Beulah -- Hipster Music

The Coast Is Never Clear

These guys just know what pop music is all about. It's a cooled out trip in the California sunshine, complete with horns, harmonies and even some driving guitar. "Silver Lining" is a a wonderful ode to bitterness and even includes the ironic handclaps and a tip of the hat to the Dead Milkmen with the line that despite their problems "she'll always be my punk rock girl." Beulah manages to recall the sixties while sounding completely modern and relevant. This is their "mellow" album, before everything in their lives goes to shit on Yoko.

Handsome Western States

I had a bootleg copy of this wonderful album for a long time before finally getting a real copy from the merch table at a Beulah show. Considering it's out of print, I believe this, along with sending a check to the lead singer, Miles Kurosky, in Oakland, may be the only way to get a legit copy. Well, it is certainly worth the effort. While a little less polished, more straight forward and a tad more derivative than their later stuff, this album has some amazingly memorable indie pop that manages to combine their semi-psychedelic, 60's leaning sound with the indie rock stylings of a Pavement. To this day "Disco: The Secretaries Blues" is one of my favorite songs. Somehow, through its lyrics and melody the album conveys the attitude and cynical hopefulness of The Golden State in a rockin' half-hour of pop bliss.

When Your Heartstrings Break

They were Pavement. Now they're Beulah. Starting with track one, "Score from Augusta," you know you're in for a piece of pop perfection. This is a band that has spent time between albums honing their sound, creating a wonderful amalgamation of sixties sun and 90's indie rock. I really can't imagine anyone out there not loving this album. It might be the perfect pop masterpiece. Okay, I'm stretching there, but this record is filled with swinging beats, horns and strings galore, great hooks, clever lyrics, great singing and terrific production. What else can a guy ask for? Some of the wonderful fuzz from Handsome Western States is evident at points, but only as chorus flourishes between the clean verses. The mixture makes the transition that much more satisfying and unique. Apparently this album was/is out of print for a long time, as the band changed labels and things fell apart. This album is a seminal piece of Elephant 6 and pop history, so don't let it get away.

Yoko

Breakups are a bitch. Like Yoko Ono breaking up the Beatles, apparently a bunch of dudes in Beulah had their women break them apart. And then comes the angry album. The nice thing about Beulah is that they can survive it all with a smile on their face, even if their words are venomous. "You're scared and you're weak and you don't give a fuck about me! And I do believe that you hate yourself!" Just an example of the bitterness being thrown around on this album--but it's all done with the amazing yesteryear aplomb of the sunny, Elephant 6 sound. I had the extreme pleasure of catching these guys on the Yoko tour, and despite being pretty damn drunk, they put on an energetic, rockin' show that featured many tunes from this album and kept me smiling like a moron the entire time. This is what pop music should be.