Schrödinger's Band: The Greatest Hits of Heavy Times
"Stayed up too late...woke up dehydrated and afraid of life"
The Greatest Hits compilation seems to be a much maligned concept. I both understand why that is the case and also hate that it is the case. I have about 15 greatest hits CDs in my car at this exact moment. Sometimes all you need from a band is their hits (see: Phil Collins, Creedence Clearwater Revival) and sometimes a band’s hits are the best jumping off point from which to dive into their deep catalog (see: Johnny Cash, David Bowie). If you're not a "Big, Rich Rock Band" you don’t usually get to release a greatest hits compilation. So, in this ongoing series, I'll be making them on behalf of the overlooked, underappreciated or otherwise passed over.
Today: HEAVY TIMES, a band from Chicago, IL, that made 3 albums, multiple EPs and singles between 2009 and 2016.
Note: Some of the earlier parts of the Heavy Times catalog are not available to stream, so I had to host this on my SoundCloud page. But everything that was released on HoZac is available, so as always, if you like it, buy it! Also - I did my best to fix the volume levels but they are still mismatched in places, sorry!
I once joked on my old radio show that I was on the front lines of research into the 21st Century Garage-Punk movement, so indulge me while I murder some metaphors in order to present some of those “research findings”:
Chemistry1 tells us that distillation of gases requires careful attention to their relative volatility. I posit that sometimes the inherent greatness of a band is directly tied to its relative volatility2.
Information Science tells us that randomness is noise and can be ignored. I posit that for a band randomness and noise are essential elements which much never be ignored.
Mathematics, specifically Chaos Theory, tells us that chaotic behavior exists in natural systems. I posit that without chaos there cannot truly be punk bands.
Quantum Mechanics uses Schrodinger’s Cat as a simplified lesson in quantum theory: quantum particles can exist in more than one state at a time, until they interact with other particles. I posit that a band can exist in many forms, depending on the interactions occurring within it at any given time.
So, when applying all of the principles outlined above, I arrive at this conclusion:
a band, when subjected to the forces of volatility, randomness and chaos, can both exist and not exist simultaneously.
At this point, you should (reasonably) be asking yourself what my point is?
Well, the point is Heavy Times, a band with a lot in common with a quantum particle: Existing/Not Existing; Two constant members/Two rotating members; A consistent style/a constant tweaking of the sound. From the outside looking in, it always felt like if they weren’t in the middle of a tour, that they might not be a band at any given moment. They seemed to be Chaotic, Random, Noisy and Volatile but they were never anything less than an EXCELLENT band. Almost as if those elements had to all be happening in conjunction with each other?
Heavy Times first came into my world by way of HoZac Records, who released their sophomore album Jacker in 2011. This was a classic case of me not knowing a band, but a) trusting the label completely and b) buying any record where the RIYL3 name checks The Wipers. Jacker went into immediate heavy rotation and I found that buried beneath the walls of guitar, fuzz and general noise and chaos, this is a band that has some killer hooks and knows how to dig them into your brain.
And thus, Heavy Times made the jump from unknown to constant rotation in the space of about six weeks. Which was good timing for me, as they went on to be particularly prolific in 2012, releasing a spate of singles, ahead of their (final) album, Fix It Alone4 in 2013.
Then there was a quieter time for a few years, with some tours but no new releases - this is when the Schrodinger’s band idea first came to me - until a last gasp on life5 in 2016, with the almost-simultaneous release of the Black Sunglasses and Dancer EPs.
In the years since I transitioned from being a Radio Show Host to Yet Another Blogger, I also feel like I switched from being a Garage Rock Researcher to a Garage Rock Archivist. (Maybe that’s because so many of those bands broke up?)
An advantage of being archivist is the benefit of hindsight: 10 years on from my introduction to them, and 5 years on from those final releases, it’s now clear to me that the tragedy of the ending was that those 2016 EPs were in many ways the perfected version of the potential shown on their first release, 2009’s Fast Night.
The same guitar interplay is there, the same hooks are there, the same vocal styles are there, but everything has been built upon incrementally over the years and levelled up to its peak form.
The other archivists note I have is that the more people involved in the Chicago garage rock scene I talk to about Heavy Times, the more I realize how incredibly popular they were with their peers. I have multiple people on record that they were the “best band in town” (and there’s some pretty stiff competition.) I think that just about says it all.
Other Random Thoughts
This band always has great artwork, spanning all illustration, photography or layout.
Jacker is a garage-rock masterpiece in every way, but especially shines as an exercise in perfect album tracking, a dying art.
The order in which I first heard their records ended with Dead (the first LP), which is suitably backwards for me, but also meant I was able to discover what is probably my favorite Heavy Times song right at the end of the journey: Keeper Vibes.
I wanted to include Lost Dogs from the Rotted Tooth Recordings Summer Flexi Series single in the playlist, but I couldn’t find a digital copy anywhere. So just trust me when I say that it fuckin rips.
Saw them live once in Manchester (England, not New Hampshire!) and even though hardly anyone was there (for shame!), they played their hearts out, just for me and Simon6.
A note on lyrics - a rare foray for me, a person on the record that lyrics are the least important aspect of “rock” music. I bring it up as there appear to be four recurring themes across the Heavy Times discography, and I appreciate all of them:
These songs exist in a world where you can roll down your windows, take a drive and let the wind and road wash away your problems (Choked Up, Suicide Rider)
It’s often night-time in the city, which can be presented as either a fun time or as a dark and brooding time (Stoned in the City, Keeper Vibes, Paranoid Streets)
A streak of heavy nihilism runs throughout many of these songs, and as a recovering teenage nihilist, I approve (Bad Brother, Too Many Dreamers, Nothing To Live For)
What I can only describe as “horror movie stuff.” This one actually extends to song titles as well as lyrics. (River’s Edge, Welcome To The Graveyard, Ghost Cave)
I now present to you, unofficially released via SoundCloud on my imprint label Chapterhouse: Whitehead Records…THE GREATEST HITS OF HEAVY TIMES.
Tracks 1-3: Ouija Board / Denim Girls / I’m Single - Before listening to Fix It Alone for the first time I was confused about there being 18(!) songs. Like what is this, a double album? Are they a prog band now? But then I realized its still only half an hour7 long. It moves fast. The first draft of this playlist had half of its songs drawn from this album, which is too many. You can listen to the whole thing, but these three are just total rippers.
Track 4/Track 7: Too Many Dreamers / Paranoid Streets - This ultra-rare8 lathe cut EP is maybe the first release where they get to a level of recording quality that meets their musicians quality, if you know what I mean. The band just sound really cool on these tracks. (Also, I think I hear future-echoes of Ethers on these tracks.)
Track 5 / Track 11: Keeper Vibes / Poison Ivy - Like I said above, it really does feel like the progression of the band is that they keep incrementally leveling up as they go along. It’s like a Dungeons and Dragons character9, almost. These two standouts from the first LP Dead illustrate this. Keeper Vibes has one template that some songs on the Jacker LP will perfect, and Poison Ivy has another.
Track 6: Good Looker - This is probably the earliest example of the total earworm hooks these guys are working with. This is the caterpillar stage of the life cycle. The butterfly comes later.
Tracks 8-10: Jacker / Let It Die / Suicide Rider - This is the fucking triforce of power right here. Ripping through three consecutive songs that are this incendiary and with this level of intensity in the middle of Side A of your album is a sure fire way to grab the attention of the listener. Volatility, Chaos, Noise, Excellence. Imagine being this good at something, goddamn.
Tracks 12-15: Bad Brother / Choked Up / Midnight Highway / Edge Of The Night - four of the eight tracks from the final two EPs might seem like a lot, but it really speaks to my theory that they had both levelled up to their ultimate form but we’re almost just at the start of what that could have been. If Good Looker is the caterpillar stage, this is the butterfly stage. May we all be able to go out on top of our game like this.
Grab a beer (may I suggest a PBR?), kick back, play this playlist loud and revel in the brilliance of the once (and future?) BEST BAND IN TOWN, !~HEAVY TIMES~!
Bonus Content: Tall Pat’s favorite Heavy Times clip:
I guess not all of my aborted Bachelors Degree in Chemistry was wasted, eh?
To try and benchmark the two ends of this spectrum: modern Foo Fighters (Stable/Dull) to Royal Headache (Volatile/Exciting)
I find it odd that more bands/labels don’t use “Recommended If You Like” more often, it’s the most powerful written tool at your disposal.
Perhaps - and I’m speculating here - one’s instinct when confronted with chaos and randomness is to resort to “fixing it alone”?
Which, per HoZac’s presser, was originally supposed to be the start of a new life, not a slow death?
An old musician pal from the Preston daze, Charlie, described these kinds of shows from the bands perspective as “posh practice”, which I always liked as an expression
33:33, to be precise, and that has to be on purpose, right?!
If you have one, I’m buying. Hit me up
Would have to be a Bard. Have I mentioned my current D&D character is a Bard?
Thanks for the kind words. It’s been a long time since we released anything, but ht has a lot of unreleased tracks. Maybe we should do another LP?