Man, a guitar doesn’t need to be tuned to make music.
Wow, lots of stuff to look up. Thanks, folks. Appreciated.
You know that New England and England are different places, right? 
Listen to their first 3 cds.
British bands - that don’t sound like Bush - to check out:
Sohodolls
The Long Blondes
Battle
Bloc Party
Ladytron
Muse
God Love You For a Liar
The Alps
The Rakes
Bat for Lashes
Sophia
Nine Black Alps
Gomez
Canada bands:
Billy Talent
Lesbians on Ecstasy
Broken Social Scene
Controller.controller
Death from Above 1979
Metric
Royal City
Junior Boys (not to be confused with Junior Senior from Denmark)
Other places:
The Cinematics (Scotland)
Travis (Scotland)
Hussys (Scotland
Bettie Serveert (Netherlands)
The Rasmus (Finland)
HIM (Finland)
Nouvelle Vague (France)
Erlend Øye (Norway)
I can understand your plight. I to have been less than interested in American Music for the past oh I would say 10 years.
One American musician I really like is Todd Snider. He has enough variety in styles to keep his songs unique. (I hate musicians whose every song sounds the same. Yes I mean you Train, vile scu… wait I am ranting)
If you enjoy a lyrical songs, where a story is told in a style influenced by Dylan, Petty and Willy. He has been bringing politics into his music the past few years,
but as he has said “not that I my opinion is right, or I want to convert you, it’s just that it rhymes better.” Give him a try, you can find some of his earlier stuff going on e-bay for little money.
Here are some YouTube links
Old times Live version
Looking for a Job Video
Stuck all night An older video, one of my favorites (like me some Banjo)
How do you feel about Canadian music?
Tegan & Sara are adorable. Also, I only recently learned that Heart was originally from Canada, and they rock, of course. And Rush is the best band in the history of Rock.
Bush are (were) British - the name is from Shepard’s Bush, a district in London.
Heart are from Seattle - at least the Wilson sisters, the (ahem) heart of the band - they grew up in Bellevue. Heart did work out of Canada for a bit in the 70’s…
If Gorgon Heap is looking for “not Bush” I say look no further than the Hives - Swedish punk rockers who want to have fun and whose songs rock hard and are infectious (“Hives” “infectious” man, I kill me…)
Hate to Say I Told You So - the essence of Hives - play it loud and I dare you not to rock out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsm2hSKkH7E
The Fratelli’s are good, fun rock. The Sounds are also out of Sweden and the frontwoman can sing and looks like she can eat you alive - Annie Lennox in a more rock format…
The Redwalls are out of Chicago and sound like the Beatles in Hamburg in 1962. If you don’t believe me, listen to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_28UFECJVso I LOVE this song!!
All for now - gotta run.
Shockingly nobody has mentioned the greatest American band of the late 90s/2000s: Wilco.
There’s loads of great British bands emerging at the moment. Here’s some from my playlist:
Arctic Monkeys
Bloc Party
Editors
The Enemy
The Fratellis
Kasabian
Klaxons
Maximo Park
The Music
Pigeon Detectives
The Wombats
Virtually all of those came on the scene within the last five years (a load only this year, too). There’s also established bands like Coldplay, Keane, Oasis, Muse etc.
Now see, that’s what I grew up hearing (I’ve lived in Washington all my life). Heart was “one of ours”. But recently I watched a live Heart performance from the '70s on YouTube, and Nancy actually tells the audience “we’re from Vancouver, BC”.
Then again, I think that performance took place in Pullman, home of the WSU Cougars. Maybe Nancy was just being politic by not saying “Seattle”, home of the rival UW Huskies.
Consider the Great American Music–the only genre that is still fresh & original.
Try Jazz.
I love jazz, I’ve played jazz professionally and for fun, and I don’t know what you’re talking about by calling it “the only genre that is still fresh & original.”
I suspect you don’t either.
Ah yes, another superb Bosda post, loaded with a heap of vaingloriousness, with no substance whatsoever.
Try soul.
The Pop/Rock I hear on the radio is uninspired, overproduced, & mostly (totally?) focus-group driven.
Jazz is still about artistic expression.
These are my impressions, & aesthetic impressions are not black & white. If you disagree, I can accept that. But I am entitled to my own views, as well.
Can you name a single artist, either one you like or one you don’t? It sounds to me like you heard that somewhere and thought it sounded intellectual. There is plenty of bad, bland, soulless jazz (especially on the radio), and plenty of brilliant, inspired rock and even pop. You’re certainly entitled to your own views, but this board is dedicated to fighting something I am detecting here.
Dominic Mulligan, what are songs by The Wombats typically like? So far I’ve only heard “Let’s Dance to Joy Division.” While I’m deeply amused by the idea of dancing to a band that you sometimes worry the lead singer will soon after hang himself to get past the misery of existing, I don’t know if that one is typical of their style. Are all their songs that silly, or are there more serious ones like Bowling for Soup and They Might Be Giants occasionally do?
WordMan, I think the OP was being tongue in cheek when he said all American bands sound like Bush. When Bush first became popular in the US they did an interview with Gavin Rossdale and he said they hadn’t really found an audience in the UK because they didn’t fit the typical mode, which then was dance-oriented. Muse had the same problem a few years later.
**elfkin477 ** - I am sure you are right.
**BBVLou ** - keep fighting that ignorance!
**DMulligan ** - great links (but Kasabian, really?). I haven’t been drawn to Bloc Party, but the Arctic Monkeys are great…
**Phase42 ** - I am not immersed in Heart trivia to have a ready reply, but I thought the Wilson sisters were from Bellevue, but the *band *located in Vancouver for a year or three - so when she said that, she might’ve been speaking about the band, but I don’t really have a dog in that fight…
Me neither - I just found her comment a bit puzzling in light of what I’d always heard, but since it was coming from Nancy’s own mouth I gave it a bit more weight than what I’d heard elsewhere. But it looks like you’re mostly correct - here’s what Wikipedia has to say:
I cannot speak for Dominic, obviously, but it seems to me that The Wombats are part of a pretty long line of recent UK guitar bands who really aren’t doing all that much new or interesting musically, but are clever and amusing wordsmiths. Arctic Monkeys are another (and better) example and in another genre so is Mike Skinner of The Streets. It’s all about the grime and dubstep these days, innit.
Everyone claims to hate Bush now, but I’ll bet most of you kids have at least one of their albums sitting on a shelf somewhere.