It was sometime in the fall of 2017 when I started going to a local store called the Scrap Exchange in my hometown of Durham. On weekends me and my dad would go there, usually before or after a stop at a local coffee shop across the street, and look at all the strange things they had. The Scrap Exchange’s whole thing is that it’s a junk shop in the literal sense. You can go and find a giant bin of keycaps, or floppy discs, or paint samplers, or fabric squares, or nuts and bolts. You would buy the supplies to do whatever kind of arts and crafts you’d so desire, and it beat all that stuff going to the landfill. I bought some keycaps and made magnets and thumbtacks with them once, it’s lovely.
The store also had a pretty decent media selection, with lots of cassettes, VHS tapes and CDs. That store is where I first found Kim Pensyl and today’s subject, Cheese on Bread. I found their first album, Maybe Maybe Maybe Baby, and the cover art and obscurity pulled me in. I think I had just gotten Spotify around that time, but I was mostly using it to listen to radio hits, the things I knew. Thrift shops were where I did all of my discovering. I listened to that first album and loved it, then I found on Spotify that they had a second, The Search For Colonel Mustard. Finally I decided to google the band and I found that they had a new album coming out soon, the first in over 10 years! I followed the page religiously, and when the album came out I immediately bought it on iTunes (because it wasn’t on Spotify until the next week.)
When my music library was teeny tiny Cheese on Bread was my standout, the thing I could always go to for a good time. It was also the first band I listened to that was visibly queer, mentioning it in a good few of their songs. Themes of gender and sexuality and sex felt so foreign to a young Marcie, I didn’t know what the words were but I knew those feelings. Cheese on Bread holds such a wonderful place in my heart, every time I listen it brings back memories of car trips, pet sitting, high school, youth, love. So, I thought I’d introduce y’all to this group thats so special to me.
I must’ve listened to this album a hundred times in the now 7 years I’ve owned it. The CD I have has a broken jewel case, one of the hinges is snapped off so it doesn’t like closing all the way. The insert is worn from being read and reread. The liner notes contain the story of a band, an endeavor by a few friends in college if I remember correctly, and the CD art is the album name in a graffiti style. The songs are simply produced, it’s not an extravagant measure. But the love seeps through in the blown out guitars and laughs from people in the booth.
The songs Modern Art Gallery and Structure of a Crush are standouts for me, though just about every song gets stuck in my head (except Gucci Model, I think that one you can skip without much problem.) It’s simple indie pop with tongue-in-cheek lyrics referencing pop culture of the time, it oozes this old vibe of ideology from a simpler time before the social stressors of today, but with all of the stressors of 2004. I’d give this first album a listen through, especially if this kind of small-production music is your thing.
For whatever reason when I first listened to this album in 2017 (I remember exactly where I was, I was raking leaves out in front of my aunts house before thanksgiving) I wasn’t really a fan. For whatever reason it just didn’t click. So it laid dormant for years and years, one or two tracks making my playlist. Going back to it a few years ago now, I don’t know what younger Marcie was on because this is the bands best album. Every track on this album brings the energy, it feels like the pet project getting more serious. They’re all so much fun and the choruses and hooks get stuck in my head all the still. If you’re only going to listen to one album out of the three please listen to this one. For whatever reason I still don’t actually own a copy of Colonel Mustard, that needs to be rectified immediately.
11 years after their last album, after little to no press, the band comes out of nowhere with an announcement of a new album and a show in NYC to debut it. I was in New York at the time, but not in the city, so I was really considering asking my family to drive all the way back to the city from Rochester so I, a 14 year old, to go to a random house show for a band nobody had ever heard of. Ah, simpler times. The One Who Wanted More was everything I wanted when it came out, it was more mellow than the last 2 albums, more mature. I guess that makes sense with a decade separating them, the time gives this feeling like the band got back together for one more go, age changing their tastes but not their passion.
Primary Partner in Pittsburgh and Oh, OK are standouts from this one for me, I like the more chill atmosphere they go for. Bad friend and Love-Hater are also good, as is Doggies for that more up-beat energetic vibe, though I played these songs so much in playlists throughout the years that they’ve lost a bit of that luster. Regardless, The One Who Wanted More is great for the ones who want more cheese on bread, especially those who actually waited 11 years to get it.
This band means so much to me, in ways I can’t even begin to express. I used to wish I was cool enough to one day meet the kind of people they were singing about. Turns out those people were just young adults in the queer scene, a scene I’ve happily grown up to join. I wish I could go back to Marcie 7 years ago, a different person with a different name, and told her just how wonderful things would be in the future. She’d be confused, of course, but I think it would do her heart well to know that that dream life was just a few short years away. Keep dreaming, young Marcie, some dreams come true. Cheese on Bread is available wherever you listen to music, including for purchase on iTunes and Bandcamp.
Thank you for reading this long triple-review, I’ve been wanting to do it since I started this column. I think this site just passed 4,000 views according to Neocities, so thank you to those 4,000 real individual people! remember kids, eat your veggies!
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