Flower (Eels) (LP 2458 - 2460)

Eels  Beautiful Freak (CD, Dreamworks Records, 1996) ****  

Eels  Electro-Shock Blues (CD, Dreamworks Records, 1998) ****  

Eels  Daisies Of The Galaxy (CD, Dreamworks Records, 2000) *****  

Genre: pop/ rock

Places I remember: Marbecks Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Flower (Beautiful Freak)

Gear costume: Grace Kelly Blues (Daisies Of The Galaxy) 

Active compensatory factors: I can remember talking to Roger about the dirth of good old fashioned song craft in 2000, and he played me Daises Of The Galaxy. Yeah - okay. He made a solid point!

The Eels band is basically Mark Everett's baby (he goes by E as well). On these early albums he is joined by Butch (Jonathan Norton) on drums and Tommy Walter on bass.

I loved Daisies Of The Galaxy immediately, it's a five star effort, and then didn't think much about the band until a colleague at Cambridge High School was playing Beautiful Freak one day. 

When I bought my own copy I thrashed it! So many great songs - Novocaine For The Soul, Flower, Susan's House, Our Lucky Day In Hell.

I picked up a copy of Electro-Shock Blues after reading an article in Mojo about the band and E's traumatic personal life. 

The album is a visceral account of the deaths around him of family members. It's a harrowing experience listening to it, but also a cathartic one for E and me.

Where do they all belong? I stopped after the first three because I didn't much like Souljacker - their 4th effort.