Song Of The Day 004

Back again.. hopefully things will continue like this.

My girlfriend listened to a lot of The Clean back when we started dating and for the most part, they didn't really do much for me. The exception to this was one song on their 1982 EP Boodle Boodle Boodle: "Point That Thing Somewhere Else". I'm a sucker for the Apache / Motorik beat wherever it pops up and "Point That Thing.." borrowed it to great effect. Sounding like a cross between straight ahead 4/4 Krautrock and Yo La Tengo's more propulsive moments (though YLT and their own adaptation of that sound obviously came later on) it was right up my alley at the time. Much later now, noticing a nice vinyl reissue of The Clean Compilation (which gathered most of their early work) floating around, I've revisited the early EPs. At this point I'm down with most of their material, but "Point That Thing.." still stands out, offering their best example of Velvet Underground-style repetition and escape from traditional song structure. 1982 seems a bit wrong for a song like this - the era of post-punk, full-blown hardcore, early Industrial, etc., but as with a lot of the best music, the wrong time was totally the right time.

The Clean "Point That Thing Somewhere Else" (originally from Boodle Boodle Boodle, 1982; reissued on Clean Compilation, 1986)