Possum Dixon started out jumping from coffeehouse to coffeehouse in Southern California. The band began as a four-piece and managed to get the attention of Interscope Records. Interscope liked what it heard and booked the band on a nine-month-long tour of the United States as the opener for fellow irreverent Californians The Dead Milkmen.
The group’s self-titled debut, Possum Dixon, sports an assortment of abstract lyrics and jittery energy. The neurotic tension of “Nerves” sets the scene for the rest of the album. Key switches between minor and major and a healthy dose of trebly surf guitar drive the song forward, and “She Drives” showcases Celso Chavez’ charged guitar playing.
“Buildings” is the CD’s real standout. Rob Zabrecky begins by describing the object of his obsession as “an actress who’s late for an audition.” Later he asks, “Is she Catholic / or Jewish / or the devil?” Zabrecky’s desperation has an adolescent edge to it; it is a kind of comic-book love.
The single from Possum Dixon, “Watch the Girl Destroy Me,” drew moderate college-radio play, especially on the West Coast, but it failed to produce a follow-up single. The most likely reason was probably that the majority of Possum Dixon wouldn’t have met well with the FCC. Some songs seem almost consumed by teenage antics.
Zabrecky has no problem talking about what he does when he goes home alone, and he has no problem discussing what other people do, either. One song is about a woman who discovers the joys of a vibrator late in her life, only to overdose on pleasure.
Despite any qualms Interscope may have had about Possum Dixon, the label gave the green light for another album. Star Maps was released in 1996 and met with favorable reviews from Spin and other magazines. The hype must have gotten at least a few people to run out and get the album — how else to explain its almost universal presence in used record stores? It seems every Disc-Go-Round in the country has a copy.
Now that’s puzzling, because Star Maps is an excellent CD. It takes the material from the band’s self-titled debut and gives it a makeover. Production values are higher and the songs better constructed. While Possum Dixon is all about bad jobs, Star Maps is all about bad romance.
“Go West” starts with a pulse on keyboards and then joins it with a frantic guitar line. “Radio Comets” slows down, beginning with an almost B-movie surf line before turning into pure pop.
“Party Tonight” sings about “Promises breaking like dishes,” while “General Electric” runs ahead at full speed with lines like “Momma doesn’t know me by name / but she knows me by number” and then erupts into a climbing guitar line that begs to be danced to.
“Emergency’s About to End” puts all the cards on the table. It starts out with bouncy, muted guitar and cycling keyboard sounds that give the song a mechanical feel. Zabrecky’s distorted vocals mesh with the electronic noise that swells in and out of the background.
“Your words burn like acid on my skin / My attention span’s unraveling” chants Zabrecky. At two and a half minutes, the song doesn’t seem long enough, but at the same time. it’s just the right length to listen to over and over.
For Star Maps, PD found itself touring with bigger bands and bigger venues. The Violent Femmes matched the band like a glove. After the tour was over, Interscope decided PD was ready for the big leagues and proposed a national release with national-scale promotion and a new producer.
With Ric Ocasek at the board, Possum Dixon turned out its third full-length album in August 1998. The band’s most diverse album, New Sheets scrapped the surf guitar in favor of a more straightforward pop approach to songwriting.
“Stop Breaking Me Down” is filled with catchy riffs and crunchy guitar lines, and “End’s Beginning” is a minor anthem that builds from a whisper until it overflows with raucous guitars. “Plan B” breaks into a fragmented sea of noise, then trails off with “This is the worst one we’ve seen all week …”
That isn’t to say that it’s all noisy guitars. The title track is dead on. The chorus swells up from the sparse verses, “The cameras shoot off like shooting stars / over each and every one of us / the bright lights go ’round on a disco ball / over each and every one of us / they will be found.”
“Heavenly” is in the same vein. It opens with sweeping guitar chords and synthetic string arrangements behind the lyrics, “This sound / won’t leave / this place / ’til the sun burns to ashes.”
The single “Holding” is the catchiest song of the CD, but it never managed to get played on the radio. With all the backlash against Weezer’s Pinkerton, nerdy pop had been dismissed as just another fad, and Possum Dixon found itself being labeled just another latecomer to an already dead party.
Nu-metal like Korn and Limp Bizkit was the wave of the future, and melody was out. The members split and went their own ways, but most of those projects flopped. Today, only Celso Chavez’ band, Pill Module, remains.
That was the end of Possum Dixon. Five years after the split, the band’s website reads, “You must be desperate to come looking for us. After all, we broke up years ago.” If you’re desperate for something old that still sounds new, you’ll look.
Possum Dixon’s website can be found at www.possumdixon.com, and Pill Module’s website can be found at www.pillmod.com. Both sites have free tracks available for download.
