Guess Who Just Got Back Today? -- Thin Lizzy

Around high school and college, I had a habit of trying to avoid limiting myself to singles and familiar tracks from any given artist as a means of making sure I didn't unintentionally and unknowingly find myself without some lesser-known but glorious music. It also helped to know where to start with artists who never really had a "Greatest Hits" due to their relative new-ness or because it simply hadn't happened in any reasonably available fashion. Of course, the fact that albums are some of the more commonly discussed in circles surrounding music history encouraged this as well, nevermind the affinity shown by musicians toward making "albums" as a cohesive unit of music starting sometime in the late 1960's, which is the beginning of when I find most music interesting.¹

As a result, I spent a lot of time in those days with complete (though simple) discographies from artists who caught my ear, thinking it would be rather peculiar for anyone to write a number of songs that I liked and only that handful--or, really, even a single song. I suppose the logic ran that if the band or artist was still known and discussed ten, twenty, thirty years on, there must have been enough of value in all their work to maintain a fanbase after their initial charms might have worn off. I've mentioned that XTC pushed me to eventually pursue more complete (sometimes excessively so) discographies, but that came from pushing through album after album, getting scattered first by things like well-regarded EPs from modern artists.

Still, for quite some time, many artists from the 1970s and 1980s in particular were available primarily only via their album-styled works or greatest hits compilations, rarities being not-oft discussed, let alone easily found. Heck, I didn't realize how often bands would even bother with them in the major label, popular-mainstream of things until stumbling into things like The Cars' Just What I Needed anthology, or The Police's Message in a Box set (which actually isn't a box, for the record).

One of the bands I picked up in those days, alongside less traditional (though possibly more loved) artists like Tom Waits--leading, incidentally, to my fascination with his lesser-regarded earlier works--was Thin Lizzy. Of course, most people think of them from that 1976 smash hit (assuming they even know what band was behind it) "The Boys Are Back in Town," and I was not much of an exception. Now, to spare you just a bit, let's drop that song in, to give those unfamiliar a simple hook to start from, via that very song:

But I Don't Need to Argue Anymore -- Sound Team

I often attempt to wrangle others into the concerts I attend² but find myself rarely successful. It could easily be chalked up to the volume of my friends who identify themselves as flakes (who happen to comprise the most music-oriented and local of my friends, albeit only coincidentally), but it helps nothing--nor, I'm sure, does it help readership of a scattershot blog like this--that my tastes are unpredictable, and I look at a wide range of shows when I'm in the mood to attend them. Six years ago in October, though, I casually suggested it to a friend (one of the "flakes," oddly) that she attend a show with me, which she agreed to as it apparently was the thing for her to do that day. We were going to see Sparta (remnant of At the Drive-In, and the show where they did this) and they had a pair of opening acts with them: Lola Ray (touring on the heels of their second album, Liars) and Sound Team, a fellow (to Sparta) Texas band (Austin, not El Paso, though) who had just released their first officially recognizable and available full length, Movie Monster.

Lola Ray appealed to me via their vocals more than anything else, coming from John Balicanta. But Sound Team pulled out this furious, hypnotic drum-heavy song in the middle of their set that was instantly engaging, where the rest (like a lot of live shows where I don't know songs) sort of blurred a bit. That song was called "Shattered Glass":

No, no I don't know why it was coupled to an image of Steve Martin ironing a kitten.

Stand Up, Listen, I'll Show You Where We Went Wrong -- What's Wrong with Music Communities

I was going to write about what I personally think of as a 70's hard rock revival that has been happening off-and-on for the last fifteen years or so, and some bands from this area I love, but I'll have to save it. Halfway through my little bouts of research, background and source-gathering, I found something obnoxious while trying to consolidate opinions on what genre other people consider the aforementioned bands. One band in particular--The Parlor Mob--stood out when I saw the (only) genre listed, and I'm going to give you a sample of two of their songs from their first album which led to this ideology, and I want you to at least sample a bit of each before I get this thing rolling:

"Hard Times"

"Can't Keep No Good Boy Down"

 Wikipedia generally serves as a solid repository for collected multi-genre listings, and this time led me to the notion of "hipster metal" which was eye-rolling enough as an alleged genre (did you listen to those two songs?)--but then it just led to the page on "stoner metal," which was a wildly inappropriate label for the band in question (see above). Trying to find out just what the hell "hipster metal" was led me to a bunch of stupid crap back and forth about "hipster metal" and "real metal," which tended to emphasize my desire to stay away from the youthful elements of the metal scene, or whatever led to this. Apparently, this is to describe Mastodon, Boris, The Sword and various others (possibly Converge?).

I'm Trying to Free Up Them Wings, Trying to Bear Some Teeth -- Doomtree

In case you ignore the titles, I normally leave their origins something you have to look up. However, this time, the lyrics are from a set of those I'm often found quoting, even if just in silly places like Facebook statuses, and I'm going to repeat them:

I'm trying to free up them wings
Trying to bear some teeth
Insignificance ain't no signature I'm trying to leave

Part of the reason for emphasizing them is that they appealed to me on a visceral, happy level--they reference "wings and teeth," the logo seen above for this group of people from the Minneapolis, Minnesota. They're found in the collaborative work "Traveling Dunk Tank," from the False Hopes collected album released in 2007. It's the 12th False Hopes, actually, the name of a series of releases they began when they started, functioning as internal or demo releases, interspersed between "full" or "official" releases. That said, I listened to "Knives on Fire," the second track from False Hopes [XII] (as it's labeled in my digital collection) over and over and over and over and over before the album was released for those of us who ordered it.

Doomtree and I are oddly entwined, albeit from a distance in many senses.

I Ain't Tellin' You a Secret, I Ain't Tellin' You No Lie -- Dinosaur Jr

I often collect music in huge groupings, often managing to catch names and groups that I've seen, read, or had recommended all at once, then find myself having difficulty keeping enough track to explicitly explore any that do not immediately have some effect on me. This is the primary reason I set up a poll on the right side of the page to help me pare down my listening and focus it a bit. It was mostly successful, though the runaway nature of my post about The Church (after both the Church's official Facebook and Steve Kilbey himself--calling it "worth reading" [!]--shared it through Facebook, it has had nearly 500 views, which is about...33x the usual views I have) caught me in an interesting problem, as former leaders, 70's pop-glam-stomp-rockers Slade were suddenly over-taken by alternative guitar-driven power trio Dinosaur Jr. Of course, the Big Star official page had also given me another couple hits, so maybe it was them? I can't be sure, of course, though I only wonder out of curiosity. I'd believe either of them.

Anyway, I'd been learning what I knew of Slade's Slayed? and Nobody's Fools when all this happened and I had to shift gears. Luckily, the alternating leads--in the poll, not guitar leads--meant I'd already been dropping in little tastes of Dinosaur Jr the whole time, but it seemed Slade were in the lead for sure and now I was just all goofed up.

However, as agreed, I'm going to write about the final winner: Dinosaur Jr. The name, like many, passed my eyes many times over the years--mentions as opening act or headliner for whom another band opened, an influence, a love, an example, but never enough to give me even a hint of what they sounded like. When I saw the cover art for the last Dinosaur Jr album, Farm from 2009, as well as lead guitarist and overall lead vocalist J. Mascis, 2011's Several Shades of Why, I got the impression of laidback, pothead, jam band type stuff. Of course, this is likely hysterical to anyone who knows the band or Mascis--at least, parts of it--or may reflect elements of the band or his solo work (or side projects) I'm unfamiliar with and be amusingly accurate, but having heard Dinosaur Jr for myself, well, I was ridiculously incorrect. Mind you, as a young child I confused U2 and REM (for which I was thoroughly admonished and mocked--though I later discovered they were commonly grouped together in some ways, at least in the 80s, even if not commonly confused, and felt a bit vindicated) and have trouble with confusing various indie bands I only know by name, often via strange trains of thought such as: Silversun Pickups -> Silver Apples -> Apples in Stereo, meaning I could conflate all three and be utterly lost.

Record Store Day

Barry Andrews - "Rossmore Road"
Bronski Beat - Age of Consent
Kate Bush - The Kick Inside [US Release]
Cursive - Burst and Bloom*
Dr. John - Locked Down
Patterson Hood and the Downtown 13 - "After It's Gone"*
Hüsker Dü - Candy Apple Grey
Hüsker Dü - Flip Your Wig
Iron Maiden - Powerslave
Josef K - "Heaven Sent" 12" Single
Peter Koppes - Manchild & Myth
Luna - Rendezvous*
Magazine - Real Life
Magazine - "Rhythm of Cruelty"
Mclusky - Mclusky Do Dallas
Mission of Burma - Forget
New Order - Movement
Pere Ubu - The Modern Dance
Post Marked Stamps #5 "Project Mercury" - Aspera Ad Astra/Haelah
Public Image Limited - Album
Public Image Limited - First Issue
The Replacements - Tim
Leon Russell - Leon Russell

*RSD Exclusive/Release. I missed out on the Minus the Bear and Ryan Adams singles...

Do You Remember What the Music Meant to You? To Me? -- Pretty Girls Make Graves

Only once in a great while do I get in on the ground floor of an act. It's rare, because I wander in too many directions at once to focus long enough to expand completely on any direction. A new band in a genre, or from a label is a rarity for me, because I'm too stuck on each band or artist I start myself on. The exceptions generally come from two places: opening acts at live shows (I can happily note that I knew OK Go before their famous treadmill dance video, before they were even signed, for that matter) or when a band breaks up and I catch wind of what this or that member happens to be doing. There was no moment better for this than the early 2000's as I was leaving high school. My two new favourite bands, At the Drive-In and The Murder City Devils both broke up, and I was too much a neophyte to music in general to yet be overwhelmed, so when I heard about side projects, it actually connected and stuck. While At the Drive-In turned into The Mars Volta and Sparta, The Murder City Devils seemed to generally dissipate quite completely. Briefly, vocalist Spencer Moody, drummer Coady Willis, and guitarist Nate Manny formed a band named Dead Low Tide, releasing an EP, seeming pretty quiet and then breaking up, only then putting out their self-titled full-length.

A little more on the side, MCD bassist Derek Fudesco had reunited with Andrea Zollo (who you may remember did backing vocals for the Devils once or twice) to form Pretty Girls Make Graves, named for the Smiths song (in turned name for a Kerouac quote). Like Dead Low Tide--and thus mirroring the At the Drive-In descendants movements, EPs first--Pretty Girls released a self-titled EP of four songs in 2001. Following shortly thereafter was the debut full-length, Good Health, on April 9th, 2002. Apparently major indie label Matador took over the album's distribution sometime (from original label Lookout! Records) and dropped the EP on it, which is news to me and means my failure to ever collect the original EP in physical form might be rectified more simply.

This is where I really come into the story, which is silly considering this is my story (in a sense), but nevermind that. Once again, eMusic played a big role in this--Lookout! was one of the labels working with eMusic at the time (at one point I suggested the place to label Kranky, but they told me, in some of the nicest e-mails I ever got, that it simply wasn't financially viable, which made me want to buy more of their releases) and so I downloaded my legal copy of Good Health with a shrug one day in college and listened to it. Then immediately listened to it again. I was kind of in awe: normally I'm not one for immediate impressions (indeed, anyone who reads many entries will know this, and my recall that at the time I made brief mention of this album). At the Gates' Slaughter of the Soul, though I came to it during what I'm told was a glut of Swedish-styled melodic death metal, was another that I listened to again immediately as its hooks went in without hesitation.

Recommendations: I Hate You, Rob Crow; Karate by Kennedy; Glances at Björk and Unexpected Pumpkins Riffing

I'm still settling on format here, so bear with me. There's something a bit stilted about my usual approach--take a band, write something, that makes it more of an "event" to sit down and write it, which may not be the most appropriate approach to take to something like a blog. I'm still working this out, as its only been about a month, after all. I'll still take that approach toward whatever band ends up tops in my little poll (and possibly or even probably the rest of them there, eventually), but for now this less formal recollection seems it may be appropriate.

I've actually got a handful of recommended listens hanging around, which I normally just let pass by. Well, not exactly true, I've always listened to the recommendations people have given me. That is, the recommendations themselves. I'm often feeling so at a loss with the artists I've taken up on my own that taking time from "getting to know" Depeche Mode or Joy Division or New Order or The Church or Robyn Hitchcock seems wrong and makes me feel "behind," so the name ends up filed away for future reference.

Sometimes, of course, this leaves me in a place like yesterday, where, wandering around, I find Drive Like Jehu's Yank Crime, and can't figure out why the name is imprinted in my brain so strongly. As I'm at CD Alley, I go to ask who's working if they can tell me something. Luckily, it's Alison (I know her name now, as I decided to ask for the purposes of writing here!) and this is--or was, anyway--her area. She's always been enthusiastic about the post punk and post hardcore bands I ask about, which has been terribly helpful. Drive Like Jehu, she says, well, Yank Crime was one of her all time top albums once upon a time, and yes, it makes sense for me to associate them mentally with Jawbox. It's easy when my source of information is conveniently placed at the time one of these things comes back up, and, once in a great while, someone might (possibly) get a text from me while I'm out, asking for recollections on why I'd know a band's name. Usually Brian suffers this, alongside requests to do bits of research on bands we are both ignorant of. Bless his heart. He's like my portable internet, since I don't have a smartphone. Lots more personal, too--and able to summarize or collate data helpfully!

A More Casual Update on the State of Music and Me -- Gotye, Jeff Beck, and Poll Update

 I've written a bit on my feelings regarding immediate impressions of music, but it's not a perfectly strict rule. Now, that isn't to say that all, or even part, of what I wrote before is irrelevant. What I'm going to tell you now is, for one thing, likely not news to many people, or maybe some of it will be. That doesn't matter, as there are bits and pieces, at the least, that will be new to people. And newness isn't the point--were I to begin pursuing "unheard" music for dissemination I'd turn into the reality of John Peel (who I'm beginning to think is the soul I'd most like to aspire to be), rather than the reputation of the man. If you start pouring through comments on his actual show, or look at reviews of the box set of singles that his label, Dandelion Records (named for his hamster--true story), released, you'll find that some people feel there is an "ugly truth," in that for every Pink Floyd, Marc Bolan or David Bowie, there is Bridget St. John or Medicinehead. Some stuff apparently is pretty decent, and a lot is apparently considered forgettable pap.

Now, my own approach to things means I don't particularly care about that, and I'm actually kind of interested in that Dandelion material, mediocre or unimpressive though it might be, because it actually makes Peel even more interesting to me. Honesty and integrity of taste is one of the things I find most completely respectable, and it means that Peel saw something in those artists that no one else does. Not in the sense of a magic guru ahead of his times, but in the sense of a man who had tastes that weren't defined by what was cool, is cool, or would be cool--except to himself. He liked Sheena Easton and had no shame about it, he loved the Fall like there was no tomorrow, despite the rocky reputation their cluttered discography has when some parts are magnified.

So, rather than begin to pour in things you've never heard of and I've never heard of--the desire to hear things first is one I've long, long since abandoned--I want to simply emphasize the things I hear in the natural course of things. It can be random suggestions, names that prick up my ears, names I've read or heard a thousand times, or mistakes made from confusion of names that seem similar in my head. Sometimes covers lead me somewhere with no other clear origin. Sometimes an image comes up that attracts my eye. There's no telling, really.

Hello, It's Me (Again) -- Artists Cover Themselves

I thought of writing about this as I was listening to The Move's B-side to "California Man," "Do Ya." Of course, it became more familiar when it was a single five years later by Electric Light Orchestra. In and of itself, not a surprise. Plenty of covers, like remakes of movies, become far more famous than their original incarnations. Even those of us who know often forget there were two versions of The Maltese Falcon before Humphrey Bogart's, because the others just pass out of the public conscious, even when they might be preferred by many who see or hear them (which isn't the case there, barring some random dissenters, but the point remains).

The Move

 

Electric Light Orchestra