Use With Headphones Late At Night (Best of 1990-2000)

by Tadpoles

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If you like Tadpoles, check out Todd Parker's solo project
toddparkerandthewitches.bandcamp.com

Also available is The Farm Tape Series - free releases of cassette 4-track psych excursions and Tadpoles demos
toddparker.bandcamp.com

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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Nine Rays Of Moonshine, High Flier 2020 EP, The Whirlaway Sessions (20th Anniversary Alternative Mixes), Jaded Jean (For Lee Jackson in Space Mix), Live at The Great American Music Hall, Far Out (20th Anniversary Mix), Float Away (Live At CBGB's), Feel Like A Freak (A Historical Sideshow of Missing Links), and 7 more. , and , .

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1.	Snapper 03:41	lyrics	buy track
©1992 Parker, BMI daffodilly petals are in bloom  the moment you walk into the room  and each time that i ask you to come in  your head puts my head into a spin  reaching unknown destinations tonight  ride with me i'll take you out of sight  confusion rules where once was sane  patterns in my brain spell out your name t his could be coming just in time  love you so much it blows my mind  ride with me i'll take you out of sight
2.	Umbrella Smile 03:18	lyrics	buy track
©1994 Parker, BMI just wondering  its alright to light this fire here  just wandering around  colliding senses  would you like to see umbrella smiles  that last for a million years  just wondering  its alright to see your memories  just wandering around  colliding senses  would you like to be  umbrella smiling  through the darkest seas  come on
3.	Blossom 02:53	lyrics	buy track
©1992 Parker, BMI hallucinate your mind in time  let it float away  hallucinate that you are mine  let it float away  all along you were wrong  you let it float away  hallucinate it won't be long  let it float away  away  away  away  away
4.	The Ride 04:20	lyrics	buy track
©1992 Parker, BMI i woke up dead and you were there  there you were on my bed  telling me the sun was blue  and there wasn't anything else to do  we took the sled and got the tree  for christmas day you and me  it was big and shiny like a million story airplane standing on its side  we got on and took a ride  the captain said you better hide  no one knows where we're going to  no one knows what we're gonna do  we flew past jupiter we flew past mars  our friends drove by us in their cars  you didn't care neither did i  on this ride we're going to fly  lets do it for the ride  go along for the ride  its a day and nighttime trip  i think i think we're going to flip  look out for the twists  there's one we almost missed  look out for the twists  there's one we almost missed  its a day and nighttime trip i think i think we're gonna flip  its a day and nighttime trip i think i think we're gonna flip
5.	Race You To The Mustard Patch 04:41	lyrics	buy track
©1996 Parker / Max, BMI Dropped out and see it fall away  Climb up catch what they say  Drop down and be there fall away  Get up race you to the day  The only way Get a little closer to the tone  Vibrate for everyone you know  When you stop you've never been away  Get up race you to the day  The only way
6.	Nazareth 05:35	lyrics	buy track
©1996 Parker, BMI Nazareth  you're taking my mind  you're taking my money  you're taking your time  Nazareth  you're baking my mind  you're making me funny  you're making me blind  Nazareth  you're just like a train  thats going insane  thats leaving today  Nazareth  can you spare me a dime  i wanna get high  if i can't i might cry Nazareth  c'mon make me a deal  i wanna feel real  for that i would kill   Nazareth  i love all your lights  they really shine bright mon  you're right out of sight  Nazareth  i'll take you to bed  a dream in my head  until i am dead  Nazareth  you're taking my mind  you're taking my money  you're taking your time
7.	Ride The World Around The Sun 03:20	lyrics	buy track
©1992 Parker, BMI Ride the world around the sun with me  Pack all your things  Your ticket to ecstacy  Ride the world around the sun  Checking it out you're gonna have fun  Ride the world around the sun with me  Check it out and see what you can be
8.	At Least I'm Not Like Jonathan Carver 05:46	lyrics	buy track
©1996 Parker / Max / N. Kramer, BMI Aren't you tired of coming down  You want to float not be around  Aren't you tired  Aren't you tired  Aren't you tired like really wired His name appeared in lights that day  Her neon dress began to fray  Don't you know what its like  Don't let it be an oversight When you're lazy lying on some grass  Following all the dusty paths  You watch the sky slide past your face  When morning comes you've won the race  Then parachute land on the floor  You hit the ground feeling sore  Your knees buckle but you give it more  Step inside your first balloon  Blow it up and make it bloom
9.	Know Your Ghosts 04:21	lyrics	buy track
©1997 N. Kramer / Max, BMI I used to see the truth inside of what you said  Instead of thinking you're a kid  But those days seem so far away  I can only vaguely remember High tides, low tides come and gone  Two more mooncalves torn asunder  Save me a whistle in eighteen years  Or don't; its all the same to me Know your ghosts and you will never be alone  Never be alone never be alone  Know your ghosts Know your ghosts and you will never be alone  Never be alone never be alone  Know your ghosts
10.	Jaded Jean 03:49	lyrics	buy track
©1998 Parker/Max, BMI If you could see like jaded jean  You wouldn't have a need for dreams  Like jaded jean in her jaded scene  She's planting seeds  A garden queen You can find her at home almost every night  Writing letters on sheets of white  Or jade green  From her garden stream  She's consciously falling asleep  Jaded jean Would you believe  Her father's at home  Watching the clocks  While mommy's alone  And would you believe  In all of these things  If you could see  Like jaded jean If you could work out everything  And fill the holes the ashes bring  You wouldn't have a need for dreams  Like jaded jean  In her jaded scene The stories come before she falls asleep  She draws the people she wants to meet  They live in houses filled with schemes  The sun rises up  And floods her streams Would you believe  Her father's at home  Watching the clocks  While mommy's alone  And would you believe  In all of these things  If you could see  Like jaded jean If you could be like jaded jean  You wouldn't have a need for dreams
11.	Rainbowmaker 05:46	lyrics	buy track
©1998 N. Kramer, BMI Rainbows have a way of knowing And welcoming the light Flying its flag Rainbows have a way of showing  And teaching about light  Naming all the colors Water with its peace with time  Can block and bend the ligh t I want to be that water I am a rainbow chaser  I want to get that pot  Of gold at the end I want to see the way  I want to know the way  Sailing on the waves  Floating in the waves  Feeling a part of time  Feeling all of the time I want to be a rainbowmaker  I want to be a prism-man  I want to show my colors I want a sky, each star an eye  Mirroring me back my man  Shining on me, shining me I want to be, be understood  And I want, want to be heard  I want to be cared about I want to be a rainbowmaker  To refract a tiny piece  Of all the distance of light I want to be a rainbowmaker  I want to be a prism-man  I want to show you my colors I want to see the way  I want to know the way  Sailing on the waves  Floating in the waves  Feeling a part of time  Feeling all of the time
12.	Firecracker 04:44	lyrics	buy track
I believe in colors  So bright and full  So extreme I believe in light  Florescent, candle  And the sun It's not enough  To not be afraid of electricity  You've got to believe  You've got to believe Give me your hums, your drums  Your drones and moans and  All the riches of your Gold Coast Give me your wings, your web  Give me your heart and head  Give me your smoke ghost The past is past, the future's best  I'm standing here  Ready for anything that comes You and me will not  Go down in history  We'll just be disappeared and drowned But, there's a lot of freedom out there  And I'm just trying for my piece  Oh, you've got to believe  You've got to believe Show me your wrist, your lips, your kiss  Your needs and knees  Show me what you fear most Show me your ankle, show me your elbow  Show me your anger  Show me your smoke ghost  Show me
13.	Judas, This Is Jesus 03:03	lyrics	buy track
Judas, This Is Jesus It's raining Silver Help Me
14.	Crash Of The Bug (Super Beetle Radio Mix) 04:15	lyrics	buy track
You're driving in your car  Not going very far  A sunday sunny drive  Feels good to be alive Your friends are in the back  Ask you where you're at  Some take the wrong turn  The moonlight tavern burns At the bottom of the hill  A wooden house is filled  You've got to climb the stairs  Your friends are unaware
15.	Whirlaway (single mix) 04:28	lyrics	buy track
From temperate climes, through rain, set sail  Ribbons of water, they sparkle and spangle  In the coming sun, falling through liquid streets  Into the jungle and out of the rain Steal into dreamtiger eyes and slowly leave behind  Domino days of time, inches of distance  Slip past the double-edged sword of building  The cost of building more, or of just maintaining  Feel the dreamtigers prowling free and easy  But ribbons of memory still tumble and tangle  And turn into questions, "Can your friends trust you now?" Only dreamtigers never have a need to change In time, as night declines, fleeting and fading  Ribbons of laughter, they jingle and jangle  And all the dream-tigers retreat back into the trees  With green, smiling eyes, at the coming of the day
16.	Sunrise Ocean Bender (Ampreon Mix) 06:52	lyrics	buy track
Nothing to believe in  Nothing worth seeing  It's ok The dunes are frozen  Throw rocks in the ocean  The waves are astounding  The heart keeps on pounding  It's ok Your arms are golden  Your sunlights are broken  When night is falling  You hear me calling Can you tell me how to see  Can you tell me how to look  I can't find my way inside  I haven't read the book  It's ok The sunrise ocean bender  The sunrise ocean bender
17.	Smile If You've Crossed Over (Orgmonica Mix) 07:31	lyrics	buy track
(Instrumental)

about

Use With Headphones Late At Night (Best of 1990-2000) (2001) is the first career spanning compilation CD by Tadpoles. The record features tracks from each studio album, plus four previously rare or unreleased tracks. Tracks 1-8 feature remastered works from He Fell Into The Sky and Far Out. Tracks 9-12 are identical to the versions on Smoke Ghost and Track 13 is taken directly from the Know Your Ghosts E.P.. The final four songs are previously unreleased alternate mixes of Whirlaway tracks. "Crash Of The Bug (Super Beetle Radio Mix)" and "Whirlaway (Mp3 Single Mix)" were edited and mixed by Gene Holder (the dB's).

PITCHFORK REVIEW
Tadpoles
Use With Headphones Late
at Night: Best of 1990- 2000 [Bakery; 2001]
7.5

There are styles of music that I figure will probably always be around in some form, and psychedelia is one of them. I have a lot of reasons for thinking that, but the main one is that, as a genre, it's so adaptable. The advent of decent recording technology was one of the main things that made truly psychedelic music possible in the first place, so it seems natural that the music should continue to evolve with the technology. Secondly, psychedelia is at best a vaguely defined genre distinction, so it's easy to apply it to music that comes decidedly from a rock or pop standpoint, but is colored on the edges with noise and effects.
The Tadpoles pretty much exemplify what most American psychedelic music sounded like in the 1990s-- melodic rock wrapped in blankets of fuzz, heavily processed guitars and the occasional electronic studio effect. The Tadpoles were adept enough at jamming and developing themes, but they were at their best when working with concise, punchy songs. Then they broke up in 2000 ("indefinite hiatus," they called it), and leader Tom Parker pulled together this retrospective as a eulogy of sorts for the band. By and large, he's come up with a good overview of their catalog, taking four tracks from each of the band's four studio LPs, and one track from 1997's Know Your Ghosts EP.
The 78-minute disc starts where it logically should, with four songs from the band's debut album, 1994's He Fell into the Sky, and proceeds chronologically from there. As such, it gives a clear view of just how much the Hoboken, NJ band progressed during their career. "Snapper" opens things in a haze of stompbox fuzz, with Parker's tenor voice hanging low in the mix. Original drummer Michael Kite Audino lays on the toms hard, and the sheets of distortion sometimes give way to cleanly strummed guitar chords, and even something that might be described as a solo at one point (albeit not a very melodic one).
The vocals stay fairly buried and the guitar tones largely the same for the other three selections from He Fell, the best of which is probably the slow-burning "The Ride," which features some fine playing from bassist David Max and a gloriously muddy buildup near the end. The four selections from 1996's Far Out show progress almost immediately, with Nick Kramer's heavily processed guitar coming to the fore after the departure of co-guitarist Andrew Jackson.
"Race You to the Mustard Patch" drips in wah pedals and vocal effects, while the Nick Kramer-sung "Nazareth" remains squeaky-clean until about 2\xBD minutes in, when it briefly explodes in a ball of distortion and flailing lead lines. "Ride the World Around the Sun" features dueling guitars orbiting a solid bassline, while "At Least I'm Not Like Jonathan Carver" begins floating somewhere in space before congealing halfway through into a heavy, aggressive attack.
The portion of the disc devoted to 1998's excellent Smoke Ghost album is probably the most solid portion of the compilation, as the band finally hit on a combination of songwriting and sound that balanced the two equally. Kramer puts his voice out in front for "Know Your Ghosts," and the band allows for considerably more space in the arrangement, setting up some dramatic guitar breaks. "Jaded Jean" could easily have been a single, falling into the same noise-tainted pop territory that the Jesus and Mary Chain nurtured in the 80s.
Both Parker and Kramer had come a long way with their singing by this point, which allowed them not only to handle better, rangier melodies, but also gave them the confidence to put them up front in the mix, a move that greatly increases the immediacy of the songs. The only disappointing thing about this section of the disc is that Parker has chosen not to include Smoke Ghost's excellent opener "When I Feel," which is easily one of the band's best songs. Still, the propulsive, effects- drenched "Firecracker" is a reasonable substitute, if not an ideal one.
"Judas, This Is Jesus," from the Know Your Ghosts EP, follows, breaking the chronological flow for a few moments, but it's unlikely that any listener would mind, as the song doesn't sound like a step back at all. It begins with an answering machine message of a man saying, "Judas, this is Jesus. It's raining silver. Help me," a clip that reverberates over the course of the whole instrumental, which is otherwise a sticky concoction of molten guitar mayhem.
Whirlaway, the band's final album (and their only effort not recorded for their own Bakery label) had by far the clearest sound of any of their releases, incorporating more keyboards and electronics and largely eschewing the fuzz that typified their early work. Instead, the distortion on "Crash of the Bug" is more controlled and less opaque. The guitars take on more melodic tasks, too, soaring in tandem behind the verses and bridging the gaps between vocal passages. Final drummer Adam Boyette lays down a furious groove on that album's title song, giving Max the chance to toss off an impressive bass lead at one point and ably supporting the fluid guitar leads.
Unfortunately, the last two tracks each find the band gazing a little too hard at their shoes, ending the disc on a fairly unengaging note, but overall, Use with Headphones Late at Night is a satisfying look at the Tadpoles' studio career. Perhaps the most unfortunate thing about it is that it only focuses on their studio material, neglecting to include a single track from The Tadpoles Destroy Terrastock, an EP documenting their ferocious performance at the original Ptolemaic Terrascope-sponsored Terrastock festival in 1997. As far as definitive statements on what the band was capable of at their best, that EP just may be it.
Aside from that, though, there's little to gripe about. This is, in the end, a faithful overview that serves as a fine introduction to one of the great overlooked psychedelic acts of the 90s. Of course, it also catches them wandering here and there, but by and large, Use With Headphones Late at Night concentrates on the band's most focused work. For most people, this is all the Tadpoles you'll ever need. You may still want to try and catch them destroying Terrastock, though.
— Joe Tangari, Pitchfork, February 19, 2002

credits

released September 11, 2001

Use With Headphones Late At Night (Best of 1990-2000)' was compiled and mastered by Todd Parker at DBS Digital in Hoboken, New Jersey. Additional mastering was provided by Pablo Martin. Album artwork and design were created by Ann Manca.

©2001 Tadpoles/Bakery Records

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Tadpoles Hoboken, New Jersey

Tadpoles, based in Hoboken, NJ, disbanded in 2000 after releasing 4 critically acclaimed studio albums, 1 live album and 1 E.P. all on their own Bakery Records label (except for their last studio album, Whirlaway, which was released on Australia's Camera Obscura Records.) The group was formed by vocalist/guitarist, Todd Parker and original drummer, Michael Kite Audino in New York City in 1990. ... more

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