As an album, We Have The Technology seems to continue on from the other albums in forever bouncing between pop, surf, stoner, country and rock. The problem is that at times there were just too many flavours on the plate, balancing between genius, chaos and who cares. Although each track seems to make its own statement in themselves – a change from some of their earlier tracks – they feel like they are contrasted with how they are organised on the album. For example, ‘Scared of Skills’ gives the impression of a rock album, only to pivot to ‘Memory Man’, then quickly followed by ‘Very Biased’. It plays like a child with ADHD ready for their Ritalin.
It is interesting listening and hearing various sounds. At times, I feel like there are similarities to say Blur and their jangly pop. However, I have gone and listened to Pavement’s Wowee Zowee and can hear some of the influences. (Growing up in an era before streaming, it is interesting how some bands simply escaped your radar.) What I feel is probably the case is that I am missing the albums that influenced both bands and albums. Maybe I need to go and listen to Captain Beefheart maybe? Or Jonathan Richman? (Interestingly, in a recent interview for a book on the Velvet Underground, Dylan Jones suggested that Jonathan Richman has been largely forgotten. I would agree with this, until The Go-Betweens, I had not even heard of him.)
I have been left thinking that maybe the best way to describe Custard is ‘seriously silly’. Whimsical songs about guitar cases, alien’s thoughts on music and long roads leading to drugs all seem rather silly, but then I was left wondering if they were any more ridiculous than some songs written using cut up poetry or even say something like Powderfinger’s Double Allergic, another ‘Brisbane’ album released at roughly the same time. I think that Andrew Stafford captures this period best in Pig City with the quote that the band had possibly ‘disappeared up its own arse’:
We Have The Technology caught McCormack in an ornery mood. Heavily under the influence of Pavement’s Wowee Zowee, also made at Easley Studios, McCormack’s songs were growing ever more tangential and self-referential. And consequently, the music – as a review of another Brisbane band had earlier suggested – ‘disappeared up its own arse’.
David McCormack: I remember Eric Drew Feldman sitting me down in some diner saying, ‘Look, you’ve got to have a radio single, you’ve just got to have one . . . Go as crazy as you want, but you need three or four radio songs so the band can keep going, you can’t just ignore that stuff,’ and he was right. But I was just like, ‘No, man, we’re fucking artists!’ It’s maturity . . . If I could go back, there would be a lot of decisions I would make differently.
The release of Thompson’s Music Is Crap as a single in February 1998 painted the band into a corner.
Source: Pig City by Andrew Stafford
Although the same could be said about Powderfinger, at least they provided ‘Pick You Up’ as a somewhat accessible single. Yes ‘Anatomically Correct’ and ‘Nice Bird’ come close to this, but their feels like a refusal to play by the rules as personified by ‘Music is Crap’.
What remains is a certain catchiness that pervades throughout. I was watching Dylan Lewis’ interview with McCormack on Recovery in which McCormack was questioned about being perfectionists. It is interesting to consider the idea of silly music being perfect is sometimes lost, but after a few listens everything feels intentional. (I have had a similar thought listening to TISM.) For example, they never really drag out songs and the only one that they do on We Have the Technology is ‘Very Biased’, when it drifts off into a dream-like state. After listening through a few times, I found that the various hooks and melodies really sink in, often leaving me unintentionally tapping or humming along. Also, thinking about it now, I probably could have covered all the criteria for my group performance playing Custard songs.
Marginalia
Track listing
1. “Scared Of Skill” 1:25 – dirty distorted pop rock
2. “Memory Man” 1:25 – surf Rock instrumental. Same length as the first track. Feels like a statement. This is going to be another ride.
3. “Very Biased” 2:33 – back to rocking out again. Only to then washout like a lingering dream outro.
4. “Anatomically Correct” 2:43 – pop rock, reminds me of blur.
5. “Hello Machine” 2:46 – steel string slide back. I am reminded a little of Gomez, but wonder if one of the things about Custard is that not only do they never seem to settle, but their mix of sounds and genres within the one album is so novel.
6. “Totally Confused” 3:14 – slowed right down and stripped back, with rich harmonies in the chorus.
7. “Piece of Shit” 2:29 – bouncing vibe reminds me of Parklife.
8. “Pinball Lez” 2:22
9. “Sons and Daughters” 2:49
10. “Nice Bird” 3:01 – starts out like a Pixies track
11. “No Rock and Roll Record” 2:49 – self-referential song about being failed artist
12. “Sinatra Theory” 2:54 – the angular meets thr melodic
13. “Schtum” 3:50 – slide guitar back
14. “The Truth About Drugs” 2:39 – this is called the truth about drugs, that maybe that life is boring and mundane.
15. “Music Is Crap” 3:08 – quirky silliness takes everyone down
16. “The Drum” 3:43
17. “Eight Years of Rock and Roll Has Completely Destroyed My Memory*”