what's invisible trips me up

They live!

Great news today from the official site. After a disquieting post-election silence, the Sisters announce that they are alive and active, they've been writing a bunch of new songs, and they will soon be recording a full-length album, to be released by those discerning folks at American Laundromat.

And they'll be playing a show April 8 at Pianos. Come one, come all.

Speaking of the Laundromat, change of plans on that Eighties tribute album. The Go-Gos song is gone-gone, and instead the Sisters will be covering The Smiths' "Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want." Good call, I say. Although I had been interested in hearing the Caulfieldized version of "We Got the Beat" (complete with accordion feedback), I think The Smiths' darkness fits better with what the Sisters are all about. Plus, I cringed at the thought of every snarky third-rate music writer forever tagging them with the nickname "Go-Gos cover band."

It looks like the Sisters initiated the switch. American Laundromat honcho Joe says:

Actually The Caulfield Sisters asked if they could cover The Smith's song instead of the Go Go's tune. I liked their choice a lot so we're going with it.

Anyway, the official site so seldom has anything new from the Sisters, so let's quote their latest missive in its entirety:

GREETINGS DARLING PEOPLE

Oh, it’s been a long time since we said a little electronic “hello” but the forces of evil have had control over our website password…we suspect the Bush Administration.
Lots of good things are happening in Caulfield land. Our EP “Say It With Fire” has been getting some sweet reviews and we couldn’t be happier (see press). We are also pleased and proud to announce that American Laundromat Records will be selling our EP online at www.americanlaundromatrecords.com. THANK YOU JOE and SEAN!!

We will also be appearing on the American Laundromat Release, “High School Reunion”, a compilation featuring songs from all those 80’s movie we know and love like “Pretty in Pink”, “The Breakfast Club” and “Repo Man” to name a few. We will be tackling “Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want” by The Smiths. Look for it in September. The one and only Miss Kristin Hersh will be contributing a track along with others and we couldn’t be prouder to be in the company of the likes of such amazing artists.

We took a little break from live shows over the past few months to do some writing. We are going to start work on a full-length record next month and hope to have it completed by the Summer 05. American Laundromat Records will be releasing it.

Look for us live April 8th at Pianos with Loaded Dreams and Mercury Stars.

We missed you…

Cindy, Mary and Kristin

Same here. Welcome back!

never, ever the avon lady at your door

Is this, yikes, the beginning of a groundswell? Whatever it is, American Laundromat Records are not only putting the Sisters on their Eighties covers album but also suddenly promoting the shit out of Say It With Fire, and selling it on their site with a special page loaded with critical praise and some cool Jasper shots.

Somebody from pixiesmusic.com is co-sponsoring this effort, and a Pixies-ish-like theme pervades the rhetoric here:

"We just fell in love with The Caulfield Sisters and had to work with them. It was like the first time I heard The Pixies, I was totally hooked." says Joe Spadaro, ALR founder.

I can relate, since the first time I saw Cindy perform (in a very nascent Pee Shy) I felt like I was witnessing R.E.M. playing their first-ever show. Not that I'd been there and could definitively compare the two, but it just seemed obvious that something brilliant was in the offing. (And not to be negative, but aren't the Caulfield Sisters a lot more interesting than the Pixies ever were? I mean, did the Pixies ever do accordion feedback? I don't think so!)

Also:

Fans of Galaxie 500, The Breeders, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and Throwing Muses will LOVE this band.

Along with all sentient producers of carbon dioxide, I'd dare add.

Anyway, bravo to all concerned. American Laundromat can toss me in the spin cycle with their leftover socks any fucking time they want. (And kudos, incidentally, for promoting the use of water-conserving frontloading washers.)

P.S. Speaking of the Eighties album, doesn't the old Pee Shy song "Red Tide" sound a little bit like the Go-Gos' "We Got the Beat"? Maybe the Sisters can sneak in the line: Dead fish laying on the beach! Dead fish laying on the beach!

P.P.S. By the way, it just occurred to me that the Sisters are approaching, or may have passed, their fifth anniversary as a band. Believe it or not, it means they'll soon have been around longer than Pee Shy was alive. Congratulations.

"A quick update. Three Wheeler lasted about a year and now that is over too, but Mary and Cindy have form a new group called 'the Caulfeild Sisters'. We will be playing in New York sometime in March and doing a very small tour in April (Richmond, Athens, New Orleans) maybe some more dates are possible. ... That is all for now Cindy"
2/22/2000 on imusic.com

you can tow my car away

Some music fans from the Great White North caught the Sisters at CMJ back in October and wrote this review (accurate except for the confusion of Tampa with Miami -- then again, how many of us U.S. folks could tell Edmonton from Winnipeg without help?). It's good to see the enchantment spreading across North America.

This New York trio’s slow-burning indie rock tunes seemed to levitate, like slimmed down versions of decade-old 4AD records by Lush, the Throwing Muses, Belly and the Breeders, contemporaries of singer/ guitarist/ accordionist Cindy Wheeler and bassist/backup singer Mary Guidera’s old Miami-based band, Pee Shy. Guidera joked, "we just wanted to see if you were high" after Wheeler hammered away at her guitar throughout a spacey epic called "Box of Glass," the climax of an increasingly effective set. LC

By the way, I feel remiss for not immediately recognizing that the Paolo who commented so kindly on one of my earlier posts is the same Paolo (a/k/a Mr. Grieves), who did such a fine job producing "Say It With Fire." It's an honor, sir. He's also got a band called Codachrome -- go ahead and check them out, too.

double line means no passing, except

My, isn't the web just filled with love for the Caulfield Sisters these days? Another blogger, an old Pee Shy fan who just found out about the successor group, relates his glorious online encounter with the ever-so-gracious Ms. Wheeler.

Said blogger adds:

I <3 small Indy bands. They treat their fans awesomely.
(And yes... I used to have a slight crush on Mary Guidera... the bassist)

Well, yeah. Who didn't?

not through beauty, but through blood

Some actual Caulfields news today: The Sisters are going to be on a compilation album with the likes of Kristin Hersh, Lori McKenna and one of the Blake Babies. And they'll be performing, believe it not, the Go-Go's song "We Got the Beat" -- though perhaps, in deference to Cindy's poetry background, they should retitle it "We Got the Beats."

While I never in my most twisted, spackle-induced hallucinations thought I'd be using the Caulfield Sisters and the Go-Go's in the same sentence, and I'm a bit lukewarm on the whole unknown-band-covers-someone-else's-hit phenomenon (plus Cindy, Mary and Kristin deserve to be better known for their own stuff; and besides, I always kinda thought "Our Lips Are Sealed" was a better song) this is mighty cool news, if only because it could get Las Hermanas heard by folks who don't live in Williamsburg, don't hang out at Sin-e and never heard of Oneida.

The details, from Billboard:

Kristin Hersh, Lori McKenna, John Strohm (Blake Babies, Antenna) and the Caulfield Sisters are the first artists confirmed to contribute to "High School Reunion." The American Laundromat Records/Face Down Records compilation will pay tribute to the touchstone music featured in a decade of such films as "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," "Pretty in Pink," "Say Anything," "The Breakfast Club" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," among others.

... Strohm and the Caulfield Sisters take on "Fast Times" -related tracks in Jackson Browne's "Somebody's Baby" and the Go-Gos' "We Got the Beat," respectively, while McKenna covers Lloyd Dobbler's "Say Anything" love anthem, Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes."

The full roster for the 17-track set, which Spadaro tells Billboard.com is shaping up to be "most impressive," is expected in April, with the disc's release targeted for Sept. 15.

Ain't it cool how Billboard just throws out the name "the Caulfield Sisters" as if everybody should automatically know who they are? Of course, everybody fucking should.

I expect their version will totally rule. May great things come from this!


further info!

Straight from the source, American Laundromat Records says this about the project (and also releases the complete list of songs being covered -- yay, that includes a Replacements song):

ALR founder and president, Joe Spadaro says… "I was very fortunate to grow up in the 80’s. There were many important films that spoke to me as a teenager and I wanted to tribute those films as a small thank you. It was essential for us to only approach artists that grew up during this time, artists who had similar connections to the films and songs, and who would enjoy being a part of the tribute with little concern of who else was on it."

The ending of that last sentence is kinda snarky, isn't it?

Joe adds:

Well it all started when my good friend, and well-respected forum member Atomic Doug suggested "High School Reunion" for the title of our John Hughes Tribute CD. It immediately struck me how cool it would be to broaden the tribute record to include films like Valley Girl, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and Say Anything. There are some amazing songs in those films.

And someone named Fiona is already kicking off the Caulfields-mania:

Good job on getting the Caulfield Sisters for the tribute. Not only do they have the coolest band name ever' (Catcher In The Rye is a favorite of mine). They write great songs.

American Laundromat is from New York. Face Down Records, which is from Burlington, New Jersey, has this to say:

Contributing artists include Kristen Hersh (!), The Bennies, the Dipsomaniacs, Blank Pages, and many ,many more to be announced soon.

Face Down says it's also done Who and Replacements tribute albums (the former included Guided by Voices doing, whoa, "Baba O'Riley"), and it seems to have some affiliation with Philadelphia '80s rock guy Tommy Conwell. Also its releases are available on iTunes -- which means it's just a matter of time before the Caulfield Sisters are rocking iPods across America.

OK, I'll shut up now.

"the next big pop movement will not involve accordions"

The New York Times, Sunday, 2/6/2005

sounds to me like you're calling your dog

OK, now that my digression with the rest of the East Seventh Avenue Diaspora is done with, I'd really like to give a big old Caulfields Blog thumbs-up to that Deli interview with Cindy -- easily the best article about her that I've ever read (sadly, there have been too few, although here's an older one that turned out pretty OK).

Among other relevations, Cindy talks about:

1) the meaning of "Phoebe's Song," especially the line "erase profanity's trace" (I swear, I had thought she was doing some stilted pronunciation of "the faintest trace"), and the role that The Catcher in the Rye played in forming her early imaginings about the Northeast;

2) what prompted her to write the song "Cash" (which I never would have guessed is about Johnny and June Cash -- d'oh!);

3) and the absolute, gobsmack-me-with-a-2-by-4 insanity of Polygram signing Pee Shy within a year of them recording their first $1-a-copy demo tape ("Are you you insane?! Are you crazy?! I mean, c'mon it was hilarious. It was like: joke's on you.") Though I suspect that the spread on them in Interview magazine probly had something to do with it. Plus they did rock.

4) also, the answer to that bizarre Robert Altman mystery, which had perplexed me ever since I'd read that his ballet movie The Company was going to have "Mr. Whisper" in the soundtrack. Now I'm very glad I didn't run out to see the movie just to hear seven seconds of one song ... but man, the stupidity of Universal in not letting Altman use it, even after Cindy had forfeited her fee. Grrrrrrr. (Coolest line in the whole article: "I don't care: Robert Altman actually listened to one of my songs!!")

5) plus stuff I hadn't even guessed, like her working in the amusement park at Opryland one summer.

But my absolute, absolute, absolute favorite part of this was Cindy's explanation for the most inexplicable lie in the history of Pee Shy's short but glorious career -- the falsehood, printed in endless college newspapers, zines and websites, that Cindy was a national poetry slam champion. Yes, she's a wonderful poet. Yes, she brought the slams to Tampa. Yes, she competed in the 1993 national slams in San Francisco (and, if I recall correctly, rather charmingly forgot the words in the middle of "I Wanted to Go Out Dancing But the Music Was Lame"). But I couldn't imagine the women just deciding to make shit up like that.

So it's a great relief to find out that the culprit was, yes, the record company. And that Cindy tried to put a stop to it. And then the company tried claiming that Pee Shy had played the second stage at Lollapalooza? Strange.

(Now can somebody please track down that marketing genius who came up with the phrase "thinking woman's favorite"? As if Pee Shy were the musical equivalent of The Bell Jar, or Four Weddings and a Funeral, or something?)

Anyway, I don't want to ruin the rest of the story for y'all. But Cindy's very funny, very real, very down-to-earth about her own foibles and those of that wacky rock 'n' roll world of hers. Enjoy!


P.S. Yeah, that Eagles thing didn't work out too well. But Andy, Donovan, T.O. and the gang will be back!

yeehaw junction. where nothing is. and everything is.

Well, I just went to Tampa and Came The Freak On. Whew!

The executive summary: Giants still walk the fucking earth.

Bound, Jarvic 7 and Baby Robots were mesmerizing. Dumbwaiters and Home rocked the house, hard. (Is it possible for human hands to move so fast, so blur-inducingly, for so long as the 'waiters did in their final song? And whatever happened to the plowing-new-fields-of-subtlety version of Home that I last saw opening for Yo La Tengo in '96? Did my knees used to ache like this after pogoing?) The Errant Strike (whose name I misheard as "Eric's Tripe," thinking it was some sort of self-disparaging Sonic Youth parody) rustled sonic curtains you could get lost in for days. The Unrequited Loves continued Mike O'Neill's tradition of serving up heartache, cold, in that slightly-darker-than-early-R.E.M. fashion he's turned into an art form.

The rest of the bands offered various flavors of amazingness, including -- most relevantly to this blog's purposes, perhaps -- Leels' use of the clarinet talents of that notable non-Caulfield-esque Pee Shy exile, Jenny J. Morrison.

Jenny didn't divebomb w/ the woodwind quite as much as she was wont to do with the 'Shy, and there wasn't an accordion in sight, but she brought so much of her old vibe to the task (constantly interrupting her playing to sing, laugh, add to the general atmosphere of artistic merriment) that it was like '98 never vanished. (Hey, anyone know if anything's gonna happen with that Lewinsky thing?) If nothing else, her performance was a wonderful argument for suburban momhood as a method of keeping the artistic instincts sharpened.

Nor did Jenny play anything she's written, so it wasn't an occasion for comparing notes on what she and Cindy have been up to during their musical schism. Then again, the Caulfield Sisters show no signs of venturing south of the Mason-Dixon line anytime soon (or, hell, even the Rudy-Hillary line), so it would have been a one-sided comparison anyway.

In any case, this wasn't the nostalgia trip I thought it might turn out to be, despite the Brigadoon-like convergence of the old Ybor scene that turned the New World Brewery, just for one night, into a reassembled version of the Blue Chair or Stone Lounge circa 1994 -- complete with Jenny hosting "After the Polka" on Saturday afternoon(!!!!). Nobody's been trapped in amber for the past decade. These folks have all kept growing; Home, if anything, seemed sharper and more energetic than I remember them being. (A highlight, for me, was hearing "Underwater" and "Forgiveness," two songs that had been on auto-repeat in my brain since '97 but which I had not, until last night, heard live. "Reprint Day" was great, as always, despite the avalanche of sound that buried the vocals beyond recovery.)

I arrived just in time to hear the Unrequited Loves start up a little after 7 (bonus points to Stefanie Kalem for disconnecting their power supply while writhing on the floor with her camera). The next seven hours just flew. The evening was a much-needed sonic power-vac'ing of mental cobwebs, and (or so I thought after my sixth Bass) a highpoint of this so far lame-ass 21st century. Well worth a 416-mile round trip and 2.5 hours sleeping in my car on the way back at the Fort Drum Service Plaza on Florida's Turnpike. Though that persistent ringing in my ear is a bit worrisome.

I also grabbed me a bunch of Dumbwaiters, Bound, Baby Robots, Unrequited Loves and other assorted musical artifacts for further exploration. So I'm happily rocking along to "The Blowup" as I blog away.

Now, for tonight's agenda: Go Eagles!


P.S. OK, one nagging thought: How is it possible that Baby Robots played for years 30 minutes from my house and yet I was so embarrassingly unfamiliar with them? Have I been snoozing that much?

you were supposed to enjoy it

People at work were writing haikus today for some reason I absolutely do not want to inquire about. Better it is, I think, to revive the three classics that Cindy presented at the Blue Chair haiku slam on November 5, 1994:

Generation X:
If I wanted a label
I'd shop at the Gap

I want a flat chest.
Those old-man white undershirts
look best with no bra

We're in yuppie hell!
Guavaween every weekend.
Ybor City sucks.

A reason to worry?

I just noticed that the Sisters' official web site, besides not having been updated in ages, is now not loading at all. I'm hoping this is just an Internet issue (either w/ my connection or with their hosting service), not a harbinger of doom as it was when Pee Shy's site started going kablooey.

By the way, I spoke too soon when I said the Caulfield Sisters had no blog of their own. It looks like they do, or at least someone has set up a space where they might put one. Mighty cool -- I put it in the quick links to the right for your easy reference. The slogan says it all, don't it?

If you need your ass rocked, we can help.

Good news!

Looks like 'twas only a false alarm and the official site is still up. So visit it early and often. Let's home it has some news soon -- another recording on the way and a passel of live gigs, maybe? When there are tidings to tell, we'll tell them here, too.


Long live Caulfieldom!