3. The Flesh EatersA Minute To Pray, A Second To Die
We played with the line-up from this album at 2007’s All Tomorrow’s Parties. We were allowed to curate a day and we brought them over. That record A Minute To Pray, A Second To Die just got reissued on Superior Viaduct and they played a couple of shows in California. Danny Bland – a guy I knew from way back from the band Cat Butt, works very closely for Dave Alvin from Flesh Eaters [and The Blasters] – asked me if they came to Seattle, would we want to play with them and I was like: "Fuck yeah!"
They were great man. They exceeded expectations I think and there were a lot of people at the show who were probably not familiar with the record but were familiar with the guys. They’re like "we like The Blasters, we like X" but it’s a totally different beast to those bands. It’s got more of a Captain Beefheart, early Dr. John feel to it with the marimbas on the record, the Steve Berlin sax (another record with sax!).
It was kind of an anomaly at the time. It was part of the punk scene but it wasn’t a punk record. There was this thing at the time that I confused it with at first – bands like 45 Grave and Christian Death and the Dance With Me-era TSOL where everything was kind of getting satanic. I initially lumped it in with that stuff but it’s so much better and further ahead of the game than that.
The record for me was kind of a slow burn. I worked in a radio station and when it came in I put it on a cassette with a more normal hardcore band on the other side. I eventually found myself fast-forwarding through the hardcore side and just listening to A Minute To Pray, A Second To Die over and over again. It wasn’t like initially "this is great!", it was more like "this is weird!" to a 19-year-old. Chris Desjardins’ lyrics are awesome and dense and intense and pretty much like Nick Cave’s. Both those guys – they don’t write short, concise pop songs.
