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Sweet Love

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Double-length, highly acclaimed rock album. Remastered and reissued on compact disc.

Release Info
Cover Art
Band Memoirs

Release Info

Tracks

Side One

Sweet Love
Catch a Falling Star
Sweet Sally
Old Love Bucket
Love Bucket
Baseball Hotdogs
Christmas Time Is My Time of Year
Breathing
Free Love
Love's on the Lawn
Insane Asylum
Darkness in a Box
Killing the One I Love

Side Two

In Lieu of Stinky Butter Feet
Partial to the Question
I Have a Hiny
Girl of My Dreams
The Boat
Dance of the Blazing Stick
Helga
Ostracized
Devil's Odyssey
Rattlesnake Man
Sweet Love
Love Is a Long Shot at Best
Spike's Theme
Stranger to My Dog
Farewell to The Blanks III [hidden bonus track]

Archie Carbunkel: guitars, vocals, Nasty Moe, drums, bass, and Easter grass
Kar: vocals, Moog synthesizer, autoharp, and maracas
Ran: keyboard, bass, vocals, and drums
Spike: drums, vocals, and keyboard

Red Sugar: guest vocals on “Sweet Sally” and “Ostracized”

Produced, written, and performed by The Blanks. Recorded at Drum Room Studios, Houston, Texas and Red Oak Studios, Austin, Texas. Mixed at Red Oak Studios, Austin, Texas. Finished on the 9th day of the 9th month of 1990.
Remastered in 2007 by Kar at Lopwood Studios, Cypress, Texas.
©1990 The Blanks.

1990: First issue, cassette, Blanks Enterprises.
2008: Remastered, compact disc, Blanks Enterprises.

Cover Art

Click for larger image:

Sweet Love CD

Sweet Love CD liner notes

Sweet Love CD label

Sweet Love original cassette label

Band Memoirs

It's hard to say enough about this album. Though Bean Monster Rituals may have received more media play, Sweet Love was and still is the most popular with the fans. The four of us were hitting on all cylinders. I think we reached a new level of creativity. This was also our most ambitious album to date. 28 songs. 100 minutes. It was a return to rock 'n' roll. We had recently released two well-received pop albums – Bean Monster Rituals and Kill Me Hot Chocolate. But Sweet Love was a continuation of the rock we pumped out for Put on the Featherhead, which came out between those two pop albums. Sweet Love, however, was more refined, head-on ... hammer-down rock.

I was proud of the story telling on this album. The themes range from joy and hope to dark, lonely despair. People were inquisitive about the specific meanings of the songs. I remember women talking to me about the lyrics. They really took them to heart. There is still much misinterpretation, especially for songs like “Darkness in a Box” and “Love's on the Lawn.”

Two big hits, “Sweet Sally” and “Ostracized” featured supporting vocals by Red Sugar, an Austin singer. I think this collaboration really opened us up to new audiences. It provided a simple touch of hopeful sadness that appealed to our new female audience. I'd later have disappointing experiences trying to collaborate with Red Sugar, but that doesn't discount the perfection on this album.

There were many hidden benefits with this album. The attitude some folks had of thinking it was “cool” to like The Blanks was blown out of the water. It was now “smart” to like The Blanks ... Sweet Love was so undeniably good. We got even more attention from the fans around this time. “Backstage Fanfare,” a later track from the rarity collection Joy of Chicken, captures our Sweet Love popularity well.

On the flip side, many folks believed The Blanks had surely peaked with this album. Anything to come couldn't possibly measure up. We've clearly put out solid material since Sweet Love, but there are those that will never give newer material the same consideration. They've been too overwhelmed by Sweet Love. I don't think their minds or bodies can process any more goodness of that concentrate.

In the final analysis, Sweet Love will probably be the album we're best known for. It truly is The Blanks.

– Kar

I think the roots of this album are found more in Put on the Featherhead than anywhere else. We were drunk on creativity, and sometimes liquor too. I remember one night when Mr. Ed was just too drunk to function during a writing/rehearsing session. Around that same time, 3/4th of the band nearly died in an automobile accident. I was jet lagged and fatigued. Everyone in the car, including me, the driver, had fallen asleep or passed out. It was pretty scary stuff.

Everyone in the band though rose to this new direction in a very prolific way. We came out with our first double album. While the songs were varied in variety, Kar's seemingly more personal lyrics garnered a lot of attention. It was side previously unseen, or at least undetected in his previous stuff.

This album also broke or re-broke ground with the addition of a guest vocalist. Red Sugar, came in and did some vocal work on “Sweet Sally” and “Ostracized.” “Sweet Sally” in particular was a huge success. This album was also basically the death knoll to our days of pure pop that produced the albums Bean Monster Rituals and Kill Me Hot Chocolate.

The change in musical style coupled with Kar's lyrics on this album caused some people to actually think this would be our last album. One fan remarked after first hearing the album that he was sure The Blanks were breaking up. It seemed obvious to him. Even though the album and the message it held for him was troubling, there was no denying that even the most disturbed of fans heralded the album as a Rock Classic.

I know this is a favorite of many fans, and it'll always be one of my favorite albums. I don't know how it happened that everything came together so right for this album, but it did.

– Spike

I recall the night that I ruined an evening's recording of the Sweet Love album in Austin. I did not realize that I would put anyone out when I drank a 7-11 Big Gulp cup full of Seven and Seven a bit too quickly. The result was that I attempted to apply the chord progression from “Girl of My Dreams” to every different song that we attempted to record after we recorded “Girl of My Dreams.” I was lying with my back on the floor and my legs on Kar's couch, as my playing of “Girl of My Dreams” became sloppier and sloppier with each new song that we tried to play. I seem to recall looks from Kar, Ran, and Spike suggesting they were not at all amused. Finally, the recording project was abandoned and we went to have dinner at some place. I remember, when we were leaving, I screamed out, “Look at me! Look at me! What do you see?” Responding, some drunk guy on the street who looked to me like a Bandido or a Hell's Angel said, “A drunk guy.” This was perhaps my lowest moment as a Blank. The moment when I knew I had failed everyone gloriously. These days this problem is solved, because we don't drink so much that “we puke our guts away” any more.

– Mr. Ed