From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V4 #303 Reply-To: loud-fans@smoe.org Sender: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk loud-fans-digest Tuesday, November 9 2004 Volume 04 : Number 303 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [loud-fans] Either more or fewer than seven deadly Finns [Chris Prew ] [loud-fans] return to sender [LkDylaninthmvies@aol.com] Re: [loud-fans] return to sender [Aaron Mandel ] Re: [loud-fans] Either more or fewer than seven deadly Finns [2fs ] RE: [loud-fans] return to sender ["R. Kevin Doyle" ] [loud-fans] Slickee Boys [Cardinal007 ] Re: [loud-fans] return to sender [LkDylaninthmvies@aol.com] Re: [loud-fans] return to sender [LkDylaninthmvies@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 09:25:38 -0600 From: Chris Prew Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Either more or fewer than seven deadly Finns On Nov 5, 2004, at 2:39 PM, 2fs wrote: > This is a long-delayed review of Chris Prew's swap mix. I'd confused > one of his earlier mixes with another mix entirely, a mix that had > several Finnish folk songs on it (I still can't recall where that one > came from). I'd mentioned that to him, so his CD came with the > following written on the package - All the Hits! Finnish Folk > Extravaganza!! - which I have adopted as its title. Anyway (* marks > things I had): > > * The Slickee Boys "Escalator 66" - Wow - haven't heard these guys for > ages. I had a ratty old cassette of this album (something-something > Pi) dubbed from a college friend. This is a pretty good track: a bit > garagey, a bit toward the tougher end of someone like the Three > O'Clock. (My favorite track on the album is probably "Marble Orchard," > a nice semi-psychedelic number...) I've heard that these guys still exist and still play occasional shows in the DC area -- after, what, 25 years? the album is "Cybernetic Dreams of Pi", and it was released on Twin Tone during their heyday. You can get a custom burned CD of this and other old out of print Twin Tone releases (Slickees, Suburbs, early Mats, Suicide Commandos) at http://www.twintone.com. And that is a really cool service more labels should get into (although they should reduce the price). > > > Vulgar Boatmen "Calling Upstairs" - This is one of those bands (the > Silos, who shared members, are another) that I like well enough song > by song, but when I try listening to an entire album, I usually fall > asleep. Pleasant, slightly country-influenced, tasteful, > mid-tempo...you see what I mean. But still: in this context, it works > pretty well. Catchy chorus (one of those "just repeat the title" > choruses - someone should make a mix consisting entirely of such > songs...) I love the Boatmen because they transcend all the trappings of indie rock. People who like the Boatmen hear a Richman/Velvets influence. People who love them hear Buddy Holly and the Everlys. > > The Service "October House" - For some reason, the band's name seems > familiar - but I don't know why. Yes, I could look it up, but I'm > lazy. Follows the VB track fairly well, inhabiting a similar musical > territory, although a touch faster. The chorus somehow reminds me of > acts like Green on Red or The Long Ryders...that era, anyway. Chicago, mid 80's. The have a greatest "hits" on Pravda called "This Was the Service". Generally good songwriting, keyboard heavy, throughout. Reminds me of Soul Asylum at times. Very midwestern. On Emusic. > > > Appleseed Cast "Blind Mans Arrow" [sic] - I'm not sure if it's Chris > or the band that left out the apostrophe...perhaps it ran off with the > capital letters the band hates so much. (I should note that another > song here is also written all in lowercase - oddly, it's *called* > "Another Song"...even though I could swear the packaging for that > album had all the titles in typewriter font, all upper-case. Oh - you > want me to talk about the song, not typography? Pretty nice - the > chorus is that kinda moody, minor-chord with suspension thingy that > sounds a bit, uh, sorry but "emo." Nice middle section with a repeated > pattern while the bass implies chord changes underneath: simple > device, almost always effective. Appleseed Cast started out emo for their first record or two, then let their pop & experimental side take over. Some people call them the "American Radiohead", which I don't really buy. They are a very good band, but if any inkling of emo grates on you, watch out. They are kind of a photo negative of Jimmy Eat World (who I also enjoy), who took emo and went straight pop with it, whereas Appleseed Cast ended up with something closer to post-rock. Haven't heard AC's latest, though. > > AMFM "Success Rides a Shiny White Line" - This begins with what might > be a Pinback-type arrangement, only played on acoustics instead of > electrics and piano. Wordless falsetto chorus with some sort of > eletronic glockenspiel type thing - I like this track. I'm only so so on a lot of this bands output, but I think "Mutilate Us", where this track came from, is wonderful, with a superb cover of "Disney Girls". On Emusic. > > > Matt Pond PA "Fairlee" - Begins with slide guitar and galloping > drumbeat - I was thinking these guys were sorta fastidious orch-pop > guys (and maybe they are elsewhere) but this one has kind of an > uptempo New Order feel (if they replaced the synths with - yes, those > are horns and strings, aren't they). Nice track. Another Emusic find. A really consistent band. > > Junket "6:00 AM" - More lowercasers - this time, it's the album title > on the caps-hating tip. Anyway...it seems there were 700 bands with > nondescript names like "Junket" wandering around a couple years > back...I can't remember if I've heard them before or not. Begins kinda > slow and moody, with a filter-tipped guitar and resigned, quiet vocal, > before...okay, I'm still waiting, but I'm almost certain the volume's > going to go up soon...wait, no: they drop back to nearly nothing > instead. Good choice. The overall effect is sorta Codeine-like - but > that band usually voiced its chords a bit more intriguingly. This one > rides a I-IV-iii sequence endelssly - I kinda wish they'd switched it > up a bit somewhere in there. I get a real Dream Syndicate vibe off these guys, although this track doesn't reflect that best. Also on Emusic. > > Great Plains "Letter to a Fanzine" - This is the song that asks the > musical question, "why do punk rock guys go out with new wave girls?" > Many times. The organ sounds as if it's played by a new wave girl - > although given the era, it coulda been a new wave guy with mascara on. > This is fun 'n' all - kinda in the way the Dead Milkmen were fun - but > it isn't quite as funny. You only need two chords - but it doesn't > quite deliver. If it were more punk-rock, or humorous, it might have > worked better. Some good of-the-era jokes - about 4.A.D. and SST and > Homestead (and "everything I get in the mail for free!") - but, kinda > eh ultimately. See, they shoulda got the punk insight that two minutes > of this would've been fine - instead, the song's a minute and a half > longer than that. Best line in the song is during the fade out - " A subscription for life means how many issues? Five?" Great Plains were a brilliant band. They tended to get tagged as a novelty act by a lot of people, as a lot of their lyrics were pretty funny. But you won't find many bands as forthright and honest as Great Plains. "Length of Growth", a 2 CD re-release of almost their entire recorded output, came out a couple years ago. If there's a band out there that begs an asterisk in their name (**warning, not for everybody), its these guys. Franklin Bruno wrote some of the liner notes, and mentioned something about how exciting was to listen to a band whose musical reach so consistently exceeded their grasp - but it never let the stop reaching. Someone else, who writes better than I do, and doesn't need some caffeine as much as I do, explain Great Plains to the uninitiated. > > Anyway, a lot of fine stuff here. Of the tracks I didn't know, I'd > most like to check out AMFM and the Matt Pond dealy. > > -- > ++Jeff++ > The Architectural Dance Society > http://spanghew.blogspot.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 11:00:01 EST From: LkDylaninthmvies@aol.com Subject: [loud-fans] return to sender I just heard The Postal Service on AOL radio. It was a Phil Collins tune. Are they trying to be early '90s twenty-something ironic, or what? Even if they were going for irony, it still doesn't make them music to my ears. Next!! - --Mark S., who dug the "Dallas" reunion last night (an old tv favorite). High Southern drama! Old school (literally) overacting! Bad hair! Boots! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 13:33:39 -0500 (EST) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: [loud-fans] return to sender On Mon, 8 Nov 2004 LkDylaninthmvies@aol.com wrote: > I just heard The Postal Service on AOL radio. It was a Phil Collins > tune. Are they trying to be early '90s twenty-something ironic, or > what? Gibbard can be weird about covers. I heard him play Avril Lavigne's "Complicated" solo after talking both about how good it was and how bad it was. It seems more like there are a lot of songs where he loves the music and later realizes how awful the lyrics are. See also: his list of the ten best Hall & Oates songs ever. http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/watw/03-02/death-cab.shtml a ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 12:54:12 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Either more or fewer than seven deadly Finns On Mon, 8 Nov 2004 09:25:38 -0600, Chris Prew wrote: > Appleseed Cast started out emo for their first record or two, then let > their pop & experimental side take over. Some people call them the > "American Radiohead", which I don't really buy. They are a very good > band, but if any inkling of emo grates on you, watch out. If Dashboard Confessional are emo, and the Promise Ring were emo, and Death Cab for Cutie are emo, I have no idea what the fuck "emo" is - except that I think it's one of the stupider words ever coined. It's not the music, it's the term. By the way: my nominee for Worst...Band Name...Ever? Travis Pickle. And no, they didn't do comedy rock... - -- ++Jeff++ The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 11:05:20 -0800 (PST) From: zoom@muppetlabs.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] return to sender > On Mon, 8 Nov 2004 LkDylaninthmvies@aol.com wrote: > >> I just heard The Postal Service on AOL radio. It was a Phil Collins tune. Are they trying to be early '90s twenty-something ironic, or what? > > Gibbard can be weird about covers. I heard him play Avril Lavigne's "Complicated" solo after talking both about how good it was and how bad it > was. It seems more like there are a lot of songs where he loves the music > and later realizes how awful the lyrics are. See also: his list of the ten > best Hall & Oates songs ever. No "Maneater" or "I Can't Go For That"? I liked the cover of which we speak, but then again, I liked the original too. Great stuff to be lovelorn and heartbroken to, up all night with MTV and baked potatoes out of a real oven. (We weren't hip to [los] microwaves.) The onion-layer aspects of a Phil Collins song covered by a so-called indie band ending up on AOL radio... Andy "The Commander Thinks Out Loud [by Long Winters] its on Future Soundtrack for America on Barsuk records" - --from John In The Morning on KEXP-FM, Seattle, worldwide on the web at kexp.org ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 13:14:14 -0800 (GMT-08:00) From: Steve Holtebeck Subject: Re: [loud-fans] return to sender > Gibbard can be weird about covers. I heard him play Avril Lavigne's > "Complicated" solo after talking both about how good it was and how bad it > was. It seems more like there are a lot of songs where he loves the music > and later realizes how awful the lyrics are. See also: his list of the ten > best Hall & Oates songs ever. > > http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/watw/03-02/death-cab.shtml Speaking of the source of Ben's band's "silly name", does everyone know that Neil Innes is touring the US (at least the western part) now? I mention this because he played SF on Friday, and I didn't find out about it until after the fact. I saw Death Cab for Cutie at Bumbershoot way back in 1999, deciding to check them out based entirely on their inspired choice of band name, but I didn't think they were very good, so I've never bothered with any of their albums. > No "Maneater" or "I Can't Go For That"? Or "Sara Smile" or "She's Gone" or anything pre-'82. Whateverdude - -Steve ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 12:10:22 -1000 From: "R. Kevin Doyle" Subject: RE: [loud-fans] return to sender >> No "Maneater" or "I Can't Go For That"? >Or "Sara Smile" or "She's Gone" or anything pre-'82. Whateverdude "She's Gone" is on his list between "Adult Education" and "Italian Girls." - --- Does this conversation mean I can start singing "Say It Isn't So" loudly, in public and without shame at long last? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 18:45:02 -0500 From: Cardinal007 Subject: [loud-fans] Slickee Boys On Monday, November 8, 2004, at 10:25 AM, Chris Prew wrote: > I've heard that these guys still exist and still play occasional shows > in the DC area -- after, what, 25 years? the album is "Cybernetic > Dreams of Pi", and it was released on Twin Tone during their heyday. > You can get a custom burned CD of this and other old out of print Twin > Tone releases (Slickees, Suburbs, early Mats, Suicide Commandos) at > http://www.twintone.com. And that is a really cool service more labels > should get into (although they should reduce the price). The Slickees Boys do indeed reform most years for a New Year's Eve [or thereabouts] show. I first saw them in '78/early '79, when Mark Noone joined as vocalist. Not my cup of tea, but "Gotta Tell Me Why" was a fabulous single and a great song. My band shared the bill with them many times in the first half of the '80s. I declined an offer to become their bass player just when they began their association with Twin Tone, and as they began more extensive touring. Another dumb-ass move I made, as they were fun, and nice guys, and you only go around once in this great life of ours. I find I now like their music, as my cup of tea has expanded to include many more tastes. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 20:41:03 EST From: LkDylaninthmvies@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] return to sender In a message dated 11/8/04 5:21:51 PM Eastern Standard Time, rkdoyle@midpac.edu writes: > "She's Gone" is on his list between "Adult Education" and "Italian Girls." > > When I was 17 I took a bus (I wasn't allowed to drive) to Atlanta to see General Public at the Omni. They were opening for Hall & Oates on the BIG BAM BOOM! tour (mental note from Dave Wakeling to himself then: MUST FIRE TOUR MANAGER). The only thing was, I had to either a) wait at the bus station for my return ride home while Hall and Oates played, or b) stay for the headline act. I think in hindsight that leisurely gnawing on one of those nitrite-filled sandwiches in a plastic wedge from the vending machine in the moist, fluorescent bus station that smelled like urine might have been better. But, to be fair, H&O were very good at doing their thing. I just didn't enjoy their thing. John Oates looked like the Camel cigarette man back then. I think he was wearing parachute pants. Where a man belongs, - --Mark S. np: Judybats DOWN IN THE SHACKS WHERE THE SATELLITE DISHES GROW (my fave record of '92) "I curled myself into a ball and cried quietly, doing that thing that only young people can do, namely, feeling sorry for myself. Once you're past thirty, you lose that ability; instead of feeling sorry for yourself, you turn bitter." (ELEANOR RIGBY) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 22:13:38 EST From: LkDylaninthmvies@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] return to sender In a message dated 11/8/04 2:05:28 PM Eastern Standard Time, zoom@muppetlabs.com writes: > The onion-layer aspects of a Phil Collins song covered by a so-called > indie band ending up on AOL radio... > AOL whore that I am, I must defend pimp daddy AOL Radio, Andy. Bright Eyes playing at Austin City Limits Music Fest 2003 is currently on. They play lots of indie stuff if you listen to the "New Indie" "station." They have several good genres to choose from. Also good is "Adult Alternative." On there you can hear Elvis Costello making love to citrus fruit. - --Mark S. ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V4 #303 *******************************