Fun Stuff > BAND
YOUR bands.
IntermittentEvil:
Bogus Blimp.
Now, I'm not one to pick my favorite band of the moment, but for me that's hard to do. I listen to music by my mood. I have a whole host of bands that I occasionally jones for, but all of them can last a good while, then I have to move elsewhere. I occasionally even get moods in which I grow tired of music in general. But these guys are the only constant. It's not even like Bogus Blimp cover that wide a range of sounds, nor do they seem to cover a wide range of moods (though they do for me now); they only had three albums, scant information can be found about them at all, and most of their members (by an American's reckoning) have entirely disappeared from the eye of Music. I can't even give you a website, it's been defunct since I started listening. But their three CDs have been the standard in my record rotation, often either one start to finish or sometimes all three in a row. I've wondered often what makes me love them so, what is the combination of sounds, lyrics, melodies, etc. that really makes them stick with me, and I come up with nothing; upon analysis, they don't seem that remarkable. However, everything with this band continues to click right into place, no matter what I'm doing or where I am. The three albums flow into each other like they were one huge one, the themes and lyrics create a sense of drama and continuity without seeming to do so, the vocals and production take something that for most bands is beyond the reach of their concepts and incorporate it so seamlessly that you wish it had been in every song you've heard. They're remarkable, if a bit off-center, for creating a sound so gorgeous because it's like nothing you've heard or will ever hear (exaggeration, I'm sure... prove me wrong, please!). It manages to both overstate and understate, to mix irony and sincerity in perfect blend, to combine equal amounts of heaviness, calm, energy, delicacy, organics and electronics. But I extol beyond my qualifications... I suspect I'm getting redundant and slightly pretentious, so I'm stopping it there, but I hope everyone gets the idea and goes out to find these CDs. Find these people. Make them make more music!
*shakes head to clear it*
So, anyway, I also have a personal sentimentality for Pink Floyd and Opeth: the first bands to show me how deep the rabbit hole goes, thus my current love for music and my in-progress music major. Mad props to those lovely Europeans.
sjbrot:
--- Quote from: Houdinimachine ---I'd say my band is Harvey Danger.
Yes, I just said fucking Harvey "Flagpole Sitta" Danger. I have gone out of my way to find music by them spending ridiculous amounts of money on trying to get every track they've ever recorded.
Harvey Danger started as a "What the Hell" thing for me. I was a kid and I loved Flagpole Sitta when I first heard it on the radio. I still have the cardboard version of Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone? around here somewhere. When I listened to the actual album, I fell in love with the band's ability to produce music that really seems both literate and filled with frustration and melancholy. Not to mention, Carlotta Valdez basically is all about one of my favorite movies: Vertigo. (I was angsty as a teen. Give me a break. The music still holds up as meaningful and beautiful though. "Jack the Lion" is still my favorite song ever because of the memories it invokes with me holding my once strong grandmother's hand as she died.)
Then, King James Version came out and no one noticed. This is the largest music atrocity ever perpetrated by corporate America. Pike Street to Park Slope is beautiful. The entire album is probably the most genuinely literate and lyrically interesting collection of songs I have. Notice I keep saying literate? It's because Harvey Danger's lead singer holds an English degree and you can tell.
Now, years later, we have Little by Little and an upcoming tour. Cream and Bastards Rise is a brilliant single waiting to happen. Moral Centralia; War Buddies; and Wine, Women, and Song are also just about the best piano pop I've heard in a long time.
I get so worked up about HD that I have trouble really make a clear cut argument about why they rock so fucking hard.
--- End quote ---
I bought King James Version not too long ago at the local community radio garage sale. When I was showing off my wares to others, that was consistently singled out as one that everyone was surprised that I bought. Honestly, I bought it on a good word from the Internet and vintage memories of Grade Four and "Flagpole Sitta". And it's consistently better than a lot of the other albums I bought that day. Even Fred Schneider's first solo album.
Spike:
It seems that I've been beaten to it but I might as well give my particular reasons.
The Smashing Pumpkins:
I've been listening to the Smashing Pumpkins since before I can remember and in that time I'd end up not listening to them for about a year. Then one day I'd listen to one of their songs again and I'd instantly remember why I listened to them in the first place. This recurrence is one of the few things that I would say is almost central in my life.
They have seemed to cover almost the entire range of human emotion. Songs like "Crestfallen" are nothing but absolute melencholy but "Thru the eyes of Ruby" starts exactly that way but about minutes into the song thier overdriven guitars come in as strong as ever. Maybe I'm just reading too much into it but I think that's how things are, we're battered, beaten and broken but somehow we end up coming back stronger than we've ever been before. To this day, I'm having a difficult time finding a song that matches the fury and nihilism of "Tales of A Scorched Earth." They've sat there and covered that feeling when you've been sitting in a classroom for two hours being listening to some lecture on god knows what, the absolute boredom and what you end up doing to get through it and not kill someone.
They ended up taking a new direction in some of their later cd releases and a lot of people didn't like it but they did it anyway. They were essentially saying "Fuck you, We're not being caged by what you expect."
In the end, it always gave me that feeling of absolute freedom. No, I may not fit in, but it's not like I was trying to anyway. I'm me and there is no way you can touch me. I always felt like I was the highest of the high and the lowest of the low all at once.
Beck:
As a total 180 from I present to you Beck. There is no music that makes me feel sexier than Beck. You can sit there and pick apart a good number of songs and end up finding absolutely no meaning. It should be obvious though, there was no other or deeper meaning, it was made because he liked the way it sounded, and sometimes that's meaning enough. It's perfect for all those times when you're just sitting there thinking "I'm going to have fun and enjoy myself. I don't care if it's stupid or pointless;I'm just going to do it because I can."
Houdinimachine:
See... I'm a firm believer that Beck's song "Scarecrow" is actually about bible thumpers warning about the evil of homosexuality to protect the flock, but really only scaring themselves. My version of this song in my head is genius.
Edit: Also... King James Version is awesome and everyone should buy it.
Scytale:
--- Quote from: Spike ---It seems that I've been beaten to it but I might as well give my particular reasons.
The Smashing Pumpkins:
I've been listening to the Smashing Pumpkins since before I can remember and in that time I'd end up not listening to them for about a year. Then one day I'd listen to one of their songs again and I'd instantly remember why I listened to them in the first place. This recurrence is one of the few things that I would say is almost central in my life.
They have seemed to cover almost the entire range of human emotion. Songs like "Crestfallen" are nothing but absolute melencholy but "Thru the eyes of Ruby" starts exactly that way but about minutes into the song thier overdriven guitars come in as strong as ever. Maybe I'm just reading too much into it but I think that's how things are, we're battered, beaten and broken but somehow we end up coming back stronger than we've ever been before. To this day, I'm having a difficult time finding a song that matches the fury and nihilism of "Tales of A Scorched Earth." They've sat there and covered that feeling when you've been sitting in a classroom for two hours being listening to some lecture on god knows what, the absolute boredom and what you end up doing to get through it and not kill someone.
They ended up taking a new direction in some of their later cd releases and a lot of people didn't like it but they did it anyway. They were essentially saying "Fuck you, We're not being caged by what you expect."
In the end, it always gave me that feeling of absolute freedom. No, I may not fit in, but it's not like I was trying to anyway. I'm me and there is no way you can touch me. I always felt like I was the highest of the high and the lowest of the low all at once.
--- End quote ---
I love the Smashing Pumpkins as well, completely get where you're comming from here. I had all these grand plans to perform a sweet cover version of 'Porcelina of the Vast Oceans' and then my band broke up :(
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