forgettable lyrics. "The Short, Happy Life of Henrietta" starts out good enough, slow acoustic strumming set behind a spoken rant about how singing about pain and troubles is really pointless and how it would be better if he could sing about trees. Unfortunately after that it ends up as a set of pointless screaming that drags on and on. "Tell Mama" is the worst offender here, the only track I'd label as truly awful, trying to recapture the sing-along style of "This Train", but not even coming close, turning into a really annoying tune.
For some brighter news, "You" is a pretty catchy tune, recapturing some of the truly tense moments of the debut without finding itself too serious. The experiment of "Mermelstein and the Disappearing Sink" is a huge success, though, the strongest moment on the album. A really distorted guitar and some backing percussion are the only musical instruments in use, as the spotlight of the song is taken by a collage of three or four different conversations. If you pay attention to the actual dialogue too much, you'll find that it is a bit preachy by BWA standards, but even the one where the guy just reads off Christian bumper stickers ("Heavenly Metal", "Christians Aren't Perfect, Just Forgiven", "No 666" etc.) stands as quite entertaining. "Your Name" is Breakfast With Amy's "Within You, Without You", more shoegazer-styled, but still with those "WYWY" eastern sort of drum beats. And it still sounds like its own song, and not like a derivative bore.
"You're Soaking In It" is knda mediocre until it hits the "Have you listened to a word I've said?" section, which has a fine vocal melody to hold it up. It's a fantastic moment, and there aren't that many moments here I'd call fantastic. I'm not even sure what happened to the band. AMG lists a favorable review for this, so maybe there isn't much of a 'problem' at all. I personally would have hoped for a better follow-up to one of the best punk albums ever than this, which isn't bad by any means, but certainly a huge disappointment to such a promising debut.
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