I'm Eric from Truman Peyote. I've been shaped by the music I listen to for way longer than I've been making it and these are some albums that I think had a big role in the way Truman sounds today. Cool.
Hardcore Devo Vol. 1 74-77
I first heard this album driving to pick up my friend’s sister from a bus station in chaotic Bostonian traffic. Scoring honking horns and stop and go SUVs with songs about alienation combined with the destruction of Devo's synths was perfect. These guys reminded me that if you wanted your jams to be fun, you can’t take yourself too seriously. Especially 'cos we're all dumb monkeys hunching over computer screens. There’s nothing quite like a group of geeks rocking out to let you know that there is no cool. Devo is the best, but Devo making a bunch of noise on their own in their basement is better. Pass the ketchup.
Fleetwood Mac, Tusk
Oddly enough, I think that this album had a huge impact on Light-Lightning. There’s no textbook psychedelia or scary echo freakouts but we wanted to rip off every compositional idea of theirs. I used to think Fleetwood was corny but when I paid attention I realized that they’re straight up groovy. And the melodies, oh the melodies. These guys know how to do pop right. We listened to “Sara” in the van a lot. A lot, a lot.
Rene Netherlands, Starship
Gabby Sugrue is a good friend of ours, and though normally people assume that you have a positive bias towards your friends material, everything about this sleepy, stubborn, un-reachable joker is points off. And he’s still the best. When we were stuck on drones and walls of noise Gabby was releasing party jams. Both in terms of recorded material as well as live performance, Gabby/Rene/Guatemala City/Playboy Stunna Productions is constantly setting a bar for the rest of us to meet. Starship was the first release that had live drums on it and in all honesty, we had been anticipating it for years. To say that this album “genre-hops” is inaccurate. It puts everything in a big sandwich that gets jammed in a photocopier and comes out as polyrhythmic booty-shaking thrash. Few bands have tracks that shift as quickly or develop ideas as uniquely as this guy. No amount of cigarettes that this kid owes us can trump the fact that he is the best drummer ever. And he has very soft hands.
Soltero, Defrocked and Kicking the Habit
When I was fourteen someone sent this to me over instant messenger and I’ve been attending the church of Soltero ever since. Soltero was a local songwriter and I’m still not sure how far awareness of his material ever made it but he is one terribly clever motherfucker. Every kid making music in our high school that wasn’t covering Phish’s was trying to sound like him. We were all wondering whether or not we had to shave our teen-staches and this guy had already mastered writing songs about girls and how they won’t like his songs about girls while managing to retain a mild shred of pride. Also, he picks like a champ and has rad feedbacky intros/outros that let you know he would rather sound like Sonic Youth but has nobody to play with. Soltero is great company for days spent in bed.
Runners up: Prince, Purple Rain, Neu!, 4, Misfits box set, Suicide
