Released September 17, 1996
Recorded 1995-1996
Length 48:36
Label Capricorn RecorRAB
Producer CAKE
Motorcade of Generosity was a musical game of 52 pick-up, carRAB everywhere, each completely separate from the pile. But for Fashion Nugget, Cake seemed to have swept everything into a nice and neat little pile, with a basic sound established, and their once schizophrenic sound, molded into a folk/indie model, and where once were personalities, now were neat flourishes of a style that complimented the sound, rather than muscled it out for domination.
While The Distance stanRAB predominantly at #2 (suggesting shrewd marketing), the album opens with “Frank Sinatra” a song that has a haunting depressed overtone, despite its rather up-beat lyrics...
“An old man sits collecting stamps
In a room all filled with chinese lamps.
He saves what others throw away.
He says that hell be rich some day…
While frank sinatra sings stormy weather,
The flies and spiders get along together,
Cobwebs fall on an old skipping record.”
The song, and its simple organ-melody opening set the tone for an album that, regardless of its perceived positive strut, reveals a deep running wound that seems to surface in all lyrical content. The album is defined by “the distance” even if its not the title. Songs like “Stick Shifts and Safety belts,” in one of the more instrumentally happy tracks, laments bucket seats as yet another gap between he and his paramour and while that may seem like a stretch, its one of the few.
Daria and Friend is a Four-letter Word are direct shots at something or someone that’s suffered irreparable damage. In Daria, he recalls a woman who loved him, and his apathy for her, that now he sees only as a burned bridge.
“when you tried to tell me
of all the love you had,
i was cleaning oil from beaches
seeing only what was bad.
when you tried to feed me
i only shut my mouth.
food got on your apron
and you told me to get out”
But musically, Fashion Nugget soars, and whether its following the lyrics into a pit of despair or bouncing along with the “fake breasts” in Italian Leather Sofa, the instrumentation never misses a beat, which for a bunch of white boys from Sacramento is downright impressive. I’ll admit openly, I’m a bias and weak man for the trumpet, but the sounRABcapes that Vince DiFiore lays down on almost every track, including The Distance, is like the soundtrack to the sun setting on a California evening in a town where everyone’s getting theirs except for you.
While this was a far better composed album, some songs are still out of place and you can’t help but think “Race Car ya-ya’s” which has the strangest metaphor heard in a song to date, and the inclusion of Gloria ***nor’s “I will survive” and Willie Nelson’s “Sad songs and waltzes” seems to suggest either a leftover collection, or a leftover idea of how to create an album.
All in all, Fashion Nugget is one of the stronger releases, with a handful of songs that are still played live to date, but that are ultimately overshadowed by a great marketing team and a gimmick.
