Songtown - Vol. 8 (Encyclopedi-ite)

Artist: Sammy
Song: Encyclopedi-ite
Album: Tales Of Great Neck Glory
Year: 1996
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I just realized something about this Sammy band this morning. But, first, let's start at the beginning.

In 1996 and the two years leading up to it, I was super-excited that I had the good fortune of living in Overlea, just up the street from my favorite CD store, Record and Tape Trader. Setting aside the facts that this location was to eventually close and I would eventually work for/grow disenchanted with the company and I would eventually not care for the CD format anymore...in 1996, I was in love with finding new music and there was now better place to do it.

On what seemed like every summer afternoon, I would walk to "Traders" and initiate some sort of transaction that would involve me selling back a cardboard box's worth of CDs to them and then proceeding to spend all the money that they just gave me on new music. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. I could hear their collective sighs when I walked through the door. As a buyer, they didn't mind me. I didn't ask a lot of questions. I kept to myself. I spent a lot of money. As a seller, the employees dreaded seeing me, as I was a sign that they'd be spending their next thirty minutes on the phone with the Towson store to figure out how much they should give for each disc. That said, the company, as a whole, probably loved me, because I took great care of my CDs and they could get away with giving me $2 for a CD that I paid $12 for last month, which then they'll turn and sell for $8 next week. The sad part was that it would more than likely be me re-buying the CD, after reflecting and realizing that my financial situation wasn't as dire as it seemed and that I couldn't possibly live without Dr. Feelgood.

So, I resent the implication that my 27 year old self might need to sit down with a financial advisor, but my 16 year old self? Not so much.

I haven't outgrown this process of buying and quickly selling my CDs, but at least now I have iTunes and the mp3 format, so I preserve digital copies of every album that I've owned over the last four years, at least. The archiver part of me kicks me for not having discovered mp3s in 1992, however.

One such CD is Sammy's Tales of Great Neck Glory. Bought it. Loved it. Sold it. Re-bought it for a penny off of Amazon. So not a terrible arc.

Each time I was at Traders, I would thumb through each and every rack to make sure that I hadn't missed something yesterday. One fateful day, as I flipped through the S placard, I found this CD with a couple mop-topped dudes on it, with a little sticker that [I thought] said "Featuring former members of GBV." I had recently started listening to Guided By Voices, as they were apparently the godfathers of indie rock. I didn't necessarily care for GBV that much, but it had taken stickers with a lot less intrigue to convince me to buy other albums. So, of course, I was going to buy this one.

I took it up and was surprised that it was a thoroughly enjoyable listen. I loved the first five or six songs, and then from there, it all becomes murky. The album as a whole is a little or a lot monotonous. There aren't really any bad songs, but if you've heard one, you know what the second, third and fourth ones are going to sound like.

And I feel bad for saying this, because every single mention of Sammy on the internet mentions it, but it would be a disservice if I didn't note that they're a poor man's Pavement. The music is a lot smoother and the lyrics, for the most part, don't ever come close to matching that abstract brilliance of Malkmus, but nonetheless...Pavement For Babies. That said, most of these reviews use this relation as Strike One, Strike Two and Strike Three against the band. I think that's going a little overboard. Granted, the reviews were written at a time when a lot of bands were trying to steal the Pavement sound, so the reviewers were probably just really fed up with it all. So, maybe they've returned to Tales of Great Neck Glory and can now listen to it as just an album of however many pretty good songs.

"Encyclopedi-ite" is one of the three or four standout tracks. The lyrics revolve around the narrator's obsession with some know-it-all smarty-pants. If the music and melody wasn't so peppy and fun, a typical listener would probably report this song to the authorities upon hearing it. You see, it sounds like Dude is friends with this Encyclopedi-ite, but everytime they hang out, "[she] always gave him the tour/he never gets to explore." So this leads the dude to break into the girl's room so that he can "absorb like a sponge/everything that [she's] done." Or maybe I'm reading too far into it? Maybe its less creepy? Maybe its just his brother or something and he's sick of living in his shadow? You decide!

Let me live your life, Encyclopedi-ite
Don't turn out the light

Yeah, he's a creep. No doubt.

And now to what I've just found out this morning. None of these guys have ever been in Guided By Voices. That stickers said ""Featuring former members of GVSB" instead. Girls vs. Boys. I hated that band and even my pitiful 16 year old suffer wouldn't have been suckered into buying this album if he had read that correctly.