It’s been a while since I wrote about a band I got into decades ago that nobody else cares about now. I’ve done Gravitar, Star Pimp, Phleg Camp, Straitjacket Fits, and God Is My Co-Pilot, and today y’all get to hear about Steel Pole Bath Tub.
- “Tear It Apart” might also win some sort of prize for Most Gratuitous Springsteen Reference.
After two more brilliant records, 1991’s Tulip and 1993’s The Miracle of Sound in Motion, Steel Pole Bath Tub signed to Slash (distributed by Warner and Reprise) during the post-Nirvana major-label feeding frenzy. That decision finished them off pretty promptly. They released Scars From Falling Down in 1995 (with almost no samples, at the legal department’s insistence) and then out-Melvinsed the Melvins by informing Slash that their next record would be a cover of the Cars’ first album in its entirety. The label declined to entertain this smart-assery, naturally, but the demos SPBT submitted included three Cars covers anyway, fucked up almost beyond recognition and retitled “What I Need,” “The Good Times,” and “My Best Friend’s a Girl.”
- My description of this short film couldn’t possibly do justice to its final two minutes.
Steel Pole Bath Tub clearly knew Frank Grow. In 1993 one of Morasky and Flattum’s other side projects, Milk Cult, put out an album of ominous junkyard beat-and-sample collages called Love God, which includes “The Original Soundtrack Recording of Frank Grow’s ‘Love God’”—and some of Grow’s storyboards from the still-in-development film appear in the liner notes.
- Apple Music embeds are the best available way to share these albums, and I like both of them enough to tolerate the annoying interface.
The Listener is a weekly sampling of music Reader staffers love. Absolutely anything goes, and you can reach us at thelistener@chicagoreader.com.
