East River Pipe

Track	Album / Single
Helmet On	Helmet On 7″
Firing Room	Goodbye California
40 Miles	Goodbye California
Bring On The Loser	Poor Fricky
Times Square Go-Go Boy	She’s A Real Good Time 7″
Kill The Action	Mel
Keep All Your Windows Tight Tonight	Poor Fricky
Axl Or Iggy	Helmet On 7″
I Don’t Care About Your Blue Wings	We Live In Rented Rooms
Atlantic City (Gonna Make A Million Tonight)	The Gasoline Age

For me, the late 80s/early 90s was such a fertile period of music, as I moved from my teenage years into my twenties. I was rapidly shifting through genres (thrash metal to indie to alt-country, etc., etc.), weeding out the good stuff from that genre’s landfill, usually dragging some bands with me that would stick. Around this time, I realised that I wasn’t ever going to fit into one music tribe – I didn’t look the part of a metalhead, or a goth, or Smiths fanatic like my friends. As one does at that age, I felt I was an outsider among outsiders! Oh, the drama.

Since then, I have always really enjoyed discovering music that merits finding and being heard – to dig a bit deeper. What I mean is that it’s baffling to me why there are acts which become the expected bands-you-should-like that are dull as fuck, and the other acts who create such things of beauty, that are lost. I know it’s taste, etc., but sometimes it doesn’t seem fair to lose such incredible works of art to obscurity. I hope that doesn’t come across as being a music snob (for balance I love Phil Collins’ Hello I Must Be Going album).

Some musical artists are never destined to hit the big time and that’s fine. That’s not really the plan maybe. East River Pipe was probably in that group, and you can see why that was always going to be the case, despite the music being so melodic and accessible. There hasn’t really been a prolonged period of time when music critics are continuing to write about them over the years.

For F.M. Cornog, who has been releasing music under the name East River Pipe since the start of the 90s, this may not be such a concern, as he has never toured or played live for an audience of fans as other bands would.  As East River Pipe, F.M. Cornog (Fred) admits to being a musician who would rather “run from the spotlight”, keeping any hint of fame at arm’s length. Coping with attention was never easy for him.

Fred grew up in New Jersey, having a difficult relationship with his war veteran father, and dropping out of college to fall into dead-end jobs. He taught himself piano in his early teens and progressed to writing songs after buying a guitar. By his early twenties, Fred had a pretty problematic relationship with drugs & alcohol and, after being thrown out of the family home by his parents, found himself living rough and sleeping in Hoboken’s train station. During this time, he would’ve seen many of the lost souls and troubled characters that would later inhabit his songs. He would occasionally play music, and a drummer friend of his gave a cassette of Fred’s music to Barbara Powers. She took an interest in not just the music, but also in helping Fred find a more stable life, doing odd jobs, and beginning to fight the alcoholism. It was Barbara who wanted to get his songs out there and together they put out some demos through their own Hell Gate label. She would eventually become his manager and wife. In a 2011 interview with The Quietus, Fred states, “No, I don’t think the music saved me; music created a bridge that brought me to Barbara.”

I first saw the name East River Pipe in the Singles Reviews page in Melody Maker, which must have been 1993, where the track Helmet On was named Single of the Week. As was the case then, you would often buy records on the strength of a gushing review by a critic you trusted, or maybe it sounded interesting or exotic in some way – I remember Palace Brothers’ Ohio River Boat Song being an example of that around this time. I considered the name East River Pipe as being really evocative and eye-catching, though the reality is it was more prosaically named after a sewage pipe near to where Fred lived – as he told The Independent, “I thought that the world was the river and I was the pipe, and my songs were the sewage.”

I was very pleased sometime after, to find the Helmet On 7″ in my local record store, with its cool cover shot of a colour tinted photo of a New York landscape. Excitingly, the store also had another ERP single – She’s A Real Good Time, which also had a similar one-colour cover. Both singles were released on the respected UK-based Sarah Records, with ERP being the only American act on the label I believe. These six tracks, spread over the two 7″ records, were the starting point for me. Perhaps unsurprisingly, three of them make my top ten here.

Helmet On is perhaps the track that hit me the most. Immediately it sets up a style or template for what I think makes that East River Pipe sound – a dreamy synth wash in the background, a gentle jangle of guitar, and simple yet cinematic sounding beat, all recorded on Fred’s little Tascam MiniStudio set up. Well, he wondered what his life would be like with the prettiest boy in town… Then the beat shifts up a gear, and we hit a sound like a lo-fi Phil Spector – the guitar fuzzes up and circles round into a kind of one note ‘solo’ that continues ringing throughout another verse, going into Fred’s urgent cries of Put the helmet on!. It’s a stunning start.

I purchased the mini LP Goodbye California in late July ’94. Another one-colour cover featuring a shot of an area of derelict urban wasteland, and again released on Sarah Records.  Needless to say, I thought it was incredible, and it remains in my top 5 greatest records of all time. My next two choices are from this one.

Firing Room is Goodbye California’s propulsive opener, and we are straight into a short song of few lyrics, which is a particular feature of the earlier ERP songs. Fred has a way with lyrics that feels so distinctive, this economy with words relying on repeated dramatic/evocative phrases that stick in your emotional brain. The tension builds: I don’t wanna tell you, I don’t wanna tell you, right now … right now. The guitars drop away a little for a moment, with Fred intoning – I think we’re up for sale – and we get a repetition of these two sections once more. Then we get a brilliant, bursting bright guitar solo which reminds me of U2’s Edge with added fuzz underneath, and Fred’s voice ringing out high and clear reaching a crescendo that drops away, and the track is gone.

The beautiful seven minutes of 40 Miles has a perfect tone – it drips with yearning; and that’s before you even clock the lyrics. It’s got that Mark Eitzel or Bruce Springsteen sense of something rotting under the American Dream, or as Fred puts it – so much wealth, yet so little inside. The stories of the beautiful fuck-ups and the people wanting to be elsewhere but can’t escape their fate. You say it’s only forty miles … it’s forty miles down some road … You can run away from everything. At just over the two-minute mark Fred brings a gorgeous chiming motif in, until at the song’s midway point drums appear, to carry the second half home, doubling down on the epic feel.

I can’t recommend Goodbye California enough and it feels hard leaving out others from it, particularly the amazing Dogman, in these ten best choices. The tracks from the album were later reconfigured, and added to the two Sarah singles, and the 1995 10″ Sarah EP Even The Sun Was Afraid, to make a larger ERP collection/compilation of sorts, released as Shining Hours In A Can, on Merge Records where Fred’s music would find a home for the years to follow.

Sarah released another full record before the change to Merge and this was ˈ94’s Poor Fricky. Several of the tracks on here were picked up by Fred’s friend and future Merge labelmate Kurt Wagner from Lambchop, who released covers of three (!) ERP tracks on their Thriller record. My first pick from Poor Fricky is Bring On The Loser which somehow feels like the definitive ERP song. Two intertwining guitar lines start up slowly, forming the central melody of the song. Fred then delivers a few lines of a verse that really sticks in the throat – I know we lost, and we’re halfway there … I know you wanna win but I don’t really care, before a chorus of the song’s title which sounds resigned or maybe celebratory? Again, there’s a gorgeous short guitar solo – understated yet so full of heart that it should be put on a pedestal as an example of how to wring emotion out of music with the minimum of technology. The guitar swells at the solo’s end, returning to the chorus, which has Fred doing an almost falsetto Bring on the loser!, then it ends quickly. A sub-three-minute miniature masterpiece.

Perhaps it’s the title and subject matter, or it’s the shuffling acoustic strum, that makes me think of Simon & Garfunkel’s The Only Living Boy In New York on Times Square Go-Go Boy from the She’s A Real Good Time 7″ on Sarah. This one repeats slightly different versions of the chorus throughout, with the same melodic phrasing, punctuated only by a line which is another that directly arrows the heart: Buy yourself a ticket/ But that ticket isn’t where you really wanna go. Fred has said that his songs feature people “trying to scratch out a living, and they’re trying to survive with a little dignity”, and this is another heartbreakingly beautiful track that has that sense of the reality and despair in the lives of those on the streets.

I’ve only included one choice from Mel (1996). It’s not that the album doesn’t feature some consistently great songs (such as Party Drive, New York Crown, Miracleland) but it doesn’t have that huge standout song for me. The album is named after a guy that Fred would score drugs off, and the album’s subject matter is the dark underbelly of his Queens neighbourhood, back when he was on the streets. Kill The Action is another starkly illustrative look at the reality vs. romance of substance abuse. Fred is so good at using few lyrics and repeated phrases to make these songs hit hard. C’mon liquor make it quick/ kill the action for me/ kill the action for me/ think of nothing, that’s the trick.

Keep All Your Windows Tight Tonight is perhaps my favourite ERP song, even though it contains none of the soaring guitar lines, which is usually a preferred element of what I love within Fred’s songs. A mid-pace drum pattern and dominant synth line starts up, underpinned by an economical bass. Sounds like an early Pet Shop Boys single is being played at 33rpm. It has an ominous feel musically and within the lyrics, about staring up at the green clock, up there in the sky; I’m just a drunk and you’re a tease/ Get me a rope and tie me to the chair. The song’s title makes up the chorus – said over an ascending few notes, and then Fred abandons lyrics, and starts with some long, drawn-out ahhhs rising in intensity and tone. He then starts repeating, Let it go, let it go, let it go, let it go, let it go … until a few minutes from the end the music becomes dark and cold in tone, with a minimal beat stretching into the song’s finish.

From that track’s cold shudder, I’ll return to the more euphoric sound of Axl Or Iggy (great title). It starts off slowly, before the guitar and drums open up, and Fred paints a picture of another troubled soul. The lyrics tell of an interesting moment in the protagonist’s life: … and everyone keeps telling you … you’re fine, you’re fine, you’re fine. You say when you drink how that shrink was on fire, you kicked him in the nuts, and you tied him up with wire. You’re fine!  Hmm, not sure he is fine, really.

The 00s produced only two ERP albums – both of which are still great – that brought about a slight shift musically. Fred’s delivery became more ‘spoken’, with songs being increasingly story-like and generally slower. I feel that a certain fan could prefer these albums, but I missed the faster, guitar-centric style somewhat.  Fred believes that Garbageheads On Endless Stun was his “most maligned record”, which may be true, although David Byrne covered a track from it.

Then 2006’s What Are You On? seemed to appear with very little fanfare and no press. I haven’t picked a track from those albums, but instead will choose one from the last (so far!?) East River Pipe album, We Live In Rented Rooms. It’s a pretty simple, yet lovely track, which reaches a typically aching climatic peak of a sweet but brief guitar ‘solo’, before Fred launches into a chorus of repeating the title – I Don’t Care About Your Blue Wings – before it fades.

To finish I have to go with one from Fred’s most critically acclaimed album The Gasoline Age. A concept album of sorts focussed on the American obsession around the automobile and what that means to the American psyche. Fred has explained how he sees the American attitude to the car being as a form of “escape, but really there is no escape”. The record garnered Album of the Year recognitions in The New York Times and The Independent. The near ten-minute Atlantic City (Gonna Make A Million Tonight) is his own American romantic epic, drawing parallels with Bruce Springsteen from the subject matter to the title. The story begins … then at nearly the halfway mark we hear a car door open and a motor start, as the music quietens to a synth line and drums, and we hear the car begin its journey down the freeway to Fred chanting hey, hey, hey, hey … gonna make a million tonight! We end with a coda featuring the sound of coins in slot machines, and the electronic buzz of arcade games on the Strip, which somehow feels like notes of the music Fred has just been playing.

It would seem that Fred still makes music, though at a reduced rate, and he hasn’t time to release it due to being a dad/husband who holds down a regular job. Not the standard fantasy of the American dream, but perhaps a more stable version of someone who did manage to escape the reality faced by the kind of people he had some understanding of within his songs. I read somewhere that he stated that he was sometimes embarrassed by these songs. I believe that’s a typical Fred thing to say, but I also want to end this piece quoting his own words, which I feel is a more accurate evaluation of his music and which certainly registers for me.

“I’m not a ‘motivational speaker’ type of guy, and I’m certainly not a role model of any kind. But if people feel less alone in the universe after hearing my stuff, that’s a good thing too.”

Thank you Fred.

Alternative 10 ERP tracks (included in the Spotify list below)

Dogman (Goodbye California)
Wholesale Lies (The Gasoline Age)
Miracleland (Mel UK edition)
Marty (Even The Sun Was Afraid EP)
I Bought A Gun In Irvington (Garbageheads On Endless Stun)
What Does T.S. Eliot Know About You? (What Are You On?)
Hey, Where’s Your Girl? (Poor Fricky)
Party Drive (The Gasoline Age)
New York Crown (Mel)
Make A Deal With The City (Goodbye California)

A few ERP covers on YouTube

Lambchop – Hey Where’s Your Girl
Mary Lou Lord – Times Square Go Go Boy
David Byrne – Girls On The Freeway
The Reds, Pinks & Purples – Hide My LIfe Away
The Mountain Goats – Druglife

East River Pipe bandcamp

East River Pipe at Merge Records

East River Pipe reviews at Sarah Records

East River Pipe wikipedia

Excellent early East River Pipe cassettes/demos can be found on Soundcloud.

There are some great interviews out there – here’s just 3:
Tape Op, Magnet, The Quietus

Ruskus (still) dreams of making an album one day. Perhaps he’ll settle for a 7″ single. He is as obsessed with music as you are, and can be found on BlueSky @rusky.bsky.social

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