The Paper Chase

Hide the Kitchen Knives (Beatville)
by Craig Regala

Say you take a guy in a mid-’90s emo band… A good guy, 25, concerned about all the regular feelings and stuff. Take that guy and give him “The Girl.” The one and only, forever, etc. She’s at all his gigs, and one particularly successful night (good merch sales, got to open for Braid, two encores), she catches a ride home with his best friend. She gets killed in a car crash at 2:43 am Saturday night. His friend also dies… but of blood loss from having – as the medical report states – “having his penis severed as a conclusion of the impact of the cars steering wheel on the female passenger’s head.”

Distraught? Are you kidding? He had to spend three weeks with his older brother and the only records he recognized at all were the Nick Drake box set, the first two Nick Cave albums, John Cale’s Guts and Vintage Violence, and The Cure’s Pornography. He listened to the shit out of ‘m, and well, he didn’t feel “ok” but he felt “better.” He got the band together and cut a solo thing. That thing is this, and it’s a hair-ripping, nail-biting stress factory, especially when it’s quiet.
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