Tag: music, artists

[music, artists] March 27, 2003 at 6:41:00 AM CET

One artist/band, one sentence

Some quotes from this funny thread at ILM:

Brian Eno: i have ideas and i am proud of it. (j fail)
Beck: "The world is a lonely abandoned garage sale." (Nate Patrin)
Metallica: "We're jerks." (Alan N)
Bardo Pond: "Check out the pedals we'll use for our next song" (donut bitch)
Sonic Youth: "Give us our pedals back you fuckers" (Nate Patrin)
Kraftwerk 'humans are rubbish except when they invent stuff' (stevem)
Boards Of Canada 'remember that place you never went to? remember that feeling you never felt? we do' (stevem)
Chili Peppers: "Hey young impressionable ladies, here's my genitals!" (nickalicious)
Low: "Would you mind keeping it down? Thanks."</font size> (mark p)

The Wedding Present/Cinerama - "I'm mad that she's dating someone else" (Aaron W)

Sigur Ros: "Mmmmmmmm, shrooooooooms." (nickalicious)

Kate Bush: "My voice reaches no longer to the heavens, but as far as my ceiling". (Nichole Graham)

U2: "We rock God, and we know it". (Nichole Graham)

Momus: without whose influence music would be as it is today. (Momus)

Britney Spears: "I'm not wearing any underwear. But if I was, they'd have pink ribbons and lollipops on them. Except I'm not." (mark p)

Steve Malkmus: "You liked me in Pavement." (Sam Jeffries)

Shakira: "Your ears say no, but that raging boner says yes." (nickalicious)

Miles Davis: while wearing shades in the dark, turns back on audience, says nothing (nickalicious)

Pink Floyd: "Crikey, society is full of maladies and ills. We'd better express this awful truth, but beneath a wave of overdubbed guitars and intricate electric piano and post-soul gospel chorus voices to soften this horrible reality to our listeners." (Nate Patrin)

The Ramones: "1, 2, 3, 4" (Aaron W)

Godspeed You Black Emperor! - "the world is eeeeeeeeeennnnnnnnnnding....." (Aaron W)

the Mountain Goats: "I saw the light hit your face as the smell of the strawberries wafted in from [random geographical location], but i knew it was over but we wanted to hold on." (j fail)

The Mekons: "We enjoy failure and ourselves." (j fail)

Radiohead: "We don't enjoy anything at all." (Neudonym)

McLusky: "These microwave chips are shite." (William Bloody Swygart)

Flaming Lips: "But when I walked into the lamp-post for the second time, there were these bright lights in front of my eyes and suddenly it was all beautiful..." (William Bloody Swygart)

Scott Walker: "Life's hard even when you're good looking" (Aaron W)

Interpol: "we wear designer suits" (Aaron W)

Julio Iglesias: "Hello? Hey, pretty laydee... no, no Enrique's not home right now. I'll tell him you called. OK, bye. "Aiii..." (William Bloody Swygart)

Philip Glass: "on and on and on (and on and on and on)" (t''t )

Depeche Mode - If Jesus were alive today, he'd be a heroin addict. (justin s.)

P.S. My contributions:

ZZ Top - The beards, the beer and the blues
Sigur Ros - I am a singing whale floating into cosmos with a spaceship driven by the strings of angels
Status Quo - Rock will never change.
Nick Drake - It's your fault that I'm dead. You bought my records 30 years too late.
Joy Division - Please, don't switch on the light.
My Bloody Valentine - The art of stopping.
Cowboy Junkies - Could you pass me that joint over a little faster, please?

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[music, artists] March 10, 2003 at 10:14:00 PM CET

What happened to Chan Marshall's

first guitar, a Silvertone:

Last ... winter in Paris I saw my boy-friend with another girl. So. It was either me or the guitar. So I broke it.

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[music, artists] January 28, 2003 at 7:08:00 PM CET

Bands to check out

There are threads at the music forum I Love Music on three older bands I have heard a lot of good things about but which I have hardly ever listened to:

A Spacemen 3 re-evaluation Apparently Christgau described their music as "Stooges for Airports" with "Airports" like in Music for Airports, Eno's first real ambient album which I never got into. I guess the title of one of their albums Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs to says a lot about their hypnotic, minimal, fuzzy sound. I heard some mp3s and liked them. Probably I should dig deeper. BTW I dislike the orchestral megalomaniac music I heard from Spiritualized, Jason Pierce's new band.

Boredoms S/D A Japanese garage outfit. Heard some mp3s I liked. After what I had read about them before I imagined them more hardcore. More in the direction of Merzbow. Which I don't really know neither but which are supposed to be very noisy.

Magazine - Classic Or Dud? and Magazine "Real Life" I think I have never heard anything by Howard Devoto's second band after he left the Buzzcocks. Momus is a big fan. Magazine somehow seem to be the other arty post-punk band besides Wire.

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[music, artists] January 27, 2003 at 10:02:00 PM CET

Nick Drake

in Marcello Carlin's words:

...No one tried as hard not to talk or sing to anyone except himself.

...and here is the barrier which still prevents me from surrendering completely to his music - his music is ultimately so insular, so of him, so insistent that you have to be Nick Drake to understand him, that you wonder whether he had much thought for anyone or anything else in the world. He would never have been capable of something like Blue. Much has been made of 1974's admittedly bruising "Black Eyed Dog" but if there's any dread or helplessness here, it is audibly unreachable. He sings as if he's waving you away with your fist even though you're trying to help him. ...

It's a world I can examine with morbid curiosity, and even frequently be moved by, but I would never wish to live in it - perhaps because it echoes my own so closely and so sinisterly.

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[music, artists] January 22, 2003 at 8:11:00 AM CET

Leonard Cohen in his own live words

Diamonds in the Lines (via Jeff from the fine little music forum People Talk Too Loud is an amazing site on the great Canadian songwriter covering all(?) of his songs and more:

This ever growing page was made to give us a hand to understand more and more Leonard's work. It is also legitimate as Leonard told us once (during the Frankfurt concert of April 6th, 1972) that if we listen to him sing and we can't listen to him talk, what we are hearing is a lie. This site is based on his live recordings, interviews, or notes. In fact, all his own words. I picked up the spoken or sung introductions to the songs and some additional verses Leonard included sometimes. I also included some songs like "Tennessee Waltz", "Billy Sunday", Wither thou goest, "Passing Through"..., for, although not written by Leonard, they are often sung on tour, and always introduced in his own unique way. You'll also find some earlier songs' versions like "Chelsea Hotel 1" and "The Bells", and a section called "Improvisations", which include the spoken or sung words unread and unheard. These improvisations stand for Leonard as a way of unslaving himself from his "lawyers and contracts and royalties"...

Example Suzanne:

December 4th, 1974 Interview "Pacifica" Joan Baez, I've heard her sing Suzanne and she completely changes the song. She doesn't like the metaphysical possible ways of somebody having their bodies touched with somebody else's minds. So that offends her anticlerical position. It sounds religious to her. It smacks of something that she doen't embrace. So she changes it around to like "touched her perfect body with her thumb" I don't know exactly what it is, but she moves it around that way, but that's okay. It's okay because a song enters the world and it gets changed like everything else. That's okay as long as there are more authentic versions. A good song I think will get changed.

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[music, artists] January 19, 2003 at 7:25:48 PM CET

St. Christopher

interview with French monthly zine Popnews:

Quelles relations entretiens-tu avec tes anciens labels : Sarah/Shinkansen et Vinyl Japan ? Je n'ai plus de contact avec Matt et Claire juste parce je n'ai pas de raison d'en avoir...Je reçois des royalties de Vinyl Japan tous les 6 mois... En général assez pour acheter de la nourriture pour chat pour une semaine !...

The concert in Paris is supposed to be tonight at the Pop In and it is free.

St. Christopher's music is indie pop. You could call it twee if you wanted. The voice of Glenn Melia who is the man behind St. Christopher is that of a charming crooner. Mark Tranmer from the Montgolfier Brothers has played with St. Christopher in the past.

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[music, artists] January 5, 2003 at 8:48:09 AM CET

War on War

Wilco's mastermind Jeff Tweedy in an interview with the German Rolling Stone:

Wo stehst Du hinsichtlich eines Irak-Krieges?

Ich hab 'ne ganze Reihe von Songs geschrieben, die sehr klar machen - für mich zumindest-, dass ich nichts davon halte, Bomben auf Menschen zu werfen. Ich gehe der Politik aus dem Weg, weil ich glaube, egal welche Seite man unterstützt - man verfällt einer Illusion. Ich lebe lieber auf einem anderen Kontinent als in dieser Realität. Das klingt vielleicht nach Eskapismus, aber ich kenne niemanden, der nicht dieselben Konflikte in sich trägt, wie die Welt als Ganzes. Ich kenne niemanden, der immer nur nett zu allen ist, und niemanden, der nie lügt.

English translation with some help of Babelfish:

Which is your position concerning a war on Iraq?

I have written a whole row of songs which make very clear - for me at least - that I think nothing of throwing bombs on humans. I avoid politics because I believe, all the same which side one supported - one holds to an illusion. I rather live on another continent than in this reality. Perhaps that sounds like escapism but I do not know anybody who does not carry the same conflicts in himself like the world as a whole. I do not know anybody who is always nice to everybody and nobody who never lies.

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[music, artists] December 15, 2002 at 2:31:33 PM CET

The Scottish indie orchestra

I have been a fan of the melodic indiepop which is crafted in the Northern part of the British island for a long time. Bands like Teenage Fanclub, BMX Bandits, Trash Can Sinatras, AC Acoustics, Belle and Sebastian, Arab Strap, Jesus and Mary Chain (the later stuff) and the Cocteau Twins all have a certain cosiness and warmth about them I cannot resist.

Only yesterday I discovered The Reindeer Section whose latest album is at #13 in This Is Not an Exit's best of 2002. Apparently Gary Lightbody from Snow Patrol formed the band at a Lou Barlow concert in Glasgow. As many local groups were attending the show Lightbody who was in a merry mood asked them if they wanted to join his new band and they all said yes. Altogether there are 27 musicians involved coming from bands like Snow Patrol, Arab Strap, Belle and Sebastian, Idlewild, Teenage Fanclub, the Vaselines, Mogwai, Astrid, Mull Historical Society, V-Twin, Eva, Hercules and Alfie. If there ever was a supergroup this would be it.

The Reindeer Section released their second album Son of Evil Reindeer a couple of months ago. I am just getting totally addicted to the reserved Cartwheels, the sublime Coldwater and the touching You Are My Joy which you can stream with real audio here at EuroRanch. There are also three tracks from the first album Y'all get scared now, ya hear! there. If you like dreamy, tender, intimate and mainly downtempo songs you should check them out.

I really love the unobtrusiveness of this music. The spare string and horn arrangements never impose themselves on the simple gorgeous tunes. Mellow wistful songs which will warm my heart enough to survive the winter.

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[music, artists] December 2, 2002 at 6:44:35 PM CET

I am a heartless monster

Why don't I feel the slightest bit of compassion after reading this? Maybe his singing will sound better now with two artificial front teeths. Maybe they will pack it in altogether. That wouldn't be the worst solution. I wouldn't miss them. Can someone please forgive me?

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[music, artists] November 30, 2002 at 2:48:25 PM CET

The Mobius Band

are a trio hailing from Massachusetts. Their music is at least as fascinating as their ambiguous name playing with the two meanings of the word band. Do you remember the mysterious Möbius Band which has only one side from the geometry lessons?

The group is very open-minded musically. Fusing modern jazz, electronics, classical elements, epic film scores, Stereolab-like vox organ patterns, American Analog Set loops, Low's majestic slow minimalism and many other things I am going to explore in more detail this afternoon. Califone and Tortoise from Chicago seem to be other important influences. Not to forget the improvisational side of Sonic Youth represented by Lee Ranaldo. Very exciting stuff. Eclecticism as I love it.

The first two EPs and more can be downloaded from their audio page.

Pitchfork's Joe Tangari reviews their latest release Three EP.

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