El Moodio is where
I dropped off from Eleventh Dream Day, a harsh sentence considering how fucking
great Beet and Lived To Tell were/are. It was here that Atlantic Records took
their little powerhouse of a band from Chicago
and gave them the royal “fuck you” treatment, but not before giving them one
final glimpse of hope.
That hope came in the form of “demonstrating” to the band
that the major label did want to continue releasing their records. They
did this by suggesting that the band go back and re-record the songs they just
did with producer Brad Wood-this time with a better-known producer and in a
bigger budgeted studio.
The subsequent record was called El Moodio and Atlantic Records celebrated the release of this
record by promptly dropping them from the label.
Then someone on the internets was talking to someone else on
the internets and one of them goes “I wonder whatever happened to that original
version of El Moodio, the one that
was cheaply recorded with Brad Wood one weekend in a rush.
And thus, New Moodio
was born.
New Moodio is
indeed blunter and a bit freer sounding than its more recognized brother, and
by that feat alone should be worthy of at least a half-star improvement over
it.
But the songs or the way they were recorded was never El/New Moodio’s downshift from Lived To Tell.
The issue was the
departure of guitarist Baird Figi, who left the band after the initial
supporting dates for L.T.T.
Quick side note: I met Figi very briefly before an Eleventh
Dream Day show during the Beet tour.
He looked miserable and he excused himself for wearing hearing protection while
I interrogated him under the influence of psilocybin mushrooms. “The amps have
just been killing my ears the last few weeks.” He explained.
A few minutes later, I found out why this band was so
respected on stage, and I discovered the brutal force of the hearing-destroying
capabilities of the Rizzo/Figi guitar exploits.
They are not found on New
Moodio or its predecessor. Instead
of a good rock and roll band with an incredible dual-guitarist attack, Eleventh
Dream Day turned into just another good rock and roll band.
Subsequent albums always suffered from this same
ailment, and not to belabor the point, but Eleventh Dream Day’s twin guitar
assault is the reason why people like me are still trying to get people like
you to pay attention to them.
So if this nicely appointed re-issue of Eleventh Dream Day’s
“lost album” gets you to pay attention for a moment-and then have you consider
any one of their first three (and more superior) records, then New Moodio has made this discovery even
better the second time around.
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