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The Music Thread Strikes Back

Just finished a brilliant book called Please Kill Me, which is an oral history of punk. It's loads of interviews with pretty much everyone involved. It's largely from an American perspective, going chronologically from the Velvet Underground through to the deaths of Sid Vicious and Johnny Thunders, taking in the Stooges, the Ramones, the Pistols etc along the way.

It's fascinating stuff, especially the difference between the US and the UK punk scenes. The US scene was basically a tiny group of people hanging out in a couple of clubs in New York, forming bands and doing a lot of heroin. But in the UK, it was far more aggressive and angry, and as much about the fashion as the music.

It gave me a new perspective on people like Lou Reed, Iggy and Malcolm McLaren and ultimately it's all rather sad, with so many of the participants ending up dying in their 20s.

An essential read for anyone interested in that kind of thing.
 
SSB said:
So what we all looking forward to in terms of new albums or in 2011?
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I actually try to not look forward to forthcoming releases too much, as you can build yourself up for quite an anti-climax if not careful.

However, I will be looking forward to the new Mogwai album in February. James are allegedly doing a box set, but no date is confirmed. And the flashman cd is officially released in february too (though I already have it).

I may indulge in the remastered version of screamadelica when it comes out.

I hope to hear something suprising, & new.
 
nimrod said:
but then he likes tame impala. go figure.

i think everyone's got at least one shit band in their genetic makeup somewhere.
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He likes Kasabian. Therefore, in the unwritten law of what is decent, he fails number one, part one, sub-section A.

He could have said Toploader and he would have got away with it.
 
I'm with you Langdale in that I'm not a fan of Kasabian. Had the misfortune of seeing them of Glastonbury a couple of years back where I think they were either pissed or on drugs.

Only just listened to Tame Impala's album on Spotify last night, need to give it a couple more listens.

With regards to Leighton Baines, I like the thought of a player on probably £40k a week wondered what to buy with his HMV Gift Card he got for Christmas. He needs to spend it quick though with them closing stores down!
 
Langdale Wolf said:
He likes Kasabian. Therefore, in the unwritten law of what is decent, he fails number one, part one, sub-section A.

He could have said Toploader and he would have got away with it.
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Ha, I agree with the sentiment. I generally detest more manufactured pop and the continual love in of the media and general public for old time performers such as take that etc. It only affects my life in a small way because i have to put up with the g/f watching and listening to the crap. I don't feel the same aversion for kasabian - I rarely hear them and whilst I can recognise their "sound" can only name one song of theirs ("shoot the runner"???) which is only memorable for me for being so bad.

But as decent music is so accessible these days, Kasabian is not a problem to me in the same way as, now you mention it, that dire song by Toploader (Topwankers more like) that seemed to be played constantly for a while. In the eighties things were so much worse - same old songs constantly played during daytime, constantly used on the tv and a lack of accessibility to non "A" list bands. I'm sure some people on here probably admire Mark Knopfler's guitar playing but to me he's just the miserable tosser who not only inflicted "money for nothing" on the nation for what seemed like decades at the time, but also allowed the whiny more miserable vocal of sting to bring further misery to many. That track became ubiquitous for a while such that if you hadn't heard it at least once an hour you thought there was something wrong with your watch. Worse was the sycophantic enthusiasm of radio 1 djs at the time for all things dire straits. I strongly suspect that somewhere there are special editions of that record out there with simon bates or DLT's man juice splashed all over the vinyl. and don't get me started on phil collins.
 
I like Dire Straits. They're the first ever 'guitar band' I can remember liking as a wee boy.
 
nimrod said:
Ha, I agree with the sentiment. I generally detest more manufactured pop and the continual love in of the media and general public for old time performers such as take that etc. It only affects my life in a small way because i have to put up with the g/f watching and listening to the crap. I don't feel the same aversion for kasabian - I rarely hear them and whilst I can recognise their "sound" can only name one song of theirs ("shoot the runner"???) which is only memorable for me for being so bad.

But as decent music is so accessible these days, Kasabian is not a problem to me in the same way as, now you mention it, that dire song by Toploader (Topwankers more like) that seemed to be played constantly for a while. In the eighties things were so much worse - same old songs constantly played during daytime, constantly used on the tv and a lack of accessibility to non "A" list bands. I'm sure some people on here probably admire Mark Knopfler's guitar playing but to me he's just the miserable tosser who not only inflicted "money for nothing" on the nation for what seemed like decades at the time, but also allowed the whiny more miserable vocal of sting to bring further misery to many. That track became ubiquitous for a while such that if you hadn't heard it at least once an hour you thought there was something wrong with your watch. Worse was the sycophantic enthusiasm of radio 1 djs at the time for all things dire straits. I strongly suspect that somewhere there are special editions of that record out there with simon bates or DLT's man juice splashed all over the vinyl. and don't get me started on phil collins.
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I pretty much agree with all of that, Nimrod. But don't you kind of miss having something to hate and rail against? You knew where you stood back then - against everything Radio 1 tried to force feed you (Peel excepted). There were hidden enclaves of music that you could genuinely feel were yours, that other people didn't understand.

While the music industry might be on its arse at the moment, it seems to me that everything has been corporatised and co-opted by the mainstream. Everybody likes everything nowadays, my favourite bands make corporate sponsored videos, my favourite venues are corporate branded, festivals have become massive corporate litter binges.

So while good music is that much more accessible now, what's been lost, to an extent, is the magic of finding something new, something you can call your own.

Or I might just be getting old.
 
Jinky said:
Also picked up a copy of Two Door Cinema Club's debut album which is pretty catchy.
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Agree, and like said above Tokyo Police Club are a good shout, gutted I missed them when they was over on tour in November.

A few more good shouts at the moment worth checking out:

Brother
Various Cruelties
Tapes 'n Tapes
Boy & Bear
Pete and the Pirates
The Bottletop Band
 
So Long Architect said:
I pretty much agree with all of that, Nimrod. But don't you kind of miss having something to hate and rail against? You knew where you stood back then - against everything Radio 1 tried to force feed you (Peel excepted). There were hidden enclaves of music that you could genuinely feel were yours, that other people didn't understand.

While the music industry might be on its arse at the moment, it seems to me that everything has been corporatised and co-opted by the mainstream. Everybody likes everything nowadays, my favourite bands make corporate sponsored videos, my favourite venues are corporate branded, festivals have become massive corporate litter binges.

So while good music is that much more accessible now, what's been lost, to an extent, is the magic of finding something new, something you can call your own.

Or I might just be getting old.
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Yes, it's very true and a lot of the stuff I bought during my formative years I had only a vague clue what it would sound like when I put the record on. Given we all had limited cash to spend on music it was fantastic to find something you'd really like and effectively still treasure today because you'd had to go out and get it/chance it yourself rather than be already certain of it.

I will never forget for instance the first time I played surfer rosa.

Funnily enough, people should remember that Peel had his favourites and dislikes too. He hated the Sisters for instance and begrudgingly played two tracks of there's in his festive fifty one year pointing out they'd never been played on his show. This may have been a personal thing between him and the band but essentially it meant a great album like first and last and always has probably never been played on radio 1 (other than those two tracks) and probably any other mainstream radio station. Given no internet music in the day it shows how critical the music press, word of mouth and playing live was for a band's success.

From my perspective, I can still hate Xfactor etc and I still have a few enclaves that remain untouched by the masses.
 
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