Superchunk are the Saint Maria Goretti of indie rock -- so pure and chaste, releasing every record since 1993 though their own label, Merge -- though their super-frenzied punk-pop could have easily made a serious splash in the major leagues. Twin guitars buzz and rumble over bracing, joyous melodies, and Mac McCaughan’s tattered yelping somehow sounds both embittered and encouraging all at once. “Life-affirming,” I guess you’d call it.
No Pocky for Kitty, Superchunk’s first full-length on Merge and last with original drummer Chuck Garrison, was recorded in Chicago by Steve Albini, on a three-night hiatus from the band’s first nationwide tour. In the liner notes, McCaughan recalls how the engineer shared Chunk’s “insane work ethic” and how he scored the lowest rates at the Chicago Recording Company by booking the 6 PM-6 AM shift. “It’s hard to believe now, but at the time it didn’t seem at all crazy to be going about things that way,” admits guitarist Jim Wilbur, who, in the spring of ‘91, was still recuperating from a semi-serious bronchial infection.
Albini receives no sleeve credit (as per usual), but Pocky is one of his best works; the signature “Albini sound” -- unbuffed mistakes and harsh, massive guitars -- click with the songwriting instead of working against it, like on The Wedding Present’s Seamonsters or PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me. These songs are huge. “The Chapel Hill, N.C. quartet writes about mundane, everyday occurrences -- a slack co-worker, a teetering relationship -- and shouts about them from the rooftops,” praised the Chicago Tribune.
Indeed. “Skip Steps One & Three” is about a reckless driver. Or a pot smoker. “Seed Toss” is about a bitchy girlfriend. “That’s the fun of it,” said McCaughan. “The challenge is to take a small thing and make it into something worth talking about, even though it probably wasn’t to begin with.”
Rock, even punk rock, doesn’t sound like this anymore -- raw, vital, unstoppable. Listen to No Pocky for Kitty, then anything by Against Me!. Sounds like music from a Bugs Bunny cartoon.