The Pigeon Is the Most Popular Bird

Sub Pop aficionados must have been caught more than a little off-guard to not hear something akin to Screaming Trees or Mudhoney after initially plopping The Pigeon Is the Most Popular Bird on their turntables. Divided into halves -- there's the Idiot half and there's the Savant half -- Six Finger Satellite's full-length debut features ten angular post-punk jolts in the spirit of Gang of Four (witness "Laughing Larry," replete with call-and-response vocals) and the Birthday Party (witness the swampabilly raunch of "Hi Lo Jerk"), broken up by a series of untitled, garage-y, wild card instrumentals that veer from sinister noodling to more rock-based squalls with splices of odd keyboards thrown in for good measure. Somewhat frustratingly, the untitled tangents often top the songs that do have titles. This is the band's rawest record, featuring the least amount of studio gadgetry and manipulation. J. Ryan's voice bears no effects or bizarrely buried/contorted trickery, sounding hoarse and anxious throughout. Nonetheless, it certainly sets the table for the band's love of noise and lunacy, combined with a healthy splash of bizarre humor. Hardly any other indie band at the time was doing this. They weren't just the black sheep of Sub Pop; they were demented flies in the ointment of mid-'90s U.S. indie rock, when a good number of bands from their neck of the woods did their best to sound like Unrest or Superchunk. As a footnote, Shellac named one of their singles, The Bird Is the Most Popular Finger, in honor of the band. No mere coincidence, Shellac's Bob Weston recorded and engineered this record. ~ Andy Kellman