One of the unfortunate things about our first mix for Hear Factor, deux is that the title our anonymous contributor gave this mix no longer refers to “newish” bands but bands that were once “newish” about 6 months ago. At least that would be the case if the concept of “newish” was being thrown around on a rock discussion blog where people actually try to keep up with what’s new. For better or for worse, when we get right down to it, this mix is still a collection of six newish bands that its contributor loves but rarely talks about on RTH. Better late than never, Rock Town Hall! Let’s see if you have the stones to download the following .zip file and spin these songs and these songs only for the next 3 days!
Six Newish Bands I Love but Rarely Talk About on RTH (~60 MB)
I summon Andyr to listen to this disc, which was artfully designed to offend his sensibilities.
OK. I’ll do it. I may not listen to it soley for 3 days but I will certain listen a lot.
Six Jewish bands?
Hey, weren’t the contents of these mixes supposed to be anonymous?
Sorry, that was the original intent, but I did not have time to strip out all the identifying information. If Townspeople are committed to this venture, they will listen without prejudice. I’m confident that if I threw up one of those “NOW PLAYING” posts that the answer would be, unanimously, “Six Newish Bands I Love but Rarely Talk About on RTH.”
The poll mustn’t be registering all the votes for those of you who are surely listening to this, our first Hear Factor mix of season 2. That’s cool, keep listening!
So when do we get to start talking about this? I don’t want to influence anyone’s hearing, but I want to be ready when we’re allowed to discuss it.
Go right ahead and comment, 2K. There’s no need to wait. Thanks.
I listened to it three times yesterday, and if you ask me, it’s sequenced a lot like the best indie rock albums are, in that the worst songs are first. I did catch the names of some of the bands, but I burned it to a cd and took it with me in the car while I was working.
Anyways, to prove I’m listening with pure imartiality on my part, I honestly thought the first two songs were Electrelane, which is a band I just assumed I’d find boring because they sound like a vacuum cleaner brand or a really big old Buick that had nothing going for it except bigness. As it turns out, I was wrong and I’m liking their tracks much more than I thought I would.
It’s nice to see that the Constantines are still rewriting Arizona. They’re one of those bands that I had hoped to really like, but their albums have kind of a sameness to them and I think you can pretty much just pick one and you know what they’re all about. I’d like to see them sometime, though.
I like that one song by Electrelane, but why does the snare drum sound like it has a pillow in it? I really hate when people screw around with the sound of drums. Maybe he’s using a box or something, but the song suffers from less than great drum sound.
Overall, I’m not having a very rough time with Hear Factor, though. I like some of it enough to go buy it.
The Constantines’ first record is outstanding, the Fugazi-meets-Springsteen sound we didn’t know we needed. The next record wasn’t as consistent, but had higher high points. Since then, some seriously diminishing returns.
I see what 2000 Man means about them mining the same sound over and over, but I think the real problem is a lack of immediacy. Their earlier records grabbed you by the lapels and *insisted*. The newer stuff shouts in the distance.
So far, I’m a-really digging the Weakerthans stuff. The lead guitarist has a bit of a Neil Young feel & tone to his playing.
Sons and Daughters, not so much. Liking it, that is.
Will keep listening. Three daze is a long time…
I had to bail. Three days is too long for me. i can do two. So when it’s all said and done, I hated Celebration, which the owner of my favorite record store said she loved, but then I said that’s why there’s more than one record to buy. But I thought they sucked hard.
The Constantines were doing the same thing they ever did, but with bigger production values. I think I could listen to some of their other stuff and like it.
Sons and Daughters is catchy as hell. It’s fruity as hell, too. But I bet I wind up with one of their albums someday.
The Cops kicked ass.
Electrelane is much better than I thought they’d be, but I’ll have to investigate further.
Yesterday I bought The Weakerthans Reunion Tour album. I like them quite a bit. Someone else told me I would once, but I forgot about them, and this was a great reminder, and now I’ve got a new band to sink my teeth into.
Mad props to those of you hanging in with this mix! I called Andyr at his home last night, but his wife told me he couldn’t come to the phone because he didn’t want anyone interrupting his Hear Factor experience.
I hear you as I heard you last year: if 3 days is too long, we’ll accept 2 days of commitment. If that’s too long, come on, just check out each mix a couple of times and stretch the truth a bit:)
Some of my thoughts from the last couple of days:
Celebration reminds me of Modest Mouse and other newish bands that feature marching beats and a certain kind of whining vocal delivery. There are actually aspects of this style I can handle, such as the organ in the background of the second song, but after a while I want to give this band a wedgie. Somehow all this stuff reminds me of the early ’80s post-punk club music that came out of Chicago. Somehow all that reminded me of proto-goth bands like The Cure and Souxie and the Banshees. It’s all OK but could have been much better – to my tastes.
The Cops have a rock ‘n roll base that’s much more to my liking. The jerky guitar rhythms and manly vocals are cool. They don’t waste any time with long intros, they know when to get to the chorus, they have concise instrumental breaks that keep things moving a long, they throw some noises into the mix to provide texture. If I were shopping in a record store and this was on in the background I’d likely walk to the front desk to ask the clerk who was playing.
The Constantines also have a manly, late-70s post-punk aspect to them that’s not entirely off putting. The first song sounds like a lesser version of The Soundtrack of Our Life’s (or whatever that band is called) minor hit from about 5 years ago, a song I loved. The second song has too draggy a beat to overcome what doesn’t appeal to me about this band, which is their Cult-like sense of pomposity.
As someone else pointed out, based on their name alone I thought Electrelane was going to be completely boring, like one of those countless early ’90s bands that somehow get compared to Stereolab, a band whose indie-rock popularity I’m equally sceptical of. Instead they sound more like those early ’90s Boston bands with members of that Throwing Muses/Pixies crowd. At its best, that stuff always struck me as pretty good and had I been younger and less bitter about so many things in life – and single – I probably would have bought a few of those records and seen if they could have helped me meet the kind of cute women who populated that Throwing Muses scene. Today – or then – however, I’m not sure that I would have interrupted my record store browsing to ask the clerk what was playing.
Sons and Daughters opens with an honest-to-goodness backbeat, promising something like a Jeffrey Lee Pierce rave-up from Wildweed – or a rockin’ Bangles song. Very California Paisley Underground to my ears. I have no idea where this band is located. A cool little guitar solo in the first song comes a little too late (and a little too little), but I’ll take it. The intro to the second song goes on longer than I like – it seems to set up more drama than this band can deliver. Sure enough another Bangles-type song follows. No bad, but there’s not much I can sink my teeth into without paying much attention to the lyrics. Again, the guitar break comes a little too late. This band should chop 30 seconds off of each song. Nevertheless, this band is suprisingly pop. I didn’t know they still made young bands with this much commitment to simple, ’60s-based power pop pleasures without being part of that total thumbsucking variety of modern-day power pop bands.
I’ve heard The Weakerthans before. For a couple of months I couldn’t read their name right – I kept seeing the word “weather” in there, like they were making some reference to Bob Dylan’s weathervanes to see which way the wind blows. I was expecting some kind of earnest Americana shit that always makes me feel guilty about being an American who doesn’t go crazy for that kind of music. Instead their music is lighter, poppier, earnest stuff, which I can get behind. The first song sounds like Fountains of Wayne if those guys did not try to hide the fact that they were 40 years old. The second song drags and has parts with just singing and drums. I’m usually not a fan of that, especially when everyone joins in for a big chorus. That said, the song is not harmful to anyone’s health, and that’s something I like about most of these six newish bands that our anonymous contributor loves but rarely talks about on RTH. I look forward to hearing his or her take on this mix when we’re done with our comments. Thanks!
I’m gonna chew this one piece at a time. I originally thought Celebration featured one of those dramatic, high-voiced tenors that I’m not to fond of, then, this morning I noted the Sinead/Cranberries voval vibe and realized it was a woman. Something in the vocal layering also reminded me of TV on the Radio, and with a little research, I found that it was recorded with Dave Sitek from that band. It was mildly interesting, but too formless for my tastes. I must admit, however, that a Youtube video of the song Pony, with lots of auxilary members banging on things was pretty cool.
Wasn’t the format of the origibal Hear factor supposed to be a whole week of exclusive listening? That was crazy.
I liked all of the tracks on this selection to varying degrees. The experience reminded me of the days when I used to troll the mp3 blogs like Music for Robots and Fluxblog. You can hear a lot of good music by having someone go ahead of you and pick out the one or two tracks by different artists who might not deserve a full album’s worth of your time.
This is a good way to get a feel for a moment in musical culture, and it’s the opposite of the Great Man theory of history.
I listened to this disc for the first time yesterday and will try it again today and then also tomorrow.
On a first listen some songs were cluttered and fussy, while others delivered more high energy pleasure. Almost all of them though reminded me of music I’d rather be listening to–I put on Neil Young’s Ragged Glory just after, since it seemed much of the music on the second half of the disc was influenced by his harder rocking side.
I’ll give it a second listen before I say what I want to say, which is that I didn’t finish the disc with the desire to hear more of these bands.
I very much like the Guitar work on The Cops tracks, particularly the verse on the first song that seems to be a patchwork quilt of extreme little guitar tricks that function as a basic rhythm. That said, neither of the songs hooked me otherwise in any speccial way.
The Weakerthans seem more Freedy Johnston than Neil Young.
That wasn’t exactly a criticism.
Alright, so this is a bit belated, but this mix is — perhaps obviously — mine. I just threw the six bands into a playlist alphabetically; I didn’t want to get too tied up with calibrating the track ordering or other lab coat shenanigans. And I didn’t want to make a long mix this time.
Dug everyone’s comments; I figured Celebration would be the most difficult for many people to swallow. And yes, Mwall, many of these bands have a Neil Young-ish tint, although Geo’s Freedy Johnston observation is very astute! I also like that YouTube clip of “Pony.” Drum circles!
Hmm, what else? Sons and Daughters are from Scotland.
And, yeah that last Constantines album was a let-down.