Song of The Day: 'I Could Use You' by Material Issue!

Material Issue guitarist Jim Ellison

For as polarizing a figure as Material Issue's Jim Ellison could be at times, chances are MI were one of the first bands to do whatever it is your band thinks they came up with, whether it be booking your own national tour without the assistance of a manager or booking agency, wrapping deceptively vulnerable lyrics in jagged barb-wire guitars and a pummeling backbeat, or getting your band's demo played in heavy rotation on WXRT, right next to the major label big boys.

For longtime fans of the band, seeing MI debut a new song live was always a treat because you got to see the band taking their first tentative crack at a tune that you would hear come into its own over the next few gigs before ultimately showing up on the next album.

In this clip, we see the band tearing into a new Jim Ellison composition called "I Could Use You" that, as we know now, eventually found its way onto the band's final studio album for Mercury Records, Freak City Soundtrack.

Incredibly, the jangly mid-tempo track was overlooked as a candidate for release as a single in favor of the cover tune "Kim The Waitress". While "Waitress" is not without its own charms, perhaps the catchier hook of "I Could Use You" would have fared a better chance at radio and helped the band's third album begin building momentum.

As it stands, after the commercial disappointment of Freak City Soundtrack, the band would enter a period of serious soul-searching and begin considering the prospect of "tinkering with the chemistry" by adding a fourth member and moving in a decidedly harder-edged direction.

Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed (or Gilby Clarke got the call to join Guns & Roses instead) and Material Issue never lost complete touch with their melodic pop side, as on this standout cut that I know I'll be carrying around in my head all day.