The Musings of Sense Field and Running From Dharma

I don't write about split releases all that often, in part because there aren't a great deal many that I've wanted to revisit. But this one resurfared recently, and upon giving it a few spins, I figured, "what the hell?" and sucked a high-quality, 320kbps rip up into the ol' MEGA portal for your listening pleasure.

I've wirtten a fair amount of Sense Field-related posts over the years, but nothing since 2020, so as one of my favorite bands of a certain era, it makes sense (HA!) to dig back into my recollections and share this latter-day release from 2004. You get a Smiths cover and a live recording of Killed For Less's "Soft". The other two tracks are from Central PA's Running From Dharma. Truth be told, I should be able to remember these guys, but nothing comes to mind, despite an acoustic version of "Drive Not Driving" and their own take on a Marr/Morrissey classic.

It has occurred to me in the writing of this blog that this was the last new Sense Field release before Jon Bunch's death in 2016. What a loss. This is a good way to remember a very good guy.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Mineral / Jimmy Eat World / Sense Field

Sense Field (photo by Josh Withers)

A quick one, as I'm uploading about a gig of music for your listening pleasure.

This three-way split is about as peak 90s emo as it gets. Mineral, Jimmy Eat World, and Sense Field were, in 1997, about as close as one could get to mainstreaming emo. Mineral was on Crank!, and in between the release of their first and second LPs. Jimmy Eat World was a year off from recording "Clarity", and were a quartet of Arizona kids gutting it out in basements and VFWs with the slightest bit of support from Capitol Records. Sense Field had very quietly been signed by Warner Bros. the year before, and their record "Building" was actually showing up in Sam Goody. It was a weird time, especially since a lot of us had been around for all the post-Green Day/Offspring hullabaloo, and it felt like the mainstream was trespassing in the scene again.

Despite the tension present for a bunch of 19- and 20-year-olds having their youth exploited for the first time, this a pretty great non-album release. None of these recordings are available elsewhere, and Crank! pressed this on nine different colors of vinyl. It's veritable Pokemon of a split single! You get Mineral covering the Willie Nelson-penned classic "Crazy". You get Sense Field ripping through a demo version of "Every Reason", which I think tops the version on the "Part of the Deal" EP. However, the standout here is the Jimmy Eat World track, "Secret Crush", a ripper of a jukebox track at 3:08. This was the song that got me willing to listen to Jimmy Eat World.

Did I play this record on my radio show a lot? You bet I did. Did I put "Secret Crush" on a mix tape? For a girl? What am I, an amateur? You're damned right, I did. I'm sitting here, puzzling to remember if this was made for a tour, or for shits and giggles. I'm very pleased at how well it all holds up for me. I can see why the majors had an eye on developing this for a bigger audience.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Sense Field - Under the Radar

I'm definitely in "writing-for-the-sake-of-writing" mode. For one, I spent five minutes explaning the thought process behind this whole thing to my boss, who, as is his wont, proceeded to shit on it. Well, fuck 'im. And fuck a rock star posed picture, like you see above.

I threatened to post something about Sense Field about a month ago. The initial threat took place on a posting of the Fabric 7" on Zen and the Art of Face Punching (which is maybe the worst record I've ever downloaded...ever). Please. Let me explain something. Most of us are either young now, or were young not too long ago. There are a million musical skeletons in our collective closets. You could be Craig Finn or Ian MacKaye or some other god of rawk and you probably listened to some miserable, embarassing shit when you were 17 like E.L.O., 7 Seconds (circa '87), Madonna or the Spice Girls. Hell, Lemmy played for four years in Hawkwind. Well, I was 17 in 1994, and I listened to Sense Field. A lot of it. More of it than was good for me. And I fucking loved them.

I used to bomb around the Maryland/Pennsylvania border, back in '97, up by Conowingo Dam, blasting Building out of the shitty factory speakers of Ben Casey's Jetta. I was young, fer Crissake. I didn't know trite from a hole in my head. They were a pop band...no different from Journey to my ears. And I was stoked for their first record due out on Warner Bros. I waited 3 years for that record, which never came. The label didn't hear a single, or so I was told. And the decision was made 2 weeks before the release date! What the hell was that? A friend of a friend burnt me a CD of the promo that had leaked out. In those pre-Torrent days, this was a true coup. And the record wasn't bad? What was management at the WB thinking?

A few years later, long after the excitement of getting that burnt CD had worn off, I found a promo copy of Under the Radar in the dollar bin at the now-defunct Joe's Music Emporium on Harford Road. So the rip here comes from that. I've never felt so nerdy as to play this side-by-side with Tonight & Forever, the 2001 Nettwerk release that announced Sense Field's return to recorded media. Supposedly, T&F is a re-recorded version of UtR. I dunno...make up your own mind. It's weird to me how eminently forgettable bands who I once loved now sound...

Sense Field - Under the Radar

RIYL: the In-Flight Program sampler, alternative radio in 2002, emo as a slur