the cuts

In October of 1988, a Burlington, Vt.-based rock band called the Cuts released their second album, Straight Path. Their first album, a self-titled LP, had been a local favorite in 1985, and the band was doing their own promotion for the follow-up, sending it to DJs, promoters, anyone who could expose their music to a wider audience.

The Cuts never broke big, and if you Google them, the only mention you will find is in the recollections of ex-Burlington scenesters like this guy. In fact, the only reason I know about them is that the band's guitarist, Frank Egan, is my uncle.

For a few dollars, I recently bought a vinyl promo copy of Straight Path on eBay. It came with a great promotional poster of the band and a press release with a hand-written note to someone named Mickey, signed by Dave Daignault, the lead singer and bass player of the Cuts, and to this day one of Frank's best friends. After the Cuts, Frank and Dave moved to Boston and then New York, playing together under a variety of names: Lisa Rock, Coffee, Penny, and most recently Louder Daddy. Now Frank is a financial analyst with a wife, an ex-wife, and two kids, soon to be three.

But I digress. Here is my copy of Straight Path:


While the cassette version of the album (which I listened to repeatedly as a kid) had ten tracks, the vinyl edition has just six — "to insure [sic] greater fidelity for radio airplay," as the press release explains — making it more of an EP than a bona fide LP. My intention here is to re-expose the world to an album that very few people ever heard, and that probably I am the first person to listen to in a good 10 years. I managed to figure out how to digitize the EP, and I present it here (with Frank's pre-approval, of course) for your listening pleasure, complete with analog pops and hisses.

Click here to download the whole EP, or click on the track names below to listen to or download them individually:

01 Straight Path (lyrics)
02 In a Different Part of the World (lyrics)
03 Pig (lyrics)
04 Rain (lyrics)
05 Hard to Pretend (lyrics)
06 People Solving Problems (lyrics)

I recommend starting with the title track — the one the most deserves the title of "lost gem." This one's got it all: some kick-ass guitar lines, some oh-so-'80s synths, an anthemic chorus, and an even better verse melody that Dave milks for all it's worth. My favorite part is the fourth time through the "My roots..." verse, when Frank joins in on backing vocals. I also love the rhyme of "avoid" with "Freud." Classic.

Some of the other tracks maybe haven't aged as well, particularly "People Solving Problems" and "Pig," which are ruminations on world peace and American greed, respectively. (In particular, the sax solo on "Pig" reminds me how glad I am that that instrument is no longer prominently featured in many pop songs.) "In a Different Part of the World" is another topical song, but it's interesting for a number of reasons: first, the production, which is very Talking Heads-y in its world-music flavor and its female backing vocals; and second, the lyrics, which are frankly hilarious. The verses totally throw the feel-good message of the chorus on its head.

"Rain" is an interesting atmospheric piece that feels a bit longer than it is, but the production is fantastic, with synthesizers, backing vocals and distorted guitars used to spooky effect. This should've been in a movie.

The sleeper hit on the record, for me, is "Hard to Pretend." The synth line that opens the song would've fit right in on pop radio in '88, and the song is brooding, dark and moody as hell. Plus that guitar solo — damn, uncle!

When I was a kid listening to this stuff, I guess I didn't realize how many of the Cuts' songs were about messed-up desire and illicit romance, although I guess they did make the sex stuff more overt in one of their later songs, which was titled "Take Me Down." (I wish I could've been able to post an mp3 of "Esther," one of the cassette-only songs from Straight Path, which was about Dave's "Domino's pizza girl" and contained the awesome line, "There isn't anything that I wouldn't give just to munch-a-munch-a-munch on her pies.")

OK, so have a listen to these tracks and post reactions in the comments section.

paralympicsport.tv re-launched

The website ParalympicSport.tv just got an overhaul, and the interface is a little easier to use. (If you're using a Mac, you'll need the Flip4Mac plug-in, which is a little cumbersome.) The site has footage of the Torino Winter Games as well as the Athens Summer Games, and there seems to be some new content also.

If I may make some recommendations, check out the footage of the first Winter Paralympic Games, from Örnsköldsvik, Sweden, in 1976. The narration's in Swedish, which is kind of amusing if you find Swedish as funny as I do. And then maybe you'll want to relive the glory (heh) of my 5th-place finish in the Torino downhill, which you can watch here. The problem is that you have to watch a very large amount of pre-race coverage, plus the visually impaired classes, the women's sitting division and some extensive course holds, before you get to the men's sitting category, and on a Mac at least, there's no way to fast-forward or jump to the segment you want to watch. Still, it's worth waiting for Kevin Bramble's awesomely balls-to-the-wall winning run and subsequent obscenity-laden trash-talking in the finish area.

SR article

The Ski Racing article about my lexicographical pursuits is now online, thanks to my alma mater, Gould Academy. You can read it here (PDF).

back on snow

Yesterday I went to see my doctor for a follow-up visit about my back; it's now been more than six weeks since I injured (or possibly re-injured) my back while competing at the X Games. While the broken vertebra was still apparent on the films, my doc was confident based on my pain level (zero) that my spine is healing well, and since it's already essentially immobilized by the spinal fusion that I had in 1999 to correct for my scoliosis, he cleared me to ski, race, and do whatever else I feel like doing.

Obviously, this is awesome news. Today I took four runs at Winter Park in choppy new snow, some of the more challenging conditions I could have asked for, and my back felt great — no pain. I feel ready to head back east next week to get in a couple races before the season wraps up. There are three races at Waterville Valley, N.H., that I will probably skip, and then three more at Sunday River, Maine, that I will attend. They are the first Nor-Am/Level II disabled races to be held at Sunday River, my old home mountain for six years, and I am super-psyched to be able to go, even if there are not too many top skiers racing there. I can't wait to ski the old race trails again — T-2, Monday Mourning, and Right Stuff, here I come.