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[arkabee]

i dunno.  i have no indie cred left.  all my favorite bands break up.  usually before i discover them.  dammit j. robbins stop producing crap bands and write something more beautiful than "surgeon's house", i fuck*ng double dog dare you.

oh, ya, so, modest penis.

i feel greasy.  i heard about them, before i heard them.  i think on, gasp, mtv of all places.  and i don't get cable.

and i heard "float on" on the radio.  and i thought "That's not bad."

so i bought the new album online from an odd russian fellow.

it's not bad.  it's pretty good.  i don't think there's been a happy song i've liked as much as float on.

it's nice.

the rest of the album is pretty sad.  sad as in "are you dead or are you sleeping, god i sure hope you are dead", not as in crappy.

all though some of it seems to be "we will make songs noone will like", some of it is "we will make songs that we like", and i prefer the latter.

anyways, for less than 2 dollars online, i would have to give it a resounding thumbs up.

for more than what my kidney could get on the black market in a record store, i'd have to give it a resounding thumbs "meh".

i mean, there's a couple of songs i'd like to learn to play, but then there's some songs i just don't know about.

i'll see if i get sick of it soon, or not.

[Bozack]

I'd definitely suggest grabbing the earlier albums if you like the "sad" stuff; I'm a pretty big fan. I was introduced to them via "The Moon and Antartica,"  which may or may not be a good starting place. That said, I'm definitely not going to bullshit about M.M. "selling out" or whatever because they wrote a song that's just generally awesome and accessable. I rate the new album SOLID GOLD DANCER.

[arkabee]

ya, i got the moon and antarctica too.

i just hate "filler".  great, it's 30 seconds of horns.  why are you doing this to me?

ya know?

[Gimpson]

i just hate "filler".  great, it's 30 seconds of horns.  why are you doing this to me?

Someone last weekend told me that the Dirty Dozen Brass Band did all the horns on this album, and it was the thing that really got me interested in checking it out.  Is that 30 seconds all they appear on there?

I have been complaining for years about the lack of brass in modern music.

[Mite]

A good buddy of mine got to meet Wayne Coyne, lead singer for The Flaming Lips, a couple of years back  (just post-Yoshimi, I believe). His advice to my friend, a budding musician? "Sell out as soon as you can."

The Onion AV club interview with Isaac essentially says the same thing. If you wanna actually quit your day job, you can't just write experimental rock. The man wants to eat, and this single (which is awesome) will take care of that for awhile.

Sorry if this sounds a bit snippy, but as an admitted Hipster (it's the first step to recovery) I'm awfully sick of watching folks run away from this band like rats from a sinking ship.

[arkabee]

i just hate "filler".  great, it's 30 seconds of horns.  why are you doing this to me?

Someone last weekend told me that the Dirty Dozen Brass Band did all the horns on this album, and it was the thing that really got me interested in checking it out.  Is that 30 seconds all they appear on there?

I have been complaining for years about the lack of brass in modern music.

no, there are horns in "songs", which is good.  but track 1 is a 30 second snippet of horns, which is bad, in my opinion.  i want indie rock, i don;t want john phillips jengleheimer schmidt.

[jough]

I've only heard a little Modest penis, but I don't get the appeal.  They sound like a pretentious Strokes to me - and their songs sound overlong, like they're trying to stretch the length of each one so that they can fill the album up faster.

I can't believe some of these "artists" get record contracts when there are great bands twisting on the vine.

[arkabee]

pretentious strokes? (for different folks? ha, i _slay_ me.)

aren't the strokes pretty pretentious in and of themselves?

overlong songs? i dunno, i'm not the right person to judge.  if i like a song, i don't want it to end.  ever.

(sometimes i worry, my gf hates when a song ends up repeating itself.  she also refers to 75% of my music choices as "racket" and 75% as "damn racket".  however, she _likes_ (read: oh yeah.) Girls Against Boys.  not the new cd (which sucks).  however, she also _likes_ Def Leppard. so, um, ya.  anyways, i worry.)

I'm a big fan of Built to Spill.  rather, i like Built to Spill a lot.  but, i hate phish.  so it's not jamming, per se, that i like, so much as when somoene won't end a song i like.

in regards to bands twisting in the vine: yes, i agree.


so, anyways, i've been listening to the new cd in the car, and the antarctica cd at the office, and i've begun to like them more and more.

anways, the cd, i think what i originally took to be "filler" most likely isn't filler, it's just that there doesn't seem to be a sonic coherency to this album tha i can find yet.  the songs don't really flow.

anways.



edit-
did i just refer to Freakonica as the "new cd"?  hello, do i live under a rock?  am i "so last century"?

[miles]

A good article from Steve Albini on selling out, or not selling out:

http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

Just something to think about.  Flaming Lips be damned.  Actually, Built to Spill is a band that continued to make amazing stuff after they signed on to a major (some would say their first two WB albums are their best period), as lots of other bands do.  It's just not the way to be rich for most people.

Modest penis, to me, has always been really hit or miss.  Heart Cooks Brain, from the album Lonesome Crowded West, is probably one of my ten or so favorite songs ever (the album is pretty ok, as is This is a Long Drive..., an earlier album).  The Moon and Antarctica is a pretty damn good album.  Interstate 8, aside from the live set at the end, is a nearly perfect EP.  They have some amazing singles, compiled on CD in the form of Building Nothing out of Something.  But they also have a lot of shit.  Not just mediocre stuff, but pure shit.  For me, they lost it almost completely after The Moon and Antarctica.  It obviously has nothing to do with selling out, because that album is on a major.  It's just that, well I think they suck now.  Just me.  But maybe now with their original drummer back (or so I'm told) they'll return to form.  We'll see.

[miles]

pretentious strokes? (for different folks? ha, i _slay_ me.)

aren't the strokes pretty pretentious in and of themselves?

Yeah, I dont get the Strokes comparison.  At least not with the material I'm familiar with (haven't heard but a little of the new album).  The Strokes embody pretention, but they have some pretty cool songs.  Anyway, Isaac Brock is pure white trash.  He's a total redneck.  I haven't seen him in years, but they used to play pretty frequently in the Seattle area.  You were lucky if you caught him sober.  And seeing him slobbering drunk wasn't that fun.  He wore trucker hats before it was cool.  He wore flannel after it was cool.  He sang disco-ish songs about cockroaches.  Nothing pretentious about him.

[arkabee]

selling out-
I think a lot of people who get "mad" at "bands" for selling out, are not "mad" so much as "jealous".  
I mean, i'd love to get a bajillion dollars for "nothing, and my chicks for free."
who wouldn't?

of course, then you grow up a bit, and find out that most bands who have "sold-out" end up being broker than before.  I mean, remember when TLC went bankrupt?  and it wasn't BullShit hammer-like waste?  it was because they were so f'd over in their contract?

there's also that intrinsic "pettiness" of not wanting to share.  who wants their favorite thing touched, talked about, and slobbered over by the unclean teaming masses of people you hate?  ooooh, me, me!

then you might reach a stage where you think "if they can make another good album, another good ep, hell just one more good song.  ok, if they make 1 more good riff, then i don't care what they had to do to do it, so long as they Brought Me Their Love. "  i'm _so_ sick of my favorite bands breaking up.

of course, i just found out that J. Robbins is on some new cd.  not singing, apparently, just riffing, but hey that's cool.  only it's from some members of PRomise Ring.  which i don't know if it's cool or not.  i hope it doesn't suck. please make it not suck.  no sucky-sucky mr. robbins, no sucky-sucky please!

modest penis-

1- Jough, i can kind of understand what you mean, maybe, about "filling space".  i got another album, something out of nothing, and also on the antarctica one, it seems lyrically repetitive.  like, on one of those songs, the chorus is like 2 lines repeated 4 times, and the entirety of the lyrics are repeated 2x.

i haven't really noticed that on the new one.

2- the new one is growing on me more.


Built to Spill-
They have always struck me as a band that exists to make music, not to be a band.  and i think that's why they make beautiful music.
I mean, what should music care what label it's on?


Steve Albini article-

thanks for posting, good reading.

[Carlos del Vaca]

I am quite familiar with that Albini article, and there was a time when my band-mates and I would probably have swum that trench of filth.  Usually I'm glad we never had that put to us.

When the record labels bitch about file-sharing and CD burners, and moan that the artists are hurt, they should be given that article and asked to explain why they don't help out the artists on their side, if they care about them so freakin' much.

[andalucia]

I don't really enjoy recent Modest penis, but not for purely ideological reasons, I just don't like the sound of their new album, and I completely fail to understand the apparently vast and enthusiastic appeal of "Float On".  I do think that The Moon & Antarctica is good solid indie rock, even though it's not technically indie as such.  I guess I'll worry more about my cred when I move somewhere where I have more than three acquaintances whose musical taste I respect.

[arkabee]

the appeal of float on:

see, it's a guitar rock song that makes me smile.  it makes me happy.  it makes me think "hey, maybe we'll all just float on, ok?"

at some point in time, a man begins to say to himself:

"self?  maybe another night with a bottle of vodka, coffee, and a Swans album isn't such a good idea. not such a good idea at all."

and yet, you still hold on to sad, melancholy loser-rock.  sure, Barbie-girl get's discussed on VH1 and when noone is looking you bop your head to it, but when the shit hits the fan, and you feel like gnawing through your wrists at the intrinsic assedness of the world at large and you have nowhere else to turn to but your cd collection and you _reallllllly_ need to be cheered up because god dammit to hell it has got to be better and there it is, there's a bob mould cd, and you can't resist, because you love it, you need it, and at it's basest level you _KNOW_ that it is basic beauty, so you put it on and let it comfort you while you cry into your empty bottle of irish whiskey and then finally pass out underneath your snuffle-up-a-gus comforter that your older sister through out when you turned 12 but you secretly got back out of the trash.

so, the appeal of "float on" is that it's a kick ass song that you like, but it actually doesn't make you want take a nap on a train track.

[Bozack]

so, the appeal of "float on" is that it's a kick ass song that you like, but it actually doesn't make you want take a nap on a train track.

Hear, hear. The second line includes the words, "Sometimes life's okay." I've got far too much sad bastard music already.


Do I listen to pop music because I'm miserable, or am I miserable because I listen to pop music?