The SDMB Music Appreciation Society

Cafe Society
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Ah yeah… Mother Love Bone… in my mind there’s no doubt that Andrew Wood was what kept the rest of this band off-kilter enough to have that “falling down stairs with style” feel to them. This song is okay. Very heavy on '80s-style shouted chorus, but the guitar parts, rhythm and overall joyous angry disdain present in the song make it fun to listen to.

I hate that this thread has devolved into just a few of us participating, but it’s still more fun to share than not, so this time I’m sharing something just because it’s a ton of superfun: here’s crazy-ass psych-rock weirdos Fumaça Preta - Fumaça Preta!

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I forgot to comment on this earlier: that’s the first time I’ve ever heard the lyrics interpreted as being directed at the listener.

143

Jesus Hell, YES! Groovy, heavy, the coherence of Puzzle Punk, and has all the craziness of the Surfers at their height. The phone started ringing during the song, and I thought it was part of the song. Perfect. Gotta buy it.

Keep posting. I’m listening.
I’m going to kind of give a lame one. Been thinking too much about Husker Du lately, so here’s them doing a cover of Eight Miles High. I’d say it’s pretty faithful, but you’ll never mistake it for the Byrds. Bob’s guitar is probably at it’s big, shimmery best.

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Anything hardcore is a blind spot for me, and this is additionally daunting because it’s considered one of the great singles of the '80s and all-time great cover versions. But there are no other takers so I’ll try.

I never got into Husker Du apart from a few of their more melodic singles (and I like some of Bob Mould’s recent solo stuff as well), but I appreciate what they were doing here. A lot of punk covers of non-punk songs are done for ironic effect, but this was no joke. It’s the best kind of cover: a song re-interpreted for a different place and time, utterly transformed so the same set of lyrics paint a completely different image in the listener’s mind. So, respected.

OK, so the other reason I wanted to jump in now is because I have a timely pick - it’s been slowly climbing the charts for months and as of this writing has reached #12 on the Hot 100: Walk The Moon - Shut Up And Dance. I kinda think that mainstream music has gotten a little better lately as the success of that Daft Punk album a couple years ago seems to have made retro-'80s pop like this a viable thing, and it’s been making looking at charts kinda fun for me again for the first time in forever. I have the album this song from and there are about five other tracks on it that sound like potential hits. I will pick an older, non-pop song next time :slight_smile:

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Wow that was a lot of fun! It’s like 1986 all over again, only with a more modern drum sound! The video was a ton of fun and also echoed the '80s vibe, from the hairstyles all the way down to the solid colors in the clothes.

This is the song that that Ronson guy wanted to make: it recalls the '80s without ripping anyone off.

I don’t think I’d want to hear this song a thousand times but it was fun.

Loved the Hüsker Dü; I agree completely with journeyman_southpaw’s analysis, but I wanted to add that I loved that guitar sound that Mould had back then… it’s fucking raw.

I’ll tell ya what: let’s keep it '80s for one more. My pick is a band that I saw when they opened for Big Country back in 1984. They blew me away with their thick, lush sound and inscrutable lyrics. I rushed out the next day and got a copy of their album on cassette (those being all the rage at the time, much like tying an onion to your belt was the fashion once… but I digress…). Anyway, that cassette bit the dust long ago, but the songs on it were seared into my brain from love and repetition. Thanks to the interwebz, I was able to secure a copy of the CD re-issue of their first 2 albums that was done in the mid-90s. Here’s Wire Train - Slow Down.

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I see it’s going for $75-100 on the secondary market these days, good thing you got it before it gets any scarcer.

I’d not heard of this band before and my first instinct was to think they were British! But nope, San Franciscan. I found the lyrics hard to make sense of, and while searching for them online I found an interview with the singer where he explains the meaning of the song as a helpful cheat :slight_smile: Ah, so it concerns a musician’s ambivalence about his art being commercialized. The monotonous beat and general sense of unease make sense now. The middle of Side Two is where the weakest songs are usually buried but in this case I guess it’s more that it’s too personal and not commercial enough to get a more prominent place on the album. I imagine the best way to experience it would be if you played it while commuting alone.

Awright, well, I didn’t want too many '80s-themed songs in a row, so how about going way back to 1969. Grand Funk Railroad is a band that critics absolutely hated, and most Gen Xers like me only know them from a monologue by Homer on The Simpsons in which they came off as a joke. But… well, their early stuff sounds fine to me. It was a bit later when they became less heavy and more of a poppy singles band that, yeah, they weren’t as good anymore. But their first few albums are full of solid early hard rock jams if you like that kind of thing. So this is Grand Funk Railroad - Mr. Limousine Driver, lip-synched on Playboy After Dark so you can dance on your staircase along with all the beautiful people if you feel so inclined.

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Wow, some Grand Funk… I love it! Those guys really knew how to rock it and this tune shows their soulful side, too… a good cut. And I like the visuals in that link. That’s really a sign of *those *times. Thanks for that

It can be tough to find something note-worthy from the 80s but you guys have done it. I’d never heard of Wire Train and, though my first foray with the linked song didn’t paint my walls or anything, I gave it a few listens. It’s subtle but I like it.

The Walk the Moon was catchy. I found it a very basic tune that didn’t offer a whole lot, but was still a good piece and (as Bo said) a lot of fun. I could listen to it again. And I did.

The Husker Du was a nice reminder of some older times and that tune reminded me why I wasn’t much of a Du fan. Sure, they’ve got the chops, but it just didn’t meld w/ me. I will say that it was a great and unexpected interpretation of the Byrds’ song. Also, want to give a shout-out to Mr. Picker… glad to have you stopping in. Please come back more often.

The Fumaca was a little… hmmm not sure how to categorize it. I could feel the groove, but the overall product got lost in the slaughterhouse-like :smiley: screams . Putting-aside the lyrics, I could hear something there, though.

Well, I had a couple of things in-mind to pitch-out here, but I’ve decided that I’m going off-path a bit. I didn’t hear this one when it came out in the 90s, but discovered it while falling-in-love with Jellyfish at the turn of the century. This tune isn’t one of their hits and it’s hard to find it on one of their albums, but it’s an interesting little ditty; especially to anyone familiar w/ Mario and Bowser. I dig how the tempo picks up as the song goes on.

Jellyfish, Ignorance is Bliss.

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This reminds me a lot of the Jolly song I posted a while back, but it goes all indie pop/Braodway musical instead of indie rock/metal. Not my cuppa, but there’s quite a bit of talent on display there.

The GFR tune was awesome. I’m a big fan from way back in the very early '70s and I pretty much always enjoy the guitar tone, the vocals and the awesome fun rhythms that they delivered. The holy-crap-is-that-dated video was fun too.

My pick is a drum and bass duo that just released the best album of their career so far. This is highly charged technically precise experimental rock (if that’s a thing) at it’s finest IMO: Lightning Bolt - The Metal East.

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Bo, you do have some interesting tastes in tunes. This one hit me as “meh” upon first listen. But as suggested, i gave it a second, and then a third ear. Then i researched these kids and started to warm-up a bit. It’s a lot of sound from 2 dudes. It doesn’t meld into my psyche or anything, but i can hear something there. I dug the video… the visuals were interesting.

I’m going to hit you with another local group; Wylie hunter and the Cazadores. This is an acoustic bit from them/him, though they plug-in quite often. I hear a lot of things when i listen to this one. I’m sure many of us have been in a similar situation, and Wylie sings it (and writes it) with tons of feeling. Hope you enjoy Jordan.

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I liked it musically, he has a real good voice to carry such a sparse acoustic tune and it was a nice move to have the chorus never repeat itself. That sparseness also puts the lyrics really up front, however, and I find them, to sum up in a smiley… :dubious: They evoke a specific kind of person who would sing them that I would politely call a “chill bro” although a less courteous term is widespread on the net.

The lyrics just sound to me like humblebragging about having drunken stranger nookie with a hot blonde while throwing a veneer of sensitivity over everything, being all sad that she won’t stay and be exclusive with him (because young studly guys HATE when women just want to keep it an open relationship fling, I mean, what a drag). I also found the couplet about the glasses to be unintentionally funny because it calls to my mind nothing if not the Beautiful All Along trope as featured in “She’s All That”, which is the one thing everyone remembers about that movie because it was mocked and parodied in the years following.

But look, I have a bunch of hair metal where general skeeviness and ballads of questionable sincerity are pretty much the order of the day, so I might not be the best person to be writing this. The song was musically good enough that I looked around for other stuff by the same person, and found a few songs I did like unqualifiedly.

So now I’m going to throw out a song called “Karaoke” by a new group called Smallpools, because it just seems like a perfect song to play in early June just before sunset (do we need warnings for four-letter words? Song has one repeated a couple times, anyway).

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I had high hopes when this song started; persistent thudding is a great way to open a song. Once the bass started I could tell it wasn’t gonna be a rock song tho, and the vocals surely destroyed any inkling of rocking. Too much melody for my taste in the vocals, and bit too much of a happy-shiny feel to the whole song. It’s very polished, and even has a sort of '80s patina to it, but ultimately isn’t something I’ll listen to again.

The Wylie Hunter tune was kind of blah. The melody felt pretty generic and there just wasn’t any real dynamic to the song to hook me in. Another very polished recording, but not anything I’d seek out.

My pick this time around is Daikaiju - Escape From Nebula M Spacehunter. Enjoy!

152

I dug it, enough so that YouTube is currently playing more Daikaiju for me as I type this. Lots of energy, and a surprisingly straightforward surf rock sound. I love the guitar tones. There’s no way this band doesn’t kick all kinds of ass live. Every time I hear this kind of music, I want to do a similar project myself.

Next up: Wire, “Ex Lion Tamer”

153

Wow! I haven’t heard these guys before. This song reminded me of Quinten Tarrantino films. I found my head bobbing in time with it as I listened, and it went pretty quickly for me, as it ended earlier than I thought it would (even though it’s over 5 mins).

Love the throwback guitar sound, thought I heard some infuences of Chuck Berry, and Fugazi. Really enjoyed it, I’ll have to check out more.

OK. Check out some Coheed and Cambria - “The Camper Velourium I: The Faint of Hearts”

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Going back through some random older posts (and apparently the one I jumped by writing too slowly).

Juscifer - The Mountain: Just OK to me. I kinda get what they are going for with the intro/outro thing, but too droning and repetitive for my taste. The singer has a killer sound to her voice though, I really liked it and may need to check out some other stuff.

Wire - Ex Lion Tamer: Romones-ish tune I could really get into these guys. Not over-complicated, straight-forward. I liked this alot.

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I like to call Coheed and Cambria “Jimmy Eat Rush” for their seamless blend of the most accessible prog and the most accessible emo. And I mean it as a compliment! And this album is my favorite of theirs - a cryptic mashup of space fantasy and nerdy high school drama. Great song. Thanks for bringing one of my 2003-2005 perpetual car CDs back into my consciousness. :smiley:

Next up: Faraquet, "Cut Self Not."Clean math rock.

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Wow, a cleaned up Dillinger Escape Plan here! Good stuff, also reminds me of Spoon and Pinback. I really liked this and will add some into my rotation of Spotify randomness I have going while working. Love the offbeats!

Ran across these guys a little while back and was TOTALLY impressed. Very cool sound mixed with technical instrumentation. Tesseract - Nocturne

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OH HELL YEAH! We opened for Daikaiju a while back, and I didn’t know anything about them going into the show other than they were a touring surf band. I was so blown away, I bought their entire catalog and the t-shirt. Their live show kicks ass times a million. I won’t spoil it (you can find it on Youtube if you must), but it rules. They have a mystique, and they totally pull it off. Seriously, here is a page that’ll list their tour dates. They look like they just finished a tour (and I had to work when they were last here), but they’ll probably be out soon again. Go see them, give them all of your money.

A great band, a band that I don’t hear very often these days. But they influenced lots of folks, so you hear their mark all over.

Hehe, that may be the best description of them I’ve heard. Work in someone who loves pinch harmonics in there, and it’d be complete.

I liked the Faraquet, esp the jazzy ending. Not something you always hear in math rock.

Hmm. They’re all skilled as hell, and they obviously put a lot of work into that song, but it comes together as a whole to remind me of Evanescence. Not a bad thing, but not really my thing.

Ok, my submission this time is Jack Thunder and the Road Soda - Captain Adaptive. Pure caveman psychedelia from Texas.

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Very good. Definitely has the Texas psych rock vibe; Roky would have liked this. I did find myself annoyed by the main riff because I recognize it from some other song; at first I thought it was from Sky Saxon (The Seeds) but after checking I couldn’t place it. I even went and listened to the entire Black Angels catalog thinking maybe they had also used it, but no luck. Anyway, that DUM-dum-da-dum rhythm and the chord progression were already in my head somehow, so the song started off with an immediate “familiar” feeling. I thought the song maintained an excellent pace, loved the fuzzed out guitar sound, thought the vocals were appropriately reverbed, the delivery impassioned and obscured, and loved the freak out at about 2:00. All-in-all, despite being derivative as hell (seriously, I’ve heard every riff in this song before), it was enjoyable and I hope the band can build on an excellently chosen and executed foundation. I gather you’ve been fortunate enough to see them quite a bit, scabpicker?

Wire is, to me, like a polished version of Swell Maps crossed with Gang Of Four. If you listen outside the mainstream and can handle aggression in your music (punk rock, art rock, kraut rock, experimental rock, etc.), you should own Pink Flag. Good pick, OneCent.

Coheed & Cambria doesn’t do it for me; sorry Feint. I once paid over $140 to see Clutch open for them at the Warfield in LA. Clutch was awesome (of course), and I was really interested in C&C because they are fairly popular in metal circles and known for their sic-fi comic book saga, but I had never heard them before. I lasted less than 3 songs before I split. I will say that I do love one song by them; The Hard Sell is a masterpiece. And yeah, Claudio Sanchez’s voice is one of the things I don’t like about this band. It works for that one song because he’s singing like 2 octaves lower than usual or something, but other than that I find him very unpleasant to listen to.

Faraquet was a great band. I loved that they did math rock that had a pleasant vibe. I’ve never been sure why they broke up, but I was pleasantly surprised when 2 of them surfaced again in the mid 2000s with Medications.

My pick this time around is a hardcore band. This was the first song I heard by them. I remember when this came on, I had to jump up out of my seat and start moshing and breaking shit and yelling and I swear to Bob I listened to this like eleventy kajillion times in what ended up being a glorious 6 day weekend of non-stop agro moshing in my living room. When it was all over, my furniture was destroyed, my cats were afraid and I had no choice but to go snowboarding for a few days to cool down. Here’s 400 Blows - The Root Of Our Nature.

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Love the bass line carrying this tune. Definitely has a psychedelic Ramones-on-acid feel to it. This is a pretty cool groove that I could carry in rotation, but not enough of my style to handle more than a song or two at a time I think.

OH YELL YEAH!! Did I ever need that on a Monday! When the guitar drops, it’s such a deep growling tone and total bang riff! Loved this, so hard not to move your head to. Nice choice Bo!

All right, I’m throwing a curveball out here. Prepare yourselves for Foxy Shazam - “Oh Lord”

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OK, I couldn’t let this one slide…I freakin’ enjoyed the hell out of this! Spoofing 1970s arena rock is like shooting fish in a barrel but it’s clear these guys totally love the stuff and have the musical chops to back it up. Dang if that vocalist doesn’t just ape Freddie Mercury but actually give him a run for his money! I LOL’d when he bit the head off the microphone. I’m definitely going to check out more from these guys.

Here’s another one in a similar spirit: Ex Hex - I Don’t Wanna Lose Your Love.