The Eargoggle – The Beautiful Creatures Really Are So Cruel
12.1.17 by Ryan Masteller

This tape dropped a Kerry Wood reference within the first minute of its first song, and you guys know I was hooked from there. I mean, c’mon, what other songs do baseball right, Fogerty’s “Centerfield”? No way – “Centerfield” is bad and Fogerty should FEEL bad about ever writing it. Ezra Gale’s “TSFW,” the leadoff track to “The Beautiful Creatures Really Are So Cruel,” is good, but it gets knocked a couple of points for not referencing Philly greats like Cole Hamels or Cliff Lee or Doc himself, Roy Halladay (RIP). I guess he needed to rhyme something with “good,” and the rest is Chicago Cubs history. (Plus, just TRY rhyming anything with “Bedrosian” – it’s like the “orange” of last names.)

You’re not here to read me going off on perceived MLB slights, but you ARE here to read about another good old-fashioned American institution, cassette tapes. Specifically today The Eargoggle’s sprawling new monolithic nineteen-song suite just released on November 17, exactly within a week of my birthday, so I’ll consider this an early present from Mr. Gale. Where do you start with Ezra? He’s got fingers in so many pies, and all of them seep into the Eargoggle sound: he’s the proprietor of the wildly eclectic Very Special Recordings, founding member of “legendary afrobeat band Aphrodesia,” and member of other drastically different musical projects, like ska-fuckers Super Hi-Fi and Zep-lovers Benninghove’s Hangmen. There is no pinning him down. I mean, just take a look at the guy – he’s got his hands full of so many instruments that he doesn’t even know where to begin half the time! (And they took this picture BEFORE he climbed a grand piano stacked with Neil Peart’s drumkit, then stood atop it with his arms raised like he just scaled Everest. Oh, and he’d added a tuba to the array of instruments you see here, just to make it “a little more challenging.”)

Yeah, I did say nineteen songs, so stuffed was Ezra’s mind with melodies and ideas that he couldn’t stop, even when he tried, even when others tried to stop him, tried to wrench open his spasming fingers from the neck of his guitar at 3:00 am in the “studio” (meaning his 4-track at home). But it was no use, and we’re so much the better for it. “The Beautiful Creatures” is filled with endless grooves that burrow in your mind like parasites, but instead of having to annoyingly treat parasites you just have to listen to another song to move on and continue the cycle. And speaking of parasites, I can’t help but wonder how many parasites the bird on the (admittedly absolutely wonderful) cover of “The Beautiful Creatures” has crawling all over it. Does this make you feel itchy? It should! Ezra Gale makes super itchy music as the Eargoggle, meaning it’s a butt-wiggling mélange of danceable rock action and experimental pop goodness. That should be enough for you.

This tape is limited to 100, but there is SO MUCH MUSIC on it, $8 seems like a steal. Score it from Very Special Recordings, meaning pretty much Ezra himself.