Friday, October 2, 2009

Eleventh Dream Day - s/t ep (1987, Amoeba)

When it was announced in 2003 that Drag City Records were going to be reissuing Eleventh Dream Day's debut album, Prairie School Freakout, I was bummed to learn that the band's preceding 1987 self-titled ep would not be appended to it. At the time, I had an awareness of that six-cut record, but hadn't experienced it. A few years down the road when I was able to obtain an original copy (vinyl only) I understood why the two records weren't exactly a match made in heaven after all. When the legendary Chi-Town natives got around to cutting Prairie School in the summer of 1987 (allegedly in the span of six hours), they were well on their way to cultivating, the amped-out, Neil Young-inspired feedback sprawl they would become renown for (at least in some small circles). Eleventh Dream Day was a not-so-telling sonic precursor to their forthcoming albums like Beet, rather a slightly milder beast, packing a liberal dose of twang. Not entirely as memorable as their first couple of LPs it contains a few selections worthy of inclusion on any hypothetical EDD "best of," like "Not the Ballad of a Girl" and "Walking Though the Barrel of a Gun," the latter a taste of things to come on Prairie School's cult-clasique commencing number, "Watching the Candles Burn." You can also check out a promo-only EDD mini-album, Borscht, which I uploaded some time ago, as well as this Myspace fan page.

01. Walking Though the Barrel of a Gun
02. Vein of Gold
03. Not the Ballad of a Girl
04. Liz Beth
05. The Arsonist
06. Cascade

Hear

5 comments:

Sam Adams said...

Lovely. "Walking Down the Barrel..." is pure gold.

fred davis said...

Great! I've been a fan of theirs since the early 90's and had no idea that this EP existed until today. Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Hi there. I have been on the look out for this album for the longest time. I used to have a taped copy but that has long gone. I tried to download your copy to no avail. Any chance of reactivating it for me?

Unknown said...

Hi WO, thanks for all the great post. Can you please reup the EDD 1987 release. THANKS!

bliss_infinte said...

LOVED this band. I always thought they were the best band in Chicago around this time (late 80's). This EP was perfection and I played the hell out of it.