A Minor Forest - So, They Were in Some Sort of Fight?
(My Pal God)
A Minor Forest were 100% pure rock and roll: tuff, heavy, and loud. Sure, they
had quiet bits and moments where they attempted to be melodious, but those
parts really only served as a breather between rock explosions, and to make
said explosions seem even more explosive. They put out one great record,
Flemish Altruism, and one really good record, Inindependence,
both on Thrill Jockey. Plus they put
on a hell of a live show including, if you were lucky, a sloppy version of
Metallica's "Master of Puppets." Sadly, though, A Minor Forest has gone the
way of rock and roll.
This record is a grab bag of half-baked experiments, leftovers, and odds and
ends. When a band dies, the questions is what to do with all of its stuff?
Frequently, the answer is, pack it all up onto one last record and put it out.
The bereaved fans may appreciate this, a sort of obituary and eulogy for the
band (plus a chance to get the songs from all of the limited seven-inches on
micro-indie labels and zine compilations). For everyone else, however,
hearing the post-break up compilation will generally just leave them wondering
what the big deal was all about.
So, They Were in Some Sort of Fight? is no exception to this general
rule. For the diehards, it may be fun to hear what A Minor Forest were like
as they were developing their sound. Or, it may be interesting to hear
embryonic versions of your favorite tracks (the title track is a super lo-fi
version of a song that would later turn up in its completed form on Flemish
Altruism as "So Jesus Was at the Last Supper..."). But for the rest of
the general public, you may want to put this one off until you have fallen in
love with the Thrill Jockey releases.
"Three Long Piles" and 'Fuck the Hours" are songs which would not have been out
of place on Flemish Altruism or Inindependence but are just
generally not up to that same standard. Others like "Wussy" and "Well Swayed"
sound more like ideas that never really went anywhere. But then there are the
tracks like "Putting the Gay Back in Reggae," which despite the fact that it
has the best title of any A Minor Forest song, has value only in the fact that
it was released originally on vinyl with locked grooves--here on cd without the
locked grooves, its just another crappy song recorded on a portable cassette
player. Or ones like "Five Bucks on Pump Number Seven" and "Disco Party" are
nothing more than answering machine recordings and a motivational lecture,
respectively, set to music. (This is without even mentioning the really
gimmicky songs or the rejected score to a straight-to-video zombie nun film.)
Once when I saw A Minor Forest, I was purchasing various 45s that they had for
sale and I inquired about what other releases they had put out. I was informed
that anything not then for sale was out of print and, according to the band,
best left that way. If nothing else, at the very least we can now say that
this is no longer the case.
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