Aquarium Drunkard Presents: Gish - 20th Anniversary

Last fall marked the 20th anniversary of Nirvana’s Nevermind. As watershed moments in music history go it was surely one well worth noting. But in terms of my own continued enjoyment of the record, not so much. But I did like the idea – the idea of reflecting on a big album by a big band (read: ‘zeitgeist significant’) that was released during my teenage years and was also turning twenty. And what bigger band than that of the alt.rock zenith that was Smashing Pumpkins? As coincidence would have it I had just recently dusted off group’s debut, Gish , probably for the first time since high school, and, unlike Nevermind, found it surprisingly enjoyable, bombast and all.

I originally came across Gish, the old fashioned way — through a trade, a trade I made twenty years ago with my best friend at the time. The deal, conducted at one of our lockers after school, was an exchange of cassettes; my copy of Nine Inch Nails Pretty Hate Machine for his newly acquired Gish. This was the early Fall of 1991 in a leafy suburb of Atlanta, GA.  It’s important to remember that by ’91, ‘alternative rock’ – in all its various forms and machinations – was no longer bubbling towards the surface, it was overflowing. That summer had just witnessed the launch of the inaugural Lollapalooza tour which was how many of my friends and I first heard hallowed names like “Henry Rollins” and the aforementioned Nine Inch Nails. Much later I would learn that a group of documentary filmmakers declared this as “the year punk broke.” And while I didn’t know anything about that, I was keenly aware that there was something in there air. **It was undeniable.

Unlike the hoopla that surrounded the twentieth anniversary of Nirvana’s Nevermind, revisiting Gish today still sounds as good as it did two decades ago piping out of the shitty tape deck of my first car. And I say this though I’m keenly aware that I’ve got the heaviest of blinders on, as when I press play the music is bathed in pure, unadulterated, unrepentant teenage nostalgia. That opening bassline to "Rhinoceros"? Yeah, that’s my friends and I smoking Camel lights, stoned, laying on the roof at 2am with a speaker precariously wedged in the windowsill. "Crush” reminds me of (redacted). And that’s the thing…I really have no critical perspective of this album. None. It’s all tied to the past, gooey and bittersweet. It is full of ghosts and in its own damaged way it is perfect. There is something rare (and magical) in that.

I remember thinking there was something spooky and kind of witchy about Gish — mysterious. Certainly not goth, but something. Who were these guys? What’s happening on the album cover? Who was D’arcy?? This was pre-Internet, we often had fill in the blanks. All this was of course aided by the video for “Siva,” which came off as darkly psychedelic. Shot in a dimly lit space, it consisted of the band thrashing about amidst scattered images of bone, glyphs, candles, pagan ephemera and death masks. Consisting of varying degrees of psychedelia and heavy stoner-rock (with vaguely metal undertones left over from the previous decade) Gish was a heady brew. I was into it. But it wasn’t to last – the band (Corgan) would abandon this sound almost immediately afterwards.

In retrospect my relationship with band was a relatively short one. But time is malleable, it’s different when you’re a teenager. When I was in it, I was in it. Hooked at Gish, I sought out the Lull ep on cassette after hearing “Blue,” bought the “Cherub Rock” single at Wuxtry Records in Decatur and Siamese Dream on CD the summer before my senior year of high school. After that? I was done. The records that followed Siamese Dream might be amazing, but I couldn’t tell you. I’ve never heard them. – AD

**Underground culture, or whatever you want to call it, was very different back then. It was word of mouth.  For example, one of the ways I used to discover new bands at 15/16 was this: I would mentally take notes of the various band names strewn across the t-shirts of our high school’s more “interesting” (to me anyway) upper classmen. It was a system, a rough system, sure, but it worked. Thinking back, I would say there are about 6 guys whose choice of t-shirts unknowingly shaped what I was was seeking out during weekend trips to the, then, newly opened Criminal Records in the Little Five Points neighborhood of Atlanta. Off the top of my head those t-shirts led to my seeking out: Government Issue, Sonic Youth, Butthole Surfers, The Jesus Lizard, Rapeman, Urge Overkill, Slint, Steel Pole Bathtub and Dinosaur Jr. All of which immediately rendered 90% of what I had been listening to prior obsolete, save the Pixies and a few other bands in my collection I deemed ‘worthy.’ It was also in the Fall of 1991 that I discovered a band that would change how I both listened to and thought about music, Fugazi. But that’s a tale for another time.

ABOUT AQUARIUM DRUNKARD

Based in Los Angeles, Justin Gage is the founder of the long-running, eclectic music blog aquariumdrunkard.com. In addition to the blog you can catch his weekly radio show, Fridays, on SIRIUS XMU satellite radio - noon-2pm EST.

Gage is also the founder of Autumn Tone Records and works as a music consultant and supervisor.

twitter:@aquadrunkard