Unrest - Perfect Teeth [1993]

once again. duh. simply fucking brilliant.

HEARt

[note: this be da teenbeat original ish, no bonus trx]

Unrest - Imperial f.f.r.r. [1992]

?

i can't escape this so why should you

?

hipsters praise it so why don't you

?

(ser)iously, i love this so bad it HURTz.

(but then again), we be one of THEM

Olde Moderne Farts who sayeth:

Fuck Yr Camp (aka "aesthetic"),

Quality : Quality

and this here

mes amis

is

qUALITY

tHE-ARt

[note: this be da teenbeat original ish, no bonus trx]

John Cale / Tony Conrad / Angus Maclise / La Monte Young / Marian Zazeela - Inside The Dream Syndicate Volume I: Day of Niagara (1965)

rocky saith:

let's take it

all the way out there

for a minute (or thirty)...

~~~~~~~~~

boomkat saith: Listening to 'Inside the Dream Syndicate Volume I: Day of Niagara' you're likely to be struck with one unassailable thought; how on earth can this be 45 years old?!

A single extended piece, 'Inside the Dream Syndicate...' is retrospectively credited as being one of the most important recordings to emerge from the mid-1960's, a product of the extraordinary sonic force conjured into being by John Cale, Tony Conrad, Angus Maclise, La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela.

Essentially one fluctuating drone

which is both softened and serrated

by Cale and Conrad's conflicting violin styles.

~~~~~~~~~

amg saith: Since its initial release, controversy has swirled around this album.

In the early '60s, John Cale, Tony Conrad, La Monte Young, Angus Maclise, and Marian Zazeela were all a part of New York's underground music and emergent minimalist scenes. In a variety of formations, usually involving Cale, Conrad, and Young, they played together billed alternately as the Theater of Eternal Music or as the Dream Syndicate.

Together they were articulating what were to become the central tenets of American minimalism. They disbanded around 1965, and since then all involved have staked, depending on the day and weather, various claims to the group's musical and philosophical ideas and -- more importantly in this case -- unreleased recordings.

This album, a remastered copy of a tape from one of the Dream Syndicate's sessions recorded in Young's Church Street apartment, was released without anyone's expressed written consent and occasioned a ten-page statement from Young and his lawyer contesting the label's legal authority to put out this "unauthorized bootleg."

The record makes these issues of intellectual property all the more critical, as the few obscure albums from the Dream Syndicate are long out of print and notoriously difficult to find.

For anyone who cares about the history of American music, however, the album is an exceptional piece of musical history. All of the early precepts of minimalism are present -- incremental variation, drone, sustained pitch -- as well as the emphasis on group creation through improvisation. Unfortunately, the mix is not overwhelming in quality, and the effects of the interplay among instruments is lessened.

Nonetheless, the album is sonically beatific, formally profound, and an incomparable look inside the Syndicate. Table of the Elements should be praised for letting the chips fall where they may in the interest of a more complete understanding of music history, especially since history is still too near to clearly substantiate anyone's claims.

~~~~~~~~~

HEAR

Thinking Fellers Union Local #282 - Admonishing The Bishop

This record doesn't try to be anyone or anything it isn't. Sometimes when you don't give 110% you get 100%.

There were times this band just out n' out nailed it. Hurricane is one of those moments. There are other times this band kind of missed it. This EP skipped those moments.

I thought everyone had a million dollars

________________________


HEAR

The Vaselines - Enter The Vaselines

I guess I didn't really get the Vaselines until just recently. Maybe I figured Scots couldn't be this overtly snarky. I'm not sure. Perhaps I didn't investigate enough, prematurely writing them off as another moody lot. I get it now. I really get it. Get it. Got it. Good.

p.s. it would nice for once to encounter things about the Vaselines, Meat Puppets & Daniel Johnston that didn't incessantly namecheck CKurt Cobain. There have been a lot of suicidal junkies who loved these bands.

_______________________


Allmusic: Kurt Cobain made plenty of mistakes in his life, but loving the Vaselines was not among them. Nirvana covered three of their songs, and as Kurt might tell you if he were alive today, from 1986 to 1989 the Vaselines were the best pop band around. Sub Pop was smart enough to cash in on the Nirvana connection, and in 1992 released the career retrospective The Way of the Vaselines: A Complete History. From the stomping, singalong opener "Son of a Gun" to the distorted and nasty "Let's Get Ugly" 17 tracks later, this collection was the Holy Grail of indie pop. In 2009, hot off of Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee's reunion (and appearance at Sub Pop's 20th anniversary bash), the label remastered the studio recordings, added a second disc of demos and live performances, and retitled the whole thing Enter the Vaselines.

The Vaselines' music is unfailingly amateurish, almost completely silly, occasionally quite perverted, and always about sex. It has the simplicity and ear-grabbing melodies of the best bubblegum, the loud and semi-competent guitars of punk, and some of the attitude and lo-fi sound of their noise rock contemporaries like the Jesus and Mary Chain. They also had a charmingly unschooled vocal approach (Kelly sounding cool and tough, McKee sweet as pie) with a fleeting acquaintance to pitch but tons of humor, attitude, and style. Throw in a bunch of religion and add brilliantly simple choruses that will have you singing along the first time you hear the songs (as well as the thousandth), and you've got genius. This brilliance shines brightest on the band's first two EPs, which were recorded by Stephen Pastel and contain the songs the group was best known for, like "Molly's Lips," "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam," and "Son of a Gun." The full-length album Dum-Dum, recorded without Pastel's guidance and with a bulked-up, rockier sound, is still quite amazing and features some timelessly cool songs like "Sex Sux (Amen)," which includes the immortal line "Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost/I'm the Sacred Host with the most," the rip-roaring "Monsterpussy," and the hilarious "The Day I Was a Horse." Taken together, the band's official output is brainy, funny, sexy, catchy pop music at its best.

So if the first disc of Enter the Vaselines is absolutely essential, the bonus disc is for fanatics only. The demos for "Son of a Gun" and unrecorded songs "Rosary Job" and "Red Poppy" are interesting from a historical perspective but not very listenable, as the duo hadn't really put its sound together yet. The live set from December of 1986 (three months before the first EP was recorded) is a sloppy, stiff performance with Kelly and McKee backed by a drum machine and fighting to be heard above the din of the unimpressed crowd. Much better is the live set from 1988 with a full band playing songs from the EPs and Dum-Dum (and a cover of Gary Glitter's "I Didn't Know I Loved You ['Til I Saw You Rock 'n' Roll]") in front of a semi-enthusiastic crowd. They still sound raw and amateurish but also like they are having much more fun. Kelly, McKee, and Pastel also seem to have had fun when they sat down for the chat about the history of the band that is a part of the set's beautiful packaging. Credit Sub Pop for putting tons of effort into the release of Enter the Vaselines and treating the band and the music with the respect they deserve. For a short period of time, there was nothing like them on Earth.



HEAR Disc 1

HEAR Disc 2

Blue in Heaven - All the Gods Men [1985]

BLUE IN HEAVEN!

bass parts that are admittedly sometimes quite complex and sonically compelling

reacquaintance: curtsey obscurely fragile.

too precious for you! i was

introduced to this via processed

back in the day

i fell for it hard then,

harder than most folks did at the time,

and maybe still doubtless harder than is unwarranted now,

but hey, nostalgia kicks all ass sideways, no?

for reference, id say go straight to

"It's Saturday"

and maybe after that, look

"In Your Eyes"

minor, slight, affected, purrrfect.

or hey,

if you're looking for pure pop potential,

head straight to "The Big Beat"

with the priceless lines:

"you boys are really wild / wear you hair on top of your head"

and

"you're so stupid, you believe in everything / will i like you when I'm high?"

HEAR

(oh yeah, and this be vintage martin hannett)

Arms of Someone New - Susan Sleepwalking [1985]

Arms of Someone New!

darkwave aesthetic

reacquaintance: curtsey totally wired.

too precious for you! i was

introduced to this via processed

back in the day

i fell for it hard then,

harder than most folks did at the time,

and maybe still doubtless harder than is unwarranted now,

but hey, nostalgia kicks all ass sideways, no?

for reference, id say go straight to

"With Louise"

and maybe after that, look at a

"Turner Sky"

minor, slight, affected, purrrfect.

or hey,

if your looking for pure pop potential,

head straight to "Susan Slept Here"

HEAR