#146 (of 365) "Skip Steps 1 & 3" Superchunk

No Pocky for Kitty is the second full length released by my favorite band of all-time, Superchunk, way way back in 1991, before I'd ever heard of them. No Pocky For Kitty was released a month after Nevermind, thrusting Superchunk and the wider Chapel Hill scene into the major label feeding frenzy. Superchunk always resisted the lure. Their Matador deal allowed them to release singles through their own label, Merge, and after working with them on Pocky, Steve Albini offered an introduction to Corey Rusk and his label, Touch and Go, which produced and distributed Merge releases in those early years. Tossing Seeds, a compilation of Superchunk’s early singles, was the first collaboration, and they put out something in the region of 10,000 copies, well beyond Merge’s outstretched fingers at that point in time. By 1994 they’d left Matador and released Foolish themselves. They stayed in North Carolina, stayed indie, and on the way their label brought the world Arcade Fire’s Funeral, the Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs, Spoon’s Girls Can Tell,and Neutral Milk Hotel’s In The Aeroplane Over The Sea. Not bad for a band.

From Guitar.com:
In many ways, No Pocky For Kitty is the sound of Superchunk becoming a real band in real time, but in place of growing pains and dead ends we have musicians playing fast and loose but always finding a way to stick the landing. From the opening snare hit of Skip Steps 1 & 3 we’re riding shotgun as McCaughan and Wilbur seek to cram high-wire melodies into the limited space afforded by Albini’s minimalistic approach to overdubbing, jabbing and retreating from McCaughan’s yelped vocals.

These songs were written quickly, their screws tightened in rehearsals and then on the road, and they carry that wet behind the ears vibrancy with them. There are times when it feels like McCaughan is pulling choruses out of the air as they fly by the van window, but the tangle of guitars is more sure of itself than it was on the band’s self-titled debut.

Superchunk have never made a bad record, but they’ve continually made records that hit differently from the previous one. On the Mouth is their best punk record, Foolish their emotionally raw indie-rock masterpiece, Majesty Shredding their power-pop peak. No Pocky For Kitty, crucially, carries the vitality of a young band realising what they’re capable of under pressure.

"Skip Steps 1 & 3" - Superchunk // No Pocky For Kitty (1991)