Shady!
Despite being a fan of both Mercury Rev and Seam, it somehow escaped my notice that Rev founder David Baker and Seam main man Sooyoung Park had collaborated on some music under the name Shady, after Baker’s departure from MR.
The guitar does a languid, very Seam-y thing, right before the vocals start; what’s strange is how well Park’s trademark grace and restraint, is subsumed into Baker’s typical everything-all-the-time lysergic chaotic noise-pop excess. It probably helps that there’s a sturdy, pretty melody in here that all parties can agree on.
What belated discoveries related to your favorites have you made? Are you a Chris Gaines fan who just now found out about this “Garth Brooks” fellow? Are you a U2 listener who finally got around to hearing the Passengers album?
Silver Jews! I was a Pavement fanatic in college and had heard some from the various side projects, but American Water felt like a lost best-of album (and still holds up today).Report
Do I lose all indie cred if I admit that I, a person who remembers having to special-order Slanted & Enchanted back in the day (and is contemplating a post on “Pavement’s Saddest Songs”) and owns multiple records by the Halo Benders, have never heard a Silver Jews album? I am sure I have heard at least a song or two on a mixtape, but darned if I can remember them.Report
Thanks to Glyph, I came late to Neon Neon, a side project of Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys.
I’ll also heartily recommend The Duckworth Lewis Method, a side project of Pugwash leader Thomas Walsh.Report
Neon Neon is how I found out about Cate Le Bon (featured on a track of the first album) who has excellent singer/songwriter work. Wheels within wheels, man!Report
It’s showing my age to say that I still can’t really read Cate Le Bon’s name without thinking of Simon.Report
The whole Shady record is pretty good (I have a copy on vinyl). It is definitely the alternative dimension’s Mercury Rev, as it sounds like the direction the band had on the first two records that was altered when Baker left/got kicked out of the band.Report
I might have to track down a copy then.Report
I know it is on Spotify. https://open.spotify.com/album/7jWizxSOaZZ7uDGCd5Wn6HReport
Ah, cool, listening now, thx.
Track 1 is…definitely all over the place, as expected.Report
That reminds me, I have a Spotify playlist of contemporary hip hop for you (which you requested, though you may not remember doing so). I need to write it up.
One artist on it is Oddisee. Who wants to go see him with me tomorrow?Report
How am I supposed to distribute a Spotify playlist out of my trunk?!
Thanks, looking forward to it!Report
Ah, you do remember.Report
In the early days of SNS, Last.fm informed me that people who liked my band (a number in the mid-double-digits) also liked a particular Australian instrumental trio, and I found that they rubbed me up the right way, too. I navigated that rickety site to their page a lot and to enjoy their music and relatedly bask in a hipster, you’ve-probably-never-heard-of-them jacuzzi wash.
Later a co-worker told me he was on the guest list for that band’s show in Tokyo that very evening and would I like to go, to which I was like, pope wear a funny hat. I told him I thought I was the one of the few people in the world that even knew of the band’s existence, and he said yeah, he just happened to know a mutual friend of the guitar player’s, and, you know, let’s go keep them company on their Japanese debut show.
So we went, and the place was packed to the gills, and it was truly like one of the best shows I’ve ever seen, and afterwards in the bar the band was just hanging around and I got to chatting them up, and found out:
1. The violinist’s wife is Japanese, so he is well acquainted with Tokyo.
2. The guitar player’s wife is in an Australian band called Art of Fighting, which plays in Japan fairly often.
3. The band members know each other from being Nick Cave’s band.
https://youtu.be/z1Lh06y6Z1QReport
4. That’s the OTHER Warren Ellis (not the author).Report
Re 4, that didn’t dawn on me for a while, either. I was like, what a freaking renaissance man.Report
I’m just disappointed that no one told me about this runaway blimp situation, since that is relevant to my interests:
https://youtu.be/PQFuxxZktWcReport
Blimpie’s have missed the best promotional opportunity to ever fall into their laps.Report
I was hoping a newscaster would say, “Oh, the humanity!”Report
“Too soon!”Report
If I may complain about being old, a co-worker made me listen to that “watch me” song.
I made it from “watch me whip, now watch me nay nay, watch me whip whip, watch me nay nay” before running, screaming, from the room.
I’m just now wondering whether the progression led to whip being repeated three or four times due to whips being added or multiplied and, if it’s the former, whether it’s just adding one whip or if it’s starting a fibonacci sequence.
I assume “nay nay” is stable at two nays throughout the song.Report
HOLY CRAP, I just heard that song last night for the first time, my kids love it.
My wife and I commented that we would never have guessed that we were a ‘nae nae’ household. But it appears that we are.Report
Just be glad your kids weren’t young in the “It’s bananas, b-a-n-a-n-a-s” days. I still have emotional scars.Report
I know someone who wrote a song that incorporated a dentist’s drill as one of the instruments.
It’s a decent song too.Report