''Prairie School Freakout'' is the second (and first full-length) album by

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-based band

Eleventh Dream Day Eleventh Dream Day (EDD) is an American alternative rock band from Chicago. History The band was founded by guitarists Rick Rizzo and Janet Beveridge Bean, who met at a place fondly known as 1069. This was a house/practice space/hang out in Lou ...

, originally released on

Amoeba Records Amoeba Music is an American independent music store chain with locations in Berkeley, San Francisco, and Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1990 in Berkeley, California, and remains in operation, having survived the decline ...

in 1988.

Recording

According to the original liner notes, the album "was recorded on a hot pollution alert day during July 987in

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

, and was made at a place called Artist Recording Service. We recorded 15 songs between 11:00 pm and 5:00 am, half of the time spent trying to fix the wild buzz coming out of Rick's

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. We finally gave up and decided to make amp buzz the theme of the record."
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Style and content

Neil Young & Crazy Horse Neil Percival Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian-American singer and songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, joining Buffalo Springfield with Stephen Stills, Richie Fura ...

Dream Syndicate A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Humans spend about two hours dreaming per night, and each dream lasts around 5 to 20 minutes, alth ...

, X,

Television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

and "the iconoclastic energy of the American hardcore-punk scene" were recognized by many as being influences on the album's sound. ''

Comes with a Smile ''Comes with a Smile'' was a quarterly music-focused fanzine published in the United Kingdom between June 1997 and February 2006. The title originates from a lyric in Red House Painters' song "24". In 2001, ''Comes with a Smile'' released a no ...

'' considers the album to be "the missing link between sprawling seventies rock and trim eighties

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde sensibilities and non-roc ...

". ''

Pitchfork A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to th ...

'' noted "an overabundance of post-adolescent fervor" in the music. ''

Popmatters ''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, fi ...

'' considers the album to be "perfect road fodder in its own inimitable way", noting driving-related themes in its lyrics and a similarly suggestive sound in the music (citing the track "Driving Song" as an example). ''Dusted'' writes that the "band's approach" is summed up in its opening track "Watching the Candles Burn": "dueling guitars that wildly alternate between a countryish strum and noisy, half-improvised solos; Rick Rizzo's amelodic, almost aggressive singing; a general sense of freewheeling, youthful energy."

Release

The album was originally released through

in 1988. The New Rose Records CD release included "Tenth Leaving Train" as the last track. The album was re-released and expanded with the addition of the entire 3-song ''Wayne'' EP and videos for the tracks "Arsonist" (directed by Guy Roadruck for cable TV), "Watching the Candles Burn" and "Among the Pines" in 2003 by

Thrill Jockey Thrill Jockey is an American independent record label established by former Atlantic Records A&R representative Bettina Richards and based in Chicago. History Richards started the label in 1992 with $35,000 of family and personal capital, while ...

Reception and legacy

The album received critical praise upon its release, eventually bringing the band to the attention of

Atlantic Records Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Over its first 20 years of operation, Atlantic earned a reputation as one of the most i ...

. Critic

Greg Kot Greg Kot (born March 3, 1957) is an American music journalist and author. From 1990 until 2020, Kot was the rock music critic at the ''Chicago Tribune'', where he covered popular music and reported on music-related social, political and busines ...

wrote of the album in 2003: "As a document of that era, "Prairie School Freakout" is both steeped in tradition (wearing influences from

Crazy Horse Crazy Horse ( lkt, Tȟašúŋke Witkó, italic=no, , ; 1840 – September 5, 1877) was a Lakota war leader of the Oglala band in the 19th century. He took up arms against the United States federal government to fight against encroachment by wh ...

Patti Smith Patricia Lee Smith (born December 30, 1946) is an American singer, songwriter, poet, painter and author who became an influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album '' Horses''. Called the "punk poe ...

) and ahead of its time (prefiguring

grunge Grunge (sometimes referred to as the Seattle sound) is an alternative rock genre and subculture that emerged during the in the American Pacific Northwest state of Washington, particularly in Seattle and nearby towns. Grunge fuses elements of p ...

and

alternative rock Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from Popular culture, mainstre ...

)." Sean Westergaard of

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

wrote that while the band "went on to construct better overall albums ..they never rocked harder than on ''Prairie School Freakout''. This album smokes." Decrying their lack of success in comparison to their peers, Noel Gardner of ''

Drowned in Sound ''Drowned in Sound'', sometimes abbreviated to ''DiS'', is a UK-based music webzine financed by artist management company Silentway. Founded by editor Sean Adams, the site features reviews, news, interviews, and discussion forums. History ''D ...

'' wrote that the album "is a better record than anything

The Flaming Lips The Flaming Lips are an American psychedelic rock band formed in 1983 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The band currently consists of Wayne Coyne (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Steven Drozd (guitars, keyboards, bass, drums, vocals), Derek Brown (keyb ...

Yo La Tengo Yo La Tengo (YLT; Spanish for "I have her") is an American indie rock band formed in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1984. Since 1992, the lineup has consisted of Ira Kaplan (guitars, piano, vocals), Georgia Hubley (drums, piano, vocals), and James McNew ...

Mercury Rev Mercury Rev is an American indie rock band formed in 1989 in Buffalo, New York.
Original personnel were Pavement – all similarly venerable, all vastly more bankable – have ever released." ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' called the album "one of those largely unknown records that deserves a second chance to find its place at the top of your list of all-time favourite albums." The album was similarly acclaimed by ''

Trouser Press ''Trouser Press'' was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow fan of the Who Dave Schulps and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" (a reference to ...

'', who wrote sarcastically that it is "slightly more elegant than roadkill. Guitarists Rizzo and Baird Figi trade leads that could saw down a petrified forest; the lyrics, when decipherable through Rizzo's strangulations, depict lonesome roads, empty rooms and horror-film traumas filled with the same eerie dread as the original ''

Texas Chainsaw Massacre ''The Texas Chain Saw Massacre'' is a 1974 American horror film produced and directed by Tobe Hooper from a story and screenplay by Hooper and Kim Henkel. It stars Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow and Gunnar Hansen, w ...

''." According to

Jim DeRogatis James Peter DeRogatis (born September 2, 1964) is an American music critic and co-host of ''Sound Opinions''. DeRogatis has written articles for magazines such as ''Rolling Stone'', '' Spin'', ''Guitar World'' and ''Modern Drummer'', and for 15 ...

, reviewing the reissues of ''Beet'' and ''Lived to Tell'' in 2001, ''Prairie School Freakout'' "remains the masterpiece" of the band's discography. ''Spin'' named it one of the '80 Excellent Records of the 80s'. The music blog ''Fast n Bulbous'' ranked it the 10th greatest

indie Indie is a short form of "independence" or "independent"; it may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Gaming *Independent video game development, video games created without financial backing from large companies *Indie game, any game (board ...

album of all time. Comedian

Stewart Lee Stewart Graham Lee (born 5 April 1968) is an English comedian, screenwriter, and television director. His stand-up routine is characterised by repetition, internal reference, deadpan delivery, and consistent breaking of the fourth wall. Lee b ...

named it one of his 5 favorite albums from the 80s, praising its "perfect, shabby glory".

Track listing

# "Watching the Candles Burn" (Figi) – 4:01 # "Sweet Smell" (Bean) – 4:37 # "Coercion" (Bean) – 3:47 # "Driving Song" (Figi) – 4:09 # "Tarantula" (Rizzo) – 5:36 # "Among the Pines" (Rizzo) – 6:24 # "Through My Mouth" (McCombs) – 4:57 # "Beach Miner" (Bean/Rizzo) – 3:42 # "Death of Albert C. Sampson" (Bean) – 4:44 # "Life on A String" (Rizzo) – 5:04 #: #;Bonus tracks, from ''Wayne'' EP (1989) # "Tenth Leaving Train" (Rizzo) – 11:19On original CD release and re-release only # "Southern Pacific" (

Neil Young Neil Percival Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian-American singer and songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, joining Buffalo Springfield with Stephen Stills, Richie Furay ...

) – 5:04On re-release only # "Go" (Rizzo/Bean) – 4:50

Personnel and credits

Adapted from

: *Janet Beveridge Bean - Composer, Drums, Group Member, Vocals *

Byron Coley Byron Coley is an American music critic who wrote prominently for '' Forced Exposure'' magazine in the 1980s, from the fifth issue until the magazine ceased publication in 1993. Prior to ''Forced Exposure'', he wrote for ''New York Rocker'', '' ...

- Liner Notes (for 2003 re-release) *Eleventh Dream Day - Design, Primary Artist *Baird Figi - Composer, Group Member, Guitar, Slide Guitar *Michael Franklin - Engineer * Douglas McCombs - Bass, Composer, Group Member *Wink O'Bannon - Engineer *Rick Rizzo - Composer, Group Member, Guitar, Vocals *Sheila Sachs - Design

References

Thrill Jockey listing
{{Authority control 1988 albums Eleventh Dream Day albums