It's a slow night and Christmas is coming, so I just want everyone to pause for a second and remember that Stonedranger and I aren't the kind of assholes who fill out one of those Amazon.com wishlist things and expect you to buy us something. I can't speak for all of our contributors, but I don't imagine they're that way either. You're welcome...
Lost Generation (Fallout Lounge) Stereo On Strike has some new mixes on the SOS blog, including a Frenz reworking of a Red Monroe track.
Boogdish | Heartstring Stranglers | Fake Blood (1919 Hemphill) Boogdish is a one man bass and synth act. Fake Blood is a newer duo from Fort Worth that combines keyboards, a standing drummer and a lot of spirited shouting. I can't wait to hear some recordings, as they are excellent.
We're in the middle of working on a bunch of year end stuff for the blog, so you have plenty to look forward to if you enjoy reading blog posts that make you question your own self worth. Shows tonight:
Bloggers Gordon and the Whale will be hosting a free screening of the film Walk Hardat Movie Tavern in Denton this evening at 730. Despite the fact that its free, you DO have to score a pass to the film (the bros tell me that you can pick them up at Movie Tavern or from one of them if you see them in the flesh), and you should get there early to save a seat, since not all with passes are guaranteed admission. Oh, they'll have $1.50 domestic beer for you as well, which is pretty sweet.
Duran Duran is playing at Nokia this evening as the headliner for the Mix 102.9 holiday something or other party. I don't know if they have a Myspace page, but I refuse to link to it because they're better than that. Most underrated bass lines of all time. Duh.
And finally, if you're one of those people who acts really happy all the time in order to hide the fact that you're a drug addict, you might want to check out Femme Fatality's predictably tongue in cheek synth pop at Rubber Gloves tonight. Listening to the songs on their Myspace page made me feel like a copy of Vice Magazine from 2002 had suddenly come to life and puked all over me. Girlsrisewithheat and Sticky Buns will be joining them as well.
Yells At Eels (St. Paul United Methodist Church located at 1816 Routh St., Downtown in The Arts District) This show is free and starts at 7 PM sharp. Cavernous spaces are generally bad for shows, but churches and free jazz have always been an oddly successful pairing. This is one of the best groups in town, regardless of genre.
Iron & Wine | Arthur and Yu (Palladium) Hating shit before I even know enough about it to form an opinion is a really fun past time for me. If you spend a lot of your time listening to, reading about, and generally consuming popular music like I do, it's actually pretty easy to form an opinion on one of these "indie" bands pretty quickly, and I bet a lot of our readers have the ability, like me, to predict whether they'll like one of these bands before they even hear them, and I bet they can do so with pretty impressive accuracy. I'm not saying that this is a recommended course of action, or that I've ever dismissed a band or sound or record on this blog before I actually listened to it, but the kind of marketing that is commonly associated with a lot of "indie" rock bands these days doesn't leave a whole lot to the imagination, does it? For example, I pretty much knew what the fucking Brunettes were going to sound like before I ever heard them. Why? Well just look at them. And look at their name. And their label. And their cover art. I probably couldn't have belted out one of their songs, or even named their influences, but I knew enough to know I wouldn't want to before I spent more than five minutes listening to their music. And that isn't because I'm smart-- it's because their look, their label, and their PR people have pretty much already spelled out who they should appeal to and why, and I guess they left me out.
I'm only kind of just kidding about all that, but I do so in order to make myself look stupid, because both Iron & Wine and Arthur and Yu serve as pretty good examples of me being really wrong. Honestly, Sam Beam-- this bearded guy making quiet singer songwriter songs for English majors? It isn't all that exciting. Until you give it a chance. My attitude toward Iron & Wine for a very long time was based on a dismissive something or other about Will Oldham, but I've taken the time over the past few weeks to discover how this Beam guy stands on his own and writes really great songs. Go figure. Sometimes those douche MP3 blogs are actually right. And Arthur and Yu? Great lonely country songs that are perfect for a day just like today. I've only heard maybe a half dozen of their tracks, but I've enjoyed each one of them more than than I ever thought indie rock would let me, and despite an early protest from yours truly, I'll probably go to the show early to catch them. Sometimes truth is stranger than marketing.
I first started listening to Clipd Beakssome time last year after I checked out their Myspace page for an It List post. What I heard that day was scattered hardcore, post-punk and noise influenced freak out stuff that managed to be very easy to listen to despite what sounded like a pretty honest attempt to make things at least somewhat difficult for the listener.
This year's Hoarse Lords, released on the much buzzed about Lovepump Unitedlabel, features many of the same qualities I enjoyed on their earlier EPs-- a mix of the familiar and the avant garde that produces some undeniably intoxicating results. We had meant to publish this interview before Clipd Beaks' Dallas show last week, but schedule and communication issues resulted in the interview taking place about 15 minutes before their show at Public Trust, and thus, a delayed post. The guys had some interesting things to say about moving as a band, writing songs, and dealing with "buzz," and here they are:
So you guys are all from Minnesota originally, right?
Yep.
And I read that some of you guys have known one another for a really long time. How did all of you meet?
Our bass player Scott and our drummer Ray met in first grade. They both went to a fine arts school so they're classically trained in their instruments unlike the other two of us, and they were both doing jazz band and stuff like that from a really early age. When I met them, they were in like a grunge band when they were like 13 years old and they were playing in my friend's garage at his parents' house. And I was like 14 and really into punk rock like Bad Religion and Minor Threat and other punk, and I saw these guys and thought they were wankers because they actually knew how to play their instruments, so I thought I'd be real cool and fuck with them, like fuck with their drums and stuff like that because I thought it sucked. And they came over and gave me a dirty look and were like "fuck you." So anyway, that's how I met them. We ended up getting to know each other, and we went to high school together, and they were a year younger than me. Scott started getting more into punk and hardcore over the years, and we started playing a lot of hardcore shows together while they were still doing their band. Their band started playing a lot of shows when I was a senior in high school, and after many years of us knowing one another and playing in separate bands, at one point we realized that if we all played together, something special would happen. So we decided to try it.
So then you moved to Oakland?
Well actually we started Clipd Beaks in 2003 in Minneapolis and then in the fall of 2004 I started to take off and move away from Minneapolis because I was really sick of it at the time and it didn't seem like our band had much of a future in Minneapolis because people weren't really feeling what we were doing and the whole vibe was kind of crushing at the time. I moved to San Francisco, and I didn't really think much about whether Clipd Beaks was still going to be a band, but what happened was that the other guys started making new recordings when I was gone, and right when I heard the stuff, I realized, and they had already realized, and other people had already told them that when we play together, something special happened. As soon as I heard the new stuff, I figured that we had to keep it going somehow, so I flew out there and did some work on some new songs, and then I told them that if they wanted to move out there (to California), I thought it would go really well. And a week after that, they moved out there and crashed on my floor until they found a place to live.
You said two of the guys are trained in their instruments and two of you aren't. Does that ever present problems for you guys as far as how you write music as a band?
Actually it works out really well because all of our songs more or less start with the foundation of the rhythm section, drums and bass. Usually the way we start a practice is to get Ray to come up with a cool drum beat, and Ray will fuck around and we'll all listen and get into what he's playing. And Scott and Ray are the ones that have known one another forever, and they have this definite connection between the two of them in terms of getting locked in with the rhythm section, and they'll kind of come up with a groove. And really, we are split down the middle, with the rhythm section which is super tight, and me and Nick are the opposite-- because the rhythm is so tight, it gives us the freedom to make as much noise as we want and freak the fuck out over that. So we have the rhythm and a bunch of random noise over that, so that's kind of our formula or our little trick that has worked out over time.
Well I was listening to your new record the other day, and one thing I like about it is that even though there is a lot of noise and chaos in the songs, you can always here a foundation in more structured pop and rock music. I like the contrast that is created there. Does that result from a combination of tastes coming out at once, or maybe the way you go about writing the songs, or is it a conscious stylistic choice?
Well with the bands we were in before, and even in the beginning of Clipd Beaks, we all came from a background of writing stuff that would be considered more conventional, accessible pop music. For me personally, I don't really listen to a lot of noise and really wacked out shit. The stuff that I'm really into is pretty much by the book what you'd expect, like New Order and the Smiths and Kraftwerk, and even bands like Suede and Primal Scream. That was the stuff that got me at a tender age and shaped my whole perspective on music, much more so than later on when I started listening to bands like Wolf Eyes, Throbbing Gristle, or Cabaret Voltaire. That's all there, but I can't ever get away from the fact, and I don't think any of us can, that we all trace our musical moment of zen back to Smashing Pumpkins'Siamese Dream.I think for all four of us, that album or maybe Nirvana was what made the switch for us and made us think that we could actually be in a band. We really do try to incorporate everything we hear and everything we like, and encompass everything from that stuff to things we're into now, we don't discriminate between things that are cool and things that aren't cool or whatever. We want to have complete freedom, because whatever our next record might sound like could be totally different and some people might hate it, but that's just how it goes. We do this just for fun and for our own ideas about what good music should sound like.
Yeah, I was looking at some of the other bands on your label (Lovepump), and I think you guys sound pretty different than a lot of them. One similarity I do see, however, is that with a lot of the groups, the music is noisy like Indian Jewelry or AIDS Wolf and certainly abrasive at times, but with that kind of music, there is often an association with anger and aggression and darkness, while a lot of the bands on Lovepump seem to have that kind of musical aggression without the dark, heavy mood that a lot of noisier music has been associated with. Do you think that's true?
Well I definitely don't think that's the case for our album. It might be the case with some of the other stuff but I don't know. The reaction I get from a lot of people about our album is that its hard to listen to. When I listen to it, I think of how much fun we have making it, and the reason we're having fun is because through playing music, we're finding the freedom to let out a lot of the bad feelings we have. I think we are very different from a band like Health, but I don't know how to explain it though. In terms of the sound, maybe in some ways we're actually more accessible than some of the bands on Lovepump, but to us, we really don't think of ourselves as being some really artsy band, really super serious about "this is our aesthetic, this is our style, this is our sound." Kind of going back to what I was saying before, we've been doing this for a long time and we've all known one another for a long time, so to us it's kind of a relationship, it's just what we do when we're together, it's very real and personal to us, it's not based on trying to conform to some type of aesthetic of whats cool on Pitchfork in 2007. If that works out, and we connect with someone and they do think that, that's great, but it took us five years of being this band to get to this point, and at this point, regardless of however we fit in and how people might want us to be, we're still Clipd Beaks and we're still going to be doing it if it's not cool next year.
Well, the kind of music you're doing, as well as a lot of the other west coast bands you've been associated with recently, ARE cool on Pitchfork this year, you know?
Right, right. It's funny now that that is starting to happen, because we never played shows with Health or even knew them until a few months ago, and we don't know No Age or a lot of these other bands. We want people to know that we're from Minnesota because there are actually really cool bands from Minnesota that no one will ever hear. I realized at some point that no one would ever hear us if we stayed in Minnesota because its a very isolated place, but it's interesting to see how people try to make sense out of things and group things together that are easily marketable and easy to digest. I'm sure everyone thinks this about their band, but I really think our band isn't going to fit into that, maybe it's because we deliberately try to make ourselves non marketable, but where we come from is totally our own place. Minneapolis, the scene we came out of. We're not from L.A. or San Francisco, we're from fucking Minneapolis, you know, and we're doing this because we like hanging out together, not because we thought we were going to blow up or something.
And you do see that people are eager to lump all of those bands together in an artcore/hardcore scene in the west coast, even though you guys are from San Francisco and most of those bands are from L.A.
Yeah, and San Francisco has some great bands too. Right now, everyone is saying that this is a great year for noisy music, and so somehow we'll ride that wave to the top of the blog charts.
And at one time in the past, Minneapolis was a national hot spot itself. You seemed to be saying that it was pretty dead when you were there, but I wonder if there is any trace of that old Replacements/Husker Du thing that happened so long ago?
When I started going to shows it was a really amazing time, not just in Minneapolis but across the entire country. The only band that is still around from Minneapolis that I saw back then that people would still identify with is Dillinger 4. That was the first punk show I ever went to, and there were a lot of super crusty gutter punks hanging around. Back then, Minneapolis was really known for for Profane Existence Magazine, I don't know if you know about that, but it was like super crust. Anyway, I start going to shows at 14, I weighed like 100 pounds and I was straight edge, and I was moshing and pushing around totally shit faced, red faced belligerent crusty punk dudes with liberty spikes, and that was when it all kind of started for me. In Minneapolis, there are no record labels at all, so even if you're in a really good band, no one is going to take you to the next level and put out your record based on potential. So one of the things we started doing was to put out our own records. It seems obvious in a way, but we didn't just put together a CD and give it to friends, we started burning CDs and put together a list of 100 different labels we were going to send them out to, from the west coast to Sweden to Japan, we just started sending it out to people. The problem with Minneapolis is that geographically, it's a very isolated place, and it makes it hard to tour and make it to the West Coast and East Coast where more shit is happening. We did a thing for this website called Paperthinwalls.com recently where we selected three different MP3s from great bands from Minneapolis that are around right now just to shed some light on something that is very unknown and unappreciated, and that was a really cool opportunity for us.
MON: Iron & Wine/Arthur and Yu (Palladium) WED: Duran Duran (Nokia Theater) FRI: Klever/Tittsworth (The Loft) SAT: Teenage Cool Kids/Koji Kondo (715 Panhandle) SUN: Gil Mantera's Party Dream/Faux Fox/Prince William (Hailey's)
Dub Assembly with Deville | Mundo and Lifted MC | Keith P | Royal Highnuss (Green Elephant) Another solid Dub Assembly dubstep night featuring Leeds UK DJ Deville, who according to his Myspace page spins a lot of stuff other than dubstep, with much more of an inviting, accessible party vibe that is probably much more appealing to an American audience. Dallas' own Mundo is building quite a rep for himself in dubstep circles nationally and internationally, and Keith P has basically become one of the most skilled DJs in town over the past year. Should be great.
Goodnight Fish | Blank Tapes | A Childlike Fear | Domenic Ferraro | Retired Astronauts (1919 Hemphill) Pretty mellow show for Hemphill this evening, with Austin's Goodnight Fish and San Francisco's Blank Tapes as the highlights. Blank Tapes sound like San Francisco is pretty much the only place they could be from, with some nice little Dead influenced pop songs and minimal, low key production.
Agent Orange | The Lash Outs | Kansas City Faggots | The Bleach Boys | The Blanket Restraint (Redblood Club) Redblood Club scores another big 80's/90's skate punk show, this time bringing in SoCal "legends" Agent Orange. I was going to talk about their history and all that but then I was like, oh, I don't really give a shit. People that do give a shit know enough about this band anyway. And I'd probably go mainly to see Bleach Boys (and yes I realize that they are probably influenced by Agent Orange just a lil.)
Lazer | MC Router | The Triggermen (Darkside Lounge) I'm not big into Lazer my man, but it should be noted that MC Router got a nice mention in a recent XLR8R article on nerdcore along with several other prominent MCs of the genre. Makes JonannaWidner's clueless criticism of one of her recent shows seem even more Observeresque. I guess she doesn't have the approval of Russ Martin just yet.
SATURDAY
Dinosaur Jr. | Awesome Color | Colour Revolt (House of Blues) Obviously, reunion tours are pretty dumb for the most part, but Dinosaur's performance at Gypsy Tea Room last year was honestly one of the best rock shows I've ever been to. I'm a tad young to have caught the band in their prime, or even just after their prime, but I can't imagine how they could sound too much better than they did in 2006. Oh. That time they opened on My Bloody Valentine's Loveless tour. That was probably better. But anyway, their new album Beyond, released earlier this year, was pretty damn solid, and if you don't dig that, here is some really old Dinosauresque stuff to check out. Pretty funny. You might also be interested in stopping by early to check out some of Awesome Color's new material. I'm not a Sonic Youth nut like a lot of people on here, but Thurston Moore does happen to be right about certain things.
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth: Another brainstorm by Fort Worth’s Other Arts, presented by Herb Levy, the same fellow who hatched the crazy scheme of flying Ellen Fullman & Susan Alcorn to Fort Worth for a three-day session of amplified-wire drones in a long barn in the middle of a horse-dung splattered livestock exhibit area. Last weekend Levy also presented Cage and Feldman solo pieces by pianist Louis Goldstein at the Van Cliburn Recital Hall. Saturday’s show is more geared toward the budget-conscious (cover-phobic?), as it’s free. Technically, this interpretation of Feldman’s 1978 work is happening in conjunction with “Declaring Space: Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Lucio Fontana, Yves Klein,” (featuring the art of Feldman’s contemporaries and acquaintances), so it’s somewhat possible you might have to bear a $4 (student price) burden for a double whammy of subtle, textural, & deceptively provocative art and music. “Why Patterns?” will be performed on piano, flute, and percussion, differing from the most widely available recording of the piece (Rothko Chapel, 1991, New Albion, on cello, piano, and chimes). The 30-minute piece starts with spare, sharp piano clunks, diffusing into light, airy, and moody tonal clusters. It should be interesting to see how the inherently more playful flute changes the tone. As is, the original picks up major steam near the end, chugging along with a powerful ill logic to a faded non-ending that leaves you wanting. Free and starts at 2pm.
Shiny Around the Edges | Drink to Victory | Seth Sherman | Fight Bite (Strawberry Fields) Another good show at Strawberry Fields, a store that seems to be carrying on the DentonDIY crusade now that some of the more well known venues have been put out of commission. And I haven't had a chance to hear Fight Bite yet, but their name is fucking gross. BYOB as always.
Smif n Wessun | The Party (Ridglea Theater) Free show, which is important to some people. I was just talking to my really cheap friend (we all have one) who wouldn't pay a cover charge to see My Bloody Valentine open for the 1969 Rolling Stones at a private party. So I'm going to tell him to go to this show, because its free and stuff. JUST KIDDING. THIS IS NEXT WEEKEND
SUNDAY
Bleach Boys | KojiKondo | Rocket for Ethiopia | Rival Gang | Fake Blood (1919 Hemphill) These performances are part of a larger art show where, if I'm not mistaken, the bands display their own visual art. But whether that is completely true or not doesn't really matter with a great line up like this. I'm kind of interested to hear more from Denton's Rival Gang, seeing as how the one song on their Myspace page is pretty good.
Clipd Beaks | Ctrl Alt Del | Gravity Propulsion System (Public Trust): Clipd Beaks are one of a handful of bands from the especially busy (and noisy) West Coast scene that make up the rosters of such underground industry titans as Panache Booking and the loudly potent Lovepump United label. Clipd Beaks differ from their geographical, booking and label peers with a sound that is darker, swampier, and more straight-up rock. Gravity Propulsion System might steal the show since they seem like a band who will push the volume enough to overcome the sound limitations of The Public Trust. They mix maxed-out tremolo, de-tuned ringing chords, contrasting bottom heavy rhythms that suit their name. Ctrl Alt Del will be providing mixes in between and all night as well.
The Knitters (Sons Of Hermann Hall) The Knitters are kind of like America's own version of The Mekons, in that they are taking a largely punk background and aesthetic combined with classically folk, country and American roots sounds. One could argue that their influence is somewhat on par with X, the group they evolved from, in terms of how much of a monster this once obscure genre has turned into. Perfect venue for this show.
Stevie Wonder (Nokia Live) "Sir Duke" is the only good song on the Waffle House jukebox. Trust me.
Lost Generation (Fallout Lounge) Tonight's special guest isIt's What We Get, and I suspect this might be just the beginning of many Dallas appearances for the Denton DJ duo.
Matthew And The Arrogant Sea | Will E. Lee | A Childlike Fear (Club Dada) Matthew And The Arrogant Sea recently did a cover of Dylan's "The Man In Me" and it was a really creative take on the track as well as an enjoyable listen. Some points lost there for its inclusion on The Big Lebowski soundtrack, but that's not really their fault. Anyways, go listen to it. Will E. Lee kind of does what The Meat Puppets did if they never played crazy fucked-up rock songs and all of their intricate electric folk interplay was stripped down into solo acoustic singer/songwriter stuff.
Denton DJ duo It's What We Get, featuring Alan Palomo from Ghosthustler and Jason Faries from Gazelles, have put together a new mix this week that I've enjoyed quite a bit. Here is the tracklist:
1. Todd Rundgren - Real Man
2. Danger - 14h54
3. Klaxons - As Above, So Below (Justice Remix)
4. Chromeo - Bonafide Lovin' (Yusek Remix)
5. Bag Raiders - Punch Reprise
6. Daft Punk - Technologic (Digitalism Remix)
7. Mystery Jets - Diamonds in The Dark (LA Riots Remix)
8. Teenage Bad Girl - Beel/Ocelot - Lo Sforzo
9. The Bar Kays - Do It
10. Does It Offend You, Yeah? - Let's Make Out
11. Boys Noize - Let's Buy Happiness
12. Charlie - Spacer Woman
13. Calvin Harris - Merrymaking At My Place(Mr Oizo Remix)
14. Steel Lord - Feel The Heat
15. New Edition - Cool it Now/Alan Braxe - Arena
16. Soft Tigers - Mr. Ice Cream (Miami Horror 'Kids Out On the Street')
17. Kylie - 2 Hearts (The Twelves Remix)
18. Michael Jackson - Billy Jean (Mathematikal Rebirth)
And here is the link to download it. These guys are playing at Fallout Lounge tonight for Stereo on Strike's Lost Generation.
Cheap Time | The Wax Museums | The Reds | The Uptown Bums (Xtreme Dudes Manor) Glad to see a show's happening at Xtreme Dudes, and on a weeknight at that. The Reds are an older group that eventually became The Marked Men, whose lineup is still mostly comprised of the band. Cheap Time are on tour from Nashville, and they have a ridiculous take on glam and garage rock with some trashy punk influences characterizing their sound. They get extra points for listing the great and often overlooked Milk And Cookies as inspiration. The Wax Museums are more straightforwardly punk and are very good at it.
Short Attention Span Theater (Rubber Gloves) Tonight's theme is centered around letting the audience request Youtube videos that will be projected onto a screen. Sounds fun.
Before we move on to these shows, we should mention that Southern Rap pioneer and Port Arthur native, Pimp C, of UGK, has been found dead in his Hollywood hotel room. Totally fucking depressing.
Chris Welch | Will Kapinos/Brent Best (Dan's Silverleaf) This is a song swap featuring some of the main songwriters behind the groups Jetscreamer, The Drams, and Pinebox Serenade.
Billy Joel (American Airlines Center) I won't waste your time with some half-wit Pomo Klostermanian rant about how Billy Joel is actually really cool if you listen in the exact right way. I'll just say that I was a big fan as a kid and I still think he kicks total Elton John ass. My father said he was too commercial, something I didn't understand as being ruinous to an artist's integrity, until of course he did the soundtrack to Oliver And Company. It was all downhill from there. I still the think the video for "Pressure" rules. Fun Fact: "We Didn't Start The Fire" started out as a rap song.
I'm an axe man, man. A gunslinger. A riff man. I play guitar. Ever since the days of cutting my teeth to "And Justice For All..." tablature, I have been developing a keen ear for the epic guitar solo, and I believe I have reached my peak. I can spot an excellent guitar solo. Fact. This is known. And considering that I am more than qualified to do so, I have established a list of the best guitar solos. Lists are good, effective. They define. Some people use them as the start of discussions. This is wrong. Why? Because, like I just mentioned, lists define. If lists define then why discuss? There should be no discussion, and in fact, all discussion should cease at this moment. So why do I get to define the five best guitar solos? Because I'm qualified....I already mentioned that. Let's get to it.
The B side of Lodger is Fantastic. Starting with "DJ" and ending with "Red Money" (Sister Midnight's twin) it might just be my favorite stretch of Bowie music. "Look Back in Anger" has this incredible rollicking energy that makes it one of Bowie's heaviest songs. From the beginning, the rhythm section is in a dead sprint after being signaled by the high pitched "starter pistol" squeal of guitarist Carlos Alomar. There are no breaks, bridges or innuendos, its no holds barred art-rock thrash for three glorious minutes. Given the exhausting pace of the track, it would be easy to ruin the solo. Instead of competing with his band-mates, however, Mr. Alomar compliments their tour de force by playfully strumming a couple of repeated notes, creating a swaying tension over an impossible rhythm section. This dude gets little attention in the wake of the great Mick Ronson.
Number Four:
"Falling and Laughing",(From 2:25 to 2:39 and 2:53 to Fade Out), Orange Juice from the You Can't Hide Your Love Forever album.
Edwyn Collins and Malcolm Ross turn the Marr into mincemeat on this undeniably catchy pop song. There are actually two solos which are variations on the same rockabilly-esque riff. Both are short, sweet and drenched in twangy reverb. The latter ushers in an incredibly fun outro will make you wonder if anyone every pogo-ed at Smiths shows. For anyone who is fond of Marr, Boorer or who was once taken by the chime-y interplay of Franz Ferdinand.......you ain't heard nuthin till you heard these squeaky clean Scots.
Number Three:
"Animal Nitrate" , (From 1:42 to 2:04) Suede from the Suede album
Ahh......Suede. The guiltiest of all guilty pleasures. The most pouty, snotty, self indulgent Brit Pop band to come out of the scene (Yes that includes Oasis too). The guitars on this track are clouds of flangy fluff floating over a very dense mix. Butler's use of textures and rhythms are unconventional and cool, and they really, really work. The fluffy intro gives way to a harsh, trebly verse riff, accompanied by a rhythm section that sounds like it could collapse at any second. But it doesn't. What it does do is give way to a solo blinded by phase and flange and punctuated with the perfect Butler wrap-up. And any guy who has seen the girl of their dreams go home with who they think is a potential date rapist can identify with the track. Can't every guy relate to that? I guess the dudes who are actually doing the raping can't.......Suede's best song.
Number Two:
"Marquee Moon", (Shit.....the whole thing) Television from the Marquee Moon album
As the old cliche goes, what hasn't been said about Marquee Moon? Couple of things to mention. First, Tom Verlaine is one of only two American guitarists on the list (Take your Hendrix and shove it). Second, the guy is adept at making the guitar sound just as immediately melodic as the piano. There are some very sparse pianos on the track but you mainly hear guitars, lots and lots of guitars. And yet he manages to avoid wankery. How? I don't know. Third, this is the longest and only "Close your eyes and feel it like Carlos Santana" solo on the list. In fact the whole fucking song is a guitar solo. So light some candles, dim the lights, roll a joint and indulge in the magic that is Marquee Moon.
Why not bookend the list with another Lodger B side gem? Well, the story on this song is that the musicians traded instruments in an effort to create some kind of sloppy garage sound. There are a shit load of musicians on the album and the insanely dense mix might have damned near used all of them. I do know that standard guitarist Carlos Alomar plays drums, and drummer Dennis Davis plays bass (really, really good bass in hindsight). Anyway the point is for the longest time I thought the guitar solo was being played by somebody who really wasn't supposed to know how to play guitar. That would have been amazing. Alas, that is not the case. It's still amazing. At 2:03 Kentucky born Adrian Belew turns his heavily treated guitar into a Frankenstein that obliterates everything in its path. The stuttering choice of notes and sheer volume create a "roll your eyes" kind of swagger that could not compliment the song's arrogance any better. Belew's fractured lines eventually dissolve into a blistering stereo of white noise that sounds as desperate as a strung out Bowie crawling through a Berlin sewer grate. The childish rhythm section conjures up some kind of build-up that concludes with a purposely clumsy snare fill at 2:57. I've listened to that damned snare fill so many times. It sounds as if rookies Carlos and Dennis are trying to save some sinking ship from evil Adrian's guitar and their only source of refuse lies in an impish snare fill. Belew's guitar continues to scream through the fade-out as if it was laughing at Senior Alomar for playing such a meek snare fill. The track is perfect. That's all there is to it. Now I know SR posted the video not too long ago, but don't watch it for the solo. You will be distracted by Bowie's antics and miss it.
There you have it. So the next time you and your bro's or bro-ette's want to wax philosophical about guitar heroes. No need. It's laid our right here for you.
Honorable Mention:
"Eruption" Van Halen "Hots for Teacher" Van Halen "Running with the Devil" Van Halen "Panama" Van Halen "Right Now" Van Halen
