Sugarsmack-- Tank Top City

(Sire 31007)

I will be the first and last person to tell you that I have never had an, er, sexy dream in my life. It's 'cause I get all the hot brainy lookers in real life. 'S'true. Just take a gander at my prom pictures if you don't believe me.

But, man, somebody who I have always wanted to make a guest appearance in my nicest dreams is Hope Nichols, lead vocalist for Sugarsmack, and I've been doing it for twelve years ever since I heard her sing for Fetchin' Bones. Because she could always sound like the confiding lover, the raging psycho-hose beast, the three-drink wind-er-up and let-er-go instant party girl, the plain-but-funny girl who (oh Hell, I was lying about the prom before) you always really wanted to ask to prom but you sensed that anything but a total autistic would snub you dead so you stayed at home and played Axis and Allies on the Big Night. And those are the four suburban-white boy Jungian archetypes in my indie rock palette (don't even ask about the male versions). And she has 'em down in spades, with a band versatile enough to keep up. You got a song like "Carter" (oh yeah, half the songs are named after presidents for absolutely no reason, and that's an Archetype #4 kind of thing to do) which is a little throwaway about a lawn gnome getting stolen where she thanks "our hometown newspaper, The Charlotte Observer" for telling 'em about the situation, and you got an arena-rock revenge fantasy called "Rush" which may or may not be addressed to King Ditto, ending with much funny cussing rantage.

And pretty much everything in between, with a sense of humor and really a sense of the absurdity of cock-rock, which a lot of this is. Fuck it. If it sucked I'd called it dilletantism but in this case I just gotta call it something for the many soundtrack moments for what I referred to earlier as my nicest dreams. Which, I need not remind you, I never (or rarely) have.

T.Magill