The Young Person’s Guide to Scopdom Scop

 

The title nearly says it all: these 28 tracks, culling the prog acid-boogie metal band’s record-a-year output from 1984-2001, are intended as a sort of “greatest hits” introduction for the uninitiated.  But the 2-disk set is also a must-buy for the serious fan as a timely retrospective of their years with visionary lyricist extraordinaire Marshall Jay Vargo, featuring a nearly flawless selection of material and several new mixes of early cuts that often sound quite different—and a little more radio-friendly—than when first released.  As Sid Hartha explained in his recent interview in Rough Guitar Nation, “For instance, the original album mix of ‘Shut Up!  I Have Not Risen’ took four generations of recording to get all the tracks down.  Thanks to disk-based editing, I was able to take all the first-generation tape elements (so glad I kept them) and re-synchronize them for a full digital mix—all first-generation.  Now you can really hear the phlegm in Met’s throat, as well as Andrew nagging me on the rhythm guitar track near the end.”  To be fair, it should be stipulated that Met Fields has always insisted that it was not phlegm (and that Andrew insists that it was not nagging).  The multi-tracking on “Shut Up!” was heavier than usual at that session—apart from lyricist Marshall’s de-tuned bass, Sid played all the instruments—but all of their studio work was layered pretty thick: as a rule Sid (guitar, bass, keyboards, drums) and Met (vocal, guitar, bass, keyboards, drums, horns, and reeds; sadly, he retired the trumpet in ’87 after a dispiriting touring gig with a cover band that played only Carmen Miranda and Bo Diddley) play everything themselves, and the new remixes bring it all to life like Frankenstein on Viagra searching for his lost bride (for a more extreme remix, start at the end of disk 2 with the 7’40” revisionary take-no-prisoners “agar agar” treatment of “Honey on The Last Last Thorn” by guest engineer David Blum of Strange Weather Worldwide).

Like most great bands, they always played within themselves; and like most great bands, they had it all figured out early.  There are some differences between the early and later material—the later work is more melodic and the arrangements more fully worked out, and there are a few more acoustic numbers on Disk 2 (though even some of these build, like “Father Skew,” from Met’s ethereal falsetto and Sid’s real folk blues train-on-the-tracks shuffle into wicked full-tilt rave-ups before they’re through).  But the primary allegiance to multiple-guitar-driven summer cookout music is what has always made Scopdom Scop the ZZ Top of the Midwest indie-rock scene.  Met Fields reinvents himself more times than David Bowie over the course of these two disks as he channels Iggy Pop’s imaginary son’s life growing up with Captain Beefheart as a stepfather (an option denied to his [imaginary] father).  The extended cough solo on “All My Life” (usually only featured in their legendary live shows) succinctly defines Met’s gritty interpretation of Marshall’s carefully crafted poetic persona, the dubious antihero who lets us know in “Fugitive’s Song” that he can carry on to Sid’s chunky guitar riffs even with “dirt in my scrotum” but “no soul in my rubber” (the reference to Rubber Soul, of course, is one of many tributes to the Beatles interlaced throughout the disks—note the complete absence of harmonica and cowbell, in a subtle reverse homage to the early years of the Fab Four). 

The programming is nearly chronological, but sequenced for maximum diversity and force: the sophisticated Roxy Music lounge feel of “Door Like They Knew the Way” foregrounds Met’s sax and keyboards, then gives way to Sid’s trying-to-but-can’t-quite-start-three-chainsaws-at-the-same-time guitar workout in the hard-to-find classic (newly re-edited) “Honey on the Last Last Thorn”; the unplugged acoustic mini-set that kicks off the second movement of disk 2 (reproducing the rhythm of their live show for the home listener) is counterpointed with the crunching T-Rex mating call of “Black Rats From The Golden Desert” and the dance-around-the-room chicken-skin roadhouse boogie of “Age is Age,” while the James White and the Blacks-meet-Cannonball Adderly-style in-the-pocket groove of “I Think Bail Out” sets up one of the handful of crucial guest appearances included in the set, with the awesome Robert Nelles (ex-Shades, ex-Yarbles) “helicopter” rhythm guitar on “Black Silk Cassock.”  On the topic of guest musicians, it wouldn’t be right to overlook Marshall Jay Vargo’s protected-wetlands slide guitar meditation on “Soggy People Moan” or ex-Zappa sideman Mike Brink’s successful attempt to blow the fool off the hill in “Straight Lace” with the fiercest whistling riff heard since “Colonel Bogey’s Theme” from Bridge on the River Kwai.  And of course Lacy Daemon [ex-Zugin Sisters] provides the whole truth and nothing but the truth in “The Great Hope White,” just barely scooped by the B-52’s “Rock Lobster” as pop music’s #1 all-time summer party classic in the relaunched Creem retrospective on the two bands).

            The bottom line: The Young Person’s Guide to Scopdom Scop is the perfect starter kit for the novice, and the perfect car tunes package for the aficionado to be blasting with the top down this spring and summer. 

 

-Father Eric Sweeney

 

 

 

 

For more information, send E-mail to: scopdomscop@aol.com
Copyright © Scopdom Scop