Today I’d like to try launching an occasional round-robin feature that will require a tiny bit more structure on our part than our occasional “Now Playing” threads. I’m going to call it I Want to Tell You. Pretend, if you must, that these threads will be archived and that educators will be able to receive materials for using these posts as a classroom tool. I’m writing this in the hushed-yet-slightly-awed voice of a Public Radio personality…
Using a simple format, I’d like to encourage Townspeople tell all about a newly discovered (be it new or old) band, record, or song that you find has – once more, maybe even miraculously – revived your love for music. It works like this:
Band/record/song: Heron, Upon Reflection: The Dawn Anthology
Description: When these songs by a band I’d never heard of before show up in my iPod shuffle, I scratch my head and wonder which late-60s pastoral Kinks outtake is playing. Or more likely, I then think, it’s one of the handful of good tracks from those early ’70s concept albums that only BigSteve is loving enough to fully embrace. It sounds like other British folk stuff from that period too – probably a bunch of stuff Buskirk likes because it influenced that Manson-like freak-folk pioneer whose hippie/Phoenix sibling-like stage name escapes me at the moment, but it’s that certain, non-showy Kinks quality that first draws me in.
How I got turned onto this: General Slocum shoved a jump drive loaded with mp3s into my hand and said, I think you’ll like some of this, especially the stuff by Heron!
What it means to me: As I said, I get a real Village Green vibe from these songs, but I like the way the lyrics don’t hit me over the head with a strong point of view, the way Ray Davies could do so well. I love Ray’s lyrics, but I really don’t need to hear anymore “Mr. ____” songs, you know what I mean? It also sounds timeless, the way the best Belle & Sebastian records can sound a lot like Kinks records from that time without sounding slavish. For all the time spent in search of great music from the past that I never discovered, it’s a thrill to find a true winner in a parking lot of picked-over used bins. You know what else is cool? Beside remembering only the gist of General Slocum’s retelling of a slew of bad fortune that helped this band stay so obscure for so long, I don’t know the slightest bit of backstory. I did look into whether Mike Heron, from The Incredible String Band, had something to do with the band, but he did not.
I’d have to say that the following was the last thing that got me fired up again:
Band/Record: Simply Saucer-“Cyborgs Revisited”
How I got turned on to this: Mr. Sammy Maudlin, in his “Mystery Date” thread just a few days ago.
What it means to me: As I said at the time of the reveal, it’s always great for me when I get to hear another unearthed, oddball band from the post-Velvets/Stooges, pre-Television/Pere Ubu, etc. periods, all the more so if I’ve never, ever heard of them, and they turn out to be really good, like Simply Saucer.
It was so tough guessing who/where these guys were/came from, & their sound had so many things in it that I love; The Velvets style riffing & NYC-style vocal delivery, the tinge of Stooges aggro, & that totally unorthodox use of analog synth, which I’ve heard few employ other than Pere Ubu, Devo & a couple of others. Topping it off, the band was Canadian(!) & it was from the early 70s It was the find of the last six months for me, & reminded me why I loved that style so much in the 1st place, & how few have done it right. I said it before, & I’m saying it now, “Thanks, Sammy! Totally cool.”
“word” BB. I don’t always put bands I like in the Blind Date but man, those guys blew me away. So I share your enthusiasm.
I have a post that fits this thread but I was planning on putting a bow on it and takin’it to the Main Stage.