It can be daunting, being in a band that winds up one of the influential acts of its day. If Boston’s Come, one of the most acclaimed groups to emerge from the early-’90s indie scene, had released nothing but debut album Eleven:Eleven, its importance for musicians in that scene would likely have been established anyway. Hard, noirish, frequently violent in its approach to blues patterns and styles slowed to a molasses-drip pace, few bands hit as heavy as Come. And few musicians, in Come or elsewhere, came as hard to the stage and the studio as Thalia Zedek. Now comes Via (Thrill Jockey), a record that finds her striking off in new aesthetic and collaborative territory. Zedek will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new feature on her.
Zedek: Boston to Chicago. 24 hours one way. Five peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. A 12 pack of PBR. A cassette Walkman. A 90-minute John Fahey mix tape and a cassette box set of Sherlock Holmes stories. In Albany, an overweight itinerant rock guitarist who apparently got thrown out of a recording session by the rest of his band and put on a train back to Chicago with no money sits next to me because I made the mistake of showing him a spot where he could stash his guitar. He starts talking my ear off and then, even worse, he starts eyeing my sandwiches. “What you got there, PB&J? You don’t say. Yum!” I contemplated spending the next 20 hours sitting next to this guy. No, that was not going to happen. I sprang into action. He told me I was a bitch. I saw him later in the smoking car where he was playing songs for beer. Through much effort and a bit of attitude I thankfully was able to keep the seat next to me unoccupied for the rest of the trip. Yes, she was worth it!
Video after the jump.
