Songs for the Terrestrially Challenged

Untitled

Songs For The Terrestrially Challenged is the second album from The(e) Speaking Canaries, a Pittsburgh-based indie rock band. Songs For The Terrestrially Challenged is the first Speaking Canaries album to be released on compact disc, and the first to see worldwide distribution; therefore, it has often been erroneously attributed as The(e) Speaking Canaries' debut album. (The Joy of Wine, the band's actual debut, was a vinyl-only release on a small label and was limited to five hundred copies.) Nevertheless, Songs For The Terrestrially Challenged set a number of precedents for which the group would eventually become notorious: long songs, a long total running time, and multiple released versions of the same album.

Songs For The Terrestrially Challenged is probably best known for including not one but two Van Halen covers: "Girl Gone Bad" and "Secrets" -- a bold move for a band in an indie scene in which giving credit to spandex-clad arena rockers is generally frowned upon. (What's more, "Summer's Empty Resolution", a harmonics-drenched solo for acoustic guitar, is vaguely reminiscent of Eddie Van Halen's "Spanish Fly".)

Track listing

1. "Houses and Houses of Perfectness" – 4:52
2. "Summer's Empty Resolution" – 1:37
3. "Terrestrial / Famous No Space" – 8:10
4. "Guitar Strings for a Holocaust" – 3:53
5. "Hall Of Force / Gone Bad / So Glad / Reprise" – 9:20
6. ""Little" Ice Queen" – 6:35
7. "Super Hit" – 2:38
8. "El Rancho" – 6:08
9. "Any Three Days" – 12:57
10. "Secrets" – 2:55
11. "Our War On Cool Pt. 2" – 3:59
12. "When Cats Fight / Let Loose of Me" – 4:55
13. "De-Effect / Diminished" – 6:40

Personnel

• The(e) Speaking Canaries:
  • Damon Che - Guitar, vocals
  • Karl Hendricks - Bass
  • Noah Leger - drums
• Al Sutton - Recording engineer

"Low-fi version"

An alternate, lower-fidelity recording of Songs For The Terrestrially Challenged was released by Mind Cure Records in 1995, roughly concurrent with the release of the "hi-fi version" on Scat Records. The "low-fi version" is available only as a double LP in a limited edition of five hundred copies. Each copy has liner notes handwritten by Damon Che and exclusive, random 3x5" photographic prints glued inside the gatefold record sleeve.

Miscellanea

"Hall Of Force / Gone Bad / So Glad / Reprise" is a medley in four parts:

• An original The(e) Speaking Canaries composition called "Hall Of Force", described in the liner notes as a song "about making big mistakes."
• A partial cover of the Van Halen song "Girl Gone Bad".
• A partial cover of the Skip James song "I'm So Glad" which was popularized by the band Cream in the 1960s and regularly performed by Van Halen as a coda to "Girl Gone Bad" in the early 1980s.
• A final reprise of "Hall Of Force".