Is there a rock-shrink in the house?
Retro, revivalist, purist, 2nd wave… I’ve got a hang-up regarding bands that cross the line between “heavily influenced” and Rupert Pupkin. The problem is, I don’t feel that my hang-up is justified.
I wondered once in a comment awhile back about psychedelic music and if it is a “genre” or an “era” or what? The gist being, can there be a psychedelic band who’s members’ first taste of psilocybin was residual from nursing their mother’s unwashed teat at a Mungo Jerry concert? (If even they’ve ever tasted it at all!)
Same, and maybe even more so, for punk. Is Green Day a punk band? Don’t pick the corn from my stool and tell me they were Power-Pop or some shit. The point is, they are mostly referred to as a punk band. But can there be a punk band post-1980?
I’ve come to appreciate Green Day lately as my 12-year-old son digs them, and there are plenty worse bands that he could be listening to. Perhaps not me (as I’m not as detail oriented as you guys) but certainly some of you could listen and watch every Green Day video and pinpoint every lick, Look, and eyeliner color copped from someone a decade earlier.
But here’s the rub. As much as I think Green Day is OK, I feel like there’s a possibility that they could have been one of my favorite bands IF they had released their first album sometime around ’76-’79. Except for this hang-up of mine.
In an effort to stem a discussion on the merits of Green Day, I’ll offer two more examples. Little Steven’s Underground garage has bombarded me with ’60s-style garage bands that honestly I don’t know if they’re old or not. But my hang-up requires me to know before I can make a judgment. Is that fair. I really like The Greenhornes. But…
Or how about The Wondermints? These guys wanted to be Brian Wilson’s band so bad that they became Brian Wilson’s band! I’ve been listening to Mind If We Make Love to You lately and man I really dig a lot of it, until I remember… They’re not really Brian Wilson’s band.
Its a sense that these bands aren’t real or don’t have a voice of their own, even if they do have their own (retro) voice.
I don’t hold blues musicians to this code. (Although I do wince at Harry Connick Jr. for the same, and other, reasons.) So what’s my prob?
If I let it go will I slide down a slippery slope of Lenny Kravitz, Black Crowes, and Brian Jonestown Massacre? Will I forgive and start to rock out with Sloan? Is the bottom of this slope necessarily a bad place if it means that there’s more music to discover and enjoy if I could just get rid of my hang-up?
Is there a rock-shrink in the house?
Heavy issues you are dealing with, Sammy.
I don’t think there could have been a Green Day in ’76 or ’77. GD can only exist after The Buzzcocks, Clash and Undertones have made their marks.
I think the bigger issue you bring up is getting exposed to music from your (and mine) kids. Boy, nothing says “you’re an old fart” more than getting turned on to music from your progeny!
My main stumbling block with bands out of time is typically lyrics that try too hard to sound like the lyrics of forebearers. I’m by no means a “lyrics first” guy, but I feel like I can spot “paint-by-numbers” lyrics shortly after a song gets in gear. I’m all for bands plundering the sounds of the past in at least somewhat creative, fresh ways, but give me a little something about yourself in the process. Don’t write some faux-misogynistic garage-rock lyric because you like the sound of garage bands. Write your own damn lyrics! Don’t write some song about breaking up with a girl you never had the nerve to speak to in the hallway at school because Brian Wilson did in 1964. Write your own damn lyrics!
Ouch! That one hit home, as well it should.
Actually, it didn’t hurt that bad. I’ve often wished that the vocalist/organist/primary lyric writer of the garage-rock band I play with would spend more time on the words, the genre be damned. My opinions have been, er, noted.
During my two stints with MT, I’ve gotten fed up with the status quo to the point where I’ve actually written lyrics – an activity which, for me, is about as much fun as a root canal. But I tried to do my part…
I hear you, Townsman Scott. I’m not looking to beat up on anyone or any musician here or elsewhere, any my advice is suspect for anyone looking to make any inroads in a well-established genre.
Look at what attempts at personal lyrics as applied to garage rock and power pop musical templates have done for my band’s “career”: NOTHING! In fact, I’m sure it’s been a hinderance. On the other hand, if we had a little more of IT and somehow had the fortune to get into the radar of a Jan Wenner or a Clive Davis, maybe we’d have been among the mediocre, earnest bands up on stage at the Waldorf Astoria last night. If not us, then any number of us doing music around here who’ve at least tried to make the music our own.
But what I’m saying is, what if they did? Let’s be extreme, What if Green Day released Dookie in 1975 before the whole scene. What if they invented the sound? Would you like Dookie more?
I just added some Youtubes to demonstrate my confused state.
For a start, a much props as I would like to give Mike Dirnt, the bass sound would be better. I think they’ve got a little too much 70s Who in them to really have been that first punk band. But I would probably have said, hey Jackson Browne – THERE’S a good song about masturbation!
But what if its not fresh? What if it is down to the vacuum tubes stale? But good?
If I felt it was that stale, I could only like it so much. For instance, I downloaded a copy of that Greenhornes/Holly Golightly song from the movie Broken Flowers. It’s a really cool song, really good for driving or working to, but I’m not going to find a tear of joy rolling down my cheek when I listen to it. That’s cool. Driving in today I listened to The dB’s Stands for Decibles. What a great, compact, unique album that pulls on numerous older musical templates yet sounds wholly original and personal! That’s what I’m looking for.
The dBs were “heavily influenced” but clearly The Greenhornes have gone “Pupkin.” But is that a bad?
The Broken Flowers song is THE song that turned me onto the Greenhornes (and Holly Golightly) and is a perfect example here. What I great song! When I heard it in the movie I thought it was an oldie and was stoked to find out who did it. When I found out, I instantly liked it less. Is that fair?
Is it fair to judge a song based on what year it was released?
Sammy, that Greenhornes song is a cover of a great Yardbirds song, so at least they have an excuse for sounding especially retro on this one.
Don’t avoid the question with your rock nerd minutiae! Give me an answer dammit-
Is it fair to judge a song based on the year it was released?
Love and Rockets are a great psychadelic band from a time long after psych was dead. I think that’s cause they made it their own. It’s a funny coincidence that the band they were in before that, Bauhaus, invented gothic punk by trying to ape Roxy/Bowie/Iggy ten years after that scene was all gone.
Yes and I think XTC is a great psych band who made it their own so much that most pedestrians don’t recognize it as a psych band.
But, what about the Dukes of Stratosphear? Clearly their second effort was chockfull of overt homages but 25 O’Clock was not as overt. This is actually why I like 25 better (but let’s not devolve here). The point is I can’t appreciate 25 more than Piper At The Gates of Dawn even though, given a choice I’m likely to listen to 25 O’Clock.
I’m also much more likely to listen to The Greenhornes than The Angry Young Them…
Now that you bring up The Dukes of Stratosphear, I’m reminded of another important facet for judging any sort of retro band – or any band for that matter: DESIRE. If the band is delivering its music like the songs represent something special to them – even if it’s a “stupid” song about a “trippin’ gloworm” – then may work as well as any song written about more personal stuff. Sometimes I hear a “silly” song and feel that the band has more invested in the song than appears evident on the surface – or, as in the case of “Bike Ride to the Moon”, the band’s love for the type of song they’re doing is so strong that that something extra is delivered. Isn’t this what fans of, say, The Blasters feel when listening to their best songs?
Now we’re getting somewhere.
So you’re saying that judging a song based exclusively on the year is not fair.
The Dukes I think are actually really good example here and one that I was going to include but forgot. I really love The Dukes and indeed love them as much if not more than 99% of the psych bands of the day. Truth be told though, I’d love them even more if they had released in 68.
A lot to chew on in this thread.
How much retro is too retro? It’s perhaps in the ear/eye of the beholder. Probably my two favorite bands that straddle this line are Jellyfish and Cotton Mather. I think what ultimately won me over about these bands was the sheer fact that they each have so many songs that fulfill the main requirement for me of pop songs — every part of the song is a great hook. Also, I do believe they have distinct musical characteristics, even if they’re as basic as Andy Sturmer’s massive drum sound or Whit Williams’ turbo-charged riffs.
The other point I wanted to make was cultural impact. If you reverberate in your own culture, your own times, that’s a good way to rise above the retro impulses. Put it another way; if Bruce Springsteen never made it beyond the Stone Pony, would he seen as just a congruence of Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Phil Spector, etc.? Or, if the Britpop movement had never happened in the UK, would Blur have merely been regarded as curious amalgam of The Kinks, XTC, Madness, etc.?
No, I’m not saying that. Acting as one of your rock shrinks, what I’m hoping to do is facilitate your reaching a conclusion you find comfortable and true. Personally, I find all music released after 1983 suspect.
Had the Dukes’ ep come out in 1968, it would have catapulted them to near the top of the psych-pop heap. It’s a much stronger ep than Piper at the Gates of Dawn is a full album, don’t you think? I’m sure Townsman Saturnismine would, if not agree, at least disagree.
Oats, I think Blur is a great example of a band that uses the past in the present tense. Around my house, we’ve been digging that Greatest Hits album we bought a few months ago.
Absolutely but the fact is, it probably wouldn’t exist if there had been no Piper which tarnishes it slightly for me. Don’t get me wrong, The Dukes are awesome but somehow not entirely authentic for me.
And maybe that’s my issue, “authenticity”. A band of time lacks it for me, even The Dukes.
Yeah, but they kinda were by design. I mean, so many of those songs are completely obvious pastiches, like “25 0’Clock” vis a vis “I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night” or the inspired Brian Wilson homage of “Pale and Precious.” It’s a little like asking if The Rutles would’ve been more successful than the Fabs if they’d come out at the same time.
True. And there is an appeal in that. But how about The Wondermints with their obvious Wilson Pupkinism? When I forget who they are (iPod shuffle) I’ll be startled by something I really like but then when I realize its them, I like it less.
I’m not him, but I disagree. The Dukes stuff is fun and all, but Piper has that intangible something that the Dukes could never capture.
Yeah, I call it filler.
Oh, I see where this is going. Are you going to make the case that Piper should be an EP? Is The Accuser going to “get your back” on this one too?
Don’t remind me of how The Accuser abandoned me over the planned Exile ep. For now, it’s vital that we all reach out to the man and drag him up from the basement.
That said, yes, Piper would have made an awesome ep.
I think 25 O’Clock was much more overt. The title cut, for example, is almost a weird carbon copy of “I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night” by the Electric Prunes. It’s my memory that the other songs on there were similarly heavily indebted to a single song. The other full length seemed more like vaguely generically psychedelic XTC songs gussied up a bit more to seem Psychedelic. That’s why I think 25 O’Clock is better. It’s a very specific experiment in plagiarizing while the album seemed to just be a vague contact high.
Funny, it seems like you’re making the exact opposite argument from Mr. Mod’s. You prefer the formalist exercise (at least in this case) to the work where they put more of “themselves” into it.
I think the idea of the work of art as a deep expression of the inner self is a romantic notion and kind of beside the point. Neither the romantic (personal, expressive) nor the classical (use of established forms, reliance on style) approach is any kind of guarantee that worthwhile music will result.
“Funny, it seems like you’re making the exact opposite argument from Mr. Mod’s. You prefer the formalist exercise (at least in this case) to the work where they put more of “themselves” into it.”
Only in the case of 25 O’Clock. I think they did put more of themselves into the actual reassembly of some classic, and frankly, unusual psychedelic songs. On the long player, I think the psychedelia was just some seasoning to spice up a batch of second rate XTC songs. I am, however, generally in agreement with his preference for artists that bring something of themselves to their genre exercises. I just didn’t think that XTC put much of themselves into the Dukes LP.
George and I are on the same page, not opposing pages. I, too, think they put more of themselves into the more formalist workouts on the ep than the lp, which actually began life intended as the next XTC album, if memory serves. For some reason, the band backed out of the planned XTC album and turned a bunch of the songs into Dukes songs.