Jan 282013
Honestly, what are the chances? I’ve been asking this question of My Bloody Valentine for some 22 years now. I love everything Kevin Shields has ever touched, but seriously, the man has a skewed sense of time. Brian Wilson comes off with a train conductor’s punctuality compared to this.
Pitchfork has been claiming that MBV have the follow-up to Loveless in the can, and today they report that they have a video of a new song, and that Shields promises a new record “in two or three days.”
The video has apparently been revoked already.
Realistically, folks, should we look for this on Tuesday? Don’t break my heart again.
A musician friend saw MBV play last night & reports that they only played one new song. He spoke to Kevin post-gig & Mr Shields apologized for the under-rehearsed set. I was told that the album is finished but the artwork is subject to dispute (Ha !).
Hold on to your heart Slim & keep breathing…One day.
Head is going to explode from holding breath…
I can’t remember the last time I knew I was listening to MBV. I completely missed them the year or so it seems they were active. Ever since I’ve heard people talk about them as if they gave eyesight to the blind. Clearly, you, Slim, and many other folks think they were THAT good. I’ll have to listen to them again sometime soon, maybe before their new album comes out in 2027 or whenever. What I don’t get at all is how you guys can hang on for them all this time. I’m trying to think if there’s a band like that for me. Maybe not.
For years after taking Marquee Moon out of the Northeast Philly branch of the library in junior year of high school and then never returning it I hoped that Television would reunite and make a third record that was a lot better than their second and, seemingly, last one. Then they did. The resulting record was unbelievably boring. Many more years passed, then I finally got to see them live, not too long before Richard Lloyd split the band. That show was pretty transcendent, especially the 85% of it that was their first album. They played one new, unreleased song from a supposedly “coming” album. The album never came. I’m long done waiting for a fourth Television album.
CHECK IT OUT!
http://www.mybloodyvalentine.org/
OK, now breathe:)
Thanks, but that’s been up and in that state for a year or so. No hyperventilation quite yet 🙂
In June 1988 we drove to West London to see MBV play a student pub/club, the Greyhound. I could tell you that we were on to the band before the release of “Isn’t Anything” but we were there to see our friends Fini Tribe who were the support.
For some forgotten reason at that time we were all in competition to see how short we could keep our hair.It was a look that suited the dirty streets of South London. The packed crowd of well-mannered scholars kept out of the way of our skinhead crew & allowed us to stand pretty much where we wanted. The women in our group, who knew what pussycats we really were, found this hilarious.
My Bloody Valentine were very brilliant & very,very loud.
I’d be interested to know, Mod and other listeners, if MBV are as accessible and sublime when you come in at this point 2 decades after their watershed.
For me, with a background in liking fey 60’s groups such as The Association, the onslaught of The Ramones, Sonic Youth giving guitar sounds a new life, and the C86/Jesus & Mary Chain vibe, MBV were, and remain, a landmark.
They have of course been aped, name-checked, and watered down while they influence subsequent bands from their Brian Wilson Sandbox.
I’m curious as to whether one can come in at this point, or do they merely generate the bass-ackwards response of “hmmm..reminds me of___”.
I’m revisiting them now, Slim. To your out-of-sequence “reminds me of…” point I’m thinking, “This is OK, but I’d rather listen to the first Teenage Fanclub or Sloan album.” I could see myself liking this stuff better if I’d first heard them when I was getting high at 20, but ultimately I’m limited in my appreciation by their overbearing palette of guitar tones, steady eighth-note rhythms, and buried “pretty” vocals. I can definitely hear their huge influence on music past that album. I remember a lot of bands who sounded like them, including bands I like, such as early Teenage Fanclub and Sloan.
Hey, just listened to a song called “Soon” that I, so far, like the best.
I came MBV late — it was early 2000s when I picked up a copy of Loveless in the used.
I like it. They sort of fit into the new rock I was listening back then — Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Johnny Marr + The Healers, and the Charlatans UK’s Wonderland album. I didn’t think of MBV as the forebearers of anything, although I should have, because the album was 10 years old when I got it.
My wife has an given edict to go through my CDs in February, so I’ll pull all that stuff out again and get all nostalgic . . .
Eno called that song “the vaguest song to ever be a hit”.
Teenage Fanclub, Sloan, BRMC, Lush, Swirlies, Ride, Chapterhouse, Pale Saints, Loop, Spacemen 3, Primal Scream, Slowdive, The Telescopes, The Wedding Present, The House of Love, Curve, All Natural Lemon and Lime Flavors, Moose, Garbage, Smashing Pumpkins, The Primitives, Medicine, The Boo Radleys, Yo La Tengo, Mogwai, Fennesz, His Name is Alive, Bowery Electric, Flying Saucer Attack, Windy & Carl, Sigur Ros, Stars of the Lid, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, M83, Asobi Seksu, Deerhunter, The Horrors, The Verve, The Dandy Warhols, The Raveonettes, The Men, Ulrich Schnauss, Boards of Canada, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Explosions In The Sky, Silversun Pickups, Japandroids…thy name is My Bloody Valentine.
I could push it back further and say MBV, thy name is Husker Du, Dinosaur Jr., Cocteau Twins, Jesus and Mary Chain, Wire, Velvet Underground, The Association, The Cowsills, The Pastels, Hendrix, Pink Floyd, The Mamas and the Papas, The Beach Boys, The Cramps, John’s Children, Throbbing Gristle…
Careful, Slim! This practice of back-dating or reverse-dating influences quickly gets out of hand. There’s a point when it becomes little more than a process of filling a shopping bag with exotic fruits and vegetables from the hip, urban outdoor market. There’s a telltale baguette sticking out from the bag. You hop on your vintage Schwinn to ride home and let the crisp Washington state air flow through your hair. All seems right in the world until a huge logging truck pulls out at the intersection and kills you. Magically, a gust of that same crisp Washington state air blows out a candle that Nicolas Cage is burning for no particular reason in the daytime. He knows, man. He just knows.
God, I wish I were cool enough to care about this. I’m praying as hard as I can, and it just isn’t working. Lord, help Thou mine unbelief!
Dude you forgot Barry and the Remains, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Richard “Rabbit” Brown, Kid Ory, William Butler Yeats, Abraham Lincoln, Caravaggio, and Pope Innocent III, just to name a few.
My passion is large.
Me thinks you’re too cool to care about anything.
I am sure it’s a total coincidence, but I noticed that M83 and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are in heavy rotation at my gym some
Pains — (warning Guitar Center employee abuse!)
http://youtu.be/T2syY0U-eY0
M83 — (warning — shots of pet gravestones!)
http://youtu.be/gY8iy8S0S4w
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! 🙂
That’s their “house” hit. Not really characteristic but still wonderful.
MBV “Loveless” is one of my Top 10 Desert Island albums and probably of of my top 5 albums that I turn to when I want to re-center, remember what’s important in life, and get in a better mood (no offense, Grimes).
MBV live is amazing but probably contributed even more to my hearing loss. I’ve seen them live 2x, once with “Loveless” in a small club and once here in SF in the lsat few years when they started another new tour (to pay for the NEW RECORD which has yet to be released????!!!!). In that latter experience, the sound was so painful that I sat out the rest of the show by the doors. I am an old fart.
And the best MBV rip off band (best in terms of most similar and in terms of sound) is Boston band, Swirlies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4E9TS-98Lg
They even characterized themselves as the bastard love child of Swirlies and Sonic Youth.
WTF?
Sadly the market scene that precedes this is not included, but here’s the kind of stuff I sit around and laugh at while flipping channels late at night. This is a stone-cold classic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQy_nJ1nlGE
Don’t stuff too many goodies in your satchel, Slim Jade. I’m trying to help:)
I just watched this week’s Downton Abbey, and now you post this. First crying, now vomiting: this is worse than the flu.
Were you also thinking, “Why couldn’t it have been Bates, and not dear Sybil?”
Nah, if I were as cool as all that I’d be past letting ostentatious displays of boutique hipster wannabeism get a rise out of me.
I have two albums and an EP (digital stuff from my daughter.) They are good background music in the office. I’d be interested to see what (if anything) they could bring to a live setting. But I’ll put my trust in other hall members.
Like any band (ever), MBV came from somewhere, but I wouldn’t say they ripped anyone off. They pushed that thing about as far as I can stand it. They are as close to formless noise as I’ll put up with, and I genuinely like Loveless. I put it on to distract my wife when we play chess because the dissonance hurts her head. She still wins, she is a way better player than I.
And best band to rip off MBV (and there were lots). Kitchens of Distinction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JXk_oV4nbo
Which EP? They’re really great. Next to “Loveless,” I prefer them to the other albums.
A guy I used to dj with at WRIU used to use this as his cart music for his radio show, The Pop Shop:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGPJdSjUjlg
Could not even watch that clip! Ugh.
Posted tonight on MBV’s F-book page…”We are preparing to go live with the new album/website this evening. We will make an announcement as soon as its up”…a late night over here for some. Still after over 20 years a couple of more hours waiting is nothing.
UPDATE!
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-new-album-from-my-bloody-valentine-due-out-in-hours-20130202,0,2335748.story
I would love to know what really goes on behind the scenes to make this such an event on their part. I envision things like Kevin Shields struggling with trying to figure out how to post files to their homemade website all these years.
I’VE GOT MINE! I CAN BREEEEAAATHE AGAIN!
The groundhog saw his shadow!