The Second-Best Album Of '04

2. The 101 – s/t EP

After great consideration, I give my nod to The 101’s self-titled debut EP for the number two slot: high praise for a five-song EP that runs all of eleven-odd minutes and, in fact, actually came out in December of last year. Second-best album of this year? Maybe, maybe not. My second-favorite album of the year? Damn straight.

First, a lesson in genealogy: The 101 is the sequel to Antarctica, as Antarctica was the sequel to Christie Front Drive, vis-à-vis the frontman for each outfit, one Eric Richter. For myself, it all started with the late, great Christie Front Drive (ca. 1993-1996), a band for which, to this day, I find it surprisingly difficult to express my undying love in words.

It is an irrational kind of love, an unquantifiable love, that of a boy and his best tunes. It is such irrational love that drives the record collector to his familiar condition: the mild case of OCD. A beautiful thing, really, unqualified passion and holy fervor engendered by a work of art absorbed and found to be lovely.

This was the sort of love I held for Christie Front Drive. Still do, now more than ever. So naturally, when they split, I followed Richter as he moved on to the synth-driven, New Order-inspired pastures of Antarctica in the late nineties. Antarctica never made the waves that CFD did in its heyday during The Golden Age of Mid-Nineties Emo, but they managed to put together two very strong releases before fizzling at the end of the century.

Several years passed, with little news from the Richter camp. Finally, earlier this year, I read about his new project, The 101. Excitement built. I eventually picked up the debut EP at LA’s Amoeba Records on my very first trip to California, earlier this year. Now these were tunes to drive to! I must have played it as many times as the band’s name suggests, cruising the streets of the greater Hollywood Hills in my rental—up and down Wilshire and Santa Monica, winding round Mulholland Drive, thru the gates of Bel-Air, down the twin boulevards of Hollywood and Sunset, up the famed Pacific Coast Highway, and yes, stuck in traffic on the 101 itself—through it all, this EP was my constant companion.

Much different than Antarctica, The 101 is Richter’s triumphant return to guitar-based rock. I took to describing their sound as “Superchunk does Christie Front Drive”, a description by which I stand, more or less. It is atmospheric punk rock, with each short, punchy number running into the next and Richter’s voice “still the icing on the tits”, as Drawer B called it. To this day, when I play this marvelous little EP, I see palm trees and feel sunshine, instantly whisked away to the streets of LA for another spin. Funny how a New York band does that to me.

Click here for the official band site, here for a great interview with Eric, and here for Heller’s Westword review from last spring.

(This just in: The 101 has apparently issued a full-length LP of which I was entirely unawares. How do such things happen? More on this once I can get my paws on it.)

N/P Brocas Helm – Defender of the Crown