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Here’s a Mystery Date who’s always liked it that way. You know what they say about the quiet ones!
Mystery Date 12/03/08 (click to play)
If you know who this is, please hold your typing fingers and let others tell us how they feel about this number. Along the way, someone may even want to take a guess our Mystery Date’s identity!
Hey, Backoffice — the awesome “Mystery Date” vuh-deo has been taken down or something. It ain’t linking.
The Back Office has had a team working on this issue for a few hours now. All should be good.
What’s with all the cockless wonders out there this morning? No one can form even the slightest of opinions on these tracks? Or does everyone already know who it is?
I was just thinking it was time for a Mystery Date. But then I got all thinking about Hear Factor and stuff and totally spaced.
I like the songs, and they really sound like I should know who it is, but my ego isn’t all that fragile and I’m really not very cool, so I won’t mind if I find out it’s someone I keep saying I don’t like. I didn’t like mustard once, either.
But I have to listen to the songs someplace else. This little laptop leaves a lot to be desired sonically.
I feel like I’ve heard this singer before, or else it’s that he sounds like a combination of several late 70s/early 80s other overly affected new wave, ska and goth rock singers. Too much of that voice gets wearing, especially on the second track.
Good intro and outro on the first song. The middle of that song slows down and wanders a bit.
I’m not quite convinced by the Pere Ubu like keyboard moments, though they do make the case that some bands picked up some Ubu just a bit.
There was a band I saw mid-80s, I think with Ken and some of the rest of you, and picked up a first album of that was finally disappointing. Can’t remember the name: singer had a bald head, I believe. These cuts sound like that band a little, but with somewhat more campy posturing in the singer.
Grade: first song B, second B-. I could hear them at a party and go with it but wouldn’t play them much otherwise.
Townsman 2K is the bravest and boldest of the day. Even though he left some wiggle room with:
This little laptop leaves a lot to be desired sonically.
He was the first to lay it on the line and with a positive review nonetheless. That takes guts.
Townsman mwall comes in exactly 20 minutes later with a very thorough analysis. A- on timing. Solid A for effort.
Well, the links were down most of the morning.
On both songs, the real problem for me is not the singer, but the unoriginal guitar
playing: on the first song, there’s the whiny run your finger down one string riff; on the second, it’s a predictable formula of strum real hard, pause, etc.
The guitar has too much reverb on it, and sounds thin.
Overall, both songs go on for a minute too long. There are some good ideas here (I like the speeded up pace and there’s some unexpected changes, but the songs both turn out average. Grade: C
I can only listen very quietly in my office. I was going to listen again when I got home too. Like mwall, I feel a distant bell ringing, but I can’t identify the band. Typical bad English bellowing vocals, which reminded me of Ian McCulloch, and I think I detect some Talking Heads influence. I liked the weird sonics, but I’m going to have listen at more than a whisper.
We’ll give dr john a medical excuse and trust that he did indeed have technical difficulties. The only question I have for dr j is what year would this “unoriginal guitar” have been “orginal”? Just asking. This isn’t a necessarily a clue.
All I can say about Biggie S is- he’s got a damn good ear!!!
I had a feeling the singer’s name was going to something like Ian.
It’s not that Peter Murphy guy, is it? Or some Jeffrey Lee Pierce record? It’s almost good, like some band we might have opened for at Revival circa 1987.
Mwall, is Screaming Blue Messiahs the name of the band you saw in DC?
That guitar style was okay circa the 13th Floor elevators, Texas psych era.
I hear you Dr J and can’t say that I totally disagree. I do cut some slack for these guys using it in a different context though.
Mod’s cold and “almost good” is awfully wishy-washy. Share your feelings.
My feelings are that, if I was in a club circa 1987 and this was cranked up or this band was actually playing to a crowd of typical Bauhaus/Siouxie and the Banshees/proto-goth fans, with spiked, dyed black hair and a trace of eyeliner I’d think, “This offers hope, this offers a bridge between ‘them’ and ‘me.'” Then maybe I’d try to spot the softest of the women in that crowd and see where I might get.
It was indeed the Screaming Blue Messiahs, Mr. Mod. In thinking on it further they had much more of an America-billy new wave sound, didn’t they?
Mod- OK. What if (note the emphasis on “if”) you saw them in say…1978? How would you feel then?
In a way this gets back to my points on loving a band out of time.
Very vague, almost subliminal hint in the previous sentence.
Well, now that I’m back from a frustrating Phils loss and the mystery has been revealed, I’d feel the same way, minus the proto-goth scoping aspects. It still sounds like it’s reaching for something the band members can’t deliver. That said, if those recordings are from ’78, they are ahead of their time in terms of circa 1987 MTV’s new wave show hosted by Peter Zaremba mediocrity. Was the show called 120 Minutes?
Hmm, and I was sure they were British. I think it’s because the other vocal influence I’m hearing is Wire’s Colin Newman. The bad part is I think I had this album back in the day.
After the fact this kind of not quite congealed pudding is more interesting than perhaps it was at the time.
I would love to have heard an entire Eno produced album.
I listened upstairs and I know we’ve already identified the band, and I didn’t know them back then. I really like the first song. It’s catchy as hell. The second isn’t as good, but it’s good enough that I’d buy it if I saw it. And my little laptop speakers really are bad. It’s a work laptop and the only noise I need to hear technically is a modem or an obnoxious ding a program I have to use makes when I do something right, and also the same ding when I do something wrong.
From the liner notes:
“Once upon a time, in a far-away land, Vangelis, Philip Glass and Tangerine Dream had a ménage a trios. They thought nothing more of it until nine months later a foundling was left at their recording studio.
Unable to agree on who should raise their progeny they sought the advice of the venerable Carl Sagan, who, with Solomon’s wisdom, decreed that the child should ride the Viking deep space explorer to be Earth’s representative to as yet un-contacted extra terrestrial races.
This “voice recording” is the child’s first postcard home.”
Artslap, you remind me that we have not yet awarded the November Post of the Month, and you have put yourself square in the running for December’s award. Nice work!
Who else is going to lay stones on the table? I won’t tell you who wrote me an offlist message regarding this post, but you’d be shocked if I did.
I thought this piece was pretty lame. Somebody came up with a glitchy synth sound they dug, and basically masturbated with it for a few minutes, putting a cheesy-ass pad behind it. The piano figure toward the end is a true lame-out moment – unable to sustain the mood of the piece (because there’s nothing there) the artist felt compelled to make a more melodic statement, which ultimately leads nowhere. Also, if the goal was to make a piece of ambient music, I thought the piano was too much of a statement. If the music was not meant as wallpaper, then it just fails for lack of decent development.
I would hope that this pieces was not the usual musical style of the person who created it. It reeks of an experiment that shouldn’t have left the lab.
Cher lays ’em on the table! Nicely done. This piece of music is SURELY not what we’ve come to equate with the broad expanse of music by our Mystery Date, although in fairness to him – or is it us? – we’re not accustomed to hearing him on his own, having picked out his own outfit, so to speak.
Originally, I was going to guess Japanese electronica/punk studio wizard Cornelius, but Mod’s last comment makes me wonder if this is a “deep cut” from that solo album The Edge released back in the 90s.
Ah, I see who it is. With all greatly due respect to the artist, I stand by my statements. I say this from the perspective of a person who has done a lot of futzing around with keyboards. I have a bunch of crap on tapes that sounds like this. Sorry!
I use Windows Media Player on this PC, so I can tell who the artist is.
I didn’t think he would be one to experiment with some hippy, backwards electronic accordion shit.
Mmmmm… Here I am thinking I stripped out all the identifying info, and I’ve failed. Let me take down the track for a minute and see if I can strip out more digital traces of this artist. Thanks to those of in the know for holding your tongue.
You may resume play. At least Windows and RealPlayer players should not be able to trace this track – unless you’ve got too much time on your hands:)
NOT a deep cut from The Edge’s forgotten solo album, Hrrundi, but a highly amusing guess.
I agree that the combination of glitch and cheese is pretty lame. No idea who this is. Hope it’s not someone I like.
Let’s just say that it’s a good thing for this artist’s draft value that we didn’t hear this recording when we did that old Fantasy Rock Band draft some time ago.
Not my cup of tea but oddly, I didn’t hate it. The weird synth squiggles elevated it from musical wallpaper to slightly interesting musical wallpaper.
I have no idea who it is but I’ll guess Rick Wright (mostly because I just read the Mojo article about him so he’s fresh on my mind).
I can’t identify the artist, but I do know that this is the title theme from Ridley Scott’s upcoming Pong: The Movie.
The reference back to the RTH Fantasy Band Draft has me hoping that this is some really obscure, Fireman-like side project from Seger.
MY guess would b it is someone who listens to Fennesz. I like the way the piano comes in at the end, finally surrendering some melody.
I stopped listening to much of this kind of stuff about five years ago, but this track does not rub me wrong. Maybe Cherguevarra should pull out some of those old tapes and get rich.
Seger’s Fireman-like side project…now THAT would be something worth our time and consideration!
I don’t know if this artist has gotten rich off his day job, dbuskirk, but his flexibility has kept him employed at the same place long enough to have received a gold watch.
I wrote offlist as there were zero comments and I was SURE I had it and didn’t want to spoil the fun.
I knew that George Harrison had done an electronic album while still with the Beatles. Given the primitive electronic noises on this track and Mod’s use of the term “quiet ones” I figured I had it nailed.
A highly logical conclusion. No?
Is this the hidden track on Chinese Democracy?
It was the “quiet one” reference that led me to guess Rick Wright. That and his detour into synths. Now I’m intrigued but the “not rich but got the gold watch” comment. A reference to the Hall of Fame?
Excellent response, Dr. John…but incorrect.
cdm, the man is in the R’nR HoF. Except for an occasional shout of “She said!” or some other short phrase, he’s been a quiet man through the course of his rich and varied day job.
Jerry Harrison?
Fine guess, BigSteve…but innnncorrect. This musician has been employed at the same job throughout his professional career.
Steve Nieve?
Any more thoughts on our Mystery Date and his (that much is clear, right?) identity?
In just minutes we will present our Mystery Date!
It’s posted. Well done, BigSteve! Thanks to all of you for playing.
The Edge’s solo album? Anybody have the “Snake Charmer” EP, with Jah Wobble and Holger Czukay? Best thing about it is the cover art.