The Comedy of Errors: Unwound - Caterpillar (9 May 1992)

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Imagine you love an unsigned band so much that you not only form a record label, specifically to put that band’s music out, but your label becomes synonymous with US hardcore music.

The band were Unwound.  The label was Kill Rock Stars and the starstruck musical entrepreneur of the Olympia, Washington scene was Slim Moon, who was quoted as saying, “...I started the label expressly to put out Unwound records because I thought Unwound was an incredibly exciting band that K Records and Sub Pop were totally overlooking.”
I heard Peel back announce Kill Rock Stars releases countless times in the period that I listened to him, probably because the label provided a number of bands who went through the Peel show playlist en route either to mainstream success like Gossip or to wider socio-political recognition like Huggy Bear.  Let’s not forget other stalwarts of Peel’s playlists who came under Kill Rock Stars wing such as Bratmobile or Deerhoof - all of whom had a door of sorts opened to them thanks to someone loving Unwound past all sanity.  Moon wasn’t the only one either.  A little bit of cursory research ahead of putting this track on here shows me that Unwound were widely loved and devotedly followed through a 11 year career which ended in 2002.  Furthermore, conventional wisdom seems to be that Unwound’s music got better as they progressed, and that they achieved rock’s impossible dream by splitting up on a high note after releasing a carefully nurtured double album, Leaves Turn Inside You (2001), widely considered to be their masterpiece.

It’s all been a bit of an eye-opener, because I’d never heard of them at all prior to hearing Peel play this debut single.  He may well have agreed with the feeling that Unwound got better with age as they recorded their only Peel Session nearly six years after this show.  Caterpillar catches Unwound trying so hard to sound like Nirvana, it’s almost touching.  Nevertheless, comparing the raw ‘n’ ready thrills of an Olympia track called Caterpillar to an Oldham track with a similar title shows why American rock was catching more imaginations and hearts than British ones at the time.  Unwound managing to pull off that difficult trick of saying nothing at all, but making sure the listener remembers every word.

Video courtesy of samuraiinCfede.