Stump "A Fierce Pancake"

I always thought that the first entry in this blog would be Wall of Voodoo's "Call of the West"; in fact, I even swore that it would be about 2 decades ago.  Strangely, Stump's "A Fierce Pancake" has overtaken that slot and WOV has moved to slot number 2.

Now, don't be confused...  I know I said these are in no particular order, and for the most part that is true, but I WILL say that the two most prominent albums in my life have always been this one and WOV's "Call of the West".

But, why the change then?  I think it's simply that "A Fierce Pancake" has just SO much to chew on that I simply never ever get bored of it and listen and reference it constantly.  In fact, I can honestly say that various lines from this album are said aloud by me each and every day...no joke.  This album has had such a huge influence on my life in general that it falls into that category of "...I can't imagine my life without it...".

The funny thing is that I simply bought this album back in 1988 purely on a whim, not really thinking much of it at all.  I knew the single "Charlton Heston" due to the video shown on MTV, on shows such as 120 minutes, which is where I used to find a lot of my music back then.  "Charlton Heston" is completely misleading, though, since it's a fairly straight forward poppier song, and I ironically liked it and got the album because I thought Stump might be in fact a bit like Wall of Voodoo.

Well, I was completely wrong.  I still remember the first time I listened to this album.  Now, here is where I need to back up a bit.  Back in those days, when I first purchased an album, I would go in my room, turn the lights down a bit, pull out the booklet (keep in mind, these are CD's), I'd study the overall packaging such as who produced it, etc., and then I'd follow line by line the lyric sheet through the entire first run of the album.  Yes, I gave it 100% of my full attention the first time I listened to EVERY album I bought and I did this for many, many years, probably finally stopping around 1999-ish.  This was a good practice but sometimes also had negatives, such as in Stump's case.

By the time this album finished the first go round, I was honestly and seriously exhausted.  If you listen to even 30 seconds of one of their songs on this album other than "Charlton Heston", you'll probably get what I mean.  I had absolutely NO idea that this album was such a bizarre, unclassifiable, from another planet, quirky concoction that it was, and about 3 songs into the album I was mind blown but in a completely exhausting way.  In fact, I do recall after the album finally finished (I probably involuntarily tuned out about 5 songs in) that I thought, "...well, oh well, I tried..." and whole heartedly thought I'd never listen to it again or even sell it the next time I was at the used record store.

And then, for whatever reason, I reached for it maybe a week or two later, just to see what it sounded like to me at that point, a practice I've learned to do with hard to listen to albums in general.  I only intended to maybe listen to one song and then turn it off, and perhaps that is what I did.  It was probably with the intent to prove to myself that I should sell the album, to be honest.  And then, something weird happened...I felt I shouldn't get rid of it.  All I know is that little by little, this album somehow crept under my skin and eventually firmly lodged itself there in a way that no other album that I've ever heard has done, but please understand...it took a lot of time and listens, but I loved it.  And then, I would say around 1993 is when I finally started recognizing this album as brilliant versus just quirky and funny, and by the late 90's, a whole decade later, I had started telling people about it quite a bit.  Of course, anyone who gave it a listen thought I was purely crazy but that's besides the point.

"A Fierce Pancake" is NOT music for enjoyment.  Now, that's not to say that it's not enjoyable; what I mean is that you first must put work into it, and it isn't until you really start to understand the album, meaning you more or less know what each song sounds like and can anticipate it, or you can actually even sing along to it, that you really start to love the album.  The first time you hear it the music is so complicated and all over the place that you simply can't follow it, so it takes time to start to understand the format of the songs.  What I've learned along the way is that the average listener "listens" to an album 3-4 times and thinks they've actually listened to it.  Needless to say, Stump is not for that type of listener at all; it's for the true music fan.

So, what do you compare the sound of it to?  Really nothing.  Historically, people always bring up Captain Beefheart which is another beast altogether for another article, another one that's not an easy venture into listening, but I don't even think that really sums this album up.  Imagine Beefheart meets Devo meets Adrien Belew??!  That's the best I can do.  It's just Stump...at least that's how I know it.

The most amazing and beautiful thing, though, is that this album was on a major record label with tons of backing behind it, and so it's completely highly produced, top notch quality product of which you rarely ever hear of music that's this experimental.  The end result is pure heaven if you put the work into it.  From the craziness of the opening "Living it Down" to one of my fav's "Roll the Bodies Over" to the incredibly strangely catchy "Buffalo", this is seriously one of the best albums I've ever heard.  It's so good that I started the first decade or so preferring side 1 and then in the past 20 years have switched to side 2 as my favorite.  Again, there's just a never ending plethora of things to chew on in this album and it never ever seems to grow old.  How wonderful it is to hear something new each and every time you listen to a favorite album.

One minor note - the CD version of "A Fierce Pancake" at least is very hard to come by.  I'll also mention that in Europe only a special multi CD version of Stumps' work was released about a decade ago, basically a compilation of their earlier EP's, this album, and a completely unfinished album that was supposed to be the demo for the follow-up to this one.  Again, simply glorious, if you can get your hands on it.

I really don't drink but I seriously raise a glass to Stump and say a very sincere "Cheers!" and also a heartfelt thank you for bringing this amazing listening experience at least into my life.  I'm sure it'll remain in the #1 spot for the rest of my life.