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Antietam

Antietam is pleased to announce the remastering of our first eponymous album (1985), for this special digital release, recalibrated for the new millennium by Steve Silverstein. Antietam was previously only available on vinyl and cassette.

The band Antietam was formed on Kentucky Derby Day, May 5, 1984, in Hoboken, NJ, by four ex-Louisvillians—Wolf Knapp, Mike Weinert, Tara Key, and Tim Harris. After a few gigs with Human Switchboard, Yo La Tengo, and Husker Du, the band recorded at Water Music in Hoboken with Robert Miller at the board.

Tim: Tara and I had invested a couple of hundred bucks into one of recording history’s lovable dinosaurs, a Scully 2-inch, 4-track machine (this means that a full ½ inch of tape is dedicated to each track). The other investors were Chris Stamey, Steve Fallon, and the owners of Water Music studio.

After Tara and I had made a few demos on the Scully, including “Orange Song,” we decided to trade our share in the machine to Water Music for the time to record the first album. The result was raw, varied, wild, and free. We really had no preconceptions: Antietam didn’t try to sound like anyone, and we all admired music from every genre and era. The idea to have two bass players was not conceptual; it arose because Wolf and I both played bass.

We were called everything from “a fucking yodeling band” by one rock star to “a miasma” by our friend Dave Schramm, but remarkably, people seemed to like the album.

Tara: Our racket was passionate—a 90-proof blend of all of our thoughts about where we were going after halcyon Louisville punk days, thrashing through the urban jungle, every impulse pouring out at the same time with a modicum of legislation—as if there would not be enough time left on Earth to make our point. I thought we were playing folk music. Kentucky-earnest in the face of 1980s New York cool. Proud yokel rock.

Wolf: Walking into the rehearsal space in Jersey City Heights through crumbling concrete rooms, spiral steel stairs and heavy metal doors. Kind of cozy in the room with Mike’s kit on the left. Shoving my SVT in there. Getting it in and out for gigs. The double-thick low end, Tara’s LP/Marshall/JC120 screaming over the top of it. The time-sig suites that put Rush to shame. The first album; what was the motto? Look, Ma No Hands? No that wasn’t it, though it should have been.

CRITIC(AL) SPEAK:

It’s easier to clarify their name than to classify Antietam musically. Once, during their formative stage, I told bassist/vocalist Tim Harris that I thought they were probably creating a new genre in rock…having opened my big mouth, I now have to figure out what to call it. Clatter rock? Avant Garage? Whatever it is, it’s pretty great; heartfelt rock and roll that revels in complexity while never forgetting about…the grunge and sweat of the DIY ethos. Sort of like a pig in shit, only the pig is really smart….The overall effect can be like a tug of war transmogrified into a taffy pull, with the added bonus of all the players suffering from vertigo.

—Glenn Kenny, The Village Voice, 1985

Translation from the original German:
Music the world doesn't need. Terrible songs, recorded on slightly out of tune instruments. The timing is grossly off the mark—any coolness factor that might still come about is destroyed by Tara Key’s horrible and extremely annoying voice. Too well produced for crisp Lo-Fi. The band consistently sits between all stools with this crap. Rightly disregarded debut from a band that isn’t worth listening to.
Check out tip: “The Gospel According to John B.”—what a shit!
Purchase recommendation: Terrible, hands off! Those who can still cope with the music will definitely fail because of the extremely annoying vocals. Makes me really aggressive, the crap!

—Eugen Ohneland, rateyourmusic, 2016