Dear Squirmy Records Representative,
I've just returned from post office with a package bearing your address. I'm not familiar with your label, nor do I know anyone in your fair city (Stockton, CA). So I was confused initially. I was elated when I saw that inside said box was a copy of Bright Ideas Saturdays and the Turning Tide. Thank you! As you know, I didn't order the record — I didn't know it existed — and I don't know what good deeds I've done lately to merit such good fortune. I also have no idea how I'll express my gratitude, only that I'll try.
Maybe it'll help to sift through what I know. And here I'm thinking aloud, so to speak, more for my benefit and a reader's than yours (you already know this stuff), so please bear with me. Bright Ideas is Scott Miller, Marie Davenport, and Tim White. Scott and Marie are 2/3 of the Bananas. I interviewed Scott several years ago for Go Metric (issue #19 or #20). Very nice guy. Did he send the record? I haven't heard from him in ages, though, and I doubt he'd move away from Sacramento, where his many bands have been based over the years. Maybe Scott told you about Go Metric. Regardless, the Bananas are one of the best bands to which my generation can lay claim. They've been crafting brilliant punked up pop records for over two decades. The Bananas might seem like a flurry of Tanmanian Devil spazziness but there's ample consideration beneath the surface.Heart, too.
Bright Ideas sound little like the Bananas but any recorded output from that family tree goes straight to my turntable. I have another Bright Ideas record, a 7" from several years ago. I remember it being slower than the Bananas, jangly, yearning. That fits with this new (?) album. I'm now on my third trip through side one of Saturdays and the Turning Tide. It's wonderful. Easy going but not lazy. Mellow but not lifeless. I sound like a wine critic, I know, but that's my shortcoming not Bright Ideas'. I was hoping to come up with a blurb-worthy line right there, you know, should you pull together a press sheet or some such.
I tried to find Squirmy Records online but to no avail. I knew better than to check for a Bright Ideas website. Sacramento bands don't lean that way. According to discogs.com I see that Saturdays originally came out in 2005 on Rocket Alliance Records. And now I notice the "2005" on the lyric sheet. I'm catching on, however slowly. I'm guessing it's a reissue, though. Doesn't strike me as a record that's done seven years of shelf time. Wait, there it is, on the lyric sheet, two lines below "2005": "Previously released on CD by Rocket Science Alliance."
It really is a beautiful record.
Just finished my third spin of side one. Got it on iTunes now. The other day I heard what I believe to be a faint thumping sound in the background of a song I'd recently put on my mp3 player while typing — I think the hunting and pecking vibrated across the desk, up to the turntable, and through the cartridge. So I've clicked on "Recently Added" and it's just segued into Camper Van Beethoven's II and III. Bright Ideas into Camper. Perfect transition. Folk music for punk rock backgrounds.
I may never find out how and/why I came into this record but these things aren't to be questioned. They're to be appreciated and talked about.
Thanks for recirculating this wonderful record. You done right.
On to side two.
Mike
Squirmy Records can be reached at 870 West Euclid Ave., Stockton, CA 95204
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