| Untitled | 1995 |
Post your comments about Bean Dip
(reviewed by Pat D.)
This is about as low as I can sink as a record reviewer. With almost no money to my name, any new music I have heard recently has been at the expense of the artists who wrote it. Yep, that's right, yours truly has become a Napster whore. So, needless to say, I can't write any reviews of albums since at best I have 2 or 3 songs off of any particular release. So what is an occasional writer to do? Thats right! Go back and write a review of your high school's only decent band. Makes perfect sense doesnt it?
Okay, you will probably never ever see another indie review from me. I'm not very adventurous. You'll never see me in some Greenwich Village record store picking up a disc by some unknown. I simply dont have the money nor the patience to sort through the piles of grade A shit that clutter up those shops. Matter of fact, the only real reason I am reviewing this now is that while cleaning up a corner of my dorm room last week, this relic from the past was discovered.
Now, before I start actually critiquing (some would say I never actually did anything of the sort in any review) let me say this is not as biased as some people might think. First off, I don't have any warm, fuzzy memories of high school that this tape brings forth. High school was pretty much a nightmare for me, so you can count that bias out. Matter of fact, one of the members of this band (Tom Winkelmann, the bassist and vocalist) always had something nasty to say to me. I didnt know the drummer very well, but Rich the guitarist was an ok bloke I guess. Scratch off the second bias.
Actually as I write this, I shouldnt even really like this group very much. The vocalist can vary from ridiculously terrible ("The Last Great Smell on Earth") to merely adequate (most of the other tracks) and very effective ("I Concern Gone Stale"). The lyrics are for the most part unbelivably laughable. And finally, Bean Dip are no virtuosos on there instruments. The drummer, Jared Vergilis seems to have some grasp of technical drumming, but he overplays so much he makes Keith Moon look restrained. Tom the bassist is sloppy, although at no point did he really bother me that much. All i know is that two kids on the bus in other bands said he pretty much sucked. So there you have it. The official criticism of two pothead high schoolers. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. The recording quality is terrible. There is soooo much tape hiss, at some times I seriously think the noise overpowers the music. But, strangely enough, the guitar has a killer abrasive tone, the drums have a powerful crispness, and even Tom's mediocre bass shows up here and there.
So why do I like this tape? Well, Bean Dip make powerful rock tracks that don't sound like any other cliched riff or guitar lick that have been recycled over and over. You know what I'm talking about. The endless non variation of pop rock. Matter of fact, I'd go as far to say that Rich Berta is one of the most creative riff and melody writers in my current catalogue. Yeah, thats right. Even at the sparkling age of 17, the kid was this creative. He gets killer distortion out of his Ibanez (NOT a 7 string you Korn loving freaks) and shows some great leadwork on tracks like "Iniquity", "The Last Great Smell on Earth", "Run From Your Gun", "Voice Says", and "Mood Swing Set" . As for his riff writing, check out the arpeggiated licks in "Voice Says", the wah drenched "Run From Your Gun", the metal chugging of "Iniquity" and the melodic, brilliantly simplistic "Flamon Key" instrumental, and the suspended power chord driven "I Concern gone stale". I really can't say enough about this kid. I really think he was a budding genius of a musician. Rich was easily the reason the band was any good at all. Unless, of course, Tom was much better at writing basslines then he was at playing them.
There is one glaring exception to the "they don't sound like anyone else" statement. "Not At All" is a very poor, blatant ripoff of Stone Temple Pilots' "Plush". But not one of the other tracks sounds remotely like anything I have ever heard before. Rich even uses either a violin bow (ala Jimmy Page) or some kind of weird effects processor for the first solo on "I Concern Gone Stale", which creates an atmospheric, strange, transical (is that a word?), ambience to an already excellent track.
Where can you buy this? Well, you are pretty much out of luck if you dont live in Westchester County, New York. The band never got a record contract and only distributed the album to a few record stores throughout the county. I don't even know if they still exist. A few years ago, I heard that Bean Dip added two Philips (Aceto and Nouveon) on guitars, relegated the excellent Rich Berta to the bass guitar, and renamed themselves "The Monks Of Whack". I haven't seen an album or heard of them since. Take that as you will. However, if you do come across this album in some record store in NY, I highly recommend you pick it up. If nothing else, it will be a break from "spinnin those fresh rhymes" in your pimped out Civic for 40 minutes.
Post your comments / reviews for this album
COMMENTS
hey what's up.....If your looking for more hot licks from Rich Berta go to Homesickforspace.com...You'll like what you hear. Oh well the drummers new band (jared) is called left of center....look out for them too.
Bean Dip Rule
Enough said, who are you anyway>??
Index | Main band/artist reviews page