Listening agenda 9/27/09

Trying to work my way through The Church's post Hologram-of-Baal catalog....

The last 2 songs on After Everything, Now This are transporting me into a realm of beautiful melancholy not conducive to mental health on a rainy Fall day when depression is starting to seep in. Forget Yourself's "See Your Lights" is sensual, hard-rocking, and irresistible. Marty W (always the earthy one) provides the needed antitode! The two acoustic reimagining records....meh. Only Dead Man's Hand on the new one has piqued my interest thus far. Hopefully persistence will be repaid.

Whatchyou listenin' to?

Thus far today:

Bryan Ferry - Frantic
Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights

up next:

Split Enz - Second Thoughts

So far today:

The Brit Box (disc 1)
Hoarse – Happens Twice

Now loading into the CD player:

Placebo

Not much today .........

Squeeze "Argybargy" - in particular "Vicky Verky"

Libertines (self titled)

Tonight, I listened to a Pearl Jam album (Yield) for the first time ever on purpose and..........LOVED IT!

18 years of poo-poo-ing a band down the drain.

From what I hear, the new Pearl Jam is pretty good. I've always liked the album Vs about the best of any of their stuff.

I think a lot of the guff that Pearl Jam takes is not really directed at them so much as Stone Temple Pilots, Creed, etc. But it's not Eddie Vedder's fault that a legion of dimwits decided to ape his vocal style.

I think it's easy to blame Pearl Jam (and Nirvana, for that matter) for all the fifth-rate imitators, especially when a particularly bad one (Creed) becomes more popular than the source. It's unfair, but god knows I've cursed Pearl Jam for ever existing whenever a Creed song comes on the radio, even though it's not their fault some dunderheads took only the most obvious and bombastic elements of PJ's sound and pumped them full of steroids.

We have Pearl Jam coming in to do an episode of ACL this weekend, by the way.

They got a lot of the same thing thrown at them, when they debuted ... mostly by Cobain, who accused Pearl Jam of aping Nirvana.

I think part of it is that Pearl Jam (and Vedder in particular) have tried to maintain a certain amount of principle that has led them to go against the flow — fighting with Ticketmaster (all the way to Congress), not making videos, steering clear of the press for a few years, taking a stand in national politics and other causes, and so on. That approach is often misunderstood, and anyone who tries to take it risks being seen as self-righteous.

Cut out the vocals and I don't think Creed sounds anything like Pearl Jam. Some similarities in the vocals, and that's it as far as I can hear.

Kind of like when Interpol released their first album, everything I read compared them to Joy Division. Once I listened, I realized that only the singer sounded similar to Ian Curtis...the overall sound came right out The Chameleons play book.

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Cut out the vocals and I don't think Creed sounds anything like Pearl Jam.

I'd have to listen to Creed again to see if I agree with that, but realize I'm not interested enough in knowing to put myself through that.

Really? The music always sounded like a dumbed-down/muscled-up Pearl Jam to me, singer or no. Creed's anthems sound like piss-poor rewrites of "Alive."

Agreed on Interpol. I never really heard the Joy Division comparisons, but always thought they sounded like the Chameleons. (To which my response was: Why should I listen to this third-rate imitation of the Chameleons when I can listen to the real thing?)

Pearl Jam could be the finest band in the history of mankind, and I still wouldn't listen to them, due solely to my name being Jeremy (it got OLD fast).

I can see the Interpol/Joy Division thing slightly, but you know who really sounded like Joy Division? Modern English.

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... I still wouldn't listen to them, due solely to my name being Jeremy (it got OLD fast).

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My cousin Iceblink feels the exact same way about The Cocteau Twins.

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Once I listened, I realized that only the singer sounded similar to Ian Curtis...the overall sound came right out The Chameleons play book.

Damn right. In fact, I credit Interpol with prompting the Chameleons reunion that happened there a while back. I mean, why not reconvene and remind everybody where that kick-ass sound originated?

Loving The Chameleons to this day, I am. They've made life worth living.

Got their autographs 'round here someplace ... even the bongo player's.

Agree with Zoo, on Creed's similarity to Pearl Jam being only singer-deep. And actually, I never thought Interpol had more than a superficial resemblance to Joy Division. Paul Banks doesn't sound all that much like Ian Curtis.

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Whatchyou listenin' to?

Viva Voce. Still can't decide if they're brilliant or just really crafty con artists. There is something awry about them. Can't put my finger on it. Maybe it feels like they really want to be HUGE BEYOND ALL RECKONING? That, and they remind me of Animotion.

:::shudder:::

That "Abbey Road Now" CD that came with the latest MOJO Magazine. Sometimes those discs are pretty cool, but this one leaves me thinking that the staff at MOJO have lost their flippin' minds. It's largely crap. Most of the artists are a mystery to me. The Robyn Hitchcock effort was marred by the fact that at no point was he EVER going to let loose a scream like Lennon did on the original version of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)." The cover of "Golden Slumbers" was excellent - if you like Harriet Wheeler or the girl from Frente!. There's an OK version of "Something" and that's about it. "Because" and "Sun King" also get so-so treatment. The rest is pretty bad. A blippity-blip version of "Come Together" to lead things off? Aerosmith is rolling their bloodshot eyes. The take on "Oh Darling" is such a bloodless corpse of a tune! Blech!

"Lenny Bruce - Live at The Curran Theater." I never get enough of the guy. I even put his stuff on at nearly inaudible levels and go to sleep to it - it messes with my dreams on a massive level.

New Yo La Tengo. The second track is already a permanent fixture in my brain. I love Georgia Hubley's voice. I'll admit it.

Freakwater - "Feels Like The Third Time" and "Dancing Under Water." Superb stuff.

...

That's about it. I did mention Louis Jordan somewhere else. Yeah! The "Classic-Rock" thread. Great big-band blues collection. Very fun.

Freakwater - I like their take on Dollar Bill Blues.

Last listening was Tim Fite's Gone Ain't Gone, when it's good, it's great, when it's bad, it's 'meh'.

Short walk from the bus to work mean't time for just one song, so I went with Decline of the Reptiles' - Don't Look Down which made me wish I'd seen their recent reunion show.



Post Edited (09-30-09 19:38)

> You know who really sounded like Joy Division? Modern English.

A cleaned-up, mostly cheery version of JD, perhaps. I've listened to them a lot, and even did lights for them ... Don't quite hear it. What else ya got, J?

> A cleaned-up, mostly cheery version of JD, perhaps.

I thought that was New Order. Tee-hee.

For my $, when I think of Modern English, the song that always comes to mind is "Life in the Gladhouse," so maybe that's the reason for the comparison. By the time they reached Ricochet Days, I'll admit they'd evolved into something quite different. Of course, I thought Start/Stop was their masterpiece, so I'm out of step with whatever consensus there is regarding these guys.

When the first release by The Stills came out, they were tagged with the Joy Division thing. They went in a completely different direction after that, though. Editors was another one, right?

I don't think there's that big a difference between the Editors' first two CDs. The third one (due in two weeks) may be a change-up, but we will have to see.