I’m really wobbling here - I think at some point pretty soon, I’m going to stop updating this every day. It just consumes a little bit too much of my creative time, and I’d like to do something else.
The opener of Black Rainbow, and you know within seconds if this thing is going to be your jam or not. Some bands are growers and it takes some time to decide if something is for you or not. Others…are not.
[Read More]There’s a ruthless, efficient logic at the heart of 400 Blows. The find their groove, riff, or idea and just hammer away at it. It’s not that they’re robotic or simplistic or anything, but they recognize that repetition has a power of its own, and are unafraid to make use of it. It’s the sort of music you can disassemble an engine to.
[Read More]The Allstonians produced two fantastic albums in the heart of the third wave, their self-titled record and Allston Beat. Both were fine, tuneful examples of what the third wave did well, horn driven tunes that borrowed liberally from ska history. There were a few moments when the lyrical approach was a little bit on the smug side (a common problem in the third wave), but overall, both are albums I still listen to frequently to this day. After the collapse of Moon Ska records, the Allstonians disappeared for six years, only to come back with a new record. Alas, the shine just isn’t there any more. We don’t get the fun solos, the horn playing is mostly just simple ensemble work, and the songs aren’t especially memorable.
[Read More]Let’s hope we do better today!
This is a repeat from, geez, a year and a half ago.
Well, it’s been a good, long time, but we’ve got a completely unknown song here popping up. There were a handful of songs pre-loaded on some device of mine in the misty, distant past, and some automated scan swept them up into my library. I didn’t catch them, and now they’re sprinkled in among the songs I actually want to keep, and I haven’t been able to root them out. And now you have to deal with them too!
[Read More]Back in the day, when CDs were still fairly novel, some bands felt compelled to goof around with the medium. The best known of these goofs, and one of the most annoying, was the “hidden track”, where bands would put in a long period of silence and then follow with an extra song. Not only was the silence super annoying, but the extra song was seldom any good.
[Read More]I get itchy when we go too long without a Stax track. This is one of Eddie Floyd’s biggest hits, later covered by Al Green on his magnificent Let’s Stay Together.
There have been multiple bands called 400 Blows (all named after the Truffaut film, one presumes), but this is the noise rock one from California. This song comes from Black Rainbow, and is full of this kind of start/stop fun and yelling. Good times!
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