Not sure what brought Self’s Breakfast With Girls back into heavy headphone rotation this year, but it’s been melting my AirPods on a weekly basis.
That’s them — or rather, frontman / songwriter / producer Matt Mahaffey — snapped by me at a CMJ Showcase the week I started college.
Great show, zero anecdotes. Moving on!
Like most promo-stickered CDs I’ve rescued from dollar bins across multiple decades, the band’s lone major label effort was decidedly not “a hit.”
It wasn’t just some curio from the waning days of the Alternative Nation, either.
Though it totally could have been…
Self’s debut “Cannon” (off 1995’s Subliminal Plastic Motives) was one of the era’s many fuzzbox messages in a bottle, washing ashore juuust long enough to get played on 120 Minutes exactly once.
Follow-up “So Low” had a similar commercial trajectory (I ordered it on The Box after the weirdest Sam Goody promo disc of all time brought the song into my life) but instead of soft verse loud chorus crunch, this was an oddball mix of sample CD breakbeats, acid basslines and orchestral power pop.
New fav band unlocked!
They inked with DreamWorks — who, in retrospect, should get props for throwing all the spaghetti against the wall with their signings.
Def Squad, Dust Brothers, Jonathan Fire*Eater, Ash, Eels, Kool Keith, Nelly Furtado, Elliot Smith…
SHREK?!?
In some ways, Self’s first and only release for the label harnessed all those energies at once. They were no longer a couple randos with a Big Muff, but a superpowered, pristinely mixed studio force. Complex string arrangements slam into drum machines and LL Cool J samples, alongside every other bell and whistle the pre-Napster recording industry could provide a creatively ambitious, in-demand twentysomething.
U know there was an Omnichord.
The songs ping-pong between ecstasy and melancholy. Ultra-distorted rave-ups fade out into (surprisingly!) yearning ballads.
Sweet ‘n sour, in stereo.
I think about this Variety eulogy for Brian Wilson, and the transcendence his (and all good) pop songs reached for — what Wilson himself referred to as “teenage symphonies to god.”
It’s hard to talk about music, about the flow of chords and melodies and arrangements, when you’re talking about a pop song, because it can all sound a little technical and abstract. But these mystic combinations of notes are the true heart of what we respond to in music… the title of the Beach Boys’ greatest album is “Pet Sounds,” and pet sounds is what Brian built into just about every song he ever wrote. It was those sounds that lifted you into the light.
Breakfast is absolutely stuffed with pet sounds. But it didn’t move units.
Self was still able to spend over half a million dollars (!!!) recording a KROQ-inspired follow up with Beastie producers Mario C and Mickey P… that was immediately shelved once the label was sold.
This would be a very typical ‘90s band story — disappointment, upheaval, hibernation — if Matt didn’t also become a successful Nashville composer, responsible for the new Ninja Turtles theme and the old Expedia jingle; his 2013 Ted Talk and this 2022 podcast (favorite rapper: Kwame!) will summarize the post-DreamWorks years much better than I can.
A quarter century later, the band drops occasional new releases, but Breakfast With Girls’ ELO-via-Odelay sound remains sui generis — and arguably, timeless.
I don’t feel like I’m throwing on Sirius XM’s “Lithium” station when listening (not that there’s anything wrong with that). So why does no one talk about it?
Fellow alt-rock gold rush coulda-beens / “band for band guys” Failure (whose Ken Andrews co-produced Breakfast closer “Placing The Blame”) have a whole ass documentary coming out next week.
I get it, Fantastic Planet is an all-timer of an LP (and still the best heroin concept album not made by EST Gee).
I’m just saying…
Perhaps the difference is that Failure’s aesthetic was “dour and tortured,” while Self was always giving “zany” to some degree.
In a time of bro hunks in ringer tees, their cover art was inspired by 10cc sleeves and Peter Sellers lobby cards. They recorded an entire album on toy instruments after hours during the Breakfast sessions. The drum kit in that live pic up top is clearly covered in pink fur!
But life is light and dark.
Art can be serious without being “serious.”
Silly lil dudes can be wizards too (ahem).
Hot Dollar “I Love The Streets” — back to Brian Wilson, this one has slipped through the RIP content cracks (unlike Norbit) and sadly can no longer be downloaded from DUBCNN West Coast News Network. Shout out Scoop Deville!
Shawn Stockman’s On That Note — we are (how) long (gone) past peak podcast, but this one has some novelty. Where else are you gonna find the dude from Pitch Perfect, a very candid Martin Lawrence and Boyz II Men in the DMZ?
Gene GX — touch sensitive analog polyphonic synth from LA Priest. Somebody hook that slidey boy up to the (wild sold out) Tame Impala keyboard…
Linkin Park Haribo — yes this is real and yes I need it.
Playlists updated!