1990's

Went to the Five and Dime, Bought Myself a Copy of Time: A Thing About a Band Called Clutch (Part Two)

/ Rev. Joel / Leave a comment

I’m finally here to write more about Clutch. There’s a pretty good chance I’ll go on about a few things only marginally related to Clutch, as well, but I don’t know where this is goin yet.

I’m gonna start on April 14, 1998. That was the day one of my most favorite bands in the world (Clutch)1 released their third full length album (and first since I’d started listening to them), The Elephant Riders. It’s still my favorite Clutch album most days. My homeboy Travis bought two copies and gave one to me, because it was also two days before my birthday (the big two one), and he was (and is) an awesome dude. That birthday week is definitely one of my Top Five Best Weeks Ever, and riding around in Travis’s big ol red F-150 while we blasted The Elephant Riders is one of the standout snapshots.

Here’s the copy Travis bought for me. Well, it’s a picture of the copy, anyway.
Here’s the backside/track list.

Here’s the opening track/title track.

Don’t be eatin all the hard tack, between we two there’s half a small sack. Still, we got miles to go.

It was released on Columbia Records, and the dinguses who made the decisions at Columbia had no idea what to do with a band like Clutch (which is to say, Clutch). They refused to release the first version of the album, instead forcing the band to record in both in a studio and with a producer of the label’s choosing. Anecdotally, those knuckleheads definitely didn’t market the final, released version worth a shit, but it’s been my experience that the people who get paid to make the decisions are usually the ones with the dumbest ideas,2 so it’s not really all that surprising that Decision Makers at one of the biggest record labels in the world (at the time) would fumble the ninth-inning slam dunk that is The Elephant Riders. I tried to work in a hockey reference there as well, but I couldn’t make it happen. I’m very torn up about it.

I would like to love you, I sure would treat you right. We could take the trash out every Thursday night.

This album continues the evolution of Clutch from the lean, mean, pissed off hardcore punk-adjacent heavy rock ‘n’ roll riff machine that tore its way out of Germantown, Maryland in 1991 to the weird and indefinable metal-adjacent jamming heavy rock ‘n’ roll riff machine they’ve become. I first saw them live on the tour for this album, at the Emerson Theater in Indianapolis, and, it was a stone groove, man. Every direction you looked, there were riffs. Front man Neil Fallon was already perfecting his fire-and-brimstone stage persona, and I almost fell down a few times dancing, on account of the floor of the Emerson Theater was sloped, on account of the Emerson Theater used to be an actual fancy theater instead of a shitty all ages music venue where the urinals were lined with stickers inside and out, and an almost certainly carcinogenic snow fell gently from the ceiling tiles when the bass drum hit loud enough.

The only specific thing I can remember about the performance is that they opened with album closer “The Dragonfly”, and it was sublime. A partial set list exists online, and while I can’t vouch for its accuracy or its completion, it looks like it was a great set3.

Big if true.

I saw some great bands/shows at the Emerson Theater (and missed a few, too), and I’ll prolly write about a lot of that at some point, but who knows whether you’ll get to see it. The internet just told me that the Emerson Theater still exists, and my eyesight and reading comprehension told me it has a terrible website, and the website told me that Municipal Waste is playing a headlining show there in May. I have to assume the venue has been spruced up since I was there last.

Pity the mate of Queen Mantis, so content but so headless, Katy did nothing but shiver and cry, as did the dragonfly

By the way, I acknowledge that it says “I WASN’T THERE” in that screenshot of the set list, but that’s not true. The screen read “I WAS THERE” before I logged in. The logic makes sense, but from a purely aesthetic point-of-view, as far as screen shots go, I don’t like it.

Excuse me, Mr. Horse. What are your feelings about that fall?

Anyway, a live Clutch show is one of the best things you could ever experience, and their fan base is one of the most devoted I’ve ever seen, comparable to The Mountain Goats and the long strange trip of the Grateful Dead (including all the Dead-adjacent and affiliate bands).45 People who’ve seen them 30, 75, 120 times or more. I’ve seen them 13 times now, and only one of the shows was disappointing to me in any way, but that was entirely my fault, and it happened fifteen years later, so I won’t get into it now.

I’m gonna share three more songs from The Elephant Riders and then we’ll move ahead. This three-song run makes up the middle of the album in a way, and in my studied opinion, it’s the best three-song run the band has done to date. I encourage you to check them out, but you really should just listen to the whole album. Especially if you like a groove and a swing with your fatass riffs, and can at least tolerate some gruff hollerin.

“The Soapmakers” was the only single released from the album, and it ranks number 21 on Clutch’s most-played songs live, according to available data collected and aggregated by setlist.fm, and I gotta tell you, it really is somethin special. Like nearly every song from the band, this one kinda sounds like it’s being sung (sang?) by a sentient beard, and it’s a bit weird to see Neil all babyfaced and beardless in this video, especially considering he would go on to cultivate such a mighty beard.

As they stirred heaven and earth they combined to one, and everything was everyone and each one was all.

Aside from the memorable refrain, “The Yeti” didn’t really grab me until I was livin in Austin, which is when I started to write more, and on a more regular basis. One night I was in the office while my ex was at work, and I got righteously zooted and played The Elephant Riders through headphones while I wrote on the computer. “The Soapmakers” faded out with those weird, spooky sound effects, “The Yeti” rolled into my eardrums just like it had hundreds of times before, and suddenly the song came alive in my mind. I watched the story happen in real time, across the vast expanse of a seemingly endless snowscape, and the song worked some kind of magic on my brain, and now there’s an 89% chance that at any given moment, lyrics from “The Yeti” are in my head.

Sky is filled with starry scenes of heroes in their greatest deeds.

The last song of the three is also one of my favorite songs of all time. They’ve only played it live 18 times, according to available data collected and aggregated by setlist.fm, and do you wanna guess how many of those times I was in attendance for?

I’ll give you a hint: it rhymes with “hero”.

I even caught em on an anniversary tour of The Elephant Riders, and the only songs from the album they didn’t play are “Muchas Veces” and “Crackerjack”, but “Crackerjack” is an instrumental with a long trombone solo, so I wasn’t expecting that one anyway.

This seems like as good a time as any to mention that “Muchas Veces” also contains a trombone solo, and it’s fucking perfect. Both solos are played the hell out of by renowned tromboner6 Delfeayo Marsalis (of the renowned Marsalis Family). As I say, I wasn’t expecting to hear “Crackerjack”, but I thought surely they’d play “Muchas Veces” with some other type of solo(s) or extended jam in place of the trombone solo, because they do sometimes jam on songs live, but alas, they did not, and that’s almost certainly the best chance I’ll ever have of hearing it live.

Muchas veces I don’t know if I’m coming or I’m going, muchas veces I’m at a loss as what to do.

Okay, I’ve spent way too much time talking about the one album, so I’m gonna stop for now and pick things up in a post-The Elephant Riders world. Thanks for reading. Check back eventually for the next installment. Or, pop your digital digits into that box below so you can be among the first to know. And tell your friends, yeah?

  1. Duh. ↩︎
  2. And the thumbs farthest up the asses. ↩︎
  3. Duh. ↩︎
  4. A lot of Clutch fans refer to themselves as “Gearheads”, but I don’t feel like I know enough about the band to fall in with that lot. ↩︎
  5. I certainly could’ve included Phish and Dave Matthews Band in that company as well, but I can’t even with those two. ↩︎
  6. I mean no disrespect to Mr. Marsalis, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to include the word “tromboner” at least once. Well, twice now. ↩︎

Something Often Lost, Life is Process Not Product: A Thing About Life, and a Thing About a Band Called Drug Church

/ Rev. Joel / Leave a comment

Coffee poured, water refreshed, bladder emptied, I was seconds away from putting on my Drug Church playlist and opening up my laptop to see what came out of me. Business as usual many a solo day off. And then I noticed the birds. And I don’t mean in a “look at those fat ol’ mourning doves!” kind of way, I notice birds all the time, I fucking love birds. To use the parlance of our times, I fw birds hard.

Frfr.

When I say I noticed the birds, what I mean is I noticed the birds, like in a profound way. I was absolutely enraptured by the tweets and twits and coos and chirps. I even started picking out specific conversations between some birds. I can’t understand exactly what they’re saying, of course, but I assure you, they’re all very horny right now.

What I’m saying is that for the first time in a while, I am fully listening to the sounds coming from outside my windows. Also, I can’t remember the last time I wrote without music.

The thing is that most days when I open the house up, I’ve already got music playing, so I don’t notice the sounds from outside as much. And up until recently, I haven’t much felt like getting outside. I like what cold weather does for my allergies, but I don’t care so much for the seasonal depression. I might choose both over summer, though. If I am one thing, I am a sweaty man. I come from a long line of sweaters, and I’ve come to accept it, but I refuse to like it. Going outside during the dog days is a waking nightmare for me.

I digress. For now, I’m sitting and writing, as I often do on my solo day off, and as usual, I’m not sure where this is gonna end up. The possibility of me not finishing it will persist until I’ve finished it. Who knows whether I’ll share it.

As I said, my writing routine was broken because I noticed nature for the first time in a while, which in turn was brought about by me not playing music, which is a rarity for me. I wasn’t playing music because I’d just finished an episode of Corner Gas, which is a very funny Canadian sitcom that you can watch for free with extremely loud commercials on YouTube.

Seriously, I remain anxious throughout every episode, because the commercials are jarringly loud. The show is totally worth it though.

That’s like 7,000 metric.

Anyway, I was opening the windows, and was starting to consider what I might write about. I figured I’d probably watch another episode of Corner Gas before I got down to the actual writing, but then I got a text from a friend, asking if I had time to talk, which meant talking on the phone, which is even more of a rarity for me than not playing music in the house, but…

When a friend asks for help, you help em.

We talked about grief and depression and anger and fear and anxiety, and we laughed, and we cried, I needed it just as much as she did. When we finished talking was just before I started my writing ritual, which you may recall from the beginning of this thing is when I noticed the sexy avian drama going on outside my house, which led to my decision to sit down and write without music for the first time in over 20 years. Because the sounds of nature are the music, man!

Sounds like somebody’s livin for his car!

I don’t know what I’m hoping to accomplish here, but I do know I’ve also heard two light rain showers start and stop since I started writing, and that’s been pretty cool. The light of the overcast day is perfect in my house right now, and even the gigantic roll-off dumpster parked across the cul-de-sac in front of the Trash Neighbors’ yard can’t ruin my day. At least it’s blocking the view of their shitty wooden fence. God I hope this means they’re moving out. I’m meandering all over the place here. Focus!

After the phone call, I sat down with the intention of writing a thing about grief and depression and anger and fear and anxiety (which would hopefully make you laugh, and maybe even cry), and then I was gonna use some kind of as-yet discovered writerly skill to deftly weave that together with a thing I’ve had brewing for awhile about a band called Drug Church, but I’ve clearly let the whole thing get away from me, and I haven’t even started talking about Drug Church yet. I’ve gone off the rails on my crazy train of thought, if you will, and as a result, I plumb forgot every single remotely humorous thing I’ve ever had to say about grief, depression, anger, fear, and anxiety. Whatever it was, I like to think it was profound. I’m certain it would’ve been long-winded as hell.

I guess I’ll talk about Drug Church, then. I’ve mentioned them on this blog before, and I’m not gonna get into the band’s backstory today, because this chair is starting to become uncomfortable, and I’ve already spent a pretty stupid amount of time not saying anything, but here are some facts about Drug Church:

  • They’ve been a band for approximately 15 years now, and they’ve released 5 full-length albums, three EPs, a demo, some singles, and a really fun cover of “Someday I Suppose” by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones.
  • They have a shitload of live performances available on YouTube, and they range from amazing to incredible.
  • Their live set from Louder Than Life 2024 was an all-timer for me. I’ve seen hundreds and hundreds of bands live over the past 30-odd years, and I’ve forgotten way more bands than I remember, but that Drug Church set was one of the very best.

There is plenty of precedent for me becoming completely enamored with a band, album, and/or song to the point of annoyance. A less polite person might call it an obsession. I certainly would. Drug Church has grabbed me and held on like few others before them. The sounds they make are so unique, the lyrics are really excellent, and I simply cannot get enough of it. Every member of the band is doing what they do perfectly.

With most of my prior obsessions, I managed to start balancing my listening out with other bands, albums, and songs after a month or so, but I’ve been listening to Drug Church almost exclusively for like nine or ten months now. I try to listen to other things, and I have succeeded for up to two days in a couple of instances, but those other bands, albums, and songs are just visitors. Drug Church is currently the sole occupant of my musical bandwidth. To quote the t-shirt I wish someone would make for me…

Looks like a Gildan.

I’ve said it before (even somewhere on this blog once, I think), but they’re the very best nineties hardcore/post-hardcore band that never existed in the nineties, and if I am one thing (other than a sweaty man), I am a man who loves nineties hardcore and post-hardcore bands. “Unlicensed Guidance Counselor”, from their superlative 2018 album Cheer, is an excellent example of why Drug Church, to paraphrase a t-shirt that currently exists, is already number one, and why you shouldn’t bother to try harder:

A petty grievance pushed you to violence
Tough break and now you’re facing some charges

If you live long enough
you’ll do something wrong enough
that you feel shame enough
to say enough’s enough

Push your sister’s boyfriend down the stairs
Steal forty dollars from the till
There’s a learning process here

Something often lost: life is process not product
Gotta break some bones to have them set proper
Small money fight so you set a fire
Space was occupied so man dies there

If you live long enough
you’ll do something wrong enough
that you feel shame enough
to say enough’s enough

Push yourself down the stairs
Steal tens of thousands from your band
God he’s indifferent and nobody cares

Here’s your life advice

The shirt makes an excellent point.

Here’s a live performance of the song, so you can get an idea how entertaining their live shows are. Don’t worry, I queued the video up so you don’t have to. You really should just watch the whole thing, though, and you undoubtedly should catch them live in person if you get the chance.

Everybody looks fuckin stupid doin a stupid thing.

I gotta wrap this up. Sheila just pulled in the garage, which made me realize I forgot to take a shower. I’ll write more about Drug Church again soon. I might even share it here. Thanks for reading.

The Skies Are Always Sunny in the Heart of Flavor Country: A Thing About a Band Called Clutch (Part One)

/ Rev. Joel / 3 Comments

On my drive to work yesterday I realized that, while I’ve mentioned them on these “esteemed” pages before, I’ve never actually written about Clutch, and that’s dumb, because they’ve been one of my favorite bands for almost 30 years now. I’ve written extensively about Iron Maiden, Testament, Helmet, Metallica, Anthrax, and especially Voivod, mostly on my old blog, but for some reason I just haven’t bothered to sit down and write anything substantial about one of the most consistent (and consistently excellent) bands making rock ‘n’ roll music today. I’m here today to remedy that.

If you’ve read much of anything I’ve written here (or anywhere, really), you know that I can be quite long-winded when I get worked up about something (especially if I’m not being looked at while I go on about it), and if you think I don’t get worked up talkin about Clutch, then you’re fixin to learn a thing or two about me. In the spirit of making this more easily digestible, I’m gonna break it up into parts. I flew pretty close to the sun when I posted my guide on how to maximize your good times at Louder Than Life, and if you made it all the way through that sprawling beast, I salute you. I know attention spans are at an all-time low, and it was risky to post something that takes a full 30 minutes to read, but that piece needed to be its own thing.

I’m glad I get to exist in the same reality as David S. Pumpkins.

This thing can certainly be broken into parts. I figure there’ll be three of them. It could be more, and it’s also entirely possible that this’ll be the one and only installment, because sometimes not finishing things is what I do.

Like many of the bands and artists I got into in the mid-to-late 90’s, I first heard Clutch via my homeboy Travis. I grew up in a housing addition in a rural area (I called it the “ruburbs”, since it was like a suburb, but rural, and because I’m very clever) less than 200 yards from the county line, and cable TV wasn’t available there (I’m pretty sure it still isn’t, nor, as recently as late 2021 was any semblance of road treatment during a snow or ice event). It was pretty annoying for me as a kid, but I realize now that even if the cable company had put in the time and expense to bring their services to a small enclave of houses 20 miles from the nearest “city” (Bedford, population: less than 15,000), my parents most certainly wouldn’t have been willing to pay for it, and I couldn’t fault them for that even if I wanted to. We watched 60 Minutes and Hunter and Roseanne and Hoosier Millionaire for free, goddamnit, and we either liked it, or we lumped it.

This was also a few years before PrimeStar and DirecTV became available in my neighborhood. If you lived in the neighborhood of Airy Hills just north of Springville, Indiana in the early-to-mid 1990’s and wanted to watch anything other than the few channels you could pick up with an antenna, the only option was one of those big, old school C-band satellite dishes. Quick side note: it seems as though back in 1970, someone thought “Airy Hills” was a good name for a brand new, developing neighborhood, and no one bothered to tell them they were wrong, and so I grew up in a place called “Airy Hills”.

The future isn’t what it used to be.

Anyway, Travis lived up the road, and his parents had one of those C-band satellite dishes (which I just learned today was the name of those dishes), and one of the cool things he had access to was MuchMusic. At the time, the channel was more or less Canadian MTV, and like its American counterpart, it has since moved away from music programming (the name was changed to “Much” in 2013 to reflect this). The intersection of time when MuchMusic played music and Travis’s parents had their satellite dish also happened to contain the years 1991-1995, which is when the channel aired a show called Power 30. If MuchMusic was Canadian MTV, Power 30 was Canadian Headbanger’s Ball, although as the name suggests, Power 30 was only 30 minutes per episode, whereas HBB ran a full 3 hours at that point in time. Americans always have to do things bigger, eh?

Anyway, Travis taped two episodes of Power 30, and one summer day between high school and my first ill-conceived attempt at college, we watched that tape together. He was particularly excited for me to see the episode featuring some band called Clutch, as he figured it would be right up my alley, and as usual, he was correct. Travis has a near perfect record when it comes to music recommendations and me.

The episode kicked off with the video for a song called “A Shogun Named Marcus”, and less than halfway through its sub-three-minute run-time, I was hooked.

Hari Kari and combines, come dancin with me.

That fateful 30 minutes also included some live footage of the band and an interview clip, and the live footage was intense and the interview was funny, and I was already well on my way to adding a new favorite to my “all-timers” list. The next payday after watching that video, Travis and I went CD shopping, and I managed to score a used copy of their self-titled second album, which had been released no more than three months prior. (Thinking about that now, it occurs to me that someone probably bought it after seeing “A Shogun Named Marcus” on Beavis and Butthead, and found themselves less interested in the direction the band was taking. Whatever caused them to sell it, I’m still reaping all the benefits.)

Jon Lovitz is incredible.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Plus I don’t wanna get too much into my personal Clutch-related narrative yet, because I have to go grocery shopping before the price of everything goes up in a few days, so I’ll just knock out some basics about the band first, for anyone who might be unfamiliar with them.

Clutch formed in 1991 in Germantown, Maryland, and after a brief stint with another singer that I only just learned about earlier today, Neil Fallon joined guitarist Tim Sult, bassist Dan Maines, and drummer Jean-Paul Gaster, and outside of a relatively brief stretch of time in the mid-to-late aughts where they brought in a full-time keyboard player (Mick Schauer, RIP), the lineup has remained unchanged since. There’ll be more on the Mick years in a later installment.

They released their first EP, Pitchfork, that same year on 7″ and 12″ vinyl. It was a feral beast, completely betraying the band’s love of 80’s hardcore punk and boiling over with youthful anger and vitriol. It’s very good, but it sounds nothing like the grooving, swinging, juggernaut the band has become over the past 34 years.

See what I did there?

I didn’t hear Pitchfork until sometime in 2005 (sweet baby jeebus, has it really been twenty years?!), as it went out of print long before I even knew it existed, so I won’t spend any more time on it here, but it will come back into play later. I’m sure you simply cannot fucking wait.

Clutch released their second EP, Passive Restraints, in 1992, and it is sonically very similar to Pitchfork, but careful listeners will note some changes already taking place in the sound. To my ears, the songs on Pitchfork are more amorphous and interchangeable, whereas the songs on Passive Restraints sound more distinct from one another. It’s also a bit more polished, sonically speaking.

Can you dig it?

It’s a real tight, badass collection of songs, and I can’t recommend it enough. You should also watch this video, which is Clutch performing “Passive Restraints” in 2020, with Randy Blythe from Lamb of God doin up some guest vocals. It’ll get the blood flowin.

Efficiency is beautiful, efficiency is art.

As mentioned above, Clutch released their full-length debut, Transnational Speedway League: Anthems, Anecdotes, and Undeniable Truths, the next year. The extra run-time inherent in the format shows significant growth in the overall sound of the band. This is also where Neil’s penchant for oddball, often hilarious lyrics started to really take form. It’s not my favorite Clutch album, but it’s also not my least favorite Clutch album (more on that in a later installment). I listen to it at least a few times a year.

Highlights include the aforementioned “A Shogun Named Marcus”, “12 Ounce Epilogue”, “Walking in the Great Shining Path of Monster Trucks”, and one of my personal Top Ten Favorite Clutch Songs, “Rats”. I actually wrote a little bit about “Rats” in my last post for this blog, and you can read that here if you want. “Rats” also happens to be one of the songs in the live footage on that episode of Power 30. I suspect that tiny clip is at least part of what made me fall in love with the song.

I finally got to hear “Rats” live for the first time two years ago, which was my twelfth time seeing Clutch live, and which, sadly, is also the last time I’ve been able to see them live. I’m really hoping they’ll get added to Louder Than Life again this year, since their day was cancelled last year.

And God was certainly a genius to expose this human weakness.

1995 saw the release of the band’s self-titled second full-length album. In a lot of ways, Clutch (the album) marks the proper beginning of the modern sound of Clutch (the band). This album took the riffs, the hooks, the aggression, and the sense of humor that the band were already perfecting, and injected the whole mess with a groove and swing that absolutely cannot be denied.

One notable change on this album (one that really came to fruition a bit later down the road for our stalwart DC sound attackers) is a developing tendency toward somewhat psychedelic freakouts, including on one of the band’s best-known songs, “Spacegrass”.

We’ll find us some spacegrass, lay low and watch the universe expand.

The album ends with a 10+ minute jam (technically two songs, but really they’re one), beginning with the almost meditative “7 Jam”, which finds Neil spitting lyrics like a fire and brimstone preacher giving testimony at a tent revival. “7 Jam” flows directly into the instrumental closer “Tim Sult vs the Greys”, which revisits and reimagines the riff and groove from “7 Jam” in a wonderfully understated way. It also features some pretty dope keyboard work courtesy of Richard Morel. If I didn’t already know it was the same band responsible for “Binge and Purge”, I wouldn’t believe it.

I stood up, and everything was alright.

Clutch’s ongoing artistic development led to the band sometimes being categorized as “stoner rock”, which bugs me, even if it isn’t the least bit important. To me, the term “stoner rock” carries with it an implication that one must be stoned to truly enjoy it, and while I’ll freely admit that mellowing out and listening to Clutch is an auditory treat that can’t be beat, the fact of the matter is that I loved Clutch for fully 5 years before I ever even thought about getting high for the first time.

Yo, I don’t know, B!

I know I’m overthinking it, and I also know it really, truly does not matter at all. I thoroughly enjoy a lot of bands that have the “stoner rock” label applied to them, so whatever. The important thing here is that in the year of our gourd 1995, Clutch started to groove like a moose, and they never looked back, and the world is a better place for it.

That seems like as good a place to stop as any. This nap ain’t gonna take itself. If you’d like to learn more about Clutch, and the impact they’ve had on my life for pretty much the entirety of my adulthood, check back for more soon. Maybe not too soon, though.

Until then, thanks for reading. And remember, beebopalloobopawopshamboo, and domo arigato if you got to.

Cook As Needed for Pain, Volume 2: Zucchini, Tomato, and Cannelini Soup

/ Rev. Joel / 2 Comments

Hey, look everybody, I’m finally following through on something. Here’s Volume 2 of this thing I started working on over two-and-a-half years ago. Please hold your applause until the end.

I planned to stop by Bloomingfoods on my way home from work today and buy a couple of big ‘ol baking potatoes for dinner. Big ‘Ol Baked Potatoes with Broccoli and Whatnot is a shared favorite meal of Mrs. Circlepit and myself. It’s super satisfying, super filling, super delicious, and super easy, and since my job and the general state of things are not-so-slowly killing me, both physically and mentally, I wanted dinner to be as easy as possible without ordering takeout or delivery.

After a drive across downtown that was significantly more dangerous and time-consuming than it should’ve been, I arrived in front of the co-op to find their tiny parking lot absolutely lousy with parked cars and people trying to park and people trying to pull out of spaces, and I don’t wanna paint with too broad of a brush here, but most of the people who shop at the co-op drive like dumbfucks and can’t park for shit. My only other option was parking on the street, but I won’t give the City of Bloomington a penny more than I absolutely have to, so I said “fuck that, I’ll figure out something else for dinner” and drove home, wherein I quickly devised a plan for a soup that I think will be delicious.

At first I was figuring on Veggie Chili, which is one of my favorite things to both cook and eat (and which will probably be featured within this feature some day), but I arrived home to discover that we didn’t have any hominy or any canned pinto beans, and as you may recall, I was looking for ease of preparation above all else, so I decided to put on Inlet by HUM and make a soup up as I went along, and now, some 55 minutes later, I have a batch of Zucchini, Tomato, and Cannelini Soup (ZTC Soup) simmering lightly on the stove.

Here’s the list of ingredients in this soup:

2 medium zucchini
2 small-ish carrots
about 1/4 of an onion
1 15 oz can of cannelini beans, drained and rinsed (see Notes)
1 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes
1 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes
1 1/2 cups of leftover basmati rice
1 28 oz crushed tomato can’s worth of vegetable broth (see Notes)
1-2 tsp of lemon juice
dried thyme
dried basil
dried oregano
granulated garlic
granulated onion
kosher salt (to taste)
fresh ground black pepper
2-ish Tbsp of olive oil

Notes:

  1. Cannelini beans are basically white kidney beans. I used them because it’s what I had in the pantry. I think this is my first time using them, and I’m pretty sure I bought the can just to try something different. You could certainly use Great Northern or navy beans instead, just be more gentle when stirring – those beans are especially tender li’l guys.
  2. I forgot to check the actual liquid volume of the can before I put it in recycyling. Regarding broth, I like Better Than Bullion brand No Chicken Base. I use that shit in so many things. It’s a galdern miracle of modern innovation. You can certainly make your own broth or stock. It’s very easy, but BTB is easier, and remember: I wanted this soup to be easy like Sunday morning.

I cut everything except the onion to roughly the same size as a cannelini bean, and I minced the onion. Mrs. Circle Pit doesn’t like the texture of onions, so if I wanna cook with them I have to either cut them small enough to essentially hide them or cut them large enough that she can see them and pick them out and give them to me.

I started out sauteeing the onions and carrots in the olive oil. After a couple-few minutes, I added the zucchini and let it all cook for about 5 minutes before adding all the seasonings. Another minute or so and in go the tomatoes and broth. I added the beans just before it began to simmer, brought ‘er to a full-ass boil, stirred well, and then lowered back down to a light simmer (just a few bubbles). It’s been barely simmering for almost two hours now, and I gotta tell you, friends, the flavor on this soup is real dang good.

This is the point where I added the beans. Look at allathem li’l bubbles.

I’m gonna put some rice in it right before serving it, because fuck it, why not? We’re all gonna die someday, might as well enjoy as much rice as possible before our numbers are up. Brown rice would be dope, but I happen to have some leftover basmati rice from last night’s pretty damn delicous Coconut Curried Vegetables with Chickpeas, which is another thing I love to cook and eat, and which may also make an appearance here one day.

I thought about putting some bulghur wheat in it, just for something different, but I decided to use up the rice instead. Bulghur wheat would probably be really fucking good in it, though. You should try that and tell me about it. Just add it before adding the liquid, and be prepared to probably have to add more liquid as it sits, because bulghur wheat is a thirsty li’l sumbitch.

Aw, hell, I haven’t even talked about HUM yet. HUM are a band from Champaign, Illinois. They’re amazing. They’re sometimes referred to as a “shoegaze” band, and they contain elements of that, but they’re more than that. I’ve read the term “space rock” as well, and that could work in a pinch, but it’s still not quite right. The best word I can think of to describe them is “HUM”. You’d probably recognize their song “Stars” if you heard it. It was an “alternative rock” hit in 1995, and was later used in a Cadillac commercial.

Anway, here’s “Stars”…

There are some incredible live performances of this song from the era, as well. You should watch all of them. Just never stop listening to HUM, basically.

They released three great albums from 1991-1995 (Filet Show, Electra 2000, and You’d Prefer an Astronaut), then one perfect album in 1998 (Downward is Heavenward), then they broke up, and I was sad. They’d reunite occasionally to play a show which would inevitably sell out before I even knew it was happening, but otherwise the members stayed busy with other projects. Then on June 23, 2020, they suprise-released a brand new album, Inlet, which defies all possible logic and comprehension by being even better than Downward is Heavenward. Their drummer died last year, so I don’t really know the current status of the band, but their current status in my heart is among my Top Ten All-Time Favorite Bands.

“Waves” is the first song off the album. It’s perfect. It’s all perfect. Inlet is a perfect album. Listen to it.
“In the Den” is the second song off the album. It’s perfect. It’s all perfect. Inlet is a perfect album. Listen to it.
“Desert Rambler” is the third song off the album. It’s perfect. You see where I’m going with this, right?

I seriously love everything about HUM. The vocals sound like they’re being broadcast from inside your very consciousness. The rhythm section is tighter than a hibernating frog’s butthole. The lyrics are always intelligent and poetic, and often profound. And perhaps most important to this guy right here, the riffs are so heavy you need a Tractomas TR 10×10 D100 to drive them around.

Actual footage of HUM riffs on their way to your brain. I love that “ABNORMAL” sign on the front.

It’s all just so goddamn heavy, and I don’t understand how everyone on Earth doesn’t love them.

ADDENDUM: It’s been nearly 24 hours since I started writing this. I had to stop last night, on account of eating some of that delicious soup we were talking about and then winding my brain down to eventually get ready for bed so I could wake up bright and early and feed the slavering masses. Have I ever mentioned how much I dislike the concept of “jobs”? I’m lucky to have a job I enjoy, but man, jobs are for suckers. But that’s a discussion for another post.

I’m now listening to Shadows in the Deep by Unleashed (which fucking rules by the way) and proofreading/updating this thing. Here’s a fun dumb game: see if you can figure out which things I added today. Your prize is doing something on the toilet that doesn’t involve reading terrible news. Unless you consider learning about my love for Hum ‘n’ Beans to be a terrible thing. That would be weird though. Perhaps abnormal, even.

Speaking of abnormal, thanks for reading this the whole way through, ya weirdo. If you enjoyed it, why not tell a friend? If you hated it, why not tell a friend? If you don’t have any friends, you can tell me, I suppose.

And never be too gentle with me.

See ya next time, ya freakin weirdo.