“It’s amazing to me how much love there is for Acetone out in the world, especially considering how few records we actually sold at the time,” says Mark Lightcap, guitarist for ’90s slowcore greats Acetone. “That love, unrequited as the catalog moldered in record company vaults, has now been fully consummated in the form of this box set.” His band’s wonderful, long-out-of-print albums have now been reissued, along with comprehensive box set I’m Still Waiting that features an album’s worth of unreleased rarities and liner notes featuring essays by Mazzy Star‘s Hope Sandoval and Spiritualized‘s J. Spaceman. It’s a wonderful collection of an underappreciated band as well as a tribute to bassist/singer Richie Lee who died in 2001.
The box set is out today via New West and to celebrate we asked Lightcap and drummer Steve Hadley to pick a few songs each from it that are favorites and to tell us more about them.
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Mark Lightcap:
“The Final Say” (from If You Only Knew)
In my fantasy world, this song is a radio hit. I love the combo of Richie’s syrupy vocal laid over that fat ZZ Top guitar with the lowrider backbeat. It makes me want to commit crime, just like a rock and roll song should.
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“Nothing At All” (version included on the bonus LP Prime Cuts)
This one gets me every time. I can still picture the three of us crammed into the little control room at CJAM Ontario with a single microphone. Something about this beautiful, intimate performance arising out of such crummy circumstances feels like core Acetone to me.
“Germs” (from the Acetone LP):
Possibly my favorite single recording of ours for many reasons, not least of which is the little Hawaiian guitar interlude: a love salute to the greatest, Feet Rogers.
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Steve Hadley:
“O.I.E” (from the bonus LP Prime Cuts)
“‘O.I.E.’ is and was a big song for us at one time. Recorded during the time in Nashville, we had high hopes it was the epic opening song for If You Only Knew, but one thing led to another and it was sadly relegated to B-side status. Although we kept playing it live and often opened shows with it. An extremely fun song to play cuz that groove is made of rubber and we’d stretch it to and fro.
“All The Time” (from the Acetone LP)
“It doesn’t grab the attention as much I believe, being the 2nd song on side A, but it’s a sneaky gem of a song. Mark’s guitar does the coolest hook in there. Catchy as hell and a super classy pop song. I remember a group of the songs from this LP had a very CA HWY feeling .
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