vote!!!

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

opie says so!

atp day 2 (mbv, etc)

yeah. waaay late. oops!

so day 2 of ATP was the day i was most excited about, if only because of My Bloody Valentine.
we started our day with lunch a pizza hut, as we were getting liberty diner fatigue. pizza hut is what pizza hut is - much better than the food court was offering at the show, and less Millers Crossing (or maybe Mulholland Drive) than the diner.

we got there aboud mid day, in time for Gemma Hayes on stage 2.


setlist:
Happy Sad
Nothing Can
Home
In Over My Head
TBTF (Kevin Drew/Broken Social Scene cover)
Oliver
Easy on the Eye
Tear in my Side
Out Of Our Hands
Let A Good Thing Go

so a good mix of all three albums. the crowd was very quiet, as all the stage 2 crowds were, but something about the performance lent itself to the intimacy of it all.
one could ask where she fits in on a bill that, especially sunday's acts, is more identified with noise and volume. well, one, she absolutely was able to bring the noise factor (there had to be a reason kevin shields not only picked her for the concert, but also produced her newest album) - though less like, say, dinosaur jr's wall of feedback, and more like mercury rev's hazey atmosphere of sound. a little bit of a female nick drake crossed with the last few flaming lips records maybe? granted, i only have her first 2 brilliant EP's and the first album - new one has just come out, and the second one - the roads don't love you - was sort of hard to find and hasn't been a huge priority on my shopping list. i downloaded a few tracks and liked them okay, but not as much as the first lp so... the new album is supposed to be more like the first, so i plan to check it out when i get a chance. honestly, part of me wanted to see her because i have a ridiculously schoolboyish crush on her (irish girls do that to me i guess).

then came stage 1 for the rest of the night. which is what i think a lot of people did, ultimately. only act i was sort of regretful about missing was bob mould, who apparently ended his set by tearing through some husker du songs. i assume he's touring, so i'll catch him when i get a chance i guess. but still...

they - they being the atp security - did try the dumb "empty the room" crap after mercury rev (and after yo la tengo), but i think they realized they might have a small riot on their hands, so slowly but eventually gave it up (with a few rules - something about no professional cameras, which was largely ignored, and something about if you left the room, you had to stay out until the doors reopened for the next band).



mercury rev were amazing. period. and they played the dark is rising! yeah, a little theatrical, but that's mercury rev. we did miss a couple of songs, as stage 2 seemed to run a little late (stage 1 would ultimately follow suit), but it was truly... again, and more apt, the flaming lips comparison is obvious. (no setlist. sorry...). easily one of my favorite performances of the day, if not the whole weekend. there's just something ethereal about them which can't really be described adequately without actually seeing them.

yo la tengo's set, next, seemed really short and was heavy on long, drawn out, almost more ambient jams. when i saw them in baltimore... about 5 years ago i guess, they were the headliners, and actually played a lot of songs (though also a lot of feedack).

setlist:
*ambient opener*
Flying Lesson
I Feel Like Going Home
Watch Out For Me Ronnie
The Story of Yo La Tango



they were the last band i felt comfortable during without earplugs, which was pretty much expected. and possibly one of the prettiest sets of the weekend, with their gorgeous beach boyish - and by that comparison, i mean pet sounds/smile era beach boys, not kokomo! - harmonies (musically and a little vocally). i would have liked maybe a longer set, but no complaints.

mogwai. having only seen them before outdoors, i wasn't entirely sure what to expect. other than loud. earplugs? check!



setlist:
precipice
jim morrison
hunted
friend
scotland's shame
satan
space expert
herod
batcat

now, i truly love me some mogwai. and live mogwai makes me love them more.

(not my video, found on youtube while looking for the setlist)


my favorite moment was when they stopped people from clapping in rhythm, as well as stuart's speech about feeling the same way he felt seeing mbv 6 years ago when he saw some of the newer bands that played the festival. sadly - and possibly responsible for some of the rest of the evening's delays, including mbv's:

"We are sad to announce that we have had to cancel our remaining American and Canadian shows due to ill health. Our other dates in Europe and Japan will be going ahead as planned. We will re-schedule the shows in 2009.

I [Martin] was taken into hospital last night almost immediately after the show at ATP. I've been having some problems with my pacemaker for the duration of the tour and it unfortunately culminated in me being sent to the emergency room. The doctors there initially thought i would have to have corrective surgery at a larger hospital nearer NYC but i have been given the all clear to travel home on the understanding that i go straight to my cardiologist on arrival back in Scotland.

Tbh, i'm really bummed about having to go home and feel for the folk who had bought tickets for our upcoming shows but i can honestly say it would be almost impossible for me to carry on at this point as my pacemaker has broken skin and the surrounding area has become infected.

Mogwai

now settled in our spots, we waited while they wheeled out j mascis and lou barlow's giant stacks of speakers, signaling the wall of noise that was to come. lou barlow was especially animated, certainly more than i remember him being the couple of times i saw sebadoh. i never saw this lineup of dinosuar, as by the time i got to see them live, neither lou or murph were with the band anymore. they played a good mix of old and new, including "forget the swan" from the first album (though no repulsion). i unfortunately didn't get the whole setlist comitted to memory, though i know had they not been told to cut their set short, they would have gotten to just like heaven, which might have made their set the non-mbv highlight of the weekend.

honestly, i like the post lou songs better with lou on them, although i guess there's not that much difference (same songs, just a different rhythm section really).


dinosaur jr was the only band i really really noticed the moshers (they were certainly there for YLT and mogwai, but neither of them had stage divers! my only complaint with dinosaur jr is that my ear plugs had the unfortunate effect of muffling the higher tones, making some of their songs sound muddy. of course, taking them out was not an option, so adjusted and stuck it out. but it was annoying...

and then... the room filled.and people waited. and waited. aaand... waited.

and waited.

there was some chanting. and i think some people even walked out (granted, mbv were so loud, they could likely be heard from anywhere in kutshers, if not felt). finally. the lights dimmed. and....

we waited!

was it worth it? yes. when belinda, kevin, colm, and debbie walked on stage, all the waiting seemed like nothing...



the setlist:
01 "I Only Said"
02 "When You Sleep"
03 "You Never Should"
04 "When You Wake"
05 "Cigarette In Your Bed"
06 "Come In Alone"
07 "Only Shallow"
08 "Thorn"
09 "Nothing Much To Lose"
10 "To Here Knows When"
11 "Blown A Wish"
12 "Slow"
13 "Soon"
14 "Feed Me With Your Kiss"
15 "Sue Is Fine"
16 "You Made Me Realise"

basically, it was everything it was supposed to be. too loud? maybe, though unless your ear was stapled to a speaker, earplugs did their job. some reviewers seemed to think it was just noise and that you couldn't tell what songs were being played/hear the vocals/ etc. can you ever really hear the vocals with mbv, especially on loveless? basically, brilliant set, worth the extra hour and a half or so wait. my ears rang... well, no, not really ringing, it was more a weird, spirally, buzzing noise, all the way back to the liberty diner (where i finally found something there i liked more than as just food) and then to bed, as we had a longish drive ahead the next morning.

bands i kind of regret missing:
bob mould, le volume corbe, trail of dead, spectrum

but again, mbv made it all worth it!

atp pt 1 pt 2 - corrections, additions, edits...

so i made a bunch of errors and omissions in the first post about atp. so i will fix them this way instead of just going in and editing.

1. The biggest being that, for some reason, at least on the two main days (so not the "don't look back" day) the had this weird notion of kicking EVERYONE out of the room where the bands were playing, ostensibly for setup and soundcheck, though there was some speculation that it was also so everyone could get a chance to get up front... they mostly gave this up by the time dinosaur jr went on on the MBV curated day, but still.

should have been clearer. for some reason, between bands, they (the organizers? kutchers?) decided it would be good to have the security folks - who were in their own way kind of awesome, and as alan sparhawk said during low's performance, probably didn't know what to make of all the white people (seriously, the looks on their faces during MBV's 25 minutes of feedback was one of utter bewilderment) - make everyone leave the room and stand outside. when we first had to do this before low, it was sort of like, oh, well... ok... but then after low it just got more crazy. it kind of reached a header on day 2 when, after mercury rev went on and everyone was pushed out to the waiting area, there was a lot of mutinous talk and riotous behavior, ultimately surrendering shortly after and letting the majority of people stay in (though, if you left you had to wait, and there was something about no professional cameras, which also seemed to get mostly ignored). honestly, i have never been to a concert of any sort where they have done this - i'm sure they had reasons, and yes, on stage 2 due to the intimacy of the space and the fact that the audience was two feet from the stage, i can see how maybe letting the bands soundcheck to an empty room made sense. they still did it on stage 2 (we had to wait outside the room for gemma hayes on day 2) so i don't know... seems to be something they could have handled a lot better.

2. also, they really should have had a bigger, more open (ie not a sealed off little room, that smelled of BO, and also... well... actually open during the operating hours of the show).

so the merch area didn't open at all the first day. they had a wooden dividing wall closing off one corner of the main floor of Kutcher's, and a locked door. this befuddled many, including a few bands (thurston moore seemed slightly confused, built to spill seemed practically offended they couldn't get in). it eventually seemed to open, where we each got ATP t shirts, MBV shirts and a neat print. but it was just too small a space for the amount of people going through. the second day, we tried in vain to get some more stuff - we wanted to look at the mogwai shirts and a few other things - but it was too cramped and smelly to really bother.

3. a little about the venue.

i can't believe i forgot to mention the venue, which while certainly not in its heyday (as a lot of artists made reference to, it was once a pretty swinging place, where comedians like jackie mason made the crowds go wild. the village voice seemed to say it best:

Let's start with the Kutsher's Country Club lobby. The walls are the color of salmon. The carpet: salmon catfood. Around one corner, there's an air hockey table. Around another, a department-store-style glass-display counter promises Mary Kay-style make-up demonstrations twice a day. This afternoon, a woman who looked like Delta Burke’s great aunt was seated behind the case, though she had no customers—the art-rock sojourners here are far more interested in stocking up on Budweiser cases for tonight's post-rock summer-camp festivities than discovering the perfect grandmotherly blush. They're also interested in Steve Albini, who last night ran a poker game in the "Executive Card Room" and just now walked by with a small digi-camera crew in tow.

Kutscher's isn't just ATP's lodging—the main stage is just past the make-up counter. ATP founder Barry Hogan wasn't kidding when he described Kutsher's Country ClubThe Shining meets Cocoon. “I keep expecting to walk into one of these rooms and seeing a dude in a bear suit blowing a guy in the bed,” Patton Oswalt joked last night on Stage 2. The hallways seem to go on forever, the adjacent “lake” cries out for Jason Voorhees, and I think I can hear Edith from Grey Gardens voice in the bathroom. “Every room smells like a fart gave up,” said Patton last night. That time, he wasn't kidding. as

some pictures of the "lake"



i'm pretty sure that green blob in the middle is either jason vorhees waiting to strike, or lily pads

or swamp thing. definitely swamp thing.

4. a dissappointing visit to the food court (the food there was another minor complaint. from the undercooked and underseasoned vegetarian on a pita, to the sort of boring ratattoullie... meh... the sweet potato fries were decent enough, but we ended up eating more at the liberty diner, near our hotel, which had a weird coen brothers movie feel to it...

or, as the village voice also stated:

Most deceptive line in the ATP FAQ: "There will be food vendors on-site with several options covering carnivores, vegetarians and vegans." "Vegan options" in this case means "we won't put meat in this gyro."

5. more about the year punk broke.

Dave Mackey, the director, was a really humble, nice guy who generally cared that he was showing his film, plus 40 minutes of extra footage, to a crowd. the moron who acted as if he hadn't directed other things (he has - many music videos, and other short films) in his question was annoying. i had sort of hoped that thurston moore would pop in to ask some odd, funny question, but it didn't happen (though there were artists everywhere at the venue, so it wasn't impossible). i think - much like the crowd at stage 2 - the packed room was just too quiet, which may have seemed like disinterest, but was more likely awe. "1991" is a pretty amazing little film. i sincerely hope that he talked to the criterion folks there, and that we'll soon be hearing of a criterion collection edition (with the bonus "blues scale" footage as a feature). the only pointed remark mackey made was how he had given a bunch of the nirvana footage to the band for free (in particular, in response to a dumb question about courtney love and whether she's possibly what's holding up a DVD release). he didn't seem to be upset by it - he personally stated that it wasn't that courtney was blocking anything, it was that nobody had asked her (he also pointedly remarked how it was he that gave kim gordon Hole's demo tape, so i guess there may have been some bitterness there after all...).
day two review still to come, with more pictures!

atp pt 1.

finally, an all tomorrow's parties post.

so, first of all, a few minor complaints. and i say minor, although one was certainly a major hassle, because all in all they were not a big deal. the biggest being that, for some reason, at least on the two main days (so not the "don't look back" day) the had this weird notion of kicking EVERYONE out of the room where the bands were playing, ostensibly for setup and soundcheck, though there was some speculation that it was also so everyone could get a chance to get up front... they mostly gave this up by the time dinosaur jr went on on the MBV curated day, but still. also, they really should have had a bigger, more open (ie not a sealed off little room, that smelled of BO, and also... well... actually open during the operating hours of the show). also, letting us know things... such as when the first performances were, at least approximately, and about the whole room clearing thing, etc... would have been nice.

anyway... the lineup (wow, that's largely illegible).



so day 1 was the "don't look back" day, where bands played the entirety of "Classic Albums." we skipped Bardo Pond performing "lapsed" (honestly, i've never been a huge fan. they're good enough, and the album if i recall it isn't awful but...). in the process, i did have my first geeky moment where thurston moore walked by to take stuff to the merch booth (more on this later...). we did walk around the facility, where we had chosen not to stay but i think if we go next year, we will (tickets are already on sale, though i think it's worth waiting to see who's curating, just in case...). then we went to stage 1 for a few of the performances (no pictures ahead, i neglected to bring my camera).

meat puppets performed meat puppets 2. odd how grizzled and old they really look. also, forgot how good that album really was. a large portion of the crowd seemed to be mostly familiar with "plateau" and "lake of fire" (though the harder, faster version from MPII seemed to confuse those who largely knew it from the nirvana unplugged performance). they also played a couple of covers (neither if which i recall the name of right now... ) thankfully, nothing newer (such as backwater... meh... or anything else from too high to die, which is probably the only other meat puppets album people know), as it would have been unnecessary.

tortoise were next and very... spacey, as one would expect. i don't think i've ever heard an entire toroise album, as a few songs in, it seems redundant. not that i dont like tortoise, i just find them to ber very run on and samey. someone compared them to "isis, without words," though i have always kind of felt that... well... no. isis are some scary shit, tortoise are much more chill out music. not necessarily something you'd rock out to. i still don't feel like i need to own "millions now living will never die," and likely never will. i wouldn't mind a few tortoise tracks on my mp3 player, for long drives and the like.

then came the tall, gangly, certainly not youthful but definitely sonic, thurston moore playing"psychic hearts." kim gordon was there, as was kevin shields (and a really dancey, slightly annoying woman, who may or may not have been a VIP but was certainly not bilinda butcher, who we did see throughout the weekend with her lovely family). and so on this, despite being in proximity to many people from several bands - we must have passed members of silver mt zion quite a few times, especially on the day of their performance i'm not really the person who's going to make a scene, and bother them. if i see a lot of people doing so, eh,maybe, or if that's the reason they are there - yeah, i have met members of bands at shows and talked to them in non-fanboyish ways but as a rule, i don't. so i didn't (i did feel really embarassed pointing out that low were walking through the door at one point on day 3, as well as apologized to gemma hayes for almost running into her, but otherwise...) there were a lot of familiarly famous faces there -though a lot i couldn't quite place... but really, i felt it would be rude to bother them. anyway... anyway.so thurston played the album, and did seem to do an encore (or forgot a song from the album. he was using notes and lyric sheets on a music stand throughout the performance, so it is possible he forgot...). we left before built to spill - not a big enough fan of "perfect from now on" to hear it in it's entirety.

day 2. after taking it easy in the daytime, we got there to watch sonic youth's "1991 the year punk broke" at the criterion cinema room (they were playing other movies too, but out of the ones showing when bands we didn't want to see play, this was the only one worth it).
i own it on vhs but it was cool seeing it on a larger screen. there was also a q and a with the director, which was filled with lame questions about courtney love, and nostlagia. dave markey didn't seem to have a lot to say in response to questions, and was sort of annoyed by some. he did seem to indicate a possible dvd release someday (maybe with criterion... hmmm...) it was really entertaining seeing kurt cobain just before stardom (man was funny), and just how... goofy and fun thurston moore is.

then we made our way to stage two, after a dissappointing visit to the food court (the food there was another minor complaint. from the undercooked and underseasoned vegetarian on a pita, to the sort of boring ratattoullie... meh... the sweet potato fries were decent enough, but we ended up eating more at the liberty diner, near our hotel, which had a weird coen brothers movie feel to it...

after they finally let us in (this is where we learned about the room clearing rule)... we saw low. mostly newer stuff, plus a new and sort of creepy new christmas song about santa coming.
setlist (i assume complete, i found it online here):
Candy girl
Murderer
Pretty people
??? (creepy santa song, i think)
Always fade

awesome performance, though lacking my favorite song by them. maybe it was because we were right up front, but it felt like a low performance should feel - very intimate and direct. the really cool chandelier in the room they played helped, as did the stage setup (as we were basically at the same level as the stage, rather than having it raised above us). then, they kicked us out again to wait for silver mt zion...

no setlist, sorry, but it was... possibly my 3rd or 4th favorite performance of the weekend, mbv not inclusive. there's something about seeing silver mt zion live which just blows me away completely. there was a lot of... was it heckling? not really, though a little. banter, mostly people saying dumb things and efrim not hearing them, causing some confusion. the intimacy of the stage setting made it all the more intense, and beautiful. yeah, i can't even do it justice here...

we then made our way to stage one, to catch Shellac, before we called it a night. we got a decent spot in one of the tiered sections of the floor, to the right of the stage. they were just loud enough to not need earplugs, but definitely fast, and brutal. albini is exactly as i would expect him to be live. . bob weston took questions from the crowd, such as their stance on unicorns ("not extinct yet.") and could they name a song worse than kokomo (albini: "i'm sure jimmy buffet has hundreds.") i was more than pleasantly surprised by them, though i expected to enjoy them. definitely a highlight.

bands we missed i wouldn't have minded seeing:
fuck buttons, polvo, autolux, harmonia

band im glad i missed:
les savy fav.

so here's some pictures (sorry if they're a bit dark):

Low



Silver Mt Zion



Shellac



i wonder who this guy was there to see...



(part 2 later, with more mogwai, mbv, and more!)

oooh!

so i have been talking about hoping for this for.... years now, and now it's official:

(from the B&S myspace page)

BBC Sessions release ..We are pleased to announce the release of the long awaited compilation of BBC recordings spanning the years 1996 – 2001. The BBC Sessions is released on Jeepster Records, week commencing 17th November in Europe and on Matador Records in the USA. It is initially available in three formats: as a limited edition double CD which includes a live recording of the Christmas show in Belfast from 2001 as bonus content, and with all the tracks as a download. In addition, the session tracks are also available as a double vinyl edition. As well as different versions of songs from the first three albums and associated EPs, the album contains four much bootlegged songs recorded for John Peel in 2001, none of which have previously appeared on CD or vinyl. Among the highlights of the fourteen session tracks are five songs from the two 1996 sessions for The Graveyard Shift (presented by Mark Radcliffe), an alternative version of the single, Lazy Line Painter Jane and a definitive version of Slow Graffiti recorded for The Evening Session, presented by Steve Lamacq. The next appearance on the show yielded an early version of The Wrong Girl when it was still known as Wrong Love. Despite featuring in John Peel's Festive Fifty every year during the period and being played regularly on his show, the first Maida Vale Peel session did not take place until 2001 – the first of four subsequent Peel appearances which included a visit to Peel Acres and a legendary, sixteen song Christmas gig at Maida Vale, both in 2002. The four songs from 2001 – The Magic of a Kind Word, Nothing In The Silence, Shoot The Sexual Athlete and (My Girl's Got) Miraculous Technique – never made it on to subsequent albums, and are the last recordings to feature Isobel Campbell. They capture the band at the end of one part of their history and at the start of another. By the time of the recording of the Christmas show some six months later on 21st December 2001 in Belfast, Bob Kildea had joined on bass and guitar, and playing live had moved much further up the agenda. The gig is full of relaxed seasonal cheer, with requests, guest vocalists from the crowd, old favourites and three cover versions – Here Comes The Sun (The Beatles), Boys Are Back In Town (Thin Lizzy) and Waiting For The Man (Velvet Underground). The full track listing is as follows: Disc 1 – Radio Sessions: The State I Am In, Like Dylan In The Movies, Judy and the Dream of Horses, The Stars of Track and Field, I Could Be Dreaming, Seymour Stein, Lazy Jane, Sleep The Clock Around, Slow Graffiti, Wrong Love, Shoot The Sexual Athlete, The Magic of a Kind Word, (My Girls Got) Miraculous Technique Disc 2 – Live in Belfast: Here Comes The Sun, Theres Too Much Love, The Magic of a Kind Word, Me and the Major, Wandering Alone, The Model, Im Waiting For The Man, The Boy With the Arab Strap, The Wrong Girl, Dirty Dream 2, Boys Are Back in Town, Legal Man

needless to say, i will be getting this sucker... the amazon.com entries for it are very confusing, as it seems to be listed several times for the same thing (2 entries for the deluxe, one with bbc spelled bcc. a listing for the regular edition and one for the vinyl... the "bcc" one actually seems to be the right thing...)

!!

i have a lot of the tracks as bootlegs either on cd or in mp3 form, but it will be nice to get some of them on quality sounding recordings, instead of the more or less spotty ones i have accumulated. the live in belfast gig looks to be a similar setlist to what they played when i saw them on the tour for "fold your hands child..." at the 9:30 club.

unfortuntely despite having songs from that particular date, it seems to lack the actual christmas songs from the christmas show, meaning those will have to live for me as bootlegs... which is kind of sad. since half of them were traditional, i don't think copyright issues kept them all from release (though i can see "Santa Bring my Baby Back to Me" and "Santa Claus go Straight to the Ghetto" being a problem).

overall, it's a pretty complete collection of their various sessions for the BBC, at least as complete as any bbc session cd could be or has been, in lieu of an actual NEW album from them (which, seriously, i guess we were spoiled when it felt like we were getting an album or ep a year from them, but it kind of seems that since the move to rough trade and acting like a band of their talent and stature, they've really become less productive). when they do come out with another studio album, it had better be the best thing since the boy with the arab strap (which sounds like im dissing the last few albums, but i'm not, i just don't think they've topped BWtAS - yes i think i might be the first person to refer to it that way - yet).

mbv

where was i this weekend?

th ATP festival in new york!

here's some mbv to tide you all over until i recap...

i forgot to turn on my grunge pedal

first, some fun and maybe a little context i guess, though it only is the first minute or so that's relevant... but it's kind of fun seeing early free kitten footage, plus some mocking of the commercial mess that the subject of this post really was....



yeah. that's right. grunge. everyone's favorite marketing term slash genre slash fashion statement slash meaningless buzzword from the early 90's. even cars were grunge! (sadly, the car commercial which called it's subject grunge seems to be unlocateable on the interwebs).


so i got the new Mojo, and the main feature is on the history of grunge, particularly sub pop records which turns 20 this year and how... umm.. important it was...

ummm...

sure. why not.

i'm not going to pick at the article. it's mostly published history, old friends getting together, some reminiscing, some complaining about the "fall of grunge" and some talk of sub pop's current status...

so okay, i was sort of a "Grunge" person back in middle school/freshman year of high school. i don't deny it. hell, i even had a history of grunge poster from melody maker on my wall - hell, in knew my stuff. but it lost me fast, aside from a few bands who i still like today and a few who i can pick an album or two i think is good (soundgarden only got really shitty after the tour with metallica and guns and roses; pearl jam became listenable to eventually; alice in chains don't count because they were just a glam band wearing flannel...) i still like mudhoney, nirvana, ummm.... ummm.... so it's tough trying to define grunge beyond a few bands that were idnetified with the "genre," since most of the bands labeled as grunge were second generation knock offs of combinations of the aformentioned bands -- yeah, there were a lot of bands from seattle: the melvins, tad, etc etc etc who certainly were "grunge" but... eh... anyway... grunge was the closest thing to a music "phase" i had. while many of my friends and classmates went from metal to hip hop to grunge back to hip hop (snoop and dre, specifically) to "Alternative" i quickly saw through the flannel and realized that "grunge" was as meaningless a word as "punk" or "soul" or, hell, even "alternative."


then we had bands like bush. and stone temple pilots. hell, even ugly kid joe - who were basically a 1978 van halen knock off that wore flannel - were labeled as grunge. it became a joke, something mudhoney satirized in videos and in song (putting a song about how grunge was overblown on a soundtrack for a movie that sort of represented the height of "grunge" as a commercial commodity is kind of genius, really... hmm... no wonder they were never really all that popular...)

anyway. hmm. memories...

so the magazine has a top 20 sub pop releases as well as a nifty cd covering their history... which seems woefully incomplete to me though i can't really say off hand what's missing... maybe i'm mad that there was no velocity girl included (still probably my favorite band to ever have anything to do with sub pop, and not "grunge" in the slightest.). but does Earth's "Earth2" - 3 songs, 73 minutes - really count as essential? i will agree, though the dwarves are entirely un-listenable to me for the most part, with a lot of their list. (interesting seeing a magazine talk about sunny day real estate's "Diary" that doesn't use the word term emo - yet another meaningless "genre" term - though i guess that owes in some part to it being a british magazine).

the cd, titles Sub Pop 300 does a pretty good job of covering the label's history, starting off with green river - who i only ever really had any interest in because they covered bowie's queen bitch and had members of mudhoney in them. then the b-side to mudhoney's most famous single, touch me i'm sick (though sweet young thing ain't sweet no more is a fine song, i don't see why they didn't go for broke with the more famous song...) then Tad's "Wood Goblins." I never really cared for Tad, and this song kind of proves why. L7's "shove" (was that released on sub pop? apparently it was... huh... )still, not a great song by any stretch, and for a band who really didn't have a lot of "great" songs, well, yeah. my favorite L7 moment is their appearance in John Waters' "serial mom" (as "camel lips"). screaming trees... mark lanegan has done some much more interesting stuff since then that it's weird hearing his old band. kind of dull, honestly. afghan whigs... another off choice, with "retarded" from Up In It instead of anything from Congregation (which was the album of theirs picked in the 20 best releases). the whigs were never really "grunge" and are kind of placed at the turning point of the cd's chronological view. red red meat's braindead (who? i have a christmas 7" they did where they cover the who's christmas song from how the grinch stole christmas. umm... obligatory inclusion of postal service (such great heights) and the shins (new slang), the two bands who really saved Sub Pop in this century. and then pissed jeans and eraser, who are in a lot of ways - pissed jeans, especially - a call back to sub pop's roots, with a nice bit of fast, loud, noisy rock.

it also includes the brilliant flight of the concords "bowie" which is such a brilliant parody of both bowie's music, and of the man himself (though i doubt when he travels in space, his nipples really do become antennae...)

the cd also made me feel old. nostalgia for my early teen years is just weird...

hang the dj hang the dj hang the dj

pile of craft 2.0... or 2008.... or II... or, whatever you wanted to call it cos it was the second one DJ setlists! woo!

Dave:
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly - Ennio Morricone
Kites Are Fun - The Free Design
Slash Your Tires - Luna
World Cup Fever - Air Miami
Johnny 99 - Bruce Springsteen
Watercolors - The Postmarks
Ramblin' Man - Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan
Krafty - New Order
Blue Angels Air Show - Bright Eyes
Joe Hill - Billy Bragg
The Hymn For The Coffee - Hefner
Happy Birthday - Altered Images
Walkin' With Jesus [Sound Of Confusion] - Spacemen 3
Rock & Roll - The Velvet Underground
Don't Go Away - Talulah Gosh

Ann:
Good Vibrations - The Langley Schools Music Project
The Big Guns - Jenny Lewis With The Watson Twins
Another Travelin' Song - Bright Eyes
The Ballad Of Sean Foley - Maria Taylor
Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? - She & Him
Isn't It Great to Be Alive - Spearmint
I Love My Jean - Camera Obscura
I Can't Get No Satisfaction (Thank God) - Talulah Gosh
Mission Bells - The Aislers Set
Rainbows In The Dark - Tilly & The Wall
If You Fall - Azure Ray
Solace For Pain - The Gentle Waves
Wouldn't It Be Nice (Stereo Version) - The Beach Boys
The Boy With The Arab Strap - Belle & Sebastian
(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone - The Monkees
Lightness - Death Cab for Cutie
Neon Bible - Arcade Fire

Dave:
Pass the Dutchie - Musical Youth
Wu Tang Clan - The French
Marathon Not a Sprint - Camera Obscura
Billy Liar - The Decemberists
Here Comes The Summer - Fiery Furnaces
The Brown And Red Divide - Ladybirds
Come on! Feel the Illinoise! -Part I: The World's Columbian Exposition -Part II: Carl Sandburg Visits Me in a Dream - Sufjan Stevens
Part Time Punks - Television Personalities
Southern Belles In London Sing - The Faint
The Guitar (The Lion Sleeps Tonight) - They Might Be Giants
Andrew Ridgley - Black Box Recorder
You Want The Candy - The Raveonettes
X-French Tee Shirt - Shudder To Think
Me And Giuliani Down By The School Yard (A True Story) - !!!
dinner with yoda - Kid Koala
Ann:
Straight To Hell - The Clash
(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea - Elvis Costello
Shame For You - Lily Allen
Posed To Death - The Faint
Gangsters - Special AKA
Baggy Trousers - Madness
Dare - Gorillaz
Friendship Station - Le Tigre
Death Goes To The Disco - Pulp
Face Up - New Order
Something Against You - Pixies
Rock the House - Gorillaz
Cartoon Capers - Automator
Birdhouse in Your Soul - They Might Be Giants
Pocket Calculator - Kraftwerk

Dave:
Oh My God - Kaiser Chiefs
Munich - Editors
T-Shirt Weather - The Lucksmiths
Spring Came, Rain Fell - Club 8
I Worked Myself Into A Calm - Gemma Hayes
Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out - The Replacements
Summer Here Kids - Grandaddy
waterloo sunset - The Kinks
Sound It Off - Mates Of State
No Depression - Uncle Tupelo
Ashes To Ashes - David Bowie
Slender - Tompaulin
Shoot Out The Lights - Saint Etienne
Closed Captioned - Fugazi
Viet Nam - Minutemen
Metronomic Underground - Stereolab

Ann:
No Love Lost - Joy Division
Tracy Jacks - Blur
You're In A Bad Way - Saint Etienne
Sight Of You - Pale Saints
Crash - The Primitives
Sunday Girl - Blondie
Lips Like Sugar - Echo & The Bunnymen
Some Candy Talking - The Jesus & Mary Chain
Everyday Is Like Sunday - Morrissey
Subterranean Homesick Alien - Radiohead
Waterfall - The Stone Roses
Play For Today - The Cure
Psycho Killer - Talking Heads
Soon - My Bloody Valentine

Dave:
Add Your Light To Mine, Baby - Lucky Soul
Make Out Club - Unrest
Bang - Blur
Dust - The Faint/Bright Eyes
Star Sign - Teenage Fanclub
Debonair - The Afghan Whigs
Der Kommisar - Falco
Weathershow - The Gentle Waves
Up For Sale - The (International) Noise Conspiracy
Wuthering Heights - Kate Bush
Les Sucettes A L'anis - France Gall
The First Five Times - Stars
Timorous Me - Ted Leo & The Pharmacists
Did You Ever - that dog
I Want To Die In the Hot Summer - I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness
Don't Stop Believing - Badly Drawn Boy



so, a nice mix of stuff. i'll probably post more about the event itself, later... though i will say i am quite liking my formerly bike intertube now belt.

the plusses of minus

http://www.kiwisbybeat.com/minus.html

so this might be one of the cutest, sweetest, and really most wonderful "webcomics" in existence. minus is the story of a girl with magical powers who can grant wishes and basically make whatever she wants to happen happen, though mostly she does what she does for other people - though sometimes, she does things just because, like switching the heads of everyone in a diner or turning herself invisible or into a puddle. it's a little like that twilight zone episode (remade for the movie), and she definitely has some sinister moments, especially early on.

the writer/artist, ryan armand says:

"Each minus strip is painted on a 15x20" piece of Illustration board. With this comic I am
pretending I am making a comic strip for a newspaper in the early 20th century. A special
newspaper that lets me use as much color as I want, because real papers have limitations
on that sort of thing. Or maybe they did in the past I'm not sure! "

most recently in the strip, after bringing some people back to life - which briefly created a zombie outbreak of sorts -, she has caused the entire human race to die (they asked to be reunited with everyone who died).

this is one of my favorite strips:

although there are several that are simply amazing.

new music?

yeah.

i fail.

seriously, you'd think i'd have learned by now that i just can't keep a regular blogging schedule. it's not like i'm "too busy" or anything. and i have been doing the listening end of things, just the actual blogging about it has lapsed.

that said, a few new things have been taking over my listening recently...


so nevermind that i have a gigantic crush on zooey deschannel, which pretty much guaranteed i'd like this cd no matter what (well, i guess had it been an album of celine dion covers i might have had an issue with it). this cd is completely adorable and brilliant. a nice mix of sun soaked acoustic pop, 50's/60's girl group-esque songs, with a little elliot smith mixed in. the cover of the beatles' "i should've known better" is simply amazing, turning an already pretty brilliant early mid-period beatles song (was it in help? or hard days night? i forget...) into a sunny, Hawaiian tune (slightly silly, as evidenced by Zooey's audible giggle during M.Ward singing the chorus). amazingly, she actually wrote or cowrote all the songs (other than the aforementioned cover, and the covers of "you've really got a hold on me," and "swing lo sweet chariot.") especially amazing considering that usually when most actresses make that attempt into music, they don't (jenny lewis being an exception). i really truly hope the title "volume 1" means there's going to be a volume 2, as it would be wonderful to hear more of what this collaboration might produce.

check them out on their myspace page!



so it's been over a decade since their last poper studio album, and almost as long since their live album. they did pop up a couple of years ago on a serge gainsbourg tribute, but otherwise the past ten years have nee nothing but rumors and silence from the portishead camp (there was a beth gibbons solo album in there too i think...). so the big question is, was it worth the wait?

well... was it???

YES!!!!

a little less sample heavy than the last two (actually, i'm not sure there's any sampling on the record), it continues on their gloomy, noirish, not quite trip-hop sound where we last left it. beth's voice is still amazing - haunting and wavering, but never weak. a comparison can be drawn between this album and some of the better parts of radiohead's last few albums - a mix of electronic beats and krautrock instrumentalism. there's a few tracks that seem to channel joy division ("we carry on" in paticular), though this isn't a bad thing. this is everything this album needed to be (though, really, had it been just a rehash of Dummy or Portishead, it still would have been an amazing record.) apparently you can download the entire album pretty much everywhere online, especially since it leaked about a month early. but it really is worth shelling out the 13 or 14 bucks you'll pay for it to have it in hand.

so possibly back to some of me regularly scheduled blogging later... maybe...

shiny happy Apocolypse!

ok, never mind why Beast is so tiny (which might just owe to the varying degrees of size that Apocalypse has been depicted over the years). why the hell is the most powerful, evil mutant EVER grinning and waving? he just seems so... friendly... you'd never know that he's probably getting ready to send a new wave of 4 horsemen out to get you! this is almost as bad as the DC Superfriends Batman, with it's knowing smirk. way to blur that line between good and evil Marvel Superhero Squad.... (and looking at their other figures... i mean, if everyone else, good or evil, were grinning all happy and friendly like, it would maybe make sense. but other than a few - and mostly bad guys - other smiles, it's a lot of looks of determination but nothing so overtly... joyful... i mean, this Apocalypse is one i wouldn't mind playing in a tree fort with whereas this Apcolypse:

would probably make me run and hide. (although he does kind of look like he's wearing a puffy sleeved pirate shirt, doesn't he? hmm....))

bootlegs, singles, and new romantics oh my

another walk through parts of my music collection. hooray.

this entry:
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - the Tyranny of Distance; Jimmy Eat World - bleed american; My Superhero - Solid State 14; Duran Duran - Rio; Mates of State - Bring it Back; Hefner - I Took Her Love For Granted (single); Belle & Sebastian - Une Nuit a Paris (bootleg)

so when i saw ted leo a few years back, opening for belle and sebastian, i had no recollection of actually having this cd, largely because - as evidenced by the big "Add Date" sticker slapped on the front - this was a Radio promo, so i didn't buy it as much as liberated it with my station manager's approval (truthfully, he didn't really give a shit about anything but letting his buddies do whatever they wanted at the station). Ted Leo draws from a wide variety of influences on this cd, from punk to new wave (definite echoes of elvis costello) to 70's rock (specifically Thin Lizzy, especially on the track Timorous Me which has some definite "boys are back in town" like moments). and just, well, damn this record is good!

bleed american - and the copy i have, is also i guess being a radio promo from around the same time the ted leo came in, this i remember actually being a "second copy" so my taking it wasn't so much liberation as it was taking the giveaway copy, since nobody listened to the station enough to have any sot of contest for it. they renamed it after the 9/11 attacks, because "bleed american" was, i suppose, a bit controversial (and they were on major label at this point, so we wouldn't want to offend the big radio markets or anything). the album, anything but. jimmy eat world were, to me, always a sort of weak jawbreaker imitation. so, of course, just like jawbreaker when they released a watered down attempt at some mainstream acceptance, so did jimmy eat world, the biggest difference being that they succeeded (though i don't think the critical reception was as good as Dear You's). unfortunately, jimmy eat world are not jawbeaker - they will not be looked upon fondly in a few years, except maybe on "hits of the 2000's" style compilations. so let's get to the hits - "the middle" and "sweetness". the middle is an innocent enough song . poppy, great hook, no wonder it was a hit single. but so goddamned annoying! i think if it hadn't been as big a hit, it might not seem so terrible in retrospect, but it was and so it does. it's just one of those stupid, motivational songs that seems to always be a hit (see "Rockstar" by... umm... that annoying band that sang rockstar...). "sweetness," on the other hand, is overproduced gabage - jimmy eat world trying to be U2 or something. big verses, big choruses... blech. the rest of the album is largely forgettable, except maybe the third - and less popular - single, "praise chorus" which is actually not a bad song, has the guy from the promise ring on it, and references not just the promise ring, but crimson and clover, our house by madness, and don't let's start by they might be giants. so at least on an "i'm a big music nerd" level, it works (on another song they complain about a dj not having "automatic" by JaMC. but by that point i just wanted the album to end...)

ahh. more ska punk... i guess... is it? hmmm... it has the guitar sound that basically defined the supposed genre, certainly. i don't know. i'll give my superhero a little bit of credit for having an accordion (i really like accordions in pop music i think, it's sort of a problem i have). there are definite highlights - their cover of "groovy kind of love" (just titled "groovy") is actually quite good - and i'll give them a pass on the "obligatory cover" problem, as this isn't really an 80's song, but a 60's song, despite phil collins' brutalization of it. the song "another kind" is also pretty good, with a guitar solo that apes the melody of "kids in america" and "sunday" (which i'm fairly certain is also a cover, or at least an adaptation of another song). then they kind of crap it up with an "intermission" (are they trying to be blur?) and then close the cd with an acoustic love/breakup song that just sounds so much like a bad beach bum tune that it's hard to listen to. mostly, the cd is just too serious. at least a lot of the other ska/punk bands - good or bad - seemed to be making fun music (the supertones aside... man did the supertones suck! jesus ska!! with generic horn lines and even more generic guitars!). it's not a bad cd, it's just too wistful in the sad way to really enjoy much (plus, honestly, there's just no "punch" to most of the songs - it's just very very blah). i think i bought it because of the song "another kind" which was on some ska compilation i picked up somewhere and liked it - yeah, i had a bit of a ska-punk phase, even though i probably would have listened to most of the bands with or without the little trend that happened between pop punk and swing.

in defense of duran duran, if it weren't for mtv highlighting how photogenic they were, i kind of doubt they would be as maligned as they seem to be these days. honestly, they could have easily been another Roxy Music, but instead they became the poster boys for style over substance - did they have to look so good in blush and eyeliner? - which was apparently the only thing the whole new romantic thing had to offer to the music channel. so they went from art/glam rock to teeny bopper music, and then to whatever the Reflex was (one can blame the decline in quality from Rio until their early 90's comeback as to the bloated egos that came with their MTV notoriety, something they couldn't even escape when a few members went to form power station with robert palmer, who also became a style over substance mtv idol with his own flashy videos). but Rio is a great album. yeah it has the singles - "rio" itself is a good song which served it's "let's break america" purpose quite well. "hungry like the wolf" is possibly the best song on the record, with it's background female moaning hinting only slightly what the song is rumored to be about. things get a little darker at the end - most noticeably on "the chauffer" which is all dark, and nervy and sinister sounding - not something you'd expect based solely upon the bright pop of "Rio" and "hold back the rain." and admit it.... you all sing along to any of these songs when they come on, whether it's on the radio in your car, or in a shopping mall. my sister was a huge duran duran fan - as a teenager at the time, it made sense. honestly, i probably never really thought of them as much more than an 80's band until their 90's phase - all glam rock and "hey, we actually are musicians!" attitude (it didn't help that i actually liked the ska/punk heavy tribute album, which renewed my interest quite a bit). i think i may have, at times, passed my liking of duran duran as ironic, but i state with all honesty, that no. it's not. i love duran duran. period.

mates of state do an awesome cover of david bowie's "starman". it's not on this album, but i bring it up because i heard the original "starman" on the radio the other day and realized how awesome that era of bowie really is. and also, how awesome it is to heard bowie on the radio at all (seriously - he doesn't really fit any of the major radio formats anymore: he's not really classic rock, though i guess "ziggy stardust" or "changes" might pop up there periodically, his new music tends to be ignored or terrible, such has his brief flirtation with nine inch nails industrial-light). but this has nothing to do with this review (neither does their awesome cover of nico's "these days", also not on the album). i first heard mates of state on internet radio, downloaded a bunch of stuff from previous albums (team boo being my favorite). it's not "cute" music (though the whole husband and wife/ keyboards and drums angle might seem to some as a bit cute/twee). but they pretty much rock. it's unique. it's fun. their voices meld well together. and... yeah. they kind of fit musically with tilly and the wall - that same variety of indie pop. hence, why i love them, as i happen to love that variety of indie pop (ooh. they have a new record out in may... ).

i own a lot of hefner singles, bought in the uk where they seemed to be pretty easy to get a hold of in the record shops. they cover jonathan richman on one of the b-sides on this one, very well i might add, which makes sense. i actually first got a hole of hefner because of the album this song also appears on, the fidelity wars. it's a single so it's short - hefner singles are always top notch though, a sides and b sides. here's what they wrote on the back of the cd, for what i suppose can be called liner notes:

Granted, Babies, and Thought all recorded by Miti. 'To Hide a
Little Thought' was recorded at the BBC Maida Vale studios for
the Steve Lamacq Show (12th April 1999) where Miti was
assisted by Rupert Flindt (p) BBC 1999. Jack Hayter played the
stylophone and has joined the band, well at least while the sun
is out. John wrote another recipe for you inside. Eat yourself
fitter. antony has bought some congas though he didn't have
them when we recorded this.

which, i think sums it up pretty well...

so i really don't own a lot of bootlegs, and most of the ones i own are belle and sebastian. i was never a fan of the shoddy, by from the crappy dealer at ocean city "live" recordings of various bands - everything from the outcesticide comps people assembled of nirvana rarities to other live shit. i think i have a couple of things on cassette - the pixies in newcastle and the housemartins at glastonbury 83 or 4. but mostly, just the belle and sebastian ones. everything from bowlie weekender to radio sessions (man, they should just put out a peel session comp like every other british band), this was the first one i ever bought, right after telling someone at a record show in Reading that, no, i didn't have enough money to spend 300 pounds on an original vinyl edition of Tigermilk. i believe it's the black session - sort of like a peel session, but longer, done for paris tv (or radio? hmmm). most noteable, it's the first appearance of the song "the wrong girl" which made me very excited for fold your hands child, you walk like a peasant. it's probably also the best quality of the bootlegs i own.

next episode (episode? what??): ska comps, tributes with too much damned irony, and some all time favorites... and yes, it will probably be a long one...

music catch up

yeah, i'm tad behind on this, aren't i?

so, the breeders and the pixies tribute happened to pop up on the same day (i returned to my randomness method of pulling cd's).

title tk - the breeders

this was the breeders supposed big comeback. and it was, in a sense. the first two breeders albums - when tanya donnelly was in the band and the pixies still existed - were brilliant. noisy, poppy but not TOO poppy. and just... great. then came last splash (i might have the divine hammer single somewhere, but never owned that album) and the annoyingly ubiquitous "cannonball." (catchy bassline + cute video + pot references = hit song!). then, of course, came the inevitable collaps when fame is too much. drugs, personal issues between the deal sisters... it was ridiculously tabloidy, really. there were some other bands and projects, with that vague "hiatus" word bandied about. then, finally, with different band members, came title tk. not catchy, not really, still noisy, very much a steve albini produced record (but, you know, not like when he produced Bush). "off you" nicely echos the velvet underground. it was definitely not meant to be a "hit" album, more a "get some of the aggression and anger from the past few years" album. i remember when i bought it - i ordered it at my work, which sometimes sells cd's, though my store at the time had a very small selection, and was primarily just the "book" part of their name - someone asking me if it had songs like cannonball on it, and me laughing derisively. i'm a jerk.

(7/10)

where is my mind: a tribute to the pixies

so a good tribute album takes bands with a decent amount of debt to the band being paid tribute and has them take the songs people know and love, and then has them not improve on the songs, but pay tribute in their own way. the band maintains their own identity (ie. doesn't just clone the songs verbatim) while also honoring the band in question. here's how where is my mind ranks:

bands who owe a debt: check. yeah, it's a little hard to see where the pixies really influenced some of the late 90's ska/punk scene (reel big fish, teen heroes, siren six) BUT the rest of the bands all really show an obvious influence - weezer, superdrag, nada surf = definitely. but even the host of "emo" bands that make up the majority of the disc pretty obviously owe a debt to frank black and co.
bands maintaining identity: eh. nobody really makes much NEW out of any of the songs, with 4 exceptions. eve 6 makes allison boring and into an eve six song - a mercifully short eve 6 song, since i always found their music kind of draggy. weezer make velouria a weezer song, but still maintain its absolute pixiesness. this was weezer's big comeback - the first recorded material since pinkerton (and the reason i bought the CD), and it went off brilliantly. reel big fish then turn gigantic into a duran duran-esque synth pop song (i have always liked when they covered things, even though they were a definite perpetrator of the mid 90's trend of covering the 80s) and siren six turn holiday song into a nice little reggae tune. everyone else then pretty much just plays pixies songs. maybe a little louder and heavier, but still, nothing really new. i like most of the bands in question just fine, and the songs they choose fit, and it makes perfect sense to have these bands covering the pixies, but... i dunno...

(7/10)

self navigation - crushed stars

where did this cd come from? probably the college radio station, though i have no real memory of grabbing it from there.

there's something very hazey about the cd - maybe something to do with the singer who sounds a little like the guy from stellastar*. musically, it's sort of post rock, sort of space rock, a little bit of jazz. and there's a song about liza minelli (err?). the song titles are possibly the best "descriptive of how the song sounds" titles i have ever seen: liza in silver, letters to munich, ever since autumn, asleep on a bus near lowell, outside the stars are falling, moontears...
one slightly our of place addition is "exit wound" - sounding quite a bit like early REM, or actually more exactly like the band For Squirrels at the moments they sounded like early REM. (actually, some of the rest of the album also evokes early REM, in particular "Camera").

(8/10)

it's a shame about ray - the lemonheads

fact: this is the last truly great lemonheads album. come on feel the... was a drug addled, hippydrippy, mess. car button cloth, which i actually liked some of, was a mess. i guess evan dando has done some other stuff since then, but nothing interesting. but ray is the lemonheads at their most consistent and complete album. early lemonheads - up through lovey, the album that came before this, still straddled their mix of gram parsons and punk, with a bit of dinosaur jr thrown in. Ray is just a nice little collection of 2-3 minute pop songs, backing vocals from julianna hatfield, and a cover of "mrs robinson" which i kind of like more than the original... it's one of those rare gems of an album that's brilliant from start to finish (though, okay, i'm not a big fan of "my drug buddy" but i'll let that one slide). it's sort of too bad that this was the album that made evan dando a pin up celebrity, easily mocked (the zine, evan dando must die, came not long after this), and ultimately a washed out celebrity (drug busts, hanging out with courtney love a little too much, etc.)

(9/10)

It Means Everything - Save Ferris

didn this cd really come out 10... 11 years ago? man, i feel old... honestly, i think the last time i head save ferris anywhere was in some rerun of some late 90's TV show where they used it as a fun, bouncy montage song (the song was "the world is new", i'm pretty sure, and was possibly also chosen because i think it was one of those makeover type montages). and i guess that was kind of typical of what ska had become in the late 90's - montage and movie preview music.

anyway, so when it comes down to it, this cd is pretty inconsequential. light, fluffy, bouncy pop-ska, with some swing thrown in for good measure (because, well, everyone was a swing band in 1997/98). it would be pretty easy to call them generic: obligatory 80's cover, a song about food (spam)... the swingier songs fare a little better, if only because the singer, monique powell has a strong voice, (though i think it was too easily compared to any Gwen Stefani... which was kind of bullshit, if anything she sounds more like one of the Dancehall Crashers, and even that's a stretch). the horn section is probably what's best about the album, though i'm maybe a little partial as a trumpet player. it's not a bad cd, not by a long shot. it's kind of what pop music should be. i saw them live a couple of times and met them once. it was sort of a shame that the follow up album, modified (which i may or may not still own... i don't remember...) was kind of not particularly good.

6/10 (though the nostalgia part of it, because it really reminded me of high school, might knock it up to a 7).

more to come...

day four - top 'o the mornin' to ye

going to do this in a bit of a new format, because i think it was getting too image heavy and it also got kind of boring just writing reviews, which wasn't entirely the point of this exercise anyway

listened to:

U2- WAR
The Undertones - the Very Best of the Undertones

so i've sort of hit a point on my cd rack where there's some vague alphabetization going on - this probably will happen periodically, though largely any organization i once had has long been forgotten. oddly enough, it may as well have been grouped by country, as i picked two irish bands. this morning.

i may or may not be in a minority here, but War is my favorite U2 album. it has my favorite song by them - "2 hearts beat as one", for whatever it's worth - and just, overall, has the most i like from U2. which is nothing against their other stuff, not at all. joshua tree was probably the album that really got me into U2, but then War made me like them. i guess it might be easy to argue that, oh, well, he likes War better because it's not the "popular" album. - not true, and sort of a dumb argument, as War had as many popular singles as Joshua Tree. and it was this, as well as the unforgettable fire, that got them on live aid. i like War because it captures U2 at an intensity they haven't really matched since. yeah, it doesn't hurt that there are bits that make me think of joy division (a sort of obvious, but generally uncited influence on AT LEAST early U2). and... yeah. it also, probably, is the least pretentious, least self conscious album they ever did (sorry, it is, and sorry, they started to get really pretentious at some point).

okay. i said i hate greatest hits compilations but now i'm about to say how much i like one. the very best of the undertones IS a greatest hits album. however, in the typical way the Rhino records compiles these things, it's not a typical one, and is not only exhaustively complete. full disclosure: i only really knew the undertones for teenage kicks, which is a brilliant song and, to be honest, creates enough of a legacy in and of itself.

25 tracks! holy crap! from punk - though the more melodic variety, in the mode of the buzzcocks - to post punk where you can start to hear their influence on bands like REM (well, early REM) to U2 (hey! how'd they get in here...). 25 tracks, but kinda short still. what i like the most about the undertones is fergal sharkey's voice. that slight vibrato makes even the early punk records of theirs, with the spit and the venom, sound less like the generic spit and venom of all the other early punk records. and they have a song that's an ode to the mars bar! the freaking mars bar!!

i want a mars bar.....

day three music challenge

4 in one day! 4! man....

The Who - Who's Greatest Hits

or "why i'm not a big fan of greatest hits compilations part at least 1."

i don't really like greatest hits compilations. so i rarely buy them. actually, i didn't buy this one, i sort of inherited it from my brother or maybe my sister or whatever. yep. hand me down who.

which is not to say that MCA records didn't pick good songs. hell, some of the best songs by the who. "substitute," "Pinball wizard," "Magic Bus," "My Generation." all there.

but... well....


where's "baba o'reilley"? where's "the kids are alright"? is "my wife" really a better song. and, yeah, love the blatant, so obvious it's hardly even double, double entendre of "squeeze box," but "pictures of lily's" ode to self love while reading dirty magazines is a better song. yeah, the who are one of the few bands from the 60's i will willingly listen to with much regularity, but this just seems like an excuse to sell a cd (i much prefer my who on vinyl. sadly, that can't really come in the car.)

and, okay, so i might be crazy, but "the relay" sounds like rod stewart. okay, maybe rod stewart singing for the faces but still. hardly sounds like the who to me. and there are some moments in "won't get fooled again"that sound like they could/should be a schoolhouse rock song (the whole "i tip my hat to the new constitution" bit... which i guess shows in reverse how cool schoolhouse rock really was.... but....).

rating 5/10

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Machine

yay for stop gap singles between albums!

so i really like the yeah yeah yeahs. i think it's mostly karen o's voice, and how she's ballsier than pretty much any current "rock" singer out there.

machine is just moe of the same, meaning it's awesome. i mean, it's a yeah yeah yeahs song. that said, today was probably the second time since i bought it that i listened to it... errr... i'm bad with singles i guess. (i have so many, it's sort of weird). i think it's largely due to my time in the UK where i would always brows the singles racks at HMV, at first because it was an anomaly to me, and at second because i managed to find some pretty cool stuff...

the b sides are what they are. a song called graveyeard which is just more of the yeah yeah yeahs i love. and a remix of pin, which completely obliterates the song into an unrecognizable mess that is remarkably listenable to.

rating 9/10 (cos, okay, it is a single).

Maria Taylor - Lynn Teeter Flower

okay. i have a huge crush on maria taylor. have since i first heard (and, okay, saw pictures of) Azure Ray. her first solo album, which i didn't buy, is an amazing piece of folky/artsy goodness. so, when i heard she a second one coming...

it's good. not as good as 11:11 but... good. more diverse songs - a few folksy tunes with obvious debt to her own band and also bright eyes. a beatle-esque organ driven tune ("smile and wave") and then some songs that, while quite good, have a slight feel of something done to try and broaden her appeal, as they wouldn't be terribly out of place on albums by any of the recent crop of female singer/songwriters with acoustic guitars and pianos.

but, when it comes down to it, i love maria taylor. the last song on the cd is something recorded of her when she was little - 5, maybe? and it is so adorable... man...

rating 8/10

The Talking Heads - Little Creatures

cos, well, why can't i pick apart supposedly legendary bands if i wanna...

so i am a fan of the talking heads. i really think myself to be one. but when i listened to this i pretty much only could tolerate the singles. i know this was one of their last albums before the acrimonious split...

i grew up with the talking heads, thanks to my older siblings. however, this cd i think was given to me by a friend from middle school who for some reason always gave me christmas and birthday presents, to the point of embarassment, especially as they were often cd's or something that i didn't particularly want... and i don't remember ever consciously WANTING this cd. i always felt bad taking things from him, especially since i rarely had anything GOOD to give him back.

so yeah, the singles - "and she was", "stay up late", and "road to nowhere" - awesome songs. hell, "road to nowhere" is one if my favorite songs ever but the rest of the album... i hate to think of myself as someone who would only listen to/like the singles from an album but with this one... which doesn't discount their brilliance. david byrne is a genius. etc. etc. but really, this album is just... no...maybe the talking heads are a band where i should have a greatest hits cd?


and that's day 4. so this has so far been kind of fun. i dunno. i think i'll slowly move away from reviews and sort of edging towards making it a little more autobiographical. we'll see...

my inner geekdom music challenge days 1 and 2

day 1

traveling through the depths of my cd collection, i decided the best way to start was to randomly grab 2 cd's, in the thought that i was more likely to grab something i hadn't listened to in a while. and i was right!

Terris - Learning to Let Go

who??????


who is right. okay, i'll admit that i don't think i even listened to this cd when i bought back when i was living in the UK. they released a couple of singles first (which i am sure i'll get to eventually) which were much better than the album ultimately turned out to be (gotta love those UK bands releasing non-album singles...).


basically, Terris were one of the few bands i ever actually bought completely into the music press induced hype, as NME and others basically said they were the best band EVER! and there's a lot to be said for them in a positive light i guess. they do have more than a passing resemblance to the Manic Street Preachers, before they became stadium rock and were making an angry, intense hybrid of the clash and guns and roses. their gravelly voiced singer, gavin goodwin, has a passing resemblance to james dean bradfield vocally, and they certainly have the intensity. on the album though, they filtered their obvious debt to the manics - and other welsh bands, in particularly and kind of unfortunately, the stereophonics (yawn) - through a slightly blatant mix of post american grunge, or "grunge" since the first thing that came to mind when the track "beneath the belt" started was "candlebox??" the album isn't all bad - it starts off nicely, with "white gold way", and even the second track "fabricated lunacy," is nice. mostly, though, i felt i was trudging my way through it on monday morning. worth keeping for a few of the tracks, but not something i would call a favorite. for a band that was hyped for their intensity, at a time when a lot of british rock was being dominated by sensitive rockers like coldplay and twee popsters like belle and sebastian, the album just falls flat. apparently, Terris didn't make it past then hype, and quietly disbanded not long after this album. it would be interesting to see what happened to them, as they definitely had the talent, i just don't think the album was really what the hype led me to want it to be at the time.

rating: 6/10



Japanic - The Social Disease

whee! this was more like it. boy/girl. vocals. no fabricated intensity. angular guitar lines. aaah. this would have been much better to start the morning with...

when did i get this CD? i don't even remember, other than it was - looking at the release date - something i rescued from the college radio station at the change of management (the incoming station manager told me i could take what i wanted, and i wasn't about to defy a direct order, especially since he might sit on me!) but i'm glad i picked it up. again, i probably haven't listened to this since i first grabbed it.

basically, the cd is a bouncy, giddy, call back to early B-52's. all slightly shouty male vocals with slightly droning girl vocals cutting in periodically. there's also a lot of debt to Gang of Four in the songs (which you can hear some samples of here, on their website). as far as i can tell, this was their second album, and they didn't release anything beyond that. which is kind of a shame, as with bands like the yeah yeah yeahs, be your own pet, and some of the bands riding the dance/indie rock craze of the past few years, Japanic could have made a definite mark.

rating: 9/10


DAY 2

No Doubt - the Beacon Street Collection

Not the Reissue, bitches! the original pressing!!

or: the album i told a million mystfied teenagers was actually better than the no doubt album they knew during my brief tenure as a record store employee, even though i'm not sure that's true anymore, and was probably only saying because they annoyed me.

Ahem. guilty pleasure? check. now, at least, though i certainly was more of a fan at a certain point in my life, even being a regular on an aol music message board (where i actually made a friend or 2, one i still maintain semi-regular contact with through livejournal, another who i actually dated for a period of time when she lived in baltimore). i probably bought this not long after it came out, in 95, probably when i also bought Tragic Kingdom. i had heard a few of the songs before - hell, i saw no doubt live in 93 when i was convinced by some people that there was this band that sounded a little like fishbone and madness, both bands i was very into in 8th/9th grade - so i figured owning them wasn't a bad idea. (confession: i didn't own their first, self titled, album for another year or 2, largely because i couldn't find it. i have a more interesting story about no doubt when i get to listening to tragic kindgom). anyway... the fishbone/madness thing definitely holds, probably a little more on the fishbone side (and also a good sized debt to sublime).

honestly, the cd just made me ridiculously nostalgic. it has a definite mid-90's feel - that slightly odd glossy-plasticness that many things up until 1995 seemed to have. total hate 95 - their duet with sublime's brad nowell - probably holds up the best, and is still possibly one of my favorite songs, if only one my favorite songs by no doubt. it's certainly not bad, and serves as a bridge between their quirky, sort of two-toneish debut and their full on ska/punk meets fleetwood mac breakthrough. i definitely bopped my head a bit while listening to this one. as much as i didn't mind what no doubt progressed into - return of saturn kind of bored me and rock steady seemed to serve more as a prelude to gwen stefani's solo albums than a no doubt album - i probably hold this album in a little higher regard than it deserves, as even with the re-release in 97, it still feels kind of like a secret to me.

rating: 7/10

Self - Gizmodgery

toy instruments and circuit bending goodness before that became vogue!

in a perfect world, self would have been beck. even before this album, there was a chance. i forget the name of the single from subliminal plastic motives, but it certainly had the quirky angle that beck rode to stardom on. however, fate didn't work this way, and matt mahaffey never reached the heights of mr hansen.

which is not to say that self is a beck knock off. not even close. even using toy instruments, as he does on this one, there's a much darker tone to his music than beck. darker, and funkier.

i bought this after we got it in at the radio station, loving it pretty much on first listen. geeky, funky, never twee despite it's slightly cute concept. even the cover of the loggins/messina "classic" what a fool believes is given a slightly dark edge. the last song sounds a bit like weezer, which is also not a bad thing, though after the white indie funk/groove of the rest of the album, it's a little jarring. trunk full of amps, which is reprised in a clean version (essentially adding guitar note bends in place of "motherfucker") seriously could have been a huge single had it been given a chance. but there's not a single track on this album i wouldn't listen to over and over again.

rating: 10/10

more to come....