Starflyer 59

Easy Come, Easy Go

Tooth and Nail Records

Southern California gave birth to the best-kept secret in American rock n’ roll in 1993. Tooth and Nail Records gave it a home, and now that baby’s growing into a mature adult, which is chronicled on “Easy Come, Easy Go,” a luxurious two-CD set that chronicles its modest career.

After five critically acclaimed full-length albums and a plethora of EPs, vinyl singles and numerous compilation tracks, Starflyer 59 has left the airport and is flying high to stardom. The box set includes a lengthy book about its career.

The first disc includes its greatest hits and indubitably shows how the band has grown from a Smashing-Pumpkins-on-Ritalin-influenced slow rock drive into better focused songwriters, lead by the dreary voice and sonorous guitar style of Jason Martin.

Amazingly, despite most of its earlier work sounding quite repetitive, there is always a unique hook or unexpected whimper of a guitar to distinguish the songs from one another and cause serious replay; or serious weeping.

Martin’s heartbreakingly beautiful stories are portrayed on “A Housewife Love Song” and “The Voyager,” while “We’re the Ordinary” and “Fell in Love at 22” both roll along like luxury cars on a desert highway.

“20 Dollar Bills” is a short piece complete with orchestra strings backing it up, complimenting Martin’s vocals.

But the real ear candy of the package is the chocolate-covered second disc that includes a number of unreleased tracks, B sides and live material.

Included among these are “All Done Wrong” - a snappy, The Cure-influenced song, while “I Was 17” is a ballad about breaking a young woman’s heart.

“Shedding the Mortal Coil” is a short, happy tune that almost sounds like a theme song to a cartoon, while “Prepare to Detour” is a perfectly organized and distortion-drenched depressant.

As for the live set on the second half of the second disc, Starflyer 59’s place in rock history as players and recording artists is shown to be certain. Let’s just hope more critics agree.