Tripping Daisy - I Am An Elastic Firecracker

Tripping Daisy hold a weird place in Rock history. They were too radio for the indie kids, too indie for the radio kids, too catchy and poppy for the grunge kids and too grungy for the pop kids. With I Am An Elastic Firecracker, they managed to appeal to select members of each musical scene but are usually overlooked when people make those "best of the 90's" lists. That sucks, because this record is a good example of heavier style pop rock with a psychedelic flair. It's like if Wayne Coyne from The Flaming Lips sang for the Foo Fighters.

Jeff Bouck sort of got the shitty end of the stick. He is the only member of the band without a wikipedia page, and he quit shortly after recording this record, missing out the slight (but fairly large) acclaim Tripping Daisy got for the single, I Got A Girl. That sucks, because his playing, although fairly conventional really gives the record it's kick.

Sometimes, playing drums in a predictable, standard manner doesn't matter if you can do an awesome job. It also helps if your drums sound fucking amazing. Whoever placed his microphones and tuned his drums deserved their paycheck. Since they sound so good they are up front in the mix, putting the pressure on Bouck to play well because you can hear everything.

His toms in Pirahna snap and decay perfectly, meaning Jeff knew how to hit them right. You can also hear some slight delay effects on the drums which can really go all wishy washy if your time isn't right. He's got the quiet/loud dynamic that was so important in early 90's rock music, and his cymbals have the perfect amount of wash to them, making everything sound airy and heavy.

Hopefully Bouck will gain some notoriety since he plays with Daisy frontman Tim DeLaughter in The Polyphonic Spree. His work on those records is impressive, but I like hearing him rock out a bit more, so I chose Firecracker. Is it a mind blowing performance that changed the world? No, but it's fairly solid. Enough to at least get a god damn wikipedia page.

Audio/Visual Evidence: Pirahnas, I Got A Girl