Pipe - Ashtray

 Label: Merge

Year: 1993

While Chapel Hill circa 1993 was knee deep in cultivating (by accident?) a regional dialect of fractured indie rock that was, if we are being honest, pretty much the high water mark of college indie rock for the decade, there were other bands lurking around the area who took a different tact. Bands like Pipe, who did share many bills with your Archers Of Loaf and Superchunk (the drummer of Pipe was in Superchunk) and Polvo and Small (the guitarist and drummer of Pipe were in Small) and all of those. Pipe took a very direct and aggressive version of early punk and ratcheted it up a notch with a healthy dose of volume and a leering vision of the past, present, and future. What they managed was an invigorating and completely infectious attack that masked a catchy hook under a growling riff and an agitated vocalist. It was mean, but you were tapping your feet...and dodging spit.

We've posted Pipe before, and we will post them again, as I find them to be one of the best unsung treasures of 1990's North Carolina music, so strap in. This 7" today is a two song affair, one original, one cover, all perfect. It's the simple things...like me, that make life worth living, isn't it?

DL