CD Odyssey Disc 1240: Cub

After a busy day of work, I had a nice start to my evening with dinner out with my lovely wife! We were complimented on our style by a fellow restaurant patron. This was very cool, but if you want to read about clothes you’ll have to go check out her awesome blog. Over here, we talk about music!

Disc 1240 is… Betti-Cola

Artist: Cub

Year of Release: 1993

What’s up with the Cover? The band, drawn in Archie comics style. I have no goofy jokes about this cover – it just makes me happy.

How I Came to Know It: I am a big Neko Case fan and knew that early in her career she played in a band called Cub. I saw this album in the “miscellaneous C section at the store and took a chance it was the record with Case on it. It was! She doesn’t play on all the tracks, but she’s on a few and the other drummer (Valeria Fellini) is great!

How It Stacks Up:  I only have this one Cub album, but I am now on the lookout for more.

Ratings:  3 stars

I purchased “Betti-Cola” unheard on a whim and ended up with an unexpected delight. This record is fast, breezy fun performed by three women (and a few guest musicians) whose carefree love of music shines through on every track.

The music is a mix of sixties pop, nineties alternative and surfer rock. They songs have a punk rawness to them but are wrapped in a sweetness that evokes summer days at the beach and dance parties. The songs are as simple as pop music gets. Most have an A section, a B section and not much more. Rarely there is a chorus and as for a bridge or a guitar solo? Almost never.

There is a lot of bass, however. It is a rare day that I listen to an album and think “my – that bass guitar is sure forward in the mix” but that’s what happens here. It is a good move, as bassist/vocalist Lisa Marr is the star of the show. Her basslines are what drives these stripped-down pop ditties, and her upbeat high school musical vocals (suitably darkened by their mature topics) are the perfect pairing for it.

As for production, the record sounds like it was recorded in a soggy cardboard box. Ordinarily this would bother me, and I’ll admit that I did keep turning it up looking for sound separation that never revealed itself. For all that, I didn’t mind so much. The songs are so stripped down that the raw organic format suits them.

And man, are there a lot of songs on this record. 25 in fact. This would ordinarily be a serious violation of my “14 songs maximum” policy but Cub is the exception that proves the rule. These songs are short. Only two of them exceed three minutes and most are under two. The whole record is only 48 minutes long and time flies by. On each one Cub gets into the tune, develops it, and finishes it off. No wasted verses, no wasted chorus (if there even is one).  There isn’t a lot of complication here – these are simple little pop hooks played a little bit silly, a little bit sad. They are a lot of fun though, and I never felt the record drag.

As for topics, they range all over and include sneaking out to shack up with your boyfriend at a hotel, a few songs about self-doubt a few more telling various boyfriends to hit the road and my favourite – “My Chinchilla.” This last one might be a clever metaphor, or might just be a song about a chinchilla:

“Satan sucks, but you’re the best

Holy smokes you pass the test

When I’m with you, I feel blessed

My chinchilla”

On “A Picnic” the boyfriend brings carrots and celery to the date. This seems to be playfully accepted by our narrator, but this line:

‘My mother told me to pick

The very best one and you’re not it”

Suggests that maybe it was not the right choice. Next time go with fruit, dude.

The album has four covers. One is famous (the Beach Boys’ “Surfer Girl”) but most are songs by other obscure bands contemporary to Cub at the time. “Cast a Shadow” by Beat Happening, “Tell Me Now” by Daniel Johnston and “Backwoods” by Windwalker all make an appearance. I tracked down all the originals except “Backwoods” and Cub’s version is as good or better each time.

As for “Backwoods” I’m glad I didn’t find another version, because that song is depressing. It is a much darker relationship song than anything else on the record, about seeing an old boyfriend and being reminded just how poisonous the relationship was:

“I saw you downtown and you gave me the eye

I saw you, and I wanted to cry.

‘cause I know I’ve seen you somewhere before

We had a life but it is nevermore

Now I’m alone in my room and I’m waiting to die.”

Other Cub songs explore dark topics, but they do it with a whimsy that makes it safe to sing along. It was good to hear them perform “Backwoods” which showed a lot of gravitas and depth.

Hearing this record, I imagined what it would have been like if I’d heard it when it was released. I would’ve been in my early twenties and even though I was heavily into Celtic folk music back then, I think I would’ve loved it.

Best tracks: Motel 6, A Party, Flying Carpet, My Chinchilla, Pretty Pictures, They Don’t, Someday, Cast a Shadow, Surfer Girl, My Assassin, Tell Me Now, Backwoods