Archer of Loaf’s Eric Bachmann Performs “Web In Front” on The A.V. Club
Archer of Loaf’s song, Web In Front, was the first and best song off of the band’s seminal 1993 album, “Icky Mettle.” We played Web in Front literally a thousand times and still haven’t grown tired of its two minutes and seven seconds. Simply brilliance.
Archers of Loaf reunited for a short tour this year and re-released Icky Mettle and, will soon re-release its second album, “Vee Vee” on Merge Records. The band’s lead singer-guitarist Eric Bachmann, who has been occupied with his subsequent band, Crooked Fingers, showed up on the A.V. Club to play and discuss Web in Front. Check both out below. And listen to the album version after. And the lyrics are at the very bottom. “And there’s a chance that things’ll get weird; yeah, that’s a possibility.” Indeed.
Eric Bachmann of Archers Of Loaf discusses and performs “Web In Front”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14FqfE92yK8
Web in Front:
“Stuck a pin in your backbone.
Spoke it down from there.
All I ever wanted was to be your spine.
Lost your friction and you slid for a mile.
Overdone, overdrive, overlive, override.
You’re not the one who let me down,
But thanks for offering.
It’s not a voice and I’m not around.
But thanks for picking it…
Up, on the radio.
Sampled your rust from a faucet, I know.
I’ve got a magnet in my head,
A magnet in my head.
Extra thick, extra long, the way it was wasted.
And there’s a chance that things’ll get weird.
Yeah, that’s a possibility.
Although I didn’t do anything,
No, I didn’t do anything.
All I ever wanted,
All I ever wanted,
All I ever wanted was to be your spine.
(repeat)
In a mouth kept shut and a tongue twist tie.
You’re the web in front, you’re my favorite lie.
You’re a buck my lip, you’re a lash my lie.
You’re the web in front of a favorite lie.
Stuck a pin in your backbone.
Spoke it down from there.
All I ever wanted was to be your spine.
I’ve got a magnet in my head, a magnet in my head.
Extra thick, extra long, the way it was wasted… wasted.”
Hey eu–Can’t remember who introduced who to who, but I remember the mutual fondness for Archers of Loaf. You may have gifted us that one. Bizarre that I missed that show and never caught them live (I blame my eldest daughter, who would have been a sleep- and energy-depriving one year). Archers and Nirvana thankfully gloried a similar hole in the musical landscape.
The A.V. guys seem to have flailed this interview. You don’t let an artist cop out and say that lines, which some fans clung to like scripture, meant nothing. We all know that’s not true–or at least miscommunicated. Instead, A.V., should have taken Bachmann’s description of his painstaking wordsmithing and explored the ineffable and how listeners divine their own meanings from those words that they kludge into personal proverbs.
Thanks for reading.
Awesome post. I wore out that CD in 1993.
Re ‘Web in Front’ lyrics – I remember quizzing Eric Bachmann about them after a show at the Bottom of the Hill in Potrero Hill in SF back in 1994. He was patient and very willing to explain the otherwise indecipherable lyrics: “Sampled your rust from a faucet.” Right…