We haven’t had very many second wave ska bands around here. That’s mainly because I was around with the third wave was a thing, so I know those bands well. And when I spend time learning about previous scenes, I mostly spend that time on the first wave of bands. The English Beat are one of the few second wave bands that I know reasonably well, with their poppy take on the genre standing in contrast to so many bands that mostly combine it with punk.
[Read More]Took a few days off there. I’d apologize, but did anybody notice? If you Five Songs on a blog and nobody is there to hear it…
Anyway, cue the tunes, Amazon!
We’ve discussed the Melvins getting dropped from their major label after a stellar run artistically, upon the discovery that the Melvins don’t actually sell any records. They found a home on Amphetamine Reptile Records, who apparently encouraged them to do whatever they wanted. So here, we have a little throwaway making fun of their time on their major label. And they called this record Honky. Why not!
[Read More]This is some straight-up They Might Be Giants shit right here.
Indie duo the Fiery Furnaces were a sister/brother act, dedicated to playing singular art rock. Employing a wide range of instrumentation, often within the same song, and rife with literate, obtuse storytelling, the Fiery Furnaces could be equal parts fascinating and exasperating. This comes from one of their more challenging albums, Rehearsing My Choir, which is their collaboration with their grandmother. Centered around her memories of growing up in Chicago, it’s a meandering look into one family that can be interesting if you’re paying attention but isn’t something that you can just kind of throw on in the background.
[Read More]As a teenager, I took it for granted that disco sucked. Everybody knew it sucked, right? It was shiny and for dancing! I didn’t really interrogate the reasons why there was a cultural backlash against disco, it was just a thing that happened, and obviously it had to happen to pave the way for what followed. It took a while for me to really think about it. Why were so many people so dead set against disco? That they were willing to not just dislike a genre but adopt hating it as part of their identity. And, of course, the penny finally dropped one day: disco was a haven for people outside the rock mainstream, a place where gay folks, people of color, and just loads of diverse folks could be accepted and be themselves. It was a scene that wasn’t just welcoming of these differences, but embraced them. So, of course it had to go. People couldn’t just ignore it if they didn’t like it. That scene had to be destroyed.
[Read More]You know, now that I’m doing this on a platform with a functional tagging system, I could have just tagged each of these entries with each band, and then I wouldn’t need the index. But we wouldn’t have the “previouslys” either, and I kind of like them? But this is also a hassle to maintain this. And, well, I don’t know if I want to convert everything over.
[Read More]Fugazi released First Demo in 2014, putting out a session from just a year or so into their existence. The songs here would appear on several of their proper releases in a different (and more polished) form. But as a Fugazi obsessive, it’s great to hear how these songs first started shaping up.
One of the great questions being debated by Five Songs scholars everywhere is whether I am, in fact, qualified to talk about the New York Ska-Jazz Ensemble. It’s well-established in canon that I’m not qualified to talk about jazz, of course. But half jazz? The pro camp: clearly I know some shit about ska, right? The con camp: I’m demonstrably a terminal dipshit.
[Read More]OK, let’s see if we can do better than that low energy thing yesterday. Whatcha got, shuffle?
Pure heavy metal revivalism, Dawnbringer has decided to see if they can just play this stuff totally straight and manage to not sound totally cheesy. Do they pull it off? Well…I don’t know. It’s reasonably well done, I guess, but by and large I’d pretty much rather just listen to Sabbath. Decent for an occasional change of pace.
[Read More]Another fine song from old Pittsburgh band Hurl. There’s an expansiveness, a warmth here that’s really pleasant to listen to.
Yeah, I’m kind of mad at some of the choices that Past Josh made. This is, of all damn things, a live album of a recreation of a radio show.
And, look, I couldn’t get this “song” uploaded. My conversion things keep crashing. So, screw it, we’re going to do an extra today.
[Read More]I was just listening to Wrong today, and was reminded of how awesome it was. Folks, check it out! In the meantime, here’s NoMeansNo kicking off the In The Fishtank project, which was a project where an independant label invited bands to record an album in just two days in the studio. Occasionally a couple bands at the same time! NoMeansNo are pros, so of course it sounds great.
[Read More]It probably says something about me that I own a lot more Screeching Weasel than I do the Ramones. Specifically, it says how old I am.
One of Jay-Z’s strengths is how he has a bunch of different flows that he uses on different songs. Unlike some rappers, including plenty of famous ones, he always seems to change things up to really play along with the beat. And Pharrell Williams put together a great one here.
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