The Odds Bedbugs

The Odds
Bedbugs
1993

I first heard the lead-in song "Jack Hammer" on Chicago's finest rock station, WXRT, probably on my way to school at Waubonsee Community College in 1993. I was a sophomore in college and life was ok for me then. I was branching into all sorts of new music, trying to be an expert in weird and different. Then I heard this great Canadian band on the radio and saw them on MTV. I was hooked. I saw the single "Heterosexual Man" on MTV soon thereafter and liked two songs now, so I knew I should get the CD.

All I know is that this CD holds up as a complete story. The life and times of a young man. It is a big metaphor and it seemed to fit my life at the time.

There are grooves here, something intangible that makes me move and makes me sing along. The lyrics are fun and a breath of fresh air. I have fun listening to it. There are obscure references to "F. Scott screams at Zelda" and neat phrases that make me smile, like "Friends will agree,/ with a pregnant pause/ and silently/ draw out their claws" with a play on the word "claws" for "clause." That's really cool to me, whether I am a geek or just an educated man. And there are some real rock 'n roll screams here, so it makes for a good listen from the lyrics to the static to the great bass.

Some songs are present on this album that I cannot live without, yet again, they are a part of this album that is inseparable. I absolutely love "It Falls Apart" and "Heterosexual Man." These songs are bold statements, with nothing left behind. I have heard too many songs and albums that never seem to go all the way. They leave nothing behind, as if they thought that it was the last song to ever perform. They're that good to me. There are sentimental songs as well, and they seem to fall inside you, ingrained from the psyche of these performers. This album seems to be a dream, our darkest and our fondest dreams at the same time, such is life, and such are the bedbugs that this album professes to be, somehow trapped between the sheets.

The Odds did a couple more albums that I have. I don't know much more about these Canadians. The next two albums, Good Weird Feeling (1995) and Nest (1996), are all right, but they lack the intensity of the songcrafting and emotion. Bedbugs is their best and one of my favorite albums of all time.

Snippets can be heard from Wal-Mart.com (of all places).