May 2004 Archives

Anybody want to make a record with me? Okay, here's the premise: we're siblings from a mid-western factory town circa 1967 with no formal training, but tons of heart. The music is sort of unimportant, as long as it's sort of pop, sort of psyche (without particular reference), and incredibly rudimentary. and the L.P. sleeve is KILLER. We then milk the "Songs in the Key of Z" and "lost masterpieces" markets for all they're worth before blowing the lid off the whole thing, as the Greatest Grift of All Time.

The previous paragraph wasn't as successful as I had hoped. What was I getting at here? Oh yeah, the curio fascination of the 90s/00s. Weird scene. And I, seemingly more susceptible than most, get a little embarrassed jumping on the re-issue train every so often. Your Shaggs and your Langley Schools and your Michael Yonkers' and your New Creations and your Free Designs. Vanity projects resurrected for the kitsch contingent as the Most Important Record This Week. But they are, aren't they?

Anyway, before this gets anymore convoluted: Margo Guryan was the benefactor of similar circumstances, when in the late nighties a Japanese company released a bootleg of her single forgotten commercial recording, 1968's mind-blowing Take a Picture, and promptly sold several thousand copies. This prompted an official reissue in the year 2000 (with a few extra tracks), which further prompted Guryan's name to be dropped by millions of music snobs officially "in the know." Regardless of the particular game of telephone it took to see today's light, I feel blessed to be able to have it in my life.

Margo Guryan grew up in the suburbs of New York, where her interest in music took its initial shape. Unlike the majority of the "lost masterpiece" crowd, Guryan was an incredibly well-versed musician, studying classical and jazz piano from Grade School to College, where she studied with the likes of Ornette Coleman, Bill Evans, Max Roach, and Gunther Schuller. Sometime in the mid-sixties, so the story goes, Guryan's friend and fellow Jazz musician Dave Frishberg played her his copy of the Beach Boys' "God Only Knows", altering her path completely.

Composing a handful of original pop songs, Guryan was awarded a record contract in 1968, which produced her lone solo album, the aforementioned Take A Picture. Rich with her disparate musical knowledge, Take A Picture reinvisions the feather-weight chanteuse image of the sixties with an hulking undercurrent of jazz rhythm and melancholy delivery. It's incredibly realized for a debut, each song a mini-masterpiece of lilting pop structure and performance. Despite positive reviews, Guryan's crippling stage fright (she once sacrificed a piano degree when she learned she would have to perform for the senior recital) left the album unpromoted, and relatively forgotten. She continued to write for other artists (including Dion, Harry Nilsson, Jackie DeShannon, Glen Campbell, the Lennon Sisters, and Mama Cass) through the '70s, eventually becoming a music teacher.

Thanks are due to the reissue/repackage revisionists, who allow us to revisit the forgotten autumn 1968, when, for a brief instant, Margo Guryan was the Greatest Band of All Time.

It is another special Sunday here at The Greatest Band Of All Time, and we are pleased to have with us guest writer, John Afryl.
It was the summer of 1992 when I first heard the band Lush. August 28 at Lollapalooza to be exact, and their opening slot didn't help them gather much of my attention. Too concerned with finding my friends somewhere in the huge crowd wilting in anticipation for Pearl Jam, I lost the beautiful harmonies and layers of guitar in the sticky St. Paul, MN air. If not for the simple circle logo found on the bottom of my souvenir t-shirt, I might have forgotten they were on the stage all together.

Three years and a new college-radio music library later I finally figured out what I had missed. Lush built their fan base as people grew to appreciate the beautifully textured, duel female songwriter force they introduced to the shoegazer scene of the early 90s. Led by Miki Berenyi and Emma Anderson, they traded-off songwriter duties and never missed an opportunity to bring some much-needed energetic gender equality to the "sad guys with guitars" landscape. Sure, My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive had talented women in their midst, but Lush WERE the ladies, and they could bring both the brash and the beauty.

Landing a deal with legendary 4AD insured them of notoriety, and they didn't disappoint, turning out quality EPs before finally releasing a proper full-length, 1992's Spooky. Two years later came my personal favorite Lush album, 1994's Split, which contains what I consider to be the most captivating opening track ever, "Light From a Dead Star." The atmospheric opening sounds give way to the cold assessment of a womanizer--a topic Lush also covered with particular aplomb on their next (and last) full-length, 1996's Lovelife with the opening track, "Ladykillers," which was an alt. radio hit(interesting note--this song was apparently inspired by Matt Sharp of Weezer and The Rentals fame). A lot of people were disappointed with the more pop-driven direction the band had moved towards, but I found it to be a natural progression of a sound they had been developing for over 8 years.

It wasn't until the spring of 1996 that I once again saw Lush play a show...this time in the much friendlier confines of Minneapolis' First Ave. However, a hastily arranged 2-hour car ride and an early-evening start time intervened and made sure that I only caught about 4 songs in their set. Oh well, I figured third time could be the charm, right? Unfortunately, lifelong drummer Chris Acland, (apparently distraught over a bad break-up) hung himself that year, bringing the group to a premature conclusion and ending all hope I had of experiencing live what I had come to love over an all-too-brief period. For an ethereal moment, Lush were The Greatest Band of All Time.
by JJA

The prince of west coast gangster rap is the best way to describe DJ Quik, I think. He just seems very princely, not in a very regal and dapper way (even though he can look good from time to time) but more in the George W. Bush pre presidency way, like cute and a little goofy and you can't believe he will one day be the king. He's not quite as tight of a producer as Dr. Dre, not as cool with his flow as Snoop, not as intimadating as an Xzibit, not as enigmatic and funny as Eazy E, not as tight as Kurupt, but he's almost all those things and that all makes for one really solid rapper/producer.

I'm starting to see a trend in my rap likes. I like someone who can be serious and tough but can also make fun of themselves and the whole tough-guy thing. DJ Quik comes off much more rounded and human on his albums and photos and interviews than many other rappers, and this is likable. This is not to say that Quik is the most charming chap, because there are still mounds of misogyny on Quik's records, but there are always a few tracks that make you just smile and think "this dude is a nice dude." Of course all good rappers have some sort of beef in their career and Quik had a classic one with MC Eiht, though Quik never focused too much on the gangster killing stuff, he was much more of a gangster partying sorta dudes (his best songs being party jams). He was always loyal to a few people, (AMG, Mauseberg, and Debarge) who he seemed to either be really close with or think they were really talented, and that always put them on his records giving them exposure. Bottom line = DJ Quik solid dude (except for that weird thing with beating up his sister)

Quik hit it big with his single "Tonite" and album Quik Is The Name in 1991. He came across as a more legit Eazy E. He's a skinny dude and he had the curls and he has a voice that is somehwat similar to Eazy, but his rapping was like his name implied quick (the c was omitted from his name because he was a blood and he didn't want to rep the crips by using the letter c). His first two albums sold the most of any in his career and with each album he drew more ire from fans and critics for not expanding his west coast gangster funk that always featured laid back beats, and syrupy keyboards. The knocks were that he was not growing as an artist and he wasn't changing with the industry fads. I wholeheatedly disagree because I thought he grew quite a bit as a lyricist and I found his committment to the west coast funk to be "cute" and "loyal". His albums that are most ripped (98's Rhythm-al-ism and 00's Balance & Options) I find to be his most solid and with some of his finest moments. He got dumped by his label but came back in late 02 with Under Tha Influence which did not sell well, but got a lot of his cred back for it's more varied and current sound. Now, focusing mostly on producing hits for other artists (like the great "Addictive" for Truth Hurts, "Buckbounce" for Eightball & MJG and "Justify My Thug" for Jay Z), I think DJ Quik is mostly retired from rapping, but the cute dude with the afro (nee gheri curl, nee corn rolls) will always be remembered as The Greatest Band Of All Time.

San Diego, Oh, San Diego, you of such a vibrant scene in the early 90s with your Three Mile Pilots and your Drive Like Jehus and your Crash Worships and your Heavy Vegetables and your Gogogo Airhearts. You of your powerful rock'n'roll. Oh, San Diego, with your fluf and your Rocket From The Crypt and your varied alternative goodness. Oh, San Diego, you with your Jewel and Pinback and Black Heart Procession and Blink 182 that later escaped from your warm and sandy clutches. Rock the Casbah, right?? One band that escaped the warm, sandy clutches of San Diego was Truman's Water, but they didn't escape to fame and recognition, they escaped to Portland, OR and to obscurity.

When I first saw Truman's Water at the infamous Jabberjaw in LA in 1994 it was maybe the first time I realized that I could like or that I did like music that would clearly not be enjoyed by the masses. They were wild. The music didn't seem to make much sense, the instruments didn't really seem to be in tune, the tempo changed wildly, the members jumped higher than I thought possible. They were inspired by very early Pavement, but that's not really right, maybe more like a Polvo or a God Is My Co-Pilot, but only parts of those bands. Truman's Water become somewhat of an indie darlin in 93 and 94 when John Peel started pumping them over in the UK and Sonic Youth started saying how awesome they were. The indie spotlight faded and they were snatched up by a major label. They put out maybe a dozen albums between 92 and 98 with the majority of them being somewhat hard to find (cassette only or tiny labels). They hit their pinnacle on their 93 album Spasm Smash XXXOXOX Ox and Ass. After Spasm Smash they leaned more towards instrumental improvisation. They band lost it's singer Glen Galloway in 94/95 (he has later returned periodically for albums and tours) when he became a christian and formed the idiosyncratic christian lo-fi band, Soul-Junk. Soul-Junk has been putting out records since then and has slowly become probably the only lo-fi christian hip hop group ever. Truman's Water moved as a band shortly after Glen left the band to Portland. They have slowed down but still put out albums and it seems like they tour Europe (where all good instrumental improv spazz bands thrive) once a year. Truman's Water will always be remembered for always being an unrelenting and never comprising band and for their impressive diffuculty and obscurity they deserves the title The Greatest Band Of All Time.

Alright, so I suppose that it was sort of inevitable, as their's is the only band that seems to merit a special source folder in my iTunes library but honestly, I didn't want to do this. I didn't want to waste everyone's time waxing and waning poetic. I didn't want to argue something about which you have undoubtedly already come to a staunch conclusion. I didn't want to test your patience.

But I don't know if I can stop it now.

I've just returned from a John Darnielle performance in support of his latest record, We Shall All Be Healed, an autobiographical record (reportedly his first) about his troubled, tweaker-riddened times here in Portland, and am once again enraptured by the cult of the Mountain Goats. A packed house, frantically calling out a laundry list of cities to "Go To" each more obscure than the last, Darnielle ever gracious in the overwhelming outpour. Tonight we live and die by his spiteful tongue. Tonight we live and die.

Since 1991, John Darnielle has released six cassettes, 17 E.P.s and full-lengths (including the never released Hail and Farewell, Gothenburg), 10 seven-inches, and literally dozens of compilation appearances--amounting to some 400 plus known songs attributed to the Mountain Goats moniker. Or, to be more accurate, the same one song about 400 different times.

Perhaps the most polarizing voice in the independent music community, the Mountain Goats have spent the bulk of their career (with exception of their last two records for 4AD) being committed to low-quality cassette tape through the faulty condenser mic of a one track boombox; its subsequent product of predictably terrible fidelity. and that's only the first hurdle. Darnielle's voice is a nasal, treble-heavy whine, a relentless assault of amelodic verbiage over a franticly strummed three chord refrain, needless to say, it's sort of unapproachable. But with a little patience, Darnielle's narratives become oppressively rewarding.

There is no other songwriter in the world today who so gorgeously encapsulates the heartening bile of love's resentment. The Mountain Goats traverse the territory with such blissfully literate affection that it's difficult to see why anyone would want to escape its dark cloud. The largely fictional narratives fall into a number of prolific volumes, the most notable of which being the escapist "Going to" stories (comprised of some 43 songs to date, including "Going to Bristol," "...Georgia," "...Malibu," etc.), and the songs of the tragic "Alpha" couple, whose story comprises the whole of the recent Tallahassee record. Literate and passionate, Darnielle is one of those songwriters who may have better served the world as a novelist, but who exploits the song form in a way that shames the majority of his contemporaries.

let's wrap this up.

Personal passion aside, the Mountain Goats are, if for sheer volume alone, the Greatest Band of All Time.

If there is one thing about music writing that you can count on universally—and this is speaking from a good deal of experience with this matter—its that music journalists are, on the whole, a fundamentally lazy lot. I'm the last person to fault them for it, as even in my brief time as a paid music writer, I became uniformally bored and disaffected by the inner workings of nearly all matters musical. And with week after week of sub-mediocre CDs piling up on your desk, publicists hounding you, and nearly everyone loathing you simply on the principal of your opinion—anyones birthright—it becomes easier to simply rewrite press releases with bad analogies and (less-than-)clever devices, replicating the names of influences the P.R. firm has chosen to bold in the little piece of paper folded up with your promo.

Which is the only thing that seems to explain nearly everything ever written about Life Without Buildings, a short-lived art school four-piece from Glasgow. Its so weird—so many reviews and articles that Ive read about the band (a number which, admittedly, is pretty limited) have said EXACTLY the same thing about them, and none of it really makes any sense to me. I suppose its a lot easier to just lump the band in with the recent brand of Post Punk revival—compare them to Television, Public Image Ltd., ESG, Gang of Four, etc.than to actually listen to the record, but I hardly hear an ounce of any of those bands in LWB. Post-Punk revivalists they might be, but its a different school altogetherspecifically, (as All Music Guide [I know, and Im sorry] so eloquently puts it) Rough Trades class of 1979. Frontwoman Sue Tompkins is Mark E. Smiths lilting, rhododendron-soft antonym—hiccupping and sputtering in maddening repetition above a darting, jangly soundtrack that owes as much to the American Underground of the 80s as it does to the deified Brits.

Life Without Buildings formed out of the Glasgow School of Art in 1999, and were gone by September of 2002. In that time they released four singles and an LP, 2001s phenomenal Any Other City, and if Im not mistaken, never set foot in the states. One of the most promising debuts of the last few years, the bands break honestly effected me in way I sort of forgot such things couldpretty good for another one of those PiL rip-offs. You will be missed, Greatest Band of All Time.

The Greatest Band Of All Time hereby declares we are going to a 7 day a week schedule starting today with Sundays featuring guest writers. To kick us off is Elton Jared Hughes. (We apologize for the down time over the last 24 hours)

When I was a freshman at College I spent most my days watching free movies and checking out free music from the Media Library. To my surprise the music selection was vast and daunting. I decided to cover American music starting with early Folk Blues and Country recordings. I got a hold of the famed Harry Smith Anthologies and some of the music was good, others just dated and scratchy and some just down right funny. They were starting to sound all the same and I was getting tired of it, which is until I heard the Carter Family. Comprised of a shy gospel quartet member called Alvin P. Carter and two reserved country girls -- his wife Sara and their sister-in-law Maybelle -- the Carter Family sang a pure, simple harmony that influenced not only the numerous other family groups of the '30s and the '40s, but folk, and rock musicians like Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan , Emmylou Harris, and Will Oldham to mention just a few. The Carter Family's instrumental backup, like their vocals, was unique, often trading off melodies and harmonies and always singing together. The original Family consisted of Mother Maybelle Carter, who played guitar and sang harmony; Sara Dougherty who played autoharp and sang alto lead; and Sara's husband, Alvin Pleasant (A.P.) Carter who played fiddle and sang bass and occasionally the piano.
The Carter Family made their first recordings on the Victor label in 1927, in Bristol, Tennessee. During the next 17 years they recorded some 300 old-time ballads, traditional tunes, country songs, and Gospel hymns, all representatives of America's southern folklore and heritage. They operated out of their homes in the Clinch Mountain area of Virginia until 1938. The next few years they toured Texas and the various southern neighbors until they disbanded in 1943. Maybelle Carter, who has been called the "Queen of Country Music," continued the tradition and her career with her three daughters, Anita, Helen, and June who is married to Johnny Cash. Enough of their recordings remained in the vaults to keep the group current through the '40s. Their influence was evident through further generations of musicians, in all forms of popular music, until the end of the century. Thus giving them a deserving title of THE GREATEST BAND OF ALL TIME. by EJH

Officially my favorite Portland band in the year 2001, the only year they existed (publicly), Pan Tourismos is quite an enigma. They seemed to be developing a really solid following of friends and fans at their very energetic live shows, but then it seemed as if they just dissapeared. What's the big deal, right? This happens every year in every town, right? It's just that these dudes were so good. I have consistently listened to their CD all this time (I know 3 years doesn't seem that impressive, but it really is). Brandon Clemmens (guitar/singer/songwriter) is easily one of my favorite guitar players of all time playing line after line of intricate guitar melodies that work so well with his sing/talk/rap style of delivering vocals. Clemmens' lyrics were filled with so much youthfulness but a very thoughtful youthfulness, not immature, but exuberant. The bass and drum duties were performed by brothers Demetri and George Kassapakis and like all good legends they were so tight it seemed like their DNA held them together. Somehow this all combined to make punk music that was always changing, always interesting, and always exciting. Informed by The Minutemen and Bruce Springsteen, Pan Tourismos also seemed to have a little bit of jam band in them, maybe it was just how good they were at their instruments or maybe it seemed like their parts could (but never did) jaunt off to wankery. An amazing band to watch play live, all three members seemed to be smiling their way through the entire set.

Taxing the internet's deepest resources I found out that 2 of Pan Tourismos' 3 went on to perform as the Psychological Thrillers in 2002, and that Brandon Clemmens also made some recordings under the name The Inconvincible, but nothing since 2002. And then, I met the main dude, Brandon, at this house party where my friend was playing a month or so ago. I told him how much I liked his band and inquired as to if he was still making music. He didn't have much to say about making music, but took kindly to some compliments. It turns out that amazing bassist Demetri is playing now in this great little band John Weatherproof adding his bass virtuoso to some awesome simple pop songs from two cool dudes named Brian. And then, while doing a little research for this little piece I ran across this(check out the May 26th). Could it be true?? Could The Greatest Band Of All Time really be returning? I will find out Wednesday. Here's to hoping.

In 1979, a New York-based saxophonist named James Sigfried released two records on the Ze record label under two different personas--disposing of his surname and supplanting it once with "Chance," and again with "White." One of these records would go on to be touted through much of the punk/noise underground of the 'oughts (see: erase errata, ex models, numbers, die monitor bats, ad infinitum), with the other seemingly better left forgotten.

A seminal figure in the original "No Wave" scene (which fused punk with avant-and free- jazz, and noise), James Chance was a founding member of two of New York's premiere art bands of the late '70s: Lydia Lunch's Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, and the Contortions. It was with the latter band that Chance released Buy, a record that (along with the No New York compilation) came to define the short-lived movement. Mixing disco-based rhythms with the discordance of free jazz and the aggression and confrontational presence of punk, the album would go on to be a hugely influential, and (along with Public Image Limited's Metal Box record) can be blamed for a great many of the "dance punk" bands currently flooding the underground. Especially the ones with saxophonists.

The same year that Buy was released however, Chance (and most of his Contortions) reconvened to record under a different pretense altogether: the Contortions were to become a soul band. Changing his name to James White (in reference to the other soul James), the band became James White and the Blacks, a sort of soul "parody" that meshed funk, free-jazz and soul posturing all within the envelope of crystal-clean disco production. Off White is a clever, frustrating, and hilarious listen--a post-modern experiment whose commitment feels a lot more earnest than their cover of Irving Berlin's "(Tropical) Heatwave" might suggest.

Though the Contortions' legacy has never really disappeared over the years, the recent No Wave resurgence has spawned a new-found interest in the rest of the Chance/White discography, as witnessed in the recent Tiger Style retrospective Irresistible Impulse, which thankfully repackages the bulk of his post-Contortions work (including two James White solo albums I am still totally unfamiliar with). Though the Contortions' output is arguably the best of Chance/White's career, the James White and the Blacks record is in itself not without a great deal of merit.

Besides, any No Wave band with enough foresight to cover Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" THE YEAR THAT IT WAS RELEASED has got to be the Greatest Band Of All Time.

The first rap group* to come out with an album entirely produced by super producers The Neptunes was a gift and a curse for Clipse. Their sorta debut**, Lord Willin', came out during the peak of The Neptunes radio dominance (summer 2002) and because of this there was a lot of Neptunes backlash as well. So, it was like people had already made up their mind about Clipse and Lord Willin' before hearing it ('Tunes haters hated, 'Tunes heads were in...HATERS AND HEADS). Due to this, Lord Willin is one of the more slept on rap albums in recent years. Yes, it has terriffic production but it is also features Malice and Pusha T, two of the cutest funniest rappers around. I recently heard Ed Lover (yes, from Yo! MTV Raps) on the radio dissing Clipse for having no personality, and it made me so steamed. I was seriously yelling at the radio, calling Ed Lover a "big dork" and killer comebacks like "why don't.....YOU....like....get....a...personality," and the now classic "Ed Lover....more like Ed Hater." Mr. Lover was bringing the hater heat to a bunch of other dudes as well and that didn't bother me. For some reason these two brothers from Virginia have tunneled their way into my heart. It's sorta weird they don't stand way out like so many other rappers. They don't have the most distinctive personalities like Nelly, or Ludacris. They don't have the razor sharpness of Dizzee Rascal or Twista. They don't speak beauty and truth like Nas or Kanye. They almost exclusively rap about selling cocaine, which doesn't seem very interesting. Yet, there is something lovable about these brothers. They call themselves "Patty Cake Man," they say funny words, and they were trying since 1994 (presumably this 8 year period of trying to make it is when they learned all they now know about selling cocaine) to become famous before finally hitting it big. Their voices are somehow identical, even though the brothers are not twins, and that is really cute. They have this new song i just found called "Eghck," which is this sound, and how cute is that! On the imaginatively titled "Intro" on Lord Willin' one of the dudes is very cutely describing himself as a young man watching Miami Vice! CUTEST DUDES EVER. Me + Malice + Pusha T = TRU LOVE.
No, but seriously, Lord Willin', is totally a thick album all the way through. Everyone probably knows their big hit singles "Grindin'," "When The Last Time," and "Ma, I Don't Love Her," but the album is great all the way through. From the calypso awesomeness of "I'm Not You," to the funk horn laden "Young Boy" you get to know these cute dark drug dudes. Their follow up album, Hell Hath No Fury is coming out soon, after some delays due to a label shakeup in The Neptunes camp, and it is once again completely produced by The Neptunes, which is likely to garner some criticism that Clipse are not versatile rappers and they are really painting themselves into a corner, but it's more like a this is the perfect situation for artist/producer thing sorta like a Mirah/Phil Elverum. So, yeah, haters, lay off my awesome friends who are cute and sell drugs, because they are The Greatest Band Of All Time.

* Kelis previously released an album of only Neptunes production, but she's more a R&B lady than a rap group, you know.
** Clipse recorded an album with the Neptunes that was to be released in 98 (I believe) called Exclusive Audio Footage, but that was shelved by their label. A single, "The Funeral" was released in 98.

The critical revisionist history of Weezer isn't really limited to that Pinkerton recordand while I'm not really one for musical martyrdom, it's only in recent years that the subject of my affection for Weezer and their assorted side projects has been breached without slight embarrassment and hesitation outside of my immediate devote peer group. But along with the public deification of the "Old Weezer" (albums which came under such critical decent upon initial releaseRolling Stone "worst album of the year," etc.) upon the onslaught of crummy ol' new Weezer, comes by strange extension, a similar critical acclaim for Matt Sharp's Rentalsor at least for their debut, Return of the Rentals. A quick google on the record yields showers of praise, some relatively reputable sources crediting this weird one-off for the return of synthpop. Though upon its release I seem to recall a much less warm reception, I do appreciate that nearly everyone I know holds a universally warm spot in their hearts for Return, a simple, nostalgic pop record that still comforts nine years later.

I'm not saying you have to be an asshole not to like Return of the Rentals, but it would probably help.

But this leads us to the real point of contention between myself and seemingly everyone else on earth: that the Rentals brilliance didn't simply end with Return; that the trainwreck that is Seven More Minutes, the band's follow-up, is a worthyand occasionally superiorsophomore effort. It's something of a contrarian stance, as I will admit that Seven More Minutes is unforgivably indulgentthe result of listless globe hopping, hobnobbing, and obscene over-workingbut to a certain extent, it couldn't have been any other way.

Let me first address all of the record's immediate short-comings: Yes, Matt Sharp's vocal delivery does make him sound like an asshole. Yes, the album is diffused by its lack of sonic focus, especially after the genre-specific Return. Yes, the Britpop cameos (Blur's Damon Albarn, Elastica's Donna Matthews, Lush's Miki Berenyi and Ash's Tim Wheeler) do all feel tacked on. Yes, the early demos of these songs are in large part all superior. and yes, "Big Daddy C" is sort of unforgivable.

Granted.

But Let me also propose, with full awareness of how ridiculous this sounds, that Seven More Minutes is in fact a failed concept recorda record as much about indulgence as it is itself indulgent. It's clear, whether Sharp was aware of it or not, that his lackadaisical life styleall on Madonna's (Maverick) dime had taken a toll on his acumen, and is evidenced in the bulk of the album's lyrical content. Every song is essentially about being comfortably bored, with living a lifestyle of underachievement, and indulging in the simplest of urgeslike riding the snooze bar for just seven more minutes of sleep. Now whether this is a worthy topic for a concept record is up for debate, but it must be said that if you're gonna make a record about indulgence, you had better not make it sound like a streamlined Gary Numan album. You better make it sound stupid indulgent. MISSION: ACCOMPLISHED.

I suppose it's impossible to defend an album that I've already called "unforgivable" twice in the preceding paragraphs, but I do confess to actually preferring Seven to Return as an album. plus, this lady sings on it:

which, honestly, is enough to make any band the Greatest Band of All Time.

Sub Pop, the purveyors of all things grunge, were lambasted pretty heavily in 1995, for their percieved overnight and very awkward shift in music from said grunge rock to a much more diversified and pop based lineup. This shift was not so overnight as they had been putting out records by House of Pain , Stereolab, and Ween all along. It all came to a head in 1995 though with the release of full lengths from Velocity Girl, Combustible Edison, and Zumpano. It did seem like Sub Pop was trying very hard to do anything that wasn't grunge. I mean, Combustible Edison!?!? My teenage self was eating it up, thinking "All this stuff is weird. Weird stuff is cool." Sub Pop went some tough financial years that coincided with those musical focus shift and didn't fully recover till the turn of the millenium.

Zumpano is one of the most forgotten (Eric Matthews, anyone?) of any Sub Pop band as their entire career spanned two albums in only a year and a half. Zumpano, from Vancouver BC, was a power pop band heavily influenced by 60s pop. They wore these somewhat controversial influences (soft rock, jangle pop, the Zombies, Jimmy Webb) on their sleeves but were not derivitive. They had a hand on making these influences much more acceptable and even very popular in the years after they broke up. Zumpano songs are smart and catchy and complex pop with many parts and solid emotional context. Their debut CD Look What The Rookie Did was highly influential on me in opening up my eyes to pop music of the past and pop not having to be vapid verse/chorus/verse drivel and only sugary positive music. They are more well known for what their lead singer and songwriter, Carl Newman, went onto do as he is now the primary songwriter in The New Pornographers, and while I like The New Pornographers I think Newman's best work came in Zumpano, and it seems weird that this little awkward oft forgotten band would be The Greatest Band Of All Time but today they truly are.

I had always thought i lived in Seattle a lot longer than I did. Strange. It was less than a month after my twentieth birthday, and in those 15 or so days I had alienated most of my friends, packed all of my shit into the back of an acquaintance's VW bus (the humor of this image is not lost on me), and moved into an office-carpeted two bedroom apartment in the University District with a complete stranger. I had just finished my vanity tenure as an art department intern at Seattle's biggest record label-a position that earned me little more than a few (admittedly great) Mudhoney LPs and with no experience whatsoever, I set out to work for an independent record company.

This quest was, of course, essentially fruitless (sans a couple of tasks haphazardly handed to me from the city's floundering indies, all of which i relentlessly hounded), with the exception of one serendipitous meeting... one that would somehow serve as the unlikely catalyst for the next 3+ years of my life. After a month of badgering, I was "granted" a meeting over burritos with the owner of one particular label, whose business seemed to be thriving on the merits of his foresight in signing a wildly popular Christian band(editors note: Calling said band a Christian band is frowned upon by management) just before they hit. He asked me if I would be interested in laying out the LP version of his latest release, the first record by then hot-shit local band The Vogue. Pro bono. I, of course, jumped at the chance, having no idea what i was doing. He also invited me to his going away party, he was moving to New York, and unbenounced to me, about to fuck over all of the bands on his roster, at the home he had been staying for the past month, the Vogue house.

A little background: the Vogue were a five-piece of 18-20 year olds that had in about six months time become local celebrities, gracing the covers of two local alternative weeklies (and the tongues of most everyone else) on the merits of little more than a 7". Of the Pretty-Punk-Band-with-Synthesizers motif that had become so popular at the time, the Vogue were a bunch of kids from the privileged suburbs of Seattle who grew up in the "Redmond Firehouse" scene just across the lake from the big city (a scene that would later muster bands like Murder City Devils, Pretty Girls Make Graves, and the Blood Brothers). Growing up in a failed milltown-turned-failed-Navy town, the Vogue represented a sort of reality that seemed so foreign to me at the time: these kids had been in bands since middle school, these kids had toured the west coast, these kids played shows with all of my favorite bands, and, most notably, these kids had been releasing records in some form since high school (with then band Vade). As reasonable a reality as this might all seem to me now, at the time it was all sort of inconceivable.

I arrived at the party unbelievably early, and was greeted by the only person on the premises, a shaggy and brittle-boned skeleton with very prominent braces. I introduced myself, and though met with a little skepticism, was invited inside. Devin, who i had recognized from the one performance i had seen of the Vogue at that point (and who i knew to be a former Blood Brother), went immediately back into the kitchen where he prepared some vegan vegetable fair. We established a cordial rapport that progressed in the weeks that followed.

I saw the Vogue perform a handful of times before they officially broke, the first of many implosions that would greet Devin in the next few years of our friendship. Despite the dated sheen that unfortunately coats a lot of their recordings, the Vogue were good at what they did, with Devin's incredibly inventive playing and glaring discomfort with the presentation always at the forefront. The band lost a member--the timely keyboard--and soon became the (again, unfortunately monikered) Soiled Doves. Streamlined and yet less focused, the band was again mainly a showcase for Devin's presence, a ragged, scrawling tension. Soiled Doves lasted long enough for a single West Coast tour, recording a single for King of the Monsters and a full-length for GSL until their singer's obligations with his other band, the Blood Brothers, forced them to bail. GSL sat on the record for two years before releasing Soiled Life, waiting to cash in on the Blood Brothers' major label PR push. Shit-can number two.

At around this point, Devin, a man who I clearly admired, began discussing with me the possibility of co-curating a monthly arts and music showcase; something that at the time seemed completely out of my capacity. after a few months of discussion, we launched the Slender Means Society, a commitment that would come to mold much of what became my current place in life. Though Devin's presence began to dwindle as his commitments to music intensified, his initial support and vision made the series possible, and allowed me to gain the confidence in my capacity for creation.

Meanwhile, the remaining members of Soiled Doves--Adam Miller, Hannah Blillie (twin sister of Blood Brother Jordan), and Devin, reconvened with bassist Michelle Nolan to support Miller's then-side project, the Chromatics. Considerably more raw, a self-conscious reaction to their previously (self-)disappointing efforts, Chromatics were in no uncertain terms Adam's band... at least on the surface. For all of Adam's awkward Mark E. Smith-isms and desperately alienating stage persona, Chromatics once again relied for the most part (not to undermine Hannah's talents as a percussionist) on Devin's brilliance as a guitarist--spare, precise, and delicate. Chromatics' fate lay largely in the hands of a frontman's ego, however, and after a tour with the Gossip, a couple of singles, and a brilliantly inconsistent full-length (GSL's Chrome Rats Vs. Basement Ruts), Miller split briefly for Minnesota, and returned to Seattle with the decision that Chromatics would carry on without the other members. Shit-can #3.

After about of half-year of silently regrouping, the remaining members of Chromatics and friend Chris Pugmire debuted their new band; one that seemed much more in celebratory of their mutual strengths and convictions. The band is a chorus of intergendered vocals, erratic, extemporaneous distortions, and throbbing, urgent rhythm. To say that Shoplifting are a progression from their previous projects undermines the true artistic leap represented in their still unripened seed--it's as if the past has been soaked in acetone, melting away all of the pomp and artifice, leaving in its place a seething, pulsing open wound. In place of sonic comparisons, it's best to enter their fray in terms of ideology, as their urgency screams (and screams, and screams) the strains of Huggy Bear's politics of personal aesthetic. Though perhaps a little weighed down in performance by their particularly narrow agendas (rock not rape, dude), the band's careful potential seems to trump that of all of their previous efforts. Shoplifting has taken the past year very slowly, self-releasing a cassette, with plans for a Kill Rock Stars release in the near future. With Devin's dumb luck let's hope they can hold it together, word is they've already whittled down to a three-piece... bad sign, and have their chance to shine as The Greatest Band of All Time.

For better or worse, you've helped to make me what I am today, Devin. and I thank you for that.

To blatantly rip off the their intro to the bio on their record label's web page:
CAN*NI*BAL (noun): one that eats the flesh of its own kind
OX (noun): a slang term used to describe a sharp blade Cannibal Ox, a pair of MC's that devour their own kind with words as sharp as blades
Vast Aire and Vordul Megilah, who make up Cannibal Ox, are two guys of epic proportions, physically and in presence on record. Their debut, and only, album, 2001's The Cold Vein, is an awesomely distinct record, and one of the best rap albums of all time. The Cold Vein combines the perfect production from Def Jux's man in charge El-P and the distinct rapping of Vast Aire and Vordul Megilah. The production is the noisiest and as "minor" sounding as any rap album, which is so refreshing, and works so well with the brilliantly dark and grimy storytelling. The album sounds like it emerged from a primordial soup, it's messiness and darkness truly give you the feel for the New York that Vast Aire and Vordul are describing. The beats feel slow, the rapping is very strong and deliberate. The lyrics are somewhat violent, but never in an over the top way. The boastful rapper's pride is mixed with real self awareness and self deprecation. In one verse Vast Aire points out that he did a big no no of rapping by rhyming a word with itself, and in the same song repeats an entire verse because it starts with "If you can't succeed, try try again." The record is filled with brilliant rhymes, and strangely awesome production.

The Cold Vein garnered a lot of critical acclaim, and big things were expected from Cannibal Ox, but after Vordul broke his collarbone and they cancelled a few tours for different reasons rumors ran rampant that Vast and Vordul didn't even talk and that Can Ox had broken up. Vast Aire, whose solo debut, Look Ma...No Hands, was released this week is saying those rumors are completely false and that Can Ox will be releasing an EP and a full length within the next year. Cannibal Ox's post The Cold Vein career has been a dissapointment, but maybe they will strike back with the force of their first amazing album, and based on that brilliant record Cannibal Ox is The Greatest Band Of All Time.

"Silver Apples is an organic mechanism composed of the Simeon and the Taylor Drums. The Simeon presently consists of nine audio oscillators and eight-six manual controls, enabling Simeon to express his musical ideas. The lead and rhythm oscillators are played with the hands, elbows and knees and the bass oscillators are played with the feet. The Taylor Drums at this point include thirteen drums, five cymbals and other percussion instruments that Danny uses to develop his own mathematically pulsating systems, creating both rhythm and melody. As the two artists each create melody and rhythm, the resulting sounds interchange and grow to an electronic evocation."

so wrote barry bryant, an insurance actuarial/60s dropout that, despite better judgement, spent 1967-1970 as manager, mentor, and, most importantly, benefactor to Simeon Coxe and Danny Taylor (who, incidentally, looks a lot like Isabella Rossellini to me), the electronic anomaly known as Silver Apples. With an mountainous amassment of unruly, hand-soldered oscillators and an equally vast drum kit (actually, two drum sets side by side), the band recorded two of the most unprecedentedly transcendent records of the '60s, to an understandably indifferent audience.

their partnership began in early 1967 as members of a cover band called The Overland Stage Electric Band, the Silver Apples formed after the band's other three members abandoned ship as a result of Simeon's obnoxious "electronic evocations." Initially composing songs as a soundtrack to the poems of acquaintance Stanley Warren (and vice-versa), Silver Apples combined the drones of Simeon Coxe's Frankenstein monster, the unwieldy "Simeon", with Taylor's specially tuned drum kit, designed to assist Simeon with chord changes. Simple vocal melodies were then added to make things slightly more palatable. With the help of long time fan Bryant, the duo's throbbing, other-worldly sound somehow found its way onto KAPP Records, a label best known at the time for lounge piano performers. In the two years that followed the band was able to record both a self-titled record and a follow-up, Contact, before the label went belly-up.

With the help of followers like Spacemen 3 and Stereolab (not to mention talented rip-off artists like Clinic), Silver Apples have reaped the considerable benefit of the 90s' "lost classic" re-issue market, prompting the 1996 reformation of the band (Simeon and a new drummer), with expectedly mixed results. In 1998, Danny Taylor resurfaced with the tapes from third Silver Apples record, thought lost for nearly thirty years. Since then Simeon broke his neck, and...

wait.

this is about the Silver Apples being the Greatest Band of All Time, isn't it? So yeah, Silver Apples. Two awesome dudes that made the music that would inspire a good deal of the music that inspires me. Two dudes oscillating and driving and singing completely earnest songs about Velvet Caves and Gypsy Love. Two dudes who made super-literal, super-awesome sonic references ("Song about the radio? We should totally record radio signals!!!" "Song about the telephone? Telephone sounds!!!") throughout the bulk of their recorded catalogue. Two dudes who look a lot like Italian female movie stars. or, one dude. Anyway, Greatest Band of Blah, Blah, Blah.

The End.

Never having heard a full album and actually knowing very little about a band certainly does not exclude them from being The Greatest Band Of All Time. CERTAINLY NOT!! It's true. Tussle haven't even released their first album yet, and lord knows, I haven't ever seen them play live. What I do know is that my friend, Adam Forkner, played with them or saw them or something when he was staying in New York in the fall of 2002, and he returned with a 1" button of theirs. I love it when the first thing you know about a band is what their button looks like. Forkner also had a CDR they were selling at their show and boy was that baby bouncing. Tussle is an instrumental band. BLECHHH. Who likes instrumental bands!?!? They play a super danceable mix of dub, kraut, and funk with four dudes. One plays bass, one plays drumset, another plays a "weird" drumset made of weirdstuff like plastic and paper and garbage, and a guy who plays samplers and keys and noises and junk.

Some true Mission district dudes, the majority of the band considers themselves to be visual artists first or at least "before Tussle happened." Tussle is deeply entrenched in both the San Francisco rock (Erase Errata, Numbers, etc.) and the San Francisco electronic scene (Kid 606, Matmos, Blevin Blectum, etc.). Tussle has released two EPs so far on Troubleman Unlimited, and this is where Adam Forkner returns to the Tussle story. Adam is in a band called Yume Bitsu, who released an album called the Golden Vessyl of Sound, with some crazy fractal lazer cover. Both of the Tussle EPs have artwork by the very awesome Chris Johanson but both are really reminiscent of the Yume Bitsu art. Scope on this: Yume Bitsu's Golden Vessyl of Sound (2002) on the left, Tussle's Don't Stop EP (2004) on the right.

Tussle is music that I feel comfortable putting on all the time. Tussle is so so well crafted and so versatile that songs take on very different vibes. Sometimes a song will make you wanna dance, sometimes it will make you wanna read a book, and sometimes it will make you wanna sit on a couch and clothes your eyes. Tussle are destruction dub masters and kings of crunk rhythms and their first LP is coming out in September. Pick it up, because who wouldn't want to own the first LP of The Greatest Band of All Time.

There is favorite music, and then there is secret music. The kind of music that no one you know knows (or cares to know) about. and that you keep to yourself. The kind of music that you find in a used record store or pawn shop, priced to move, that you've never even heard of. But for some reason, you buy it. and because it is secret, it's all the more precious.

Though sort of false, this is the sort of relationship I've always had with Octant, one of the only glimmers of hope in Seattle's very dim, very late '90s. False because, as mastermind Matthew Steinke (who, incidentally, my ex-girlfriend affectionately referred to as "Dead Baby Head," on account of his strangely infant-like facial features and generally lifeless pallor, a likeness not fully represented in the photo to the left) is something of a Northwest staple, the frontman for two notable should-have-beens Satisfact and Mocket, the band is of some abstract notoriety. But in the three-plus years since the band essentially pulled the plug, a pun that will soon make HILARIOUS sense, Octant seems to have sort of disappeared from the public psyche.

Octant began as side project to Steinke's full-time Mocket, as an outlet for his motorized experimentations. A collaboration with girlfriend Tassy Zimmerman (who, if I'm not mistaken, is one of the few notable people to come out of my hometown), Octant was something of an elaborate gimmick; a master of simple mechanics, Steinke applied his knowledge to a mountain of homemade instruments, the centerpiece of which being the ad3, a clunky drum kit that through a series of motors and flashing lights and other junk essentially played itself. the list of instruments also included (here comes that pun pay-off) circuit bent toys and keyboards, the electrified stringboard (a three string atonal instrument with a built-in mini keyboard and a row of "ambient" metal bars with drone and sweep effects), light modulated samplers, and the random tone generator (an old plastic bowling ball with ten miscellaneous light-modulated sound buttons, affected by a light bulb affixed on top of the ball). But for all of the elaborate contraptions, Octant's music was essentially pop-based: a sterile, scientific synth-pop that saw them through two very compelling records (1999's Shock-No-Par and 2000's Car Alarms and Crickets) before they split for Chicago in search of a more "like-minded" scene. That was the last that the world heard of Octant before they fell into the void, Steinke is currently earning his masters from the Art Institute of Chicago where he is focusing his mechanical inclinations on archaic art installations, with apparently no future plans for the band.

Regardless, limited output and public indifference cannot reduce Octant's status as The Greatest Band of All Time.

Like you got punched. Like an injection, not of drugs, well, not the hard stuff, but maybe like an injection of taurine and ritalin. More correctly, not like you got punched or injected, but me, like I got punched and injected. Well, this is silly, why don't I just say what I'm trying to say....Panther makes me feel weird and totally different. Panther is best experienced at a Panther live concert, because the feeling of the Panther fills the crowd and makes everyone start jumping and jamming and yelling. Panther sometimes sounds like really bad R & B mixed with fax machine beats and sometimes sounds like German films being played backwards and sometimes it sounds like an Eazy-E CD. Seriously, I saw one Panther show that was Panther just dancing with an Eazy-E CD. It was a great show. The Panther does singing and yelping but the Panther does even more dancing and posing than singing and yelping. Moving like a man possessed by small appliances the Panther moves so well and so crunk. Truly more performance art than band, Panther is some seriously amazing movement and sound.

Panther is the work of one man, Charlie Salas Humaras. Salas is like a total crazy dude. He is the front of the dance rock craze band, The Planet The, and also has other projects like the free jazzy sorta thing, Hong Kong. He is really enchanthing, I mean, he was voted "most fuckable dude" in the Portland Mercury in 2003. This may seem irrelevant but Panther is much more than just the music.
Panther seems to be this amazing and insane slice of this human being. The thing that grabs and pulls the audience is that the part of the dude that Panther reaches is such a joyful and powerful part of a dude. This makes a Panther performance an intensely cathartic experience for the audience. Seriously, I have seen Panther play probably 15 times and every show has had the feeling of joyful release. At first, when seeing Panther there is the feeling of confusion, but soon it becomes acceptance and extreme enjoyment and then sweet surrender and release.

Panther is supposed to have a CD coming out on some label run by the dude in Gold Chains, but finding info about this proved difficult. The moral of the story is lookout for Panther soon., because an act that acts as group therapy session through wild dance destroyed music and group slam hugs can only be called The Greatest Band Of All Time.

Ellie Greenwich spent the better part of her twenties writing the most memorable (and occasionally infuriating) songs of the second half of the twentieth century, and for some reason, you've probably never heard of her.

Beginning her recording career as Ellie Gaye at the age of 18, Greenwich produced a single for RCA in 1958 entitled "Cha-Cha-Charming," which failed to chart. After graduating from college she met songwriter Jeff Barry, and the two soon married.

The couple quickly went on to spend the bulk of the 1960s penning a daunting percentage of the Girl Group era's Gold and Platinum records (among them "Be My Baby," "And Then He Kissed Me," "The Leader Of the Pack," "Da Doo Ron Ron," "Do Wa Diddy Diddy," "River Deep, Mountain High," etc, ad infinitum) as intrigal figures of the original Brill Building set.

The two also recorded a number of factory singles as the Raindrops (and alternately as the Butterflies)--a studio concoction that would tour the country with lip-syncing stand-ins--and would later go on to comprise a good deal of the Archies ("Sugar, Sugar," and all that). In 1965 Greenwich wrote and recorded the gorgeous Shadow Morton-produced single "You Don't Know," releasing a record under her own name for the first time. It's a brilliant example of understated Brill Pop, and deserved considerably more attention than it was ever afforded.

During this time she also began to produce records, becoming one of the first women to do so professionally for major labels, working with the likes of Neil Diamond and the Dixie Cups. In 1968 she released her first album, Ellie Greenwich Composes, Produces & Sings, which quickly disappeared at the end of the Girl Pop era. Five years later, with the success of Brill Building contemporary Carole King, Greenwich made the unfortunate decision to volley her career as a songwriter into one of a "singer-songwriter," re-recording some of her greatest compositions made famous by other artists just a few years too late as Let it Be Written, Let it Be Sung... something of a disaster.

And as this is beginning to sound like something of a book report, let me digress from this clunky history lesson to explain exactly what moves me to tout the spotty recording career of a less-than-one hit wonder who probably shouldn't have stepped in front of the velvet curtain to begin with. though there are literally dozens of Girl Groups whose singles deserve to be celebrated, the medium was so SONG based that it's difficult to pick one group for specific exploration--and with The Greatest Band Of All Time blog meant as a means of exposure of some kind of depth, those groups' limited discographies don't really offer a wealth of music to explore. So for all of her misfortune as a performer, the sprawl of Ellie Greenwich's career acts as sort of a reasonable glue for so much of the medium's disparate brilliance. For this, and for one of the era's greatest forgotten singles, we logically afford Ellie Greenwich the title of The Greatest Band Of All Time.

Two brothers, ages 11 and 15, from the same Los Angeles 'burb as The Beach Boys (Hawthorne) make a few visits to some of the Sunset Strips more legendary rock clubs (The Whiskey and The Roxy) in 1978. Jeff and Steve McDonald, of course, immediately decide to start a band. Two years later (1980) Red Cross releases a self titled EP that is filled with naive short blasts about celebrities ( "Annette's Got The Hits"), girls ("Clorox Girls), and school ("I Hate My School"). It's truly childish, amateur, and inspired. They become a staple of the truly awesome early 80's punk scene and one of the most influential bands for that region.

Threatened with lawsuit by the more famous Red Cross (you know, the international aid organization), the boys change their name to Redd Kross. Continuing with their brash and tacky brilliance they release a full length (Born Innocent), another EP (6 Teen Punk Anthems), and a bizarre cover album (Teen Babes from Monsanto).

The band switched gears in 1987, with the album Neurotica. The sound was decidely more accessible but also containing some of elements of their punk roots, and of some psychedelic garage music. Redd Kross seemed ready to go (somewhat) mainstream, but their label folded right after the album was released, and the album never broke through, but it laid the groundwork of inspiration for bands like Teenage Fanclub, and Nirvana.

Being caught in contract hassles with their former label they boys couldn't use the name Redd Kross, so they recorded a couple albums under the name The Tater Totz. Furthering Redd Kross' kitsch factor The Tator Totz featured The Partridge Family's Danny Bonaduce.

One they were allowed to be Redd Kross again they found a home on a major label and sorta switched gears again. Redd Kross in the 90s became a power pop juggernaut. From the jangly sugar goodness of Third Eye, to the raw driving alternative rock pop of Phaseshifter, and the Raspberries inspired pure power pop of Show World, Redd Kross made some of the best pop records of the 90s.

Now focusing on side projects and solo acts, Redd Kross is no longer a focus for the McDonald brothers. Redd Kross will also be remembered for it's ever changing pop music that was always interesting and most importantly, something that is often forgotten about in rock music, fun, and this is why Redd Kross is The Greatest Band Of All Time.

The legend goes something like this: It's the Summer of 1990, and Calvin, Bret, and Heather continue to traverse the extremely difficult terrain of the then extremely narrow underground music scenethis time on the coattails of Fugazi. The place is the (now defunct) Country Club of Los Angeles, California. The setting is extremely bleak. This is the quintessential Beat Happening moment.

Fugazi, still reaping the benefit of MacKaye's Minor Threat heyday, netted a sold out crowd of L.A.'s most meat-headed hardcore fans--an audience not quite open to a three-piece from Washington with no bass player, a girl, and, well... Calvin. as the set continued, the heckling turned violent--with audience members heaving drinks and refuse at the band. At some point, a laser-eyed lout connected with a direct hit, with Calvin taking the business end of an ashtray. He immediately launches into a word-perfect Darby Crash spiel from the Germ's What We Do Is Secret (a ref. lost on that band's home turf hardcore audience)--ignoring the evident damage to his nose. With blood streaming down his face, he finished the set as insolent as ever, taunting the audience the way that only Calvin can--then simply dropping the mic, walking Moses-like off of the front of the stage through the audience, and out the front door without a word.

And that is why the Beat Happening has always served as my most apt definition of the Punk Rock sensibility. In spite of the impossibly limited options presented by the American underground music scene of the 1980s, the Beat Happening battled alongside (and occasionally against) bands like Black Flag and the Minutemen--falling on deaf, confused ears throughout the country, and selling nary enough records to survive. They represented a noble, uncompromising alternative to the orthodoxy of what punk rock should be at a time when its definition was its narrowest, and offering a still unmatched suggestion of what punk rock could be.

Knowingly innocent, sexually frustrated, perpetually teenaged, and oppressively minimal, Beat Happening put its last song to tape in 2000, after the eight year absence that followed their final LP, You Turn Me On. Survived by five full lengths, a rarities compilation, a box set, a mountain of cassettes, and 18 years of public service, Olympia's chosen sons (and daughter) deserve every accolade thats ever had lavished upon them--including this title, that of The Greatest Band of All Time.

The Smoking Popes are the epitome of an alternative rock one hit wonder but their unique style, wonderful songwriting, and raw energy make them The Greatest Band of All Time. Three brothers and one friend from the sububran Chicago make the Popes. Bringing together a power pop/pop punk sound with a real crooner man on the vocals the Smoking Popes had the wonderfully urgent youthfullness that is so important in music but also combined with a certain classy nostalgia vibe. Josh Caterer (vocals, guitar, songwriting) is a great songwriter with a keen sense for melancholy melody.

Smoking Popes' first album, Get Fired, was released on a small indie label in 1994 and the recordings aren't the best, but it's fast and furious and the songs are great. They were signed to a major label (Capitol) shortly there after and released their second album and major label debut, Born To Quit. The lead single, "Need You Around," got huge airplay on the big alternative rock radio stations, such as KROQ (in LA), and the Popes toured the country. Life on the road, travelling and partying, took its toll. A follow up to Born To Quit was recorded with some hardship and their label wasn't happy. The album was released with no support from the label, and while touring for the label Josh Caterer had a dramatic conversion to christianity. With new priorities, Josh Caterer broke up the Smoking Popes. Their have been numorous releases since the break up including a live album, a tribute album, a best of, a cover album. Josh took a few years off from rock, but is playing in a band called Duvall now.


The Smoking Popes got on the radio and then broke up because of diving intervention. Great sad songs and a bombastic sound make the Smoking Popes The Greatest Band of All Time.

regarding perfection: it's a quality that's difficult to place one's finger on... this idea that the stars and the seasons and the clocks and harmonies all stumble over the pavement at the same time--to form, in perfect discord, in a torn jean of providence. a skinned knee of serendipity.

excuse me for a moment. that all sounds awfully lofty. deep breath, collect.

in this vastly imperfect world, perfection in something found only in transitions--clock tectonics that rub together in some way or another (astrally, pastorally, or otherwise), and out comes a rumble. and if you blink, you've missed it. and if you blink, it was never there at all. cherry blossoms. light refractions. sweating pavement. the opening verse of "good vibrations." Perfection: It's a Feeling!

Wait, maybe not. maybe Perfection, the ultimate impossibility, is something that can only really exist internally. in the heads of the chaste. in misconceptions and projections. in forgetting.

but this is all a bit silly, isn't it? what i am so carelessly stumbling toward is something altogether different from rational understandings of perfection. rather, a skewed understanding of perfection as it relates to musics (or anything else, i suppose): that of the Perfection Principle. This is a tough one to articulate. Please bear with me.

the Perfection Principle might be best described as something of a fantasy baseball team: the succinct combination of factors that culminate to produce a teetering equilibrium--it might not be something you can verbalize, but you know it when you see it.

that's nothing like a fantasy baseball team. what's with all of these failed sports analogies, anyway?

Take for example, the Talking Heads. in my singular understanding of what composes an ideal, few bands come quite as close as David Byrne and Co. First, there's their lineage: Art-school conception and pretensions (Rhode Island School of Design, no less), immediate association with East-Coast proto punk's most important school (via Jerry Harrison's Modern Lovers term), come-upens through the early New York punk scene (CBGBs, Blank Generation, ad infinitum). Like a thoroughbred horse or something. Mixed-gendered, internally conflicted, commercially viable, artistically single-minded. This, married with the very notion of the band: a group rooted almost entirely on the urge of unease. not a single emotion perceptible but tension. perfect, right? then why aren't they my favorite band? why am I so rarely motivated to listen to them?

enter the greatest anomaly of the Perfection Principle: for whatever reason, "perfect" isn't necessarily "favorite." though it may (or may not) be a formulaic strategy, the outcome of the principle is entirely unpredictable--and rarely are my perfects also favorites.

a perfect example of this glitch (and, in my singular case, the principle itself) comes in the form of my personal definition of conceptual perfection: a band called The Birthday Party. though mythology no doubt bloats the sheer ridiculousness of the groups junk-sick vision, the Birthday Party typifies a sort of perfection of a moment that is in essence impossible recreate, to honestly document, or to comfortably listen to.

skin a translucent blue, emaciated and track-marked, angry, violent, and brilliant. Nick Cave's deadpan misogynistic obsessions--his gold blades, bleeding strings, and sprouting wings; his southern gothic trashcan jesus, free-firing hamlets. All shouted, moaned and squealed in an unintelligible rhythm. a band human spectres--death incarnate, death impending. if the stooges were the very definition of adolescent id, the birthday party were their reform school cousins--and what they lacked in tact, they made up for in pure nihilism. but unlike their Detroit brethren, the birthday party's intrinsic lunacy was matched only by their dry acumen--and if there's anything more terrifying that a dope-sick lunatic with an audience hanging on his every convulsion, its that same dope-sick lunatic with a genius streak. simply put: the Birthday Party is the Greatest Band of All Time. and for some reason, I cant bare to listen to them.

Perhaps perfection is just too overwhelming. perhaps favorite is an admission of some inherent flaw. perhaps the product just can't live up to the perception. perhaps there is such a thing as too perfect. I dont really get it, either. and it doesn't really matter, i suppose. contemplation only serves to taint majesty. and there is nothing quite as regal as the Birthday Party.

(for more information on the Birthday Party, please see the many self-congratulatory writings of Everett True on the subject.)

Seamlessly sequenced to ease atop itself over and over again forever. Again and again and again. That which was once bridged in relief with a contemplative rewind or lift of the arm is now a standard automation on any respectable digital media device. And for no practical purpose outside that of self-pity and modern dance rehearsal. Same song on repeat. For weeks. Relief made obsolete.

In darker days I discovered a way of listening to music in a way that is sort of akin to turning a portrait upside down to finish its features. In an experiment of patience and despair, a very teenaged manifestation of myself rode the repeat button for an evening, a night, a morning. At roughly 4:09, Asleep cycled somewhere around 132 times in those nine hours, and upon waking, I didn't recognize the words anymore. The piano was gone. All that remained was the ghostly canned wind stretching from either end of the song, and the music box that so affectedly ends it. A song I had listened to so endlessly for so many years, a song about sleep, made anew by sleeping inside of it. The experiment was escalated roughly two years later (at an age where such things had long since grown indefensible) in an evening of deep decadence: bathing, reading to, sleeping with, and waking against Christmas Song. Now, using the same conservative estimates (9 hours), this leaves roughly 166 (and a two-thirds) listens of a song composed entirely around a five second refrainor, 64.8 loops per song, or 10,799 total listens. Sleeping inside of it. Bathing in it. A song inverted on itself, becoming two separate, symbiotic halves--one of watery piano, guitar plucks, ambient chords, and glockenspiel accents, another of rise and decay, of impact (percussive pedal clicks, metal scraps and clanks) and resolve (washing reverberation).

Its mostly about using obsessive compulsion to your fiscal and emotional advantage: two for one.

Caution: this is not a recommendation.

(Later on the Smiths as The Greatest Band of All Time, to be sure.)

Mary Weiss forehead has never, ever seen the light of the sun. I imagine a tanline in the form of a right triangle skirting from her right eyebrow to her left temple in a perfect (if somewhat sloping) right angle, framed by impossibly straight, blondeactual blondehair resting on her barely discernable breasts. And despite a somewhat interchangeable cast of characters calling themselves The Shangri-Las (including those apish bookends the Ganser twins, and Elizabeth, the elder Weiss sister), there is nothing but Mary. Sweeping, immobile bangs angling her doed eyes, face rounded in a palpable navetMary was calamitys little girl.

You know who The Shangri-Las are, right? They're one of those faceless girl groups that were so popular in the 60s. Yeah, what was their song again? "Be My Baby"? "My Boyfriends Back"? Oh, right: that abhorrable "Leader of the Pack" song that you've become so accustom to ignoring. You know them. But as happens to so many other brilliant, brilliant singles played in endless rotation on marginal oldies stations, youve been stripped of the capacity to actually hear the Shangri-las, without the burden of pitch-shifted chipmunks in animated malt shoppe montages, right? What?

Anyway, back to the point: The Shangri-Las. The Greatest Band of All Time.

BACKGROUND:

Just barely seventeen years old, Mary Weiss (and the others, I suppose) met by chance her life's opportunity in the form of a man named Shadow. An acquaintance of Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, the Brill Buildings Midas couple, George Shadow Morton had grown somewhat envious of the duo's empire, candidly boasting that he could write and produce a song that would easily rival their own. An associate of Mortons suggested he record a four-piece from Queens who had released a bland single of his the year prior. Morton commissioned the group, The Shangri-Las, to record his sprawling masterpiece--a seven-minute opus called "Remember". With the help of Greenwich and Barry, the song was paired down to become what is indisputably one of the greatest singles of the 1960s, the slightly less sprawling opus "Remember (Walking in the Sand)." This began a consistently profitable relationship between the group and the visionary Morton.

But again, were swaying from our focus here--that the Shangri-Las are clearly the Greatest Band of All Time. And more specifically, Mary Weiss is the greatest performer that has ever lived. Ever.

Sullen, self-assured, and defeated--all in a single syllable. Little Mary Weiss voice bled itself over a handful of the most soul-crushingly dark 45s to ever grace the top 40. Blessed with the megalomaniacal production of Morton, the Shangri-Las formula was a simple one: melodrama in monologue, hushed whispers, minor chords, and most importantly, death. A formula begun with the biggest hit of their career (and, incidentally, a song worthy of a second chance), Leader of the Pack--and peaking with the darkest of death discs, the ridiculous(ly beautiful) "I Can Never Go Home Anymore." Sullen, self-assured, and defeated. Weiss voice trembling atop throaty, nursery rhymed coos--an incomparable snapshot of pure, untarnished despair made only the more absurd by its melodramatic context. Teen girl heart.

Not just the Rolling Stones to the Ronettes Beatles, the Shangri-Las were more than street tough bubblegum. They were so much creepier than that--something that only sounds more sinister through the annuls of time. A creepiness paid tribute by much of New Yorks punk scene--see: the New York Dolls (whose David Johansen, incidentally, seemed to use the Cro-Magnon Ganser sisters as personal style models), Blondie, Sonic Youth, etc.--who even saw fit to spark an early 80s reunion at CBGBs.

The moral of this story, though somewhat poorly illustrated, is that The Shangri-Las made what was the greatest music of the 1960s, bar-none. Eff a bunch of Beatles. Eff a bunch of Rolling Stones. The Shangri-Las are the greatest band of all time.

For more evidence, see "Past, Present, Future", Shangri-Las last great single.