Current rediscovery

The Verlaines' Ready to Fly.

I've been meaning to explore (or, to be more precise, re-explore) this band's catalog for years, but no longer own any of their records. I purchased a cheap used copy of RtF and I've been enjoying the heck out of it today.

And it leads me to two unrelated questions for you all.

1) What bands have you dismissed or forgotten about in the past that you've rediscovered and fallen heavily in love with later on? I've come to the conclusion that sometimes one is simply not ready for certain bands until other times in your life.

2) Anything know anything about a NZ/Flying Nun band called the Subliminals? It's apparently part of a spate of FN reissues (which have been highlighted by one of my local record stores) and neither Trouser Press nor All Music have much info on them.

Galaxie 500. I fell hard for the band in 1997, years after the split. When I was in college in NYC in the 1990s, someone even invited me to go see them at CBGBs and I blew it off to drink PBR pitchers at a cheap watering hole (the now defunct Dugout on 3rd ave. between 12th and 13th--couldn't beat 2 dollar pitchers, with Dugout Bob spotting you every third one).

Vic Godard/Subway Sect and Felt were also bands that I rediscovered much later on (2000 and 1999, respectively).

Oh, yeah, the other day I also "rediscovered" Toots and the Maytals and can't get enough. One of my first albums (out of my hippie mom's collection, when my age was in the single digits) was the Harder They Come soundtrack. That and the White Album were on heavy rotation from the ages of 7 to 11. I didn't own much else yet. . .



Post Edited (01-07-11 17:51)

Quote

Anything know anything about a NZ/Flying Nun band called the Subliminals?

I have vague memories of our local college station playing split-second snippets of their songs between other artist's tunes over the course of the day.

...

Galaxie 500. I love that band like few others. Must be the dreaded "Power Trio" thing.

That, or it was just Naomi Yang. Earrings. You know?

I tried rediscovering Dreams So Real - I had their albums twenty years ago and was pretty "eh, whatever" towards them and sold them. Then last week I found a copy of Gloryline for $4 and figured what the heck, let's see what I think now. Turns out it remains "eh, whatever."

On the other hand, I also found a cheap copy of a UB40 best-of covering their pre-"call us for reggae covers of old hit songs for all your movie soundtrack needs" career at the same store and was happily reminded that they were a damn good band before they took that dive.

Bubbly synth-pop: Erasure, Yaz, Howard Jones. Blame LCD Soundsystem.

"Gloryline" wasn't great. "Rough Night in Jericho" was their best. . . but it hasn't aged well. Loved them on that tour--saw them at the EXIT/IN in N'ville.

Funny you say that about DSR - I rediscovered them as well a couple of years ago and fell for them harder than I did when the albums first came out. I guess my taste for bombast has become more refined. I agree with Erik, though - Rough Night is better than Gloryline.

I was listening to Dreams So Real on headphones at work a couple of months ago. A few of my co-workers happened by to see if I wanted to grab some lunch. These guys are in their 40s, and grew up in New York City, Detroit and, um, Ames, Iowa. None of them had ever heard Dreams So Real. I played about 40 seconds of "California", and they were all howling with laughter. "The drums! The drums are so high in the mix!" "What's wrong with that kid's voice?" "This is the most generic REM rip-off ever!"

There were more comments. They may even have been right.

Every few years, I try to rediscover Prince. Invariably, I just listen to Sign O' The Times for a month straight.

I always get Chapterhouse confused with Catherine Wheel (and vice-versa). I know one of 'em has Iron Maiden's singer's cousin on vocals.

Wasn't there supposed to be a shoegaze revival over in the UK a year or two ago? Maybe it's coming up in a month or two.

I just found all three of the recent 2-disk reissues of the Galaxie 500 catalog in the used bin at Waterloo Records in perfect condition, and went ahead and bought 'em. I wasn't able to get into G500 when they were around (my experience being limited to On Fire), but I'm giving them another shot. If I think they suck I shall come beat you all about the head and shoulders with them.

Mid-Period Zappa. Usually listen to just the Mothers, but recently started to finish the FZ collection, and those picked up quite a bit -- post-Flo/Eddie, pre-Zappa Records era.

I enjoyed Today, but am finding On Fire painful, mainly because Wareham sounds like a breaking voice 12-year-old with a cigarette habit. Now I remember why I got rid of this record the first time around.

I was the only adolescent I knew with any Siouxsie & the Banshees. Didn't really like them much, but I was budding completist. A coupla years back I re-acquired all those albums and was really surprised how good most of it is. Really wish I'd been tuned into their particular pleasures the first time round.

It took longer for the Gang Of Four to click with me than I'm willing to admit.

I was into Bowie in high school and college and although I've been too busy to go back and listen to his stuff, I find myself singing Be My Wife a lot. It's my favorite of his obscure songs.

About 7 years ago I was on a trip up the coast and was in the this country drug store looking through their discount bins which was almost all cosmetics and hair care, but in amongst it were about 8 copies of the Chapterhouse album Blood Music ( the one with the bonus remix disc) going for about $2, so I just grabbed one and didn't think about it too much, took it home and I think it just got filed away by the missus. Came across it a week ago and have been loving it.

Also been enjoying The Blue Aeroplanes' Beatsongs, too.

On The Verlaines, they're actually playing a show pretty close to where I live (they're in town to support Blonde Redhead at the Opera House). Ironically The Clean are in town, too.



Post Edited (01-16-11 22:31)

I need to give that Chapterhouse disc another listen. I disregarded it at the time out of general disappointment at so many shoegazer bands jumping on the Britpop bandwagon and jettisoning everything about their own sound that I had liked. I never really gave most of the albums that would be lumped into that description a chance, but probably should have.

That said, though, the one album in that wave of shoegazers jumping the Britpop bandwagon that I did give a chance was Lush's Lovelife and I hated it. And last time I listened to it I still didn't much care for it, though indifference would be more of an accurate description of my feelings for it now than outright hatred. It was an okay pop album but nothing special enough for me to give a damn about it.

probably stated this already but

Lush' 1st, Gala, is incredible but if you go looking for that in Spooky and [the one with the orange on the cover] you'll likely be disappointed. Just played Gala a few days ago, in fact.

I like Lovelife better today than at the time but it's for diehards.

Just for fun, try figuring out the chord progression to "de-Luxe".

Not sure if it fits as a per se redisco but I made my own box version of Costello 77-80 on 3 discs and played the shit out fo it.

Last year it was Devo.

Camper Van Beethoven - Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart

I went thru my own CVB rediscovery a few months ago and am now working my way back thru R.E.M. after the lengthy discussions here last month.

My favorite CVB record is their last: Key Lime Pie. I will be seeing them perform the album beginning to end in Cambridge MA this weekend! Very excited. Early CVB doesnt do too much for me.

Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart is one of my all-time favorites - if only it had been decently mastered. Amazing playing/writing, sounds flat as a board. Key Lime Pie SOUNDS better.....but the songs and sequencing don't do as much for me.

My interest in R.E.M. was (re)sparked by the same discussions. And lo and behold, a buddy of mine came up to me a couple of days ago with his copies of Murmur and Reckoning and said, "I don't need these anymore - you want 'em?" Well, of course...

I've so far lived quite happily without having to rediscover CVB.

I gotta say that Lifes Rich Pageant is better than I remember. And since that turned out to be true, I've requested Document from the library to give it another chance as well. Shit, maybe I've been missing something for the last 25 years!

Oh, sir. CVB is a beautiful band. One of the better examples of "they got better as they went, but started out just fine". Smart enough to earn smarmy and talented enough to play whatever they just felt like. And nice enough to let some guy who showed up at an OKC show with a melodica take a couple of solos.

I had a few of their records many years ago - the 1st one, Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart and Key Lime Pie, with OBRS being my favorite. But over time David Lowery started to just irritate the fuck out of me, and once he launched Cracker, I gave up on pretty much anything he had a hand in, outside of producing Sparklehorse.

Maybe I'll feel differently if I listened to the band now (and I still sometimes contemplate getting a CD copy of OBRS), but they're not nearly as high on my list as so many other artists I want to give a shot.

I have Lowery's solo album sitting in my pile of recent CDs sent to me by publicists. I've been vacillating between listening to it and just tossing into the discard pile. I suppose I should be fair and do the former. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.

When I say irritate me, I mean musically. My understanding is that he's a pretty nice guy in person.

Michael, if it wasn't for a TV show playing the Smith's "The Headmaster Ritual", I would be in agreement with you. I realized how much I liked that song and was curious if the rest of the album held up (it didn't). That was side A, side B was OBRS. I wasn't really that keen in playing it but I was lazy and let the tape continue. "Eye of Fatima Pt. 1" was as I remembered but "Eye of Fatima Pt. 2" - wow! After that i was truly rediscovering an album I hadn't listened to in around 20 years and remembering how much I liked it. What really surprised me was how much I liked the instrumentals, I don't remember digging them so much before. Those songs have been running in my head ever since.

The title song from Lowery's solo disc is free here:

[xpn.org]

And the whole album is streaming here (wonky hypertext deal again...sorry):

[www.spinner.com]



Post Edited (01-31-11 16:19)

"Everybody Was In The French Resistance...Now," the Art Brut side project, the concept album of "answering" popular songs. If I had it on CD (as opposed to digitally), I would have worn out the CD in a week I listened to it so often. People are going to discovering and re-discovering and re-discovering again that album years from now.

Jacobites - Robespierre's Velvet Basement. Barely registered 20+ years ago when somebody taped it for me. Acquired it a year ago - and it hasn't been out of rotation since.

I kind of rediscover Sudden and Kusworth every few years. I get on major jags where I listen to nothing else, then put them away for a while. Velvet Basement is a great album, one whose depths I don't think I've fully plumbed yet.

I didn't like Key Lime and hated Cracker, but backwards from there I remain a devotee of (in order):

s/t 3rd album
OBRS
VCMO
TFLV

04's New Roman is worthy of a spin

(and I have no qualms with stating for the 90th time how much I think Life's Rich Pageant and Fables of Reconstruction suck piles of shite.)



Post Edited (01-26-11 18:38)

Quote

"Everybody Was In The French Resistance...Now,"...People are going to discovering and re-discovering and re-discovering again that album years from now.

Interesting. Now I'll spin it. Why do you suppose reviews have been so negative?

Uncut liked it.

This Verlaines discussion is interesting. I was never a huge fan but I did see them in Dunedin in '94. They played with the 3Ds. It was very, very loud.

Now ... the Chills...

The dB's have never really gone away for me either, but I just picked up the Stands for Decibels/Repercussion combined disc from the library so I could put it on the computer/iPod. What great goddamn songs!

Also, I got Document from the library as well, and I still think it kinda sucks. Somewhat different from my revisiting of Lifes Rich Pageant, the songs I like now are the same ones I liked in 1987, and the rest of it just doesn't do anything for me.

By the way, my "rediscovery" of the Verlaines has morphed into full-on obsession. I've since purchased Way Out Where and, since Flying Nun has apparently reissued a bunch of their old records and Waterloo has decided to carry them at non-import prices, Juvenilia, Hallelujah All the Way Home, Bird Dog and Some Disenchanted Evening.

Why I didn't appreciate this band the first time around is beyond me. They're effin brilliant.

Michael, nice to hear people are still discovering the beauty of the Verlaines. I was completely obsessed with them in the mid-90s, concurrent with my obsession with the Go-Betweens and Blue Aeroplanes (I have to smile at what a romantic I was back then). Sounds like you've pretty much got the catalog at your fingertips now. One you probably won't find is Over The Moon from 1997. It's been one of my most sought after discs of the past decade, and despite it being put out by Sony (Aus) I'm convinced they pressed whatever the bare minimum was at that time. It'd be easier to forget about if the album sucked, but it's nearly as good as Way Out Where (it's similar in approach, but lacks the L.A. professionalism. Could be a good thing, depending on what you think of WOW's sound). Mp3s can be found on the net.

As an aside, I thought I'd found a copy of Over The Moon last night, but it turned out to be a cached web page. Look at that price!
[www.newzealandcds.com]

Graeme's solo disc is one I never warmed to. It just seemed to lack the spark of his best work, and I can't recall a single song from it. I should dig it out and see how it strikes me now. Potboiler seemed impenetrable upon first listen(I wanted the wide-screen romanticism of the 90s albums, and I didn't hear anything approaching that), but I have to admit I've never really given it much time. I've found Corporate Moronic to be much more inviting. I keep returning to it, and it reveals more each time. As the title suggests, Graeme is thinking more topically these days. "Paratai Drive" is one of the most scathing songs about the monied elite I've ever heard. It and a handful of other songs make it a worthwhile purchase. Check it out if you get a chance.

On a similar note, I was perusing that newzealandcds site and noticed that not only has The Bats' Daddy's Highway been reissued, but so has Compiletely! I finally got DH a few years ago, but I've never even laid eyes on a copy of the latter. I recall it was considered essential by TP back in the day.

u2-boy

I have Graeme's solo record on the way, actually. It was pretty cheap on the Amazon marketplace so I took the plunge.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out about the existence of Potboiler and Corporate Moronic. They're import-only, of course, but not terribly expensive - I'll shell out the bucks for them one day. They're quite reasonably priced on the New Zealand website.

Over the Moon is, I fear, going to be one of those lifelong quest things.

And speaking of New Zealand bands, I've also fallen hard for a band called the Subliminals. It's oversimplifying, but calling them NZ's answer to Wire and Gang of Four ain't far off the mark.

I have a habit of putting Galaxie 500 trax on the end of discs as filler. I don't know if that means I like them in small doses, cuz I do like them. They were great live, I recall. Anyhoo, don't overlook Luna, who were as good if not better, and whose last several albums are super-overlooked and worthy of a TP update. After reading Wareham's book (I still sting over one or two passages) I revisited the whole lot.

Quote

I was the only adolescent I knew with any Siouxsie & the Banshees.

Their stuff was import-only in the US so they were totally unknown. We heard all the bands that copied them (remember all those bands that sounded exactly like Sioux?), instead. It was much later that the style suddenly sounded great to me. It's freaking unique as hell in retrospect but an acquired taste perhaps. That said, of Mk 1 I rec the following, in order:

JuJu (w/Spellbound & Arabian Nights singles; McGeoch!)
Scream (w/Hong Kong single)
Kaleidoscope (w/ Happy House, Christine, Israel)
Kiss in the Dreamhouse (if you make it this far; it's very dense and inapproachable)

Mk 2:
Through the Looking Glass (yes, these are brilliant treatments)
Peepshow
Rapture (their ultimate statement is some ways)
Tinderbox (uneven with some top trax)

skip:
Hyaena (ruined by Robert Smith?)
Superstition (record label wanted US hits; awful)

reminder: the forum software can't parse the pound sign. you have to use a redirecter such as TinyURL.com



Post Edited (02-07-11 22:20)

Bowie-pinups

a garage/glam classic.

Split Enz

Not that they ever "went away" for me, but I suppose I'm going through a bit of a revival of enjoying their music. The Dizrythmia - Frenzy period is especially rich, and I'm really digging the stuff they created during that time.

The 3Ds Helzapoppin's a really great album. I think it came out just as the Flying Nun who-ha was starting to taper off a little.

I've been exploring the Flying Nun catalog since the Verlaines got my pulse racing, so I'll have to give the 3Ds a shot as well.

word on the helzzapoppin'; their best imo
but the best single was the 7" mix of Beautiful Things c/w Summer Stone

Used to really love Flying Nun but only about 5 still make my annual playlist

The album Funeral Dress by Wussy is my latest rediscovery. One of the singers is the former lead singer of the Ass Ponys. The other singer is a woman with an incredible powerful voice. I heard this when it came out and it left no impression. The Dean reported this as one of the best rock records of the 2000's, so I went back and revisited it. It is spectacular.

Fun video of Wussy playing in an RV. Damn, I love pop music.

Sounds good ... but I can hardly think of a band name I'd less rather claim than Wussy.

I can think of a worse one. How about Ass Ponys? (sp)

How about the Pee Wee Fist? (No, I didn't make that up.)