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Whirlaway

by Tadpoles

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  • Streaming + Download

    Immediate download of 10-track album in your choice of 320k mp3, FLAC, or just about any other format you could possibly desire.

    If you like Tadpoles, check out Todd Parker's solo project
    toddparkerandthewitches.bandcamp.com

    Also available is The Farm Tape Series - free releases of cassette 4-track psych excursions and Tadpoles demos
    toddparker.bandcamp.com
    Purchasable with gift card

      $5 USD  or more

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Original Bakery Records CD release from 1999. Out of Print. Very Limited Supply Remaining. This is the US For Promotional Use Only CD which is identical to the original 1999 Camera Obscura Records edition.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Whirlaway via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 1 day
    Purchasable with gift card

      $15 USD or more 

     

  • Full Digital Discography

    Purchasable with gift card

      $32 USD or more (50% OFF)

     

1.
A see saw lets you float up 
The water lets you slide
 One after another 
Get in line for the other side And your time is up 
Put away your tin cup 
Breathe in the sweet air
 And take it in and feel it there 
It's alien
 Good times Just teach yourself the subjects 
The moons are in your reach 
Get out your favorite colors
 Give all your sands a beach And your time is up 
Put away your tin cup 
Breathe in the sweet air 
And take it in and feel it there 
It's alien 
Good times The ocean's getting deeper
 From the drains you had to waste 
The desert's just a little colder 
From the nights you tried to chase When you taste the bitter 
Taste that they left behind 
Sip your favorite water
 Refresh whats in your mind
2.
Begging with a borrowed hand again Burning bridges, swimming rivers Building and breaking and fixing things You can never run from the devils in you But you can beat a path to my door When the running gets the better of you Rest yourself a while, sit a spell And you know that tomorrow is a new day It's all in how you harvest me  It's all in how you harvest me It's all in how you harvest me It's up to you, how you harvest me Betting on a borrowed hand again Desert sands in your barren palm Your rivers dried out into the seas Brother, don't you curse my name I haven't made peace with parts of my past Or with those ghosts with halos round their eyes And you hope that tomorrow is a new day It's all in how you harvest me It's all in how you harvest me It's all in how you harvest me It's up to you, how you harvest me It's all in how you harvest me It's all in how you harvest me It's all in how you harvest me It's up to you, how you harvest me
3.
You're driving in your car 
Not going very far
 A sunday sunny drive 
Feels good to be alive Your friends are in the back
 Ask you where you're at 
Some take the wrong turn 
The moonlight tavern burns At the bottom of the hill
 A wooden house is filled
 You've got to climb the stairs
 Your friends are unaware Just make one more call 
To the pictures on the wall
 This dream will come to pass
 You'll sleep in beds of grass
4.
Never thought that you'd feel so sad 
Never wanted anything you had 
And its time that you learned to see 
It's enough to just believe We all will pass this way 
No one makes us stay
 If there's any way to make it good 
I think that you should
5.
Whirlaway 09:24
From temperate climes, through rain, set sail 
Ribbons of water, they sparkle and spangle 
In the coming sun, falling through liquid streets 
Into the jungle and out of the rain Steal into dreamtiger eyes and slowly leave behind 
Domino days of time, inches of distance
 Slip past the double-edged sword of building 
The cost of building more, or of just maintaining 
Feel the dreamtigers prowling free and easy 
But ribbons of memory still tumble and tangle
 And turn into questions, "Can your friends trust you now?" Only dreamtigers never have a need to change In time, as night declines, fleeting and fading 
Ribbons of laughter, they jingle and jangle 
And all the dream-tigers retreat back into the trees 
With green, smiling eyes, at the coming of the day
6.
Dusty Baker 03:26
When you are feeling low 
Let the juices flow away 
When you are moving slow 
Take a ride down the drain I don't have the time to wait for you 
And I don't care if you stay 
Just don't hang around and blow my brain 
Can't you break the clock today When you are feeling low 
Get down on the grass and lay 
The snake is gold and he follows you
 The poison takes your cares away When you are feeling low 
Let the juices flow away 
When you are moving slow
 Take a ride down the drain 
Down the drain 
Down the drain
 Down the drain
7.
Clouds so swift 
Rain won’t lift 
Gate won’t close 
Railings froze
 Get your mind off wintertime
 You ain’t goin’ nowhere
 Whoo-ee! Ride me high 
Tomorrow’s the day 
My bride’s gonna come
 Oh, oh, are we gonna fly 
Down in the easy chair! I don’t care
How many letters they sent 
Morning came and morning went 
Pick up your money
 And pack up your tent 
You ain’t goin’ nowhere
 Whoo-ee! Ride me high 
Tomorrow’s the day
 My bride’s gonna come 
Oh, oh, are we gonna fly 
Down in the easy chair! Buy me a flute 
And a gun that shoots 
Tailgates and substitutes 
Strap yourself 
To the tree with roots 
You ain’t goin’ nowhere 
Whoo-ee! Ride me high
 Tomorrow’s the day 
My bride’s gonna come
 Oh, oh, are we gonna fly
 Down in the easy chair! Genghis Khan 
He could not keep 
All his kings 
Supplied with sleep
 We’ll climb that hill no matter how steep 
When we get up to it 
Whoo-ee! Ride me high 
Tomorrow’s the day 
My bride’s gonna come
 Oh, oh, are we gonna fly
 Down in the easy chair!
8.
(Instrumental)
9.
Nothing to believe in 
Nothing worth seeing
 It's ok The dunes are frozen 
Throw rocks in the ocean 
The waves are astounding
 The heart keeps on pounding
 It's ok Your arms are golden 
Your sunlights are broken 
When night is falling
 You hear me calling Can you tell me how to see 
Can you tell me how to look 
I can't find my way inside 
I haven't read the book 
It's ok The sunrise ocean bender
 The sunrise ocean bender
10.
(Instrumental)

about

Whirlaway (1999) is the fourth and final full length studio album released on CD by Tadpoles and is the first Tadpoles' album to be released by a label other than the band's own Bakery Records. Australian independent label, Camera Obscura Records, licensed and released the album worldwide. As a promotion in 1999, an edited MP3 version of the song "Whirlaway" was given away free from by Camera Obscura Records through their website. Additionally, this was the first studio album by Tadpoles not produced by Mark Kramer (Shimmy Disc) at Noise New Jersey, although Mark Kramer did record the album's final track, Horse and Buggy at New York City's Knitting Factory. The album was recorded by Pete Drivere at Ampreon Recorder in Youngstown, Ohio and features a cover version of Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes classic, You Ain't Goin' Nowhere.


Reviews -Whirlaway
...among the finest realities of last lustres American psychedelia, a solid quartet able to change their expressive valence in the course of a few chords, roaming from the wildest space-rock to the utmost visionary country folk...ROCKERILLA (Italy) on WHIRLAWAY

...not only masters of the pop song idiom, but also willing connoisseurs of the absinthe of psychedelic excess...THE BROKEN FACE (Sweden) on WHIRLAWAY

...undeniably psychedelic...but also unquestioningly fresh and modern, with a full blown-3-dimensional sound filled with swirls and eddies of criss-crossing leads from guitarists Nick Kramer and Todd Parker, brilliant effects, hypnotic rhythms from drummer Adam Boyette, and keening bass lines from David Max...JERSEY BEAT (USA) on WHIRLAWAY

...an altogether solid work, with a scattering of infectious euphoria throughout...PITCHFORK.COM (USA) on WHIRLAWAY

...a candid enunciation of what is universal and eternal about psychedelic music: not the drugs, but the bounded creativity, the flight of the caged soul...SCARUFFI.COM (USA/Italy)
on WHIRLAWAY

...Investigating large expanses of time and sound, they are without a shadow of doubt, the defining psychedelic sounds of now ...ZEITGEIST (Scotland) on WHIRLAWAY

Rating:9...a modern psychedelic masterpiece...ALL MUSIC GUIDE (USA) on WHIRLAWAY

A Day Late: Tadpoles—Whirlaway Tadpoles—Whirlaway
An absolute must have. Beginning with the 1-2 punch of the galloping “Frances the Dancer ” and the heavy “Lyman Bostock” right through to the end, it’s a solid, smoky buffet of sonics. All Tadpoles releases were hazy gems, but on Whirlaway it all comes together to make, for me, their signature disc. If you follow Ptolemaic Terrascope or have yearned to attend Terrastock (like me ...), then this has your name all over it. Comparisons don’t do justice, especially when it’s as fully baked as this, but if you get into, say,
the Bevis Frond, or dreamed about a faster, fuzzier 7% Solution, then grab that dog-eared issue of the Terrascope, get out some snacks and have a seat. It’s time to go for a ride.
Many of the neo-psych groups your assailed with rely on coughing up old touchstones from some simulacrum of pastoral, quirky Englishness. Tadpoles get their cue not from the English fields or their misty woods, but rather from some musty hillock buried in the garage drip fed Nuggets. The Tadpoles are decidely American. And that sets them apart by rooting Whirlaway in good old rock. It smokes. Or rather it’s in a state of perpetual slow-burn. That rough, deceptively shambolic rock base and a firm grasp of melody set them apart from wandering noodling contemporary minstrels. No twee, whispy vocals here either. The often cracking vocals and semi-impenetrable lyrics coupled with the smoky, druggy guitars and bubbling bottom-end give the whole affair a very natural, organic weave. You can digest Whirlaway just as surface candy if you want, but if you go in for the long haul, the payback is far more filling: consumate musicianship, great production and mix, stellar layering of details, good drawn out crunchy rock and a throbbing locomotion gauranteed to see you all the way over to the other side. And they’ll get you there without relying on the ferryman to get you across the river. Tadpoles will drive you there themselves. In a GTO. Even if they promise a “Horse and Buggy” at the finish line.
Kevin McFadin - Mr. Atavist Blog (Sep 29, 2009)

credits

released August 1, 1999

©1999 Tadpoles/Bakery Records

Whirlaway was engineered and mixed by Pete Drivere at Ampreon Recorder in Youngstown, Ohio in 1998 and 1999. Additional overdubs and mixes were done at Jolly Roger Studio in Hoboken, NJ by Gene Holder (the dB's). Album artwork and design was created by Ann Manca. Mastered by Todd Parker at dbs digital in Hoboken, NJ.

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Tadpoles Hoboken, New Jersey

Tadpoles, based in Hoboken, NJ, disbanded in 2000 after releasing 4 critically acclaimed studio albums, 1 live album and 1 E.P. all on their own Bakery Records label (except for their last studio album, Whirlaway, which was released on Australia's Camera Obscura Records.) The group was formed by vocalist/guitarist, Todd Parker and original drummer, Michael Kite Audino in New York City in 1990. ... more

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