Close Lobsters is a band that was always part of my college radio experience. I can’t recall how I found them in the first place, I have no stories about revelatory moments playing their music and I never had a connection to them beyond the couple of releases that were nestled into the music library at 90FM. I believe I know more about them now, after researching a brief blurb written for last week’s College Countdown post than I ever knew during the days when I regularly shared their songs with the central Wisconsin listening public (and make no mistake, I probably hold a great deal of personal responsibility for the band’s high placement on that 1989 chart).

They may not have been a band that I followed and studied and anguished over like some others (anguished may be understating it when it comes to The Replacements), but they’ve been a part of my audio selections with a constancy that rivals my touchstones. Once I got my own copy of their 1988 EP What Is There to Smile About, its songs were sure to be put onto mixes and generally spun for joyous bouts with gloomy cynicism. While slick and exuberant, most of the songs on the disc also displayed a mordant wit and bleak outlook that perfectly suited my teen and twentysomething pessimistic disenchantment. I may not roil emotionally like I did then, but the tone of the songs still strike my inner misanthrope with precision.

Really, how could I not love a band that titles a song “Let’s Make Some Plans,” disguising the punchline that the line of song that follows the title is “‘Cause they can go wrong”?

Close Lobsters, “Let’s Make Some Plans”

(Disclaimer: The release gushed about above seems well out of print and Amazon seems perplexed by any search query for electronic versions of the music contained therein. I’m operating under the assumption that the song posted above is unavailable through any means that will provide due compensation to the artist or the proprietor of your favorite neighborhood independently-owned record store. That provides me the moral rationalization I require for sharing it here, but I’m not so high and mighty about it that I’d refuse to remove it if instructed to do so by someone with due authority to issue such a demand. In fact, I’d comply promptly and happily in that circumstance. And even if you can’t buy this EP new, snap it up if you see it used. Seriously.)