This is, of course, an all-time jam. Also, it makes me remember this (sadly deleted) tweet, which is also nice.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: this image was lost during a changeover on the blog. At some point. Sorry to anybody reading this in the future. It was a screenshot of the “I’m sorry Miss Jackson / ooh / I am four eels / never meant to make your daughter cry / I am several fish and not a guy” tweet. IYKYK.]
[Read More]Now, I’m kinda sitting here wondering what it would sound like if Touché Amoré covered Rush. Or the other direction! Maybe a split single, with them covering each other. I’d listen to that.
Just had Harvey Milk the other day, this is nice. Well, not nice exactly. It’s nice they came up again? Anyway, it seems like I don’t even see much discussion of the band, they don’t seem to be anybody’s touchstone or point of comparison. I guess I don’t really know why that is, except that I suppose I don’t ever reference them either. Anyway, this record (Courtesy and Good Will Toward Men) is excellent, you should listen to it.
[Read More]I need some more high concept entries here. Something where I can actually have a connection between the elements. I’m stymied, of course, by my format. And the fact that I write these as I play the songs, so I don’t know what the next song will be as I’m writing about the current song. I guess I could play all five and then write?
OK, I swear, I was going to try it, and then that terrible trombone bit happened, and I had to mention it. I’m sorry, I’ll try again tomorrow!
[Read More]I sometimes find screamo to be a little bit tiring. Musically, it’s my jam, but the vocals wear me out sometimes. This seems like a stupid thing for someone who listens to as much metal with vocals that sounds like someone caught something important in a home appliance. But I am very stupid, so here we are.
You know, if Luscious Jackson had made this record another fifteen years later, I’ll bet they would have found a much bigger audience. It sounds pretty ahead of its time, and I’m not sure people in 1994 really knew what to make of it.
[Read More]Samiam, the melodic punk band from Berkley, came out of the gate more or less fully formed. While I think their mid-career albums would be stronger and more refined, their first album still was solid work. I think Samiam was a little too early to catch on to the emo revival that would happen later, and so they’re kind of forgotten today.
I told my only real Mustard Plug story already, and I don’t want to tell it again. It’s sad! I think it’s understandable that I stopped listening after that, but I gotta say, this is a good little tune. It’s pretty Bosstones, but I like that sound. It’s not their fault they were part of the soundtrack to one of the worst nights of my life.
[Read More]Touché Amoré is a bit of a genre Rorschach test: emo? Hardcore? Post-hardcore? All of them, I guess, and maybe folks will identify in whatever way that fits them into their tastes. Not me! I’ll identify them as whatever genre fits best with whatever through line I’m desperately trying to spot on any given day.
Like…uh…maybe I could talk about the distinction between the speed of hardcore versus that of extreme metal, and how to my ears one of the distinctions is that the drumming often becomes almost unmoored from the guitars in extreme metal for long stretches, while hardcore is usually more locked in. Which is all kinda bullshit, but this blog is all just bullshit anyway. Moving on!
[Read More]I find myself listening to early Bob Marley more than his later, better produced stuff. Something about the raw nature of these recordings really appeals to me.
Are Buzzkill sending up Slint here? I think they might be sending up Slint. We haven’t had Slint yet. I used to sit around in the dark in my dorm room in college and listen to Slint’s Spiderland and just feel so goddamn sorry for myself. It’s really good, y’all!
[Read More]Another relatively toothless song from the later period of the band. I can’t wait for some early tracks to show up.
Another tune from the “double duo” years, when they had an extra drummer to augment their usual trio. This comes from (A) Senile Animal, a great album. One of the many thing I love about the Melvins is their use of space. Yes, they can just crank out headbangers, but they’ll often leave plenty of space for menace to build up, for the drums to breathe, for the compositions to evoke a mood beyond “GRRRRR”. (That mood is “GRRRR…(pause)…GRRRRRRRR”.)
[Read More]John Oswald, a composer, coined the term “plunderphonics” to describe the process of composing a new song using recognizable parts of existing songs. The “recognizable” portion was something he considered key. It involves the composer making using of existing associations in order to raise emotions in the listener that might otherwise not be possible. This can distinguish it from some of the sampling used in hip hop and the like, which might be considered plunderphonics or not, depending on how much the source is widely known.
[Read More]I’ll often leave shuffle running for a little while after doing one of these things, and sometimes I get these fantastic runs of songs and artists that would make for some great writeups. I have a lot to say about Operation Ivy! But, alas, that would be cheating. The way I’m doing things is that I decide I’m going to write about songs, and then start up the shuffle machine to see what I get from that moment forward. No retroactive choosing of shuffle runs for me! Luckily, there’s almost always something worth talking about. Listen along with me, won’t you?
[Read More]