'Any Spare Change?'

During that difficult time the Butthole Surfers found themselves in at the beginning of the nineteen-nineties, it allowed for individual elements to pursue their own disparate ideas.

Paul went off and made his wonderful The History of Dogs; Gibby and Jeff created Digital Dump; Jeff wandering even further alone, forming Daddy Long Head; and King Coffey began the independent record label Trance Syndicate, releasing artists such as Roky Erikson, , ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of the Dead, and Coffey's own band: Drain.

It seemed to take a while for Coffey to get going with his own musical project, after a tentative single ('A Black Fist') the first Drain L.P. turned up in 1992, Trance Syndicate's eleventh release (TR11).

There was an immediate buzz around the band due to the track 'Instant Hippie' (sic) receiving a fair amount of air play, both in the UK and in the States; hopefully it attracted people to the album, because the rest of it sounded pretty different; adopting a much darker tone and mood.

Along with 'Instant Hippie' (a track that features one of the best spoken word outros ever), the other reasonably radio-friendly track: 'Crawfish', were both produced by the best set of ears on the block: Butch Vig; but it's also noticeable how those two tracks really do stand out; showing how an engineer can have such an influence on the sound it's easy to see them as a legitimate part of the band. Maybe George Martin had a point.

(Was Vig the fourth member of Nirvana? Or was that Albini? Or Endino? Depends what sound you prefer, I guess.)

Now considered a classic of the post-rock genre, Pick Up Heaven has travelled well; and stands up alongside many of today's stoner, sludge and grindcore releases.

Drain - Pick Up Heaven (1992)

National Anthem
Crawfish
Martyr's Road
Non Compis Mentis
Funeral Pyre
Ozark Monkey Chant
Instant Hippie
Flower Mound
Every Secret Thing
The Ballad of Miss Tony Fisher

Vinyl rip @320kbs

A little crackly during the quiet bits - but there's not too many of those...

Get yourself some Drainage here