Dead Moon - In The Graveyard '1988/2024

Tracks list

By the time Dead Moon started pouring forth their extended run of no-bullshit
three-chord records in 1988, co-founders Fred and Toody Cole had been married
for two decades and had raised three kids. Rock & roll lifers, the Coles lived
on a big plot of rural Oregon land in a house they built themselves and did
their own thing. Among them: listening to wild rock and/or roll records and,
when the time was right, making some of their own.

Born amid the Pacific Northwest on the cusp of becoming the center of the grunge
and riot grrrl explosions, Dead Moon moved through the 1990s minus any hipster
buzz. They self-released their first two singles, and did so using the same
vinyl cutting lathe that carved "Louie Louie," the Kingsmen's rock & roll
classic, into the grooves. Between 1988 and 2006, the band released ten
unimpeachable studio albums.

Those first two singles, released on their own Tombstone Records label, form the
backbone of In the Graveyard, Dead Moon's debut album, which has just been
reissued on Mississippi Records. A feral bunch of short, sharp songs that tap
the unfettered let's-start-a-band determination of the Seeds, the Troggs, White
Stripes and the entire roster on the classic garage rock compilation Nuggets,
the trio (Fred on guitar, Toody on bass and drummer Andrew Loomis) sings about
murderous love ("Parchment Farm," "Hey Joe"), battle-scarred PTSD ("Dead in the
Saddle"), rebellion ("Out on a Wire"), running away ("Don't Burn the Fires")
and, on Toody's cover of Elvis Presley's "I Can't Help Falling in Love with
You," devotion.

Three-minute capsules that carry within them melody, emotion and feral yowls
about the human condition, Dead Moon songs are pomp- and pretense-free, so
sturdy they could support a stack of anvils. On opening song "Graveyard," Toody
lays down an electric-jug-inspired bass line that mimics the 13th Floor
Elevators' classic "You're Gonna Miss Me." Fred borrows a Cramps
technique—the descending-scale guitar line that opens "Human
Fly"—on "Out on a Wire." On the classic prison song "Parchment Farm," the
married couple sing, in unison, "I feel like I could be here for the rest of my
life—and all I did was shoot my wife." When, in the classic jam "Hey Joe"
a few songs later, Fred once again bellows about a wife killer, Toody and Loomis
crank out an urgent, getaway-style rhythm that suggests that the husband, too,
should watch his back.

There's a certain irony in celebrating Dead Moon's defiantly lo-fi debut album
on a platform, Qobuz, known for its high fidelity excellence. On In the
Graveyard, sibilant hiss is a defining part of the equation, one that sets the
songs in the same pretense-free environment where they were made. Whether
recorded on a tape deck or through a million-dollar console, Dead Moon cracked
the code: a killer song is a killer song. © Randall Roberts

Tracklist:
1.01 - Dead Moon - Graveyard (2:33) 
1.02 - Dead Moon - Out On A Wire (2:51) 
1.03 - Dead Moon - Can't Help Falling in Love (1:46) 
1.04 - Dead Moon - Parchment Farm (3:36) 
1.05 - Dead Moon - Dead in the Saddle (3:43) 
1.06 - Dead Moon - Hey Joe (2:58) 
1.07 - Dead Moon - Don't Burn the Fires (3:30) 
1.08 - Dead Moon - Where Did I Go Wrong (2:17) 
1.09 - Dead Moon - Remember Me (2:55) 
1.10 - Dead Moon - I Hate the Blues (2:35)

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