Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Rotary Ten - two tapes (1990-91)

Presumably taking their name from the R.E.M. song, it's virtually inevitable for me to draw some sort of parallel between this Cleveland area quartet and Michael Stipe's former meal-ticket.  Rotary Ten, in fact, didn't siphon as much as you might assume from said Athens, GA staple, so much as the bands whom R.E.M. informed - Miracle Legion, For Squirrels, and even more negligibly Toad the Wet Sprocket.  Submitted for your approval, two low-budget forays into the unlikely realm of organ-laced indie pop.  The proceedings on Long Walk and Coffee Songs emanate a discernible collegiate ardor, yet are uniformly approachable.  Rotate Ten wield some fairly ambitious melodies when they put their collective minds to it - "Glacier Run," "Rainfall" and "Insomnia" for starters.  Otherwise, I have precious little else to opine on here.  However, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that some of these songs are available on an R/T compilation from this period, Adopt a Highway, which is attainable via Bandcamp, alongside a collection of later material. Should you find anything stimulating on these cassettes, please consider supporting the band and send a few $$ their way!

Long Walk (1990)
01. Autumn Years
02. Save Me Mary
03. Glacier Run
04. Rainfall
05. The End of it's Over
06. Lover's Lane
07. Cowboys

Coffee Songs (1991)
01. Coffee Song
02. I Am in a Coma
03. Insomnia
04. Winona

Hear

1 comment:

Bruce K. said...

I liked the earlier one better, and probably more enthusiastically than your write up, although nothing earth-shattering and it did seem to be frontloaded. The later tape was still pretty good, but the ol' keyboards really started to dominate a bit too much, although that did make for an interesting sound.