Label: self-released
Year: 1995
Home: Oakland, California
Members: Theo Cedar Jones ~ vocals/guitars
Thom Opal ~ guitars
Dave Gantenbein ~ bass
Rob Browning ~ drums
Oakland's Swaybone is known for their grungy sound & lyrical focus on spiritual matters inspired by & about the guru Adi
Da Samraj (also known as Bubba Free John, author of the famed spiritual autobiography The Knee Of Listening, which got somewhat referenced in an in-joke in the movie The Love Guru, while he also influenced the band Live). Swaybone was founded by & has been led through changing membership by musician & guitar teacher Theo Cedar Jones. Jones, a devotee of Adi Da Samraj for many decades, is famous for promoting his spiritual guide, plus the teacher Santosha Tantra & right spiritual living, while tirelessly trying to change the plight of struggling musicians in an unfair industry with radical organizational plans. Careless With Matches, a great title by the way, was Swaybone's first official release. It is a 5 song quirky affair, recorded on analog, that is very much a product of the mid-1990's with zany vocals & rhythms that start & stop a la Butthole Surfers, with a strong early grunge vibe. With its wild careening guitars, upbeat vocals, unpredictable musical changes, these songs would have fit perfectly in national music scene, or at least made super huge waves in the underground, while being both of the times but also having their own personality. This album strongly reminds me of the music I was listening to at the time. This was released my senior year of high school, with Jones being a decade older than me, for the record. I know I would have latched on to this had my young ears heard it. "Tiny Little Super Guy" has quirky vocals going from something like a toy come to life to normal singing, including child-like laughter, over unpredictable guitars that go from tinny plucking to chord chugging like Green Day. I honestly can't describe the randomness of this song other than to say it has the same flavor of unpredictability & dynamics as Mr. Bungle & They Might Be Giants. You can't help but want to listen repeated times to catch all the dynamics. Its a must hear song for those that want their music off the wall. It needs to be mentioned this is very different than the direction Swaybone would go on later albums, which would be more post-grunge & less experimental, thus this is a fascinating look into a very different side to the band for those that only know the current music by Jones. "Turn Us Up" is straight ahead rock song that has that same energy of the Melvins, where its a mix of some slowed down quasi-Black Sabbath inspired growling riffs mixed with alt-rock lyrics for a moody rock outing. Its a great emotional jaunt with its careening lead guitar lines very different from "Tiny Little Super Guy". Where that was fun, this is angry, or to quote it, full of "psychotic rage", even ending with screams. "The Advertising Song" goes for some very non-quirky alt-rock, while grunge is the game with "Shine Like The Sun". This later song might be comparable to the Screaming Trees, Mud Honey & Green River & bands at that end of the grunge spectrum. In your face guitars by an angry young man. There may only be 5 songs here, but each paints a very distinct side to the Swaybone personality. "The Advertising Song" & "Shine Like The Sun" are more in line with what would come on Swaybone's later albums with their distinctive rolling bass lines that carry the songs. "Shine Like The Sun" might have some of Jones' best singing on record. "Stella" is the one odd duck on the album, which is saying something given how quirky this album is, but it just shows the range of creativity on play here. The song opens with just a heavily reverbed acoustic guitar & Jones' vocals. After the first minute it gives way to a sound landscape of churning bass & guitar that sound like they are underwater, while Jones croons over them. Unlike its quirky grungy neighbors, "Stella" is contemplative, mellow, haunting. I might call it Swaybone's own alt-rock "Silent Lucidity." Careless With Matches is the final recording with co-founder Thom Opal, who was a strong contributor to the songwriting, which would be taken
over by Jones. I mentioned that Swaybone is famous for its focus on spiritual matters, but this would come into play on later albums. On Careless With Matches the spiritual is more open-ended & sub-textual. Jones has said he hadn’t developed as a writer when he did this album, but I think he’s
under-rated himself. Perhaps its was trying to compensate for a lack of confidence or it was the benefit of having a co-writer, but these are great songs. In "Tiny Little Super Guy" how can one not laugh at the well crafted lines: "Not so serious as I used to be / Got inhuman sort of energy / I'm a cartoon of my former self / Just a hyper driven cyber elf" & the closing lines of "I killed Joe Camel Man." While Jones might not be writing about his spiritual guru yet, his songs are very much very personal. In contrast to "Tiny Little Super Guy", "Turn Us Up" is about the cries of a band wanting to be heard, who are "sick of all this obscurity" & struggling to "break through with the in-crowd in my home town." How many musicians would make this their anthem? This song is a strong predictor of Jones' future work trying to help out fellow musicians. "Turn Us Up" also has one of the my favorite lines on the whole album in the refrain: "A dream is a curse if it's caged / I can't lose my taste for psychotic rage!" Jones doesn't just rage about his band not being heard, but also about the world around him. The straight up grunge song "The Advertising Song" calls out the lies of the advertising industry who see people as "just a bag of habits you steer to my next fix.". A great line that is so visual & says so much. The song even goes on to compare a consumer with a drunk who believes they can quit any time they want. As I said, Jones under-rated himself as a writer in these earlier days, as he has a great knack for insightful lyrics. The theme of striving for something better in a world of despair is tucked into pretty much all the songs here, which foreshadow the later spiritual themes Jones would pen. "Shine Like The Sun" brings everything home. "Lonely people fighting on two sides of a wall ... Kill each other with anger & pain / I might look at you & you might look at me / But both our eyes are shielded with shame ... Drinking in the poison that numbs us from the
pain / Of living in the shadow of our walls." Yet, there is hope. "Inside every one of us / Within the source of flame / lies the power to transform it all / What do you want? / What do you need?" The answer, though, might be harder to achieve, as "Each of us has what the other wants / All of us is all we really need." Spirituality does come through full force with "Stella", which is about a spiritually advanced teenage girl during the Middle Ages who gets burned on the stake. Not exactly uplifting, though Jones doesn't shy away from controversy on this album. Its a lovely little song with Jones at his most poetical. I can only wonder what it was inspired by. "She was always by the sea / Somewhere suspicious whispers / you my dear do not fit in." Not fitting in could be the motto of Swaybone.
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