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Shall we compare Eleventh Dream Day to Neil Young and Crazy Horse? Of course. The influence of Young’s great guitar albums on EDD—filtered through Television, the Gun Club, and the Dream Syndicate, with a large helping of Southern Gothic fiction—is inescapable. But on four records between 1988 and 1993, the Chicago-by-way-of-Kentucky band’s identity was strong enough to bear that weight and more. Then they lost their major label deal and went part-time, retreating into day jobs, parenting, and other bands (Freakwater, Tortoise).
Which still left the band’s core members—frontman/guitarist Rick Rizzo, drummer/vocalist Janet Beveridge Bean, and bassist Douglas McCombs—listing towards a particular strain of Young. The Neil Young who does whatever he wants, whenever he wants, with whomever he wants. The Neil Young who’s always moving forward. The Neil Young who’s still at it. Since 1994, Eleventh Dream Day have released six records on Thrill Jockey, the latest being Works for Tomorrow, which was released last month. This very publication referred to them, along with Yo La Tengo and Sonic Youth, as "veritable alt-rock dinosaurs" 15 years ago.
Depending on whether or not you count 1987’s self-titled debut EP, the 1989 12” single Wayne (made EP-length by the eleven minute-plus "Tenth Leaving Train") or the recent alternate version of 1993’s El Moodio, Eleventh Dream Day have made either 10, 11, 12, or 13 records.
Obviously, for the purposes of this list, the answer has to be 11. "11 Best?" "11 Favorite?" "The 11 Most Definitive?" They are all masterful and worthy of your time.
Eleventh Dream Day (Amoeba, 1987)
"The Arsonist"
While "Liz Beth" was both their first recording and the one with staying power (it was re-recorded for the alterna-star-studded soundtrack to the 1990 movie A Matter of Degrees), this slide guitar-addled ampheta-anthem was the first Eleventh Dream Day song ever released, appearing on the WNUR compilation Heat From the Wind Chill Factory in 1985. I was a freshman DJ at WNUR in the fall of that year, so, lest this choice seem like a conflict of interest, I crowdsourced it on the Eleventh Dream Day Facebook group, where the deciding vote was cast by none other than Baird Figi, the band’s second guitarist until 1992 (that’s him on slide).
What’s great about "The Arsonist" is that the shouted harmonies, fifth-gear tempo, and whiplash drums are all qualities that can still be found on the new record, in the same way there are unmistakable elements in any Woody Allen movie or Elmore Leonard novel three decades apart.
Prairie School Freakout (Amoeba, 1988 / Thrill Jockey reissue, 2003)
"Among the Pines"
Recorded in 15 hours and mythologically dominated by Rizzo’s amplifier trouble ("we finally gave up and decided to make amp buzz the theme of the record," say the original liner notes), Prairie School Freakout is about the band dynamic, built around three couplings: Rizzo and Bean (vocalists, real-life romance), Bean and McCombs (woofer-popping rhythm section), and Rizzo and Figi (seering secret guitar language). "Among the Pines" is the most all-inclusive of the record’s 10 songs: hooky, noisy, and front-porch shufflin’, with three different guitar workouts and indelible, if sometimes heavy-handed, lyrics (first line: "Slipped in the shower stall/ Hit his head and died").
Beet (Atlantic, 1989)
"Awake I Lie"
1989 was the beginning of Eleventh Dream Day’s major label era, several years after the Replacements were on Reprise, but one ahead of Sonic Youth on DGC (also, Taylor Swift was born). Produced by Gary Waleik of Big Dipper and Volcano Suns, Beet is cleaner but in no way sterile, and still awash in anthems, grandiose character sketches, and distortion.
Bean’s relentless and relentlessly melodic "Bagdad’s Last Ride", Figi’s still-timely Grateful Dead-bash "Bomb the Mars Hotel", and Rizzo’s elegiac "Teenage Pin Queen" are all standouts, but "Awake I Lie" is the hit, with McCombs and Bean’s thundrous first few notes and Rizzo’s compact, urgent couplets giving way to a desperate, slowed-down, squalling middle that eventually explodes and reassembles for a snapping chorus and a second round of Bean concussion bombs and dueling dual-guitars.
Lived to Tell (Atlantic, 1991)
"I Could Be Lost"
Sweetest song: "It’s All a Game", a Gram-and-Emmylouish power ballad. Freshest song: the Bean-led garage-rager "You Know What It Is". But "I Could Be Lost" wins for riffy pleasure, and because the video makes Eleventh Dream Day look like members of "The Heights" (though Fox’s fake-band drama didn’t actually premiere until 1992). Check out the precious sidelong glances between Rizzo and Bean (even the usually stone-faced McCombs finds them hilarious).
The clip’s forced quality reflects where the group was at the time: selling poorly and largely estranged from Atlantic. They were also without Figi, who played on the record but left after the first leg of the tour, giving way to Bean and Rizzo’s old Kentucky peer Matthew "Wink" O’Bannon. When Bean, Rizzo, and McCombs all crack up again at the end of the video, it might be because they are watching O’Bannon mime parts that he never played.
El Moodio (Atlantic, 1993), New Moodio (Comedy Minus One, 2014)
"Makin’ Like a Rug"
Eleventh Dream Day was on the verge of leaving Atlantic, which hadn’t picked up the band’s contract option, when Nirvana and Sonic Youth co-manager Danny Goldberg took over the label, wooed the band back and had them remake most of an album they’d already cut with Chicago producer Brad Wood (Liz Phair).
They’re both good records, and the comparisons are fascinating (New Moodio also has three previously-unreleased songs). The guitars, drums and vocals on the New Moodio version of "That’s the Point" are satisfyingly tougher, while Bean’s more prominent harmonies on the El Moodio version of "After This Time Is Gone" make it sweeter and more theoretically radio-friendly. The definitive song on both records is the Bean-fronted "Makin’ Like a Rug" ("Making Like a Rug" on New Moodio), which is basically an episode of "Justified" with loud guitars (and, on the New Moodio version, skronkier solos).
Ursa Major (Atavistic, 1994)
"Orange Moon"
The moment when a generation of music fans would come to know Eleventh Dream Day as "that band Doug McCombs was in before Tortoise." Chicago’s so-called "post-rock" pioneers released their self-titled debut (on Thrill Jockey, which was started by Eleventh Dream Day’s former Atlantic A&R person Bettina Richards) around the same time Ursa Major came together. It’s the first of three Eleventh Dream Day records (mostly) recorded by Tortoise’s John McEntire; McEntire and Bundy K. Brown also play on the record, and the instrumental opener "The History of Brokeback" gave McCombs’ still-active solo band its name.
A highlight of the recent live gigs (and one of the rare oldies), "Orange Moon" is a miniature epic that splits the difference between every great Eleventh Dream Day feedback-laden pounder and the band’s increasingly more ruminative side.
Eighth (Thrill Jockey, 1997)
"Motion Sickness"
Except it’s the seventh (maybe). It’s also the band’s first as a trio—Rizzo would be the sole guitarist (save for occasional live appearances by the likes of Antietam’s Tara Key and Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan) between this record and Works For Tomorrow. Eighth kicks off what you might call Eleventh Dream Day’s Radiohead period, with longer, more deliberate songs, and a notable electronic/studio vibe.
"The Band's focus is no longer on performance of songs but of interpretation of the same," says Thrill Jockey’s website. "The open structure of band allowes them freedeom to experiment" (with grammar and spelling, too!).
One of three instrumentals, "Motion Sickness" is the biggest challenge: five minutes of drummer-less, solo-guitar poetry over background hums and pulses.
Stalled Parade (Thrill Jockey, 2000)
"In the Style Of…"
By this point Eleventh Dream Day were more a side project and recording project than a working band. Bean and McCombs had their more prominent musical day jobs, and Rizzo also played with others (Dark Edson Tiger, his first duo record with Tara Key, came out this same year). The frontman and the drummer were also on the verge of a divorce.
But what they can express in Eleventh Dream Day could only be expressed in Eleventh Dream Day. Compared to El Moodio, The Stalled Parade is an art-rock record. Compared to Eighth, it’s a Beatles record. Being the sole guitar player allowed Rizzo to play both more indulgently and more simply, with a wider range of influences ("Ground Point Zero" could be a Sonic Youth song, while the only thing resembling a solo on the hooky "Interstate" comes from McEntire’s keyboard). The meta exception is "In the Style Of…", which does require a second guitarist to pulls off its deranged equine pyrotechnics: none other than McCombs.
Zeroes and Ones (Thrill Jockey, 2006)
"New Rules"
Eleventh Dream Day’s first record with organist/keyboardist Mark Greenberg (the Coctails), who initially played live with the band at The Stalled Parade record release show. In the six years between discs, they also reunited with Figi for a live show to mark Thrill Jockey’s Prairie School Freakout reissue.
Greenberg’s presence on the first song ("Dissolution") is immediately noticeable, and so are the faster tempos, shorter songs and punchier "we’re a rock band again!" vibe. Listening to it now, "New Rules" feels like a denouement to the band’s decade on Thrill Jockey up to this point: a languid and entrancing Long One (7:48), with gently pretty vocal harmonies and an equally gorgeous (and subdued) guitar solo.
Riot Now! (Thrill Jockey, 2011)
"Damned Tree"
It’s time to cut the damned tree down! The first song on an album is always a statement of purpose, and Riot Now! is something of a buzzsaw. The first of two records where the band workshopped songs live at the Chicago club The Hideout four times in a month, it’s a political record and a punk record, with a cartoon image of Rizzo and Bean’s then-teenage son Matthew on the cover, and as much physicality as anything by Thee Oh Sees (with pretty much the same instrumental configuration). "Damned Tree" crams about three songs of inspiration into its three minutes and forty seconds, with ringing guitars that throw back to the '90s, and then a swinging, stinging middle eight built around Greenberg’s organ and the way Bean and Rizzo sing with and at each other like nobody this side of Exene and John (and X don’t make new records).
Work for Tomorrow (Thrill Jockey, 2015)
"Snowblind"
And then there were five. Guitarist Jim Elkington, who has played with Bean in the Horse’s Ha and McCombs in Brokeback, and is also a member of Tweedy, originally joined Eleventh Dream Day as a temporary live substitute for Greenberg, filling in the sonic holes with his guitar instead of keyboards. The young(er) Brit never left, and the return of Eleventh Dream Day’s two-guitar sound, coupled with the extra raggedness and volume found on Riot Now!, is thrilling.
If amp buzz was the theme of Prairie School Freakout, Bean’s bloodied hands could be the theme of Works For Tomorrow. The drummer pushed Rizzo to emphasize the fast-and-loud. "Janet is absolutely insane how she plays. How can I not join in?" Rizzo told Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune. "How does she come out of this alive?"
Bean pretty much steals the album with her vocals, too, from the controlled ferality of "Vanishing Point" to her back-up yelling on the title track to an unhinged cover of the 1969 Judy Henske and Jerry Yester psychedelic freak-soul single "Snowblind", which is only available on physical copies of the record.