Cathode - Long PIg
Cathode was a Boston-based Post Rock band before post rock made the big splash it has today. Before Mogwai and Explosions in the SKy and the later, Boston-based Caspian. I first saw Cathode when my old shoe gaze band was playing a show with them @ O’Brien’s Pub in Allston, MA. They blew me away. They were so effortlessly competent and talented and it just sounded so completely amazing. This song is sort of the magnum opus of their self titled, and only album. They were on this boston label called Castle Von Buhler, that was a big inspiration for us when we founded Archenemy - awesome music, awesome design. Eventually I became pretty good friends with Bruce from Cathode, who assisted in engineering our second Rockets album. He works with Aubrey (who also engineered the second Rockets album) out in SF now, having spent a large number of years producing and engineering but, like the rest of us, ultimately going back to computers.
I envied Cathode - they were the band I wanted to be, but was never really good enough. I also loved that they were instrumental, which was pretty great because we spent so much time on our lyrics.
On evenings like tonight, I think of that period in my life - the label was humming along, we were cranking out albums, we were playing shows routinely, and actually getting pretty good - and I miss it like hell. The creation of TBG has been something wonderful, but i still miss the creation of Archenemy. I miss my original band of cohorts - aug and annie and craig and sean and jussi and tony and aubrey and bruce and colin and brian (on man I gotta do a Clairvoyants song sometime), and all the bands we’d play with and all the clubs and shows and driving down to NY to play CBGBs or anyone that would let us play, and the tour with Breathless and… oh, if only we had more money. Sigh.
