today i felt the end of something.

i was/am listening to Bedhead's first full-length WhatFunLifeWas (Trace Syndicate Records, 1994). they remain one of my favorite bands. it was kind of a late discovery, considering that my first experience of Matt & Bubba Kadane's slow-build guitar-core was in 2000, via new band The New Year (mush thanks to my good buddy Chad VanDierendonck for this). after hearing the 2001 release Newness Ends, i craved more Kadane, and immediately purchased used copies of Bedhead's entire backlog. some of the EPs i had to order on-line, of course, but all you their full-lengths i found at record stores around Milwaukee.

as much as i liked Newness Ends (and i loved it), i loved Bedhead even more. it satisfied the peculiar need that i never realized i always had: to hear four guitars playing simultaneously in a cathartic but not overwhelming way. given that The New Year's first release was largely the same, slow-building lovefest with the electric guitar, i had high hopes for future albums. and to be honest, The New Year has not disappointed me: i love both 2004's The End Is Near and this year's self-titled release (both from Touch & Go Records), but today when i started listening to WhatFunLifeWas (i'm now listening to Bedhead's second album Beheaded, which, for the first year that i owned it, i thought was called "Bedheaded"), i realized that the Kadane Bros.'s love affair with the guitar is over, and that's sad to me, because whenever i need that four-guitar fix, i have to rely on these three albums.

it's like when you have friends that are a couple who you really like together, and they break up and you can't figure out why they don't love each other anymore. or when your parents do that, and then you feel neglected in the bureaucracy of the divorce. i'm sure that's been said before.

if i like Bedhead, who else should i listen to?