Selecter: Slade the Leveller
Listeners: Glyph, krogerfoot
Slade: I saw these guys last week and it was the most fun I’ve had at a show in ages.
Selecter: krogerfoot
Listeners: Glyph, Slade the Leveller
krogerfoot: DNOTHD is one of my favorite albums I’ve never actually owned. I had an unmarked cassette forever and ever and played the shit out of it. I need to buckle down and buy it. I’m glad it’s as great as I remember it.
Selecter: Glyph
Listeners: krogerfoot, Slade the Leveller
1981. For the first 4 minutes, pretty standard (if excellently-played) US punk/hardcore. Then it gets…interesting. Like SY before SY, with that pentatonic theme repeating intermittently, a feedback symphony, a demented nightmare train of a drumbeat, Jim Morrison stream of consciousness vocals, tape effects. Then “Youth!” morphs into “You!”, a call to arms. Greg Sage is one of the great unknown guitarists.
Selecter: Slade the Leveller
Listeners: krogerfoot, Glyph
Slade: This group is the source of my LoOG handle.
They’ve been around for 30 years with one survivor from the original lineup, Justin Sullivan. When you look up English teeth in the dictionary there’s a picture of him.
Selecter: krogerfoot
Listeners: Slade the Leveller, Glyph
krogerfoot: Got two possibilities: Captain Beefheart, or something weird. (ed: “Something weird” won). I picture a DJ going to a lot of record shops in China and Vietnam and putting this together. It’s beautiful in places.
Selecter: Glyph
Listeners: Slade the Leveller, krogerfoot
Glyph: Awright, I know what’s next. Something brief. Something rocking. And something with a terrible bandname. When I first listened to AoL, I thought they couldn’t play. It took a couple listens to realize they really, really can. AoL just have a different idea of what constitutes a “hook” (a clang, a scrape); but they aren’t wrong, as they’ve burrowed deep into my brain. Plus vocalist Eric Bachmann had a highly-distinctive rhythmic sensibility in his delivery – very “punchy”, in some ways almost more reminiscent of rapping rather than singing.
Small crowd tonight, but fun. I think the Loaf didn’t go over well, but hey, you can’t win ’em all.Report
Oh man, Archers of Loaf. Blast from the past.
Sorry I couldn’t make it. People who haven’t been to one of these yet are missing out.Report
How’s R’s mom? Any change?
I went through a period where I listened to Wipers’ “Youth of America” as my first song every morning. Very bracing.
In fact, I’m doing it now.
I seriously can’t recommend the boxset of their first three records highly enough, if you have any interest in American punk/hardcore/underground guitar music. Very cheap (around $20 for 50+ tracks), a lot of songs that will stick in your head, and Sage is just a monster on the guitar (not just the actual playing, but tone/effects/sonic stuff). That they are not as well-known as many other bands is a shame.
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Sorry I missed it. I got a last minute invite to my neighbors’ wine and cheese party for the people on our block, and I decided to go meet the people that live near me. Now I am an actual person, and not just that weird guy down the block with the two dogs.Report
No worries. You’ll always be that weird guy down the block to me! šReport