NMT 59
I just finished a fun little book called, Perfect from now on: how indie rock saved my life by John Sellers (a $3.99 sale book at Borders). It was basically a guy writing about his obsession with music and in particular with our pick this week. I basically agreed with most of his observations about us music obsessives, though I am not near as bad anymore (I don't hunt down bootlegs and imports and shit), but the basic ideas are there. I did relate to all the feelings of frustration when someone didn't realize this band was an off-shoot of this other band or the singer X used to be in band Y and all that. At the time it seemed important, I know better now.
It's all about the ego. Or the need to artificially inflate your lack thereof. Hey, here's something you have over people. Doesn't mean anything, but fuck them, you know it and they don't.
Anyway, it was a fun read even though I disagreed with some of his choices (just some bands I didn't get in to), I thought he got the overall feeling right; the great feeling of handing someone something and them saying, "hey, what's this?" (which is what brings us here). Good feeling.
Over the years it's gone from a feeling of mock superiority to just a good feeling of making someone happy for 3 1/2 min. Or just staving off their boredom for a few minutes. Either way.
SO, our pick this week is the band he listed as his favorite in the book. They have an interesting story:
They're from Dayton, OH and the singer and songwriter was an elementary teacher while making music on the side. They put out some home made recordings made in their basement (or "down cellar") with a 4 track in the 80's. My friend Cary that I worked with at the store told me about them and said they put out each record on a different "label" so the indie rock kids would think they kept changing labels and thus were cool (indie rock kids are easily fooled), when in fact it was just them with their own money. Anyways, they didn't put anything out from like 1987 to 93 or something and then the 35 year old singer decided to make one last record and mailed it out to different media outlets and such. An editor at Spin magazine got a copy, loved it and wrote about them. Underground success follows and they end up influencing a whole generation of indie rock stars.
The lead guy, Robert Pollard, is very proficient. He's written over a thousand songs, for this band, solo records and side projects. Not all of them are good, most of them are a little too weird for me, but the good ones are really good. For you Scrubs fans, they did the song "Hold on Hope" that plays in one of the Brenden Frasier episodes (Two of the best episodes of that show ever) when they start looking through his pictures.
I didn't pick that one, but this one is good too.
So, from Dayton, OH (O-H...I-O!):
Guided By Voices - "I am a Scientist":
Bonus Tracks:
SO, you know how we're all big fans of the show The "L" word? I mean, not obsessive fans like Mormon Girl (she loves that show in ways she's not ready to deal with yet), but fans none the less. Well, the girl who plays Alice is also a singer, in fact she was one of the girls in The Murmurs. You know, those little folk rock girls who sang "You suck". Which was always fun when people would come in to ask for it: Do you have that You suck song? Um, cute little folk song about how the guy broke her heart and for that he sucks or raunchy, club song about making your boyfriend go down on you? Um, that first one...
Anyway, she's got a new band and here it is:
Uh Huh Her -"Say so":
I Miss the 90's:
This is stretching it a bit. This is a 1993 remix of a song from the late 80's. It's a Lynn special, so let's get out the tights, get our pack of cloves, head to the Edge and get a drink with all the fruit drinks and dance to the funky sounds.
Severed Heads - "Dead Eyes Opened":
It's all about the ego. Or the need to artificially inflate your lack thereof. Hey, here's something you have over people. Doesn't mean anything, but fuck them, you know it and they don't.
Anyway, it was a fun read even though I disagreed with some of his choices (just some bands I didn't get in to), I thought he got the overall feeling right; the great feeling of handing someone something and them saying, "hey, what's this?" (which is what brings us here). Good feeling.
Over the years it's gone from a feeling of mock superiority to just a good feeling of making someone happy for 3 1/2 min. Or just staving off their boredom for a few minutes. Either way.
SO, our pick this week is the band he listed as his favorite in the book. They have an interesting story:
They're from Dayton, OH and the singer and songwriter was an elementary teacher while making music on the side. They put out some home made recordings made in their basement (or "down cellar") with a 4 track in the 80's. My friend Cary that I worked with at the store told me about them and said they put out each record on a different "label" so the indie rock kids would think they kept changing labels and thus were cool (indie rock kids are easily fooled), when in fact it was just them with their own money. Anyways, they didn't put anything out from like 1987 to 93 or something and then the 35 year old singer decided to make one last record and mailed it out to different media outlets and such. An editor at Spin magazine got a copy, loved it and wrote about them. Underground success follows and they end up influencing a whole generation of indie rock stars.
The lead guy, Robert Pollard, is very proficient. He's written over a thousand songs, for this band, solo records and side projects. Not all of them are good, most of them are a little too weird for me, but the good ones are really good. For you Scrubs fans, they did the song "Hold on Hope" that plays in one of the Brenden Frasier episodes (Two of the best episodes of that show ever) when they start looking through his pictures.
I didn't pick that one, but this one is good too.
So, from Dayton, OH (O-H...I-O!):
Guided By Voices - "I am a Scientist":
Bonus Tracks:
SO, you know how we're all big fans of the show The "L" word? I mean, not obsessive fans like Mormon Girl (she loves that show in ways she's not ready to deal with yet), but fans none the less. Well, the girl who plays Alice is also a singer, in fact she was one of the girls in The Murmurs. You know, those little folk rock girls who sang "You suck". Which was always fun when people would come in to ask for it: Do you have that You suck song? Um, cute little folk song about how the guy broke her heart and for that he sucks or raunchy, club song about making your boyfriend go down on you? Um, that first one...
Anyway, she's got a new band and here it is:
Uh Huh Her -"Say so":
I Miss the 90's:
This is stretching it a bit. This is a 1993 remix of a song from the late 80's. It's a Lynn special, so let's get out the tights, get our pack of cloves, head to the Edge and get a drink with all the fruit drinks and dance to the funky sounds.
Severed Heads - "Dead Eyes Opened":
posted by Richard at 10:32 AM
2 Comments:
sounds like a neat book. hey, you still have my story of o? send it back to me?
you are so still like that. spot changing thing, remember?
still know all the words to that second one and yet sometimes can't remember where i put my purse. funny thing, life.
screw the edge, i miss visage. ah, times. they were those.
hannah
interesting choices this week, the only one I really liked was Uh Huh (nothing against Lynn but I just don't remember that song from the 90s).
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