Colorfinger - Deep in the Heart of the Beast in the Sun
It's good to have a window on the world
And live deep in the heart of the beast in the sun
Night after night I do the same damn thing
Do the weirdness dance for those who can't
Getting to the point that I can't take it anymore
The opening lines to the first track, “Kill the Sun” set the tone for this record. A record that I’ve always believed, is Art Alexakis’ finest collection of songs. He went on to write songs that were better than anything on this record: “Father of Mine”, “Wonderful” and “Santa Monica” to name just a few. However, pound for pound, I’ve always thought this record best exemplified the mixture of quality songwriting and raw emotion.
Having been a part of the cowpunk scene in Los Angeles in the early 1980s, Art moved to San Francisco to avoid the pay-to-play, hair metal scene later in the decade. He has said Colorfinger is just rock, not cowpunk, but there’s a very clear country influence here too. The alt-country scene started in the late 80’s, but in the pre-internet days, I think Colorfinger deserves the credit for being ahead of their time no different than Uncle Tupelo.
In researching this record, I answered a few questions I’ve always had about why a low budget, independent record sounded so good. Besides excellent production and performance, there are some names on here that would go on to be some of the biggest names in the Bay Area music scene: Kevin Army and David Immergluck. Kevin would go on to work with artists such as Green Day and Operation Ivy and Immy played in Camper Van Beethoven and has been a member of Counting Crows for a couple decades now.
Art was freshly off of drugs at this time and, he may or may not have been still drinking at this point, he’s not been specific about his sobriety date, but he has bluntly honest about early days of sobriety (listen to Matt Pinfield’s podcast with him, it can be rough at times, but it’s worth it). This leads to these tales of urban addiction and chaos sounding incredibly fresh. As a lyric writer, he’s incredibly skilled at putting you in the room with him. Specific details about specific places (Al’s Bar in San Francisco, the Circle Bar in Santa Monica) but told in a way you can see it without having been there.
“Eleanor Young” is an incredibly accurate depiction of Art’s mom. I had the privilege of hearing him play part of this at a solo acoustic show at the Roxy around 2017. Simple, but again, the details allow you to follow the story of the hillbilly woman who packed up her family in Detroit to move to Los Angeles after seeing the Rose Parade on TV and the broken marriage and family struggles that followed.
“Culver Palms” was later re-recorded by Everclear as “Why I Don’t Believe in God” about Art’s childhood, being shuffled around the family, his mom’s nervous breakdown and living in the Mar Vista Gardens projects.
“13 Years” tells the tale of Art loading his pockets with sand and rocks and jumping off the end of the Santa Monica Pier in a weak suicide attempt. When he was at the bottom, he saw his brother George who had OD’d on heroin and died (see “Heroin Girl”) and his brother spoke to him and told him to live.
“Separation” is one of my favorite songs of all time. Definitely not as heavy in musical or lyrical mood, it is tune so catchy you can’t get it out of your head in spite of being about an unhealthy relationship.
It’s really impossible not to connect to the characters in these songs, and that, to me, is really the point of it all. The music is really good alternate country and the storytelling is top notch. It’s sad to me that in almost thirty years of commercial success, Art has not re-mastered and re-released this record. He’s said he planned to pretty much from day one, having told interviewers multiple times and even yours truly at least once personally back in the mid-90s. World of Noise was just re-mastered and re-released, so I can only hope this one will eventually see a similar fate.
This album is almost impossible to find a physical copy of and is not currently on any of the major streaming platforms, but there is a pretty high quality copy on YouTube here.
You also see a live performance on Hungry & Hollow’s YouTube page here.