Fat Wreck Chords – 24 Nov 1998
In lieu of an anniversary review, TGEFM head editor Jeff along with musician and guest contributor Lee Switzer-Woolf (solo work, Launch Control, The Seasons in Shorthand) discuss Lagwagon‘s 5th studio LP, Let's Talk About Feelings, both as an album, and its place in the Lagwagon discography. It turns 25 today. Following the transitional Double Plaidinum (1997), this LP cemented the group's lineup for the next twelve years until the 2010 departure of founding bassist Jesse Buglione.
Jeff: Hi Lee… how's it going?
Lee: Hey! It's going good thank you! I'm going to be up front straight off the bat and warn you that LTAF is one of my all time favorite albums. I'm psyched to get into it.
Jeff: It's a pretty good one, isn't it? I'll admit that, while I like Double Plaidinum, it was a shock to the system with the lineup changes, how raw and loose it sounded (especially after Hoss), and, let's be frank, Dave Raun was definitely a “punk” drummer at the time, and not the powerhouse he is today. After Plourde's removal, Raun's percussion just couldn't live up to fan expectations.
But Let's Talk About Feelings definitely found that band back on firmer footing.
Lee: I think Double Plaidinum is decent, but does perhaps sound like a band putting out an album because they have a new line up. It's not the most coherent.
Let's Talk About Feelings is the complete opposite. Obviously there are a couple of standout tracks, but what makes it great for me is that it works so well as a whole. It kinda feels like one long track. In a good way.
Jeff: I agree. I don't know if they were at 100% here, either. But it definitely seems more cohesive as a whole. From the launch of “After You My Friend” all the way to “Owen Meaney,” there's a lot going on in there. I know “May 16” gets all the glory, and for good reason, but any number of these songs could've been the breakout track and people would've still be just as happy.
I think it also demonstrates song-writing progression, as well, as Joey and the band moved away from the more thrashier side of Lagwagon into this, at the time, indie punk vibe. Later albums would become more of a blend of the two, but I think Let's Talk… is propably the poppiest of their albums, and that's saying a lot considering that Double Plaidinum had a ska-punk song on it. (laughter)
That being said, I think that Lagwagon deserves a heavier sound, and between DP‘s very loose, muddy audio and the overly-clean and crisp sound here, I think it these two are the least impressive Lagwagon albums from a sonic perspective.
Lee: See, I love it when they break out some heavier chops, but I think sometimes chasing the metal-tinged riffs and screaming solos detracts from the song a little. Personal taste of course, but the laser focus of this album is right up my street. It has the feel of a concept album, without the pomp of needing to call itself one. Every song feels like it's contributing to the whole.
And you're right, “May 16” gets the glory because of Tony Hawk pro skater, and that's great, but it's packed with consistently good song writing.
Let's talk about covers… I love “Everything Turns Grey,” (originally by Agent Orange – editor) but I do find it an odd thing that they've thrown a pretty much verbatim cover into this album in particular. Especially i'd say because the leftovers album that came out after has the excellent “A Feedbag of Truck Stop Poetry” that could definitely have taken its place.
Jeff: Agreed on that. Not that “Everything Turn Grey” is a bad song, but there's covers from around that period that would've maybe blended in better? I don't know.
It's a good album, that's for sure. It slots in nicely with Blaze afterward, but then everything goes sideways with Resolve, and that's an album hellbent on catharsis, much much harder than anything since Hoss. And then, of course, comes what is essentially a nine year drought… if we don't count 2008's I Think My Older Brother Used to Listen to Lagwagon EP, itself an outlier that seemed more like a Joey Cape side project than a Lagwagon album.
Lee: I just don't think it needed a cover in all honesty. But then, it's good, so no harm I guess.
I like Blaze, perhaps a little less than anything that came before it, but it has some good moments. I think you and I need to have a separate conversation about Resolve though man. But that's for another day haha.
My thoughts on this album's place in the catalogue is that there are definitely better songs on other albums, but there is something about the singularity of LTAF that makes it the standout record for me. It may be what you said about it being an indie-punk record. It gives more emphasis to the coded yet honest lyrics and the flow of the record, and relies less on riffs.
There's a personal bias for me too, it was not only my introduction to Lagwagon, but one of the records that first got me into punk rock, so there is that emotional, memory-based connection that kinda trumps most objectivity. Plus it has a song about a train, meaning it's also a great country record…
Jeff: I'd already been a fan since between Trashed and Hoss, so for me I was already used to their albums being markedly different in style than the one before, and this was no different, but a marked improvement over Double Plaidinum (which I love, too, but it is a sloppy album).
But this also occupies some notable moments in my life. For one, it was the very first time I ever “downloaded”music, as the nascent Fat Wreck Chords site had “Hurry Up and Wait” and, I think, “Train” available to download from their site beforehand. Now, I didn't have internet myself at the time, but worked at a hospital and my friend was the IT guy for the oncology department and they had a connection. It took him all day to DL that second song (I'm fairly certain it was “Train”).
It also dropped when I was down in Florida with my oldest sister visiting my other sister. We stopped at Tower Records outside of Chicago on the way back to my oldest sister's to pick it up, and then when I dropped her off at her house in the NW suburbs, quickly recorded it to tape so that I could listen to it (again and again) on the two hour drive back to Madison, WI.
Those mid-90s years were a point of a lot of upheaval in my life, as essentially my whole family moved off to new places and we closed the book on my childhood home forever, to my move up to Madison, WI to start a new chapter. On the way a lot of those moments are divided into chapters timed with Lagwagon releases, and this is definitely one of them. I'm not sure if this why I still consider them one of my favorite bands, but I haven't really thought about that until now. Maybe that's why?
Lee: Being able to connect chapters of your life like that is what makes great bands great. It's such a personal thing, but there's obviously something in their music that resonated at the right time.
For me, this album takes me back to our first band. I was a bit of an indie kid and the guys were introducing me to punk rock, desperately trying to up the BPM of my musical tastes. This was one of the first albums that really clicked for me, and it takes me straight back to hanging at our drummer's house in between practices. It was the first punk rock album that spoke to me lyrically, and I'll always love it for that.