August 2004 Archives
I should back up.
That whole 1992 shoegazer thing? I was really in. I wore horizontal striped t-shirts and stayed up way past my bedtime to watch 120 Minutes (RIP) on Sunday nights. I bought Moose imports and had half hour conversations with my friend Sarah about which girl in Lush we'd rather be, Miki Berenyi or Emma Anderson. I went to England and tried to talk to people in record stores and got rebuffed, devastatingly. It was actually kind of an intense phase, now that I think about it.
Except that I wasn't exactly a phase. I like all of those bands still, but I really love Ride the best. I have probably listened to them an average of once a week since 1992. I have found over the years that Ride is a really good band for sitting on the couch and thinking about the foreign exchange student at school who didn't know I existed. I went through a period in college where I couldn't go to sleep, even at my most staggeringly drunk, until I listened to the B-side of Going Blank Again. Now I know that Ride is a really good band for yoga, and when I get around to making the yoga mix that actually has good music on it, I will finally make my fortune.
Ride was one of those bands all about two guys: Andy Bell and Mark Gardiner who were from Oxford. (Even though I like to consider myself a relatively composed person, I think if I were to ever meet Andy or Mark at a party, I would pee my pants with glee to bask in their hotness. Really, they're very cute boys.) So Ride started playing a lot of shows at the rather ominously named "Jericho Tavern" in Oxford. This attracted the attention of Alan McGee, who ran the Creation label, and they were signed. (The Republican National Convention is starting in a few short days in New York, which, I think will merit a lot of me avoiding the outside world and going to my happy place. My happy place, this week, consists of my Creation Records video compilation, and about which I could talk at great length.)
Ride recorded a few e.p.s and a full-length, Smile, and were deemed the great white hope by the hyperbolic British music press. These albums are all slightly psychedelic with fuzzy guitar and have a vaguely churning, droning quality. "Close My Eyes"? "Like a Daydream"? Totally good.
In February 1992 they released the first single from their second album, Leave Them All Behind. I think this might be my favorite song ever. It's super long. I love weirdly long singles, the audacity, you know? And it had this black and white video that really sealed the deal. Going Blank Again was release a month later. It had the poppy "Twisterella" and slightly more opaque "Time of Her Time". They toured the hell out of the album going to seemingly every city and college town in the country.
By 1993, Ride was tired of touring and tired of each other. I don't blame them, one of them even didn't get to see the birth of his son because he was on tour. They recorded another album, but ditched their melodic wall of sound vibe for a classic '60s and '70s rock vibe. Bad call. Also, the album was more or less split in half, with Andy's songs and Mark's songs because, naturally, they hated each other. Things got worse: critics hated them, fans ditched them, they needed to record albums but no one had written any new material. They even played with a full boy's choir. And yet no one seemed to care. They split in December 1995.
But let's remember how good they once were. If Ride were a flower, they'd be a lilac. If Ride was a color, they'd be kelly green. If Ride got its due, they would be Greatest Band of All Time.
You guys know about Boots Pants, right? You know, Boots Pants, or as some people like to call it Disco Punk, but Boots Pants just sounds so much better. It's called Boots Pants because if you repeat those two words it sounds like the drums and cymbals from this brand of rock and roll music. Oh crud, as I listen to Dance Disaster Movement, while writing this I realize they don't use the classic 4-on-the-floor Boots Pants beat but they have much more fractured beats maybe of the break beat variety, does that term mean anything outside of electronic dance music?
Once again, I find myself knowing a paltry amount of information about a Greatest Band of All Time, but let me lay out what I do know. 1. They are from Long Beach, Ca. 2. They are comprised of two men. 3. One man plays drums and the other man plays guitars, keys, and sings. 4. One of the men is named Kevin Disco (wasn't he in Bis....oh that's John Disco or was it Stephen Disco?). 5. They both wear all white, but it always seems to be a beautifully filthy pair of white jeans, and there is something so awesomely nasty about dirty white jeans. 6. They have 1 record out on Dim Mak called We Are From Nowhere. 7. They put on a really radical show. What else does anyone need to know?
Their sound is very angular and attacking. A Dance Disaster Movement song plays itself out like this: it starts with a skittering drum beat, then Kevin Disco rips some weird crusher of a riff on guitar which he then loops, he might do a second guitar loop or not, he runs over to the keys are starts mashing away and tears into with vocals. It really lends itself to some super fun spazz out dancing. In fact, yours truly was even awarded with the dancer of the night award at one of their shows. Some serious freak out stuff. This is not to say that they are altogether predictable (even though a lot of their songs follow this formula) their album has some really interesting songs that sound nothing like that like "Quarkscrews" with its bubbling squeeks and melodic synths it sounds like something from a Plone record. Or their is "The Shots" that sounds like what U2 would sound like if they had any guts and only two dudes.
These dudes have been somehow sorely underhyped even in the last year or two where Boots Pants has ruled, as both shows I have seen them play have been pretty sparsely attended. I think they may be getting some propers as they just got done touring with Peaches, so that's good, but you should totally go see them in your town. You know what makes a Greatest Band of All Time?? Wearing the same filthy white jeans at every show you ever play. SERIOUS.
Again GBoAT brings you the regular honor of miss M. Meltzer. ENJOY, as per usual.
I would really like to write about Unrest, but my feelings about that band are too breathless and hysterical and upbeat to really put into words. And besides, I've spent the last several weeks in the Catskills doing not much else but watching deer eat apples in the yard, reading, and renewing my love for Air Miami. It all started when I decided a new landscape deserved a new jogging soundtrack. (Jogging to, like, Ludacris in upstate New York didn't feel right, you know?) I wish I could say I was one of those people who could just run, breeze through hair, just the music of nature, or whatever, but I am so not. Instead I just start to wonder why Adidas can make such perfect shoes for all manner of sports and yet their running shoes are just so not hot. I needed to focus and space out at the same time. I needed Air Miami.
At the end of the winter of 1994, Unrest met its untimely demise, a fact that still makes me sad, over a decade later. Fortunately, Mark Robinson and Bridget Cross, both of Unrest, decided their rather prodigious talents should not be wasted. In the spring of 1994 they formed Air Miami with Lauren Feldsher and Mike Fellows. They were sort of like Unrest--the same lush voices and chimey guitarbut slightly more new wave.
Their sole album (a double album, actually, released on Robinson's label Teenbeat and on 4AD in Europe in Japan), Me Me Me, contains the amazingly catchy "I Hate Milk" with the weirdly peppy chorus of "Please please, someone kill me soon." Also on the album is "World Cup Fever" an ode commemorating the World Cup's somewhat overlooked appearance in the US in 1994. How much do I love a band willing to sing about soccer? Um, a lot. These days I'm really obsessed with the Fuck You, Tiger EP. "See-Through Plastic" is a love song in need of a mix tape. I swear they recorded the rolling, lapping sounds of waves and put that on the song. That, or I'm missing California a little too much. "Warm Miami May" is a song so sunny its almost haunting, almost as if it's a sung from a grave. I've been listening to it on repeat.
I read somewhere that there's some kind of cherry grown in Michigan, or maybe it was Wisconsin, that is only available for a week or two every year, in the summer. And of course it's, like, the greatest cherry of all time. Not to get overly sentimental, but I guess I sort of think of Air Miami similarly. A band for only six months, they had such a fleeting existence, but they left us with a handful of perfect songs. Mark Robinson would go on to work his magic in Flin Flon, and Bridget Cross would do her solo albums, but Air Miami was so much more than a brief post-Unrest new wave moment, they were the Greatest Band of All Time.
Though Greatest Band of All Time does not condone plagiarism of any kind, I think that the following quote from a recent interview with McLusky does more to illuminate the true appeal of this band than any waxed poetic I could muster: "There are some albums out there that should be called The Pain of My Slender Cheekbones. It's just what they're about. I think some people just like wallowing in misery. Personally, I'm past puberty. I enjoyed that whole acne-ridden process, but I'd like to think we're in a better world now of regular showers, sound nutrition, still too much smoking."
Meet the great Welsh hope. Meet the greatest mid-90s band this century has yet to birth. Ladies and Gentlemen: McLusky.
Formed in Wales in 1998, McLusky debuted with the first of their many amazingly titled works, 2000's My Pain and Sadness is More Sad and Painfully Than Yours, with song titles like "whiteliberalonwhiteliberalaction," "Rock Vs. Single Parents," and "Friends Stoning Friends." Despite the band's deeply caustic core, a ton of apt Pixies comparisons followed only complicated by their choice to record My Pain's follow up with Steve Albini. But where the Pixies were college kids aping an abstract impression of aggression, McLusky intention never seems obscured. much more metallic, much more brutish, much more direct.
Besides that, the band's frontman (one Andrew Falkous) has a persona on record that measures alongside some of Rock's true curmudgeons, largely reminiscent of Steve Albini, with a touch of Mark E. Smith's self-righteousness. with a soft spot for smart men of terrible attitude, McLusky cracked my eggs on the strength of one song, whose refrain is rarely far from my head: "my love is bigger than your love."
With McLusky Do Dallas the band delivered their masterpiece, with two irresistible singles ("Lightsaber Cocksucking Blues" and "To Hell With Good Intentions"), and an albums worth of clever, sarcastic bile. this years follow-up, the more intentional, poppy The Difference Between You and Me Is That I'm Not On Fire, was something of a letdown, but as usual, delivered several haunting refrains ("Our Old Singer is a Sex Criminal," "Every where I go I want to travel by boogie board") that make the entire album worthwhile.
I'm convinced that if McLusky were from America, they'd be one of the biggest bands in the world. For now, the Greatest Band of All Time.
Easily the greatest christian synth pop band of all time. Joy Electric is head and shoulders above the competition. Head and shoulders is a totally funny joke. What would one say....legs and feet below the rest? Ha.
My very awesome cousin, Nathan, introduced me to Joy Electric in 96, I think. They were immediately an epiphany for me. Erasure and their amazing synth pop had been a favorite of mine for years and Joy Electric was like the synth pop of Erasure (maybe minus some of the super dramatic vibes) mixed with more of an indie vibe with deeper creative themes for their lyrics. Since our very special introduction Joy Electric and I have spent a very rewarding 8 years together going through that kind of relationship where I spent a lot of money on Joy Electric buying everything they release, which is above average, and we go through good times, mediocre times, times where we take each other for advantage, and times where it feels brand new and so amazing like nothing in the world could be better. Oh, Joy Electric, there was that one time where we almost broke up. It just felt so stale, and I thought there it may be better if we just didn't talk for awhile, and then it got so good again. Now we are in a really familiar place, not the best it could be, but we just know each other so well, and we really love each other. Man, I love Joy Electric.
Joy Electric has been strutting it's stuff for about a decade now. Joy Electric is the work of one man, Ronnie Martin, or as he is sometimes known as Count Ronald Martin. There have been other members of the band for live shows, but in the studio it's all Ronnie. Joy Electric rose out of the ashes of Ronnie's previous band, Dance House Children, which also prominently featured Ronnie's brother Jason who went onto be the main dude in Starflyer 59. There is this album called Rainbow Rider or maybe the band is called Rainbow Rider that happened between Dance House Children's last official album and Joy Electric's first album and it's totally controversial because Ronnie has claimed that it's really the last Dance House Children album but most perceieve Rainbow Rider as a seperate band because of how the artwork is presented and because there was another Rainbow Rider 7" released later. Anyway, let's for this article's sake call Rainbow Rider a band and the album Beautiful Dazzling Music No. 1. The album is really crazy using synthesizers and samplers and changing tempos so often. It was a wacky sign of things to come.
The first Joy Electric album, Melody, is this wonderfully naive record. With simplistic beats and sweet synthesizers, Melody makes you feel like this would be your favorite music ever if you heard it when you were 8 years old. The lyrics about candy cane carriages, boys and girls falling in love just are the best at giving the warm fuzzies. The album's only fault is that it is too long and can lose your attention from time to time, but what a fun fresh breath in 1994 in the midst of grunge and alt rock.
In a shocking turn of events, Joy Electric then took the vibe to a dark place. 1995's follow up EP Five Star For Failure gets super moody and brings the tempo down. The second Joy Electric album, 1996's We Are The Music Makers, the theme was totally medievil which totally fit with the Joy Electric tones and vibes so well. We Are The Music Makers is one of Joy Electric's finest moments. On Music Makers Ronnie stopped using all samples and loops and limited himself to only analogue. Ronnie over the years continued to limit himself as a way of making himself be more creative. In early 97, Joy dropped the Old Wives Tales EP which is maybe my favorite Joy release of all time. The theme got updated a little bit to like maybe a 1700s vibe and more of a peasant vibe with amazing songs like "The Cobbler," "And It Feels Like Old Times," and "Old Wives Tales." A slow and brooding perfect set of songs with some brilliant remix updates of songs from We Are The Music Makers and Melody.
Later in 97 came the next full length called Robot Rock, a big departure from the moody old timey area of the previous 3 releases. Ronnie simplyfied the instrumentation, sped up the songs, and made them much more aggressive making Robot Rock Joy Electric's punk rock recorrd. It is also Joy's most successful record and started to get Joy a lot of secular fans. It has some really rad songs, but I don't think it holds up to some of the records. Somewhat in response to the bigger fan base, Ronnie's next record was the not so subtly titled, ChristiansSongs(yes it's true Joy Electric is not only of those super easy palatteable indie christian bands like Sufjan Stevens or Danielson Famille), bringing his convictions to the forefront of the lyrics for the first time.
Taking a few years between records, Ronnie returned in 2001 with his most complex and ambititious record, Legacy Vol.1 The White Songbook. Originally intended to be the first in a trilogy (an idea which I believe has been scrapped) the album is presented in chapters and is supposedly to be viewed like a book. The White Songbook is a heavily layered affair with the longest songs in Joy Electric's career. The songs have many different parts and moods and bring together all the strengths of Ronnie's music for the first time. The complexity is even more impressive because Ronnie recorded this album completely monophonically, meaning he didn't play chords at all just single notes while recording after dropping using drum machines a couple albums previously, Ronnie is only left to use analogue synthesizer for all sounds of the albums. I hope Ronnie attempts more albums like this in the future.
In the two albums since The White Songbook Ronnie has stuck to very strict moods and concepts for each record. Last years', The Tick Tock Treasury is an upbeat record which music focusing on a more 70s style minimal experimental synth vibe. Just released is Hello, Mannequin a cold and marching record that speaks of robots is steeped heavily in the 70s and 80s Kraftwerk vibe. So much material, and I left out 4 eps, an "unelectric" record, and a 2 disc best of and unreleased compilation.
Oh, Joy Electric, you give me so much to deal with, it's almost too much, but almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades and it's not too much. I'm still need you Joy Electric, because you've given me some of the best treasures I've encountered in this world. I love you Joy Electric and you are The Greatest Band of All Time.
After a sweet rejuvenation vacation GBOAT is back!! Hooray.
This entry is by Marisa Meltzer.
I have recently realized that three of the best moments of the past six months of my life has passed with the soundtrack of one band playing. That band was the number one charting duo in rock history. That band has had six number one hits on the Billboard charts. That band was responsible for eleven of RCA's top one hundred singles, second only to Elvis Presley. That band, my friends, was Hall and Oates.
All you really need to know if that Daryl Hall is the one hair highlighted a shade I can only call Studio Musician Blond. John Oates is the one with the curly black hair and vaguely creepy mustache. That's the essential part. They met as college students at Temple University, in Philadelphia, in the late sixties. They started writing folk songs together, but never to any commercial or critical success. Then, in 1975, they moved to RCA and scored a hit with the sublime "Sara Smile". (Which is universally hated by all girls named Sara, for similar reasons that Elvis Costello's "Alison", a totally legit song, is hated by my mom.) Years pass with a few minor hits.
Then it becomes the eighties, and everything changes. Hooks and melodies and soft rock are suddenly craved by the record buying public. First "Kiss on My List", then "Maneater", "Private Eyes" and "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)" (which also spent a week at the top of the R&B charts -- a rare accomplishment for two white dudes with mullets). By 1983, they had already released a greatest hits album, Rock 'N Soul, Pt. 1.
Their next album, Big Bam Boom had a few more hits, among them "Out of Touch", but the band quickly announced they were on hiatus. They reformed in 1988 and seem to still be touring the state fair circuit, but the glory days are firmly in the past.
So let's turn to my Hall and Oates inflected glory days:
February: I am more than a little bit broken hearted and on vacation with one of my best friends in Costa Rica. I am quite possibly the worst traveling companion ever, spending hours in a hammock alternately listening to the Harold and Maude soundtrack, playing solitaire, staring at the ocean, and crying. My friend persuades me to rent a car and drive to the volcano with her. We spend hours listening to Radio Dos, the best radio station ever. Somewhere in the middle of singing along to a really weird dancehall version of "Hey Ya" followed by "Private Eyes", I realize I am going to be okay.
May: I am in San Francisco at a friend's house. She puts on "Maneater" and proceeds to do a choreographed dance to it than she remembers from grade school. This woman is now thirty. Where, we wonder, Does the useful information go?
July: I am at a party in Brooklyn and "I Can't Go For That" comes on. Everyone is dancing to it completely seriously. For the first time I realize that the lyrics are not "I can't cope with that", as I had always maintained. I was like, Really? Are you sure?
To tally it up: chart-topping duo who cures broken hearts and enlivens dance parties. Total Greatest Band of All Time.
Oh Friends! We forgot to tell you. Greatest Band of All Time is on summer vacation this week. And boy....did we need it. We will be back on Monday with the REAL Greatest Bands Of All Time. It's really gonna get serious. Lookout. GBOAT is just getting warmed up. We haven't even begin to share the greatness.
PS-WE LOVE YOU
