The Default Thread: Music Edition.

[TomAz]

Date, City, David Byrne in Conversation with... Event topic Tickets


Sept. 14 Minneapolis Steve Seel, founder of Minnesota Public Radio’s The Current Delivering Music—How Technology Shapes What We Hear MORE INFO

Sept. 17 Chicago Bettina Richards, founder of indie label Thrill Jockey & Greg Kot, Chicago Tribune music critic Stay Free!—How To Survive In The Indie World MORE INFO

Sept. 19 Toronto Cory Doctorow, blogger, journalist, author, co-editor of Boing Boing Wassup Internet?!—Music in the Digital Landscape MORE INFO

Sept. 22 Montreal Win Butler, musician (Arcade Fire) I Am Standing On A Stage--Why Do We Do It? MORE INFO

Sept. 24 Boston Steven Pinker, cognitive scientist, author Are We Born Musical? MORE INFO

Sept. 28 Philadelphia Greg Milner, music, film, and technology writer Delivering Music—How Technology Shapes What We Hear MORE INFO

Oct. 1 DC David Lowery, musician (Camper Van Beethoven, Cracker), producer Music and Copyright in the Digital Era MORE INFO

Oct. 14 Los Angeles Trent Reznor, musician (Nine Inch Nails, How to Destroy Angels) and Oscar-winning film composer & Josh Kun, author and professor Going It Alone: Music, Marketing and the Web MORE INFO

Oct. 16 San Francisco Bernie Krause, author, electronic musician, and soundscape pioneer What You Hear is What You Are MORE INFO

Oct. 19 Portland Carrie Brownstein, musician (Sleater-Kinney), writer, and actress. Acting Out—Why Perform? MORE INFO

[TallGuyCM]

HEY BRANDON FLOWERS THE VELVET UNDERGROUND WANT THEIR BASSLINE BACK



What the fuck. Seriously. Not that it should be that surprising at this point, but still.

[nosurprises12]

One of the textbooks assigned for a class I teach uses a Pitchfork article from 2001 to demonstrate how to cite a document on a website in MLA style ("Live Transmission" by Marc Hogan, in case you're interested).

[Drinkey McDrinkerstein]

Here is an amazing full length 1980 Devo concert film, in very decent quality.

[AlecEiffel]

This will probably be deserving of its own thread eventually, as of now it's not officially announced (and I have no information other than what I've seen posted by involved parties online), but the Pixies are currently recording in Wales.

[bmack86]

Bam Thwok

[TallGuyCM]

I suppose it could be its own thread, but might as well just ask here - what are some of your favorite record labels?

[FEELS]

I suppose it could be its own thread, but might as well just ask here - what are some of your favorite record labels?

Matador
4AD
Domino
SST
Dischord
Drag City

[SoulDischarge]

I suppose it could be its own thread, but might as well just ask here - what are some of your favorite record labels?

I thought about making a Record Label Of The Week thread where someone chooses a record label past, present or upcoming to focus on, whoever can do a profile of it, post some favorites, some underappreciated gems, etc., but I think I create enough threads without follow through. Which reminds me, I need to start compiling that new music board mix.

[TallGuyCM]

The idea came just as a new approach for me to discover music. I usually go about band's discogs the normal route, but i thought it would be a fresh angle to actually seek out individual record labels (something I haven't done before) and thus revisit some classics as well as listen to bands and albums that I'm not familiar with.

[zircona1]

I suppose it could be its own thread, but might as well just ask here - what are some of your favorite record labels?

I've been getting into a lot of Touch & Go stuff this year - Killdozer, Big Black, Brainiac, Jesus Lizard, etc.

Matador, as already mentioned, is great of course.

[bmack86]

Touch and Go was my favorite label to go thru. They have so many gems in their back catalog. SST is similarly great, and they have some later stuff that you, as a fan of more experimental music as well as 60s rock, would probably enjoy.

Oh, and Matador is great, but a really fun one to find tons of gems is Homestead, Gerard Cosloy's label prior to Matador.

[buddy]

This is probably an obvious one for this board, but one of my favorites is Elephant 6.

[bmack86]

I'd also tip the hat to Drag City for playing the long game. They signed so many acts that developed into heavy hitters.

[bmack86]

UCLA has a list of their "optimists": people who envisioned the world as it could be. Ironically, given the title, they include Greg Ginn. I think that's pretty awesome though.

[bmack86]

1/2 of the Replacements are recording together. Westerberg also hinted that there may be a full album in store.

[Originalbob]

I thought I just saw Mugwog play in a band: Poor Moon, the synth percussion player. They were some opening band for Beach House in Boise (@_@) which was a pleasant surprise to say the least. Oh, it wasn't Mugwog in case you were wondering.

[bmack86]

I just read that Eno quit Roxy music by not showing up for practice one day, and instead paying a violinist/keyboard player to show up to replace him. Eddie Jobson stuck with Roxy after that. Probably easieset band split ever.

[TomAz]

1/2 of the Replacements are recording together. Westerberg also hinted that there may be a full album in store.

That article contains a link to another Stereogum article which ranks the Mats albums. While I admire the enthusiasm, it's pretty fucking stupid and shows that they have gaping holes in their understanding of the band.

[TomAz]

The Musical Convulsion
That Threatens
Folk Music's Popularity
Recalls The First Battle With Rock 'n' Roll

by Bob Shelton

November 1964

A convulsion swept popular music in America a few months ago. Too many words have already been squandered on the phenomenon of The Beatles and what they did to the recording industry, the teen-age girls and the television, publishing and wig-making businesses.

Beatlemania is the shrieking of hysterical girls; it is fans lined-up four hours for a glimpse of a quartet of shaggy Teddy Boys; it is jelly beans tossed on stage; it is a demand for disks that made a major recording company suspend all other popular and classical releases; it is a sort of musical hysteria, which earns $17,000,000 a year.

The more the sociologists ponder the effect of the rock 'n' roll quartet from Liverpool who took America's youth by storm, the less sense it makes.

Beatlemania has given devotees of folk and pop-folk music cause to be proud of their taste. For at the root of all this is the very reason rock 'n' roll gave way in the late fifties to the mass folk-music revival that is still one of the most important popular cultural currents of our time.

At issue in considering The Kingston Trio vs. Beatlemania is not just music alone. Many knowledgeable folk fans have found something of merit in the music of The Beatles. They have heard a certain funky, bluesy quality that rings sympathetically in their ears. But our chief target in this article is not the music of The Beatles so much as it is the manufactured, assembly-line, hoked-up craze that 17 press agents, untold dozen of disk jockeys and a corps of promoters were able to effect on the American listening public.

It would be difficult to discuss the music of The Beatles seriously. There was such mass madness in their first "Ed Sullivan Show" appearance on TV and their two Carnegie Hall "concerts" that one could not even hear their music.

Let's compare, if possible, the two worlds represented by "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "Tom Dooley." Many ethnically oriented folk fans have forgotten that the first hit recording by The Kingston Trio, "Tom Dooley," was a bona fide Appalachian folk song done in a fashion that was one of the trio's least contentious performances. A lot of people forget that "Tom Dooley" was to trigger the whole folk and "hootenanny" revival that is still going on today.

This writer is not changing his preferences for real folk music. For all its polish and pleasantness, pop-folk music has distinct limitations. It is generally a rather superficial sort of music, tending to go in one ear and out the other. The more serious approaches to folk music generally go deeper-in meaning, in feeling. Because real folk music goes deeper, it tends to stay longer in the consciousness of the listener.

But The Kingston Trio came along at a time when the sort of music that The Beatles have now revived had absolutely glutted the market. The meaningless gyrations of the first rock 'n' roll craze had taken the genuine country blues sense Elvis Presley brought out of Memphis and distorted it beyond recognition.

At winter's end, many leaders of the folk-music field were beginning to fear that Beatlemania might well put an end to the folk "boom." It would be disgraceful if such shallowness as "the Mersey beat" (as The Beatles' sound is generally referred to) could affect the course of the painstakingly constructed folk revival.

This threat of an eclipse of the folk "boom" reminds us of the early years of The Kingston Trio, who must be credited with helping to replace rock 'n' roll with a fresh and vibrant popular-music approach.

1958 was the year. In 1958, the United States put its first earth satellite, Explorer 1, into orbit, President Nasser formed the United Arab Republic, Charles De Gaulle took over France, and three well-scrubbed, earnestly collegiate looking young men took over the popular-music reins of America.

The story of The Kingston Trio actually begins in spring 1957, in a colorful hangout for Stanford University students called The Cracked Pot, in Palo Alto, Calif. Appearing at The Cracked Pot, for a token payment plus pretzels and bear, were Nick Reynolds and Bob Shane, students at near-by. Menlo College, and Dave Guard, who was majoring in economics at Stanford. Frank Werber, a San Francisco publicity man heard about the group and visited The Cracked Pot. He immediately signed them to a personal-management contract, which was written on a paper napkin.

Then began months of grooming for a professional career. When enough polish was achieved, Werber got the Kingstons a job at the hungry i in San Francisco. After that debut, they moved across the street to The Purple Onion, for a one-week stand, which was extended until the trio stayed for seven months!

Then the barnstorming and traveling began-to Mr. Kelly's in Chicago and The Blue Angel and The Village Vanguard in New York. The Kingstons' television debut came May 1, 1958, on a "Playhouse 90" drama called "Rumors of Evening," in which they performed and acted the roles of airline pilots.

The Kingston Trio's first album was released by Capitol Records in June, 1958. The album did well, but still no indication of what was to come. One song on the album, however was to make the decisive difference. This was "Tom Dooley," the century-old tale of Southern crime and punishment, which Frank Warner had collected from Frank Proffitt, the NorthCarolina carpenter. Released as a single in August, 1958, the recording became a national best-seller, and was to sell a million copies before that Christmas.

Do some "comparison" listening between the single that "made" The Kingston Trio, "Tom Dooley," and the single that "made" The Beatles, "I Want To Hold Your Hand." The difference between a time-steeped ballad of an actual episode and a souped-up, over-engineered love song speaks volumes about the relative merits of folk song and "The Mersey Beat." (The Mersey is the river that goes through Liverpool, England, where some 400 rock 'n' roll groups are currently said to be in existence.)

The story of The Kingston Trio after the success of "Tom Dooley" is easy to summarize. Sold-out concerts followed in quick succession. A dozen groups that emulated the buoyant, slick sound of The Kingstons soon popped up. Appearances at The Newport Folk Festival of 1959 gave The Kingstons their first contact with the deepening rift between folk musicians -- the popularizers and the authentics.

That rift persists today. "We used to be annoyed by the people who deplored our brand of pop-folk music," says Bob Shane, "but we outgrew that long ago. We've never claimed to be folk singers. We've made 19 albums for Capitol and not one of them has used 'folk' in the title. We're not minstrels or meister-singers, but we do offer a type of entertainment the public seems to like."

Several factors can make even the bitterest folk opponents of The Kingston Trio think twice: They opened the door for the folk revivial of the nineteen-fifties and sixties. (This in no sense minimizes the contributions of many others who preceded them or followed them--Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, etc.)

They did not join the mob seeking instant success in the heat of the "hootenanny" craze by going on the A.B.C.-TV show. The trio's admiration for Pete Seeger and their distaste for the network's blacklist have been widely reported.

Their latest Capitol record, "Time to Think," reflects the growing trend toward singing topical, protest and social commentary songs. While musically disappointing, it is by all odds The Kingston Trio's most serious effort yet.

Finally, their position in pop music, as opposed to the nonsense of Beatlemania, must be weighed. If time proves that The Beatles played a decisive role in ending the folk-music boom, we can perhaps mellow our estimation of just what The Kingston Trio achieved, when Dave Guard was leading the group and after he was replaced by John Stewart.

No one, to our knowledge, has ever thrown jelly beans at The Kingston Trio to show admiration. Capitol Records did not halt the normal flow of its recording schedule to accommodate The Kingston Trio's popularity, as the company did to feed Beatlemania. The Kingston Trio never showed the contempt for its audience that The Beatles have shown.

Perhaps both groups are products of the assembly-line, new products thinking that dominates American popular music. In retrospect, even the serious folk fan will probably agree that "the product" of The Kingston Trio was not all that corrupted, by even folk standards. The Kingston Trio started something very constructive in American music if The Beatles end it, we'll all be the loosers.

[bmack86]

That article contains a link to another Stereogum article which ranks the Mats albums. While I admire the enthusiasm, it's pretty fucking stupid and shows that they have gaping holes in their understanding of the band.

I'm pretty sure most of the people writing for that site were born after 1990, based on their bizarrely skewed best of lists.

[bmack86]

Also, FIDLAR, that band that everyone's all up on, apparently have some members who were in this really shitty punk band called the Diffs. I saw them open for the Adicts back in 2004, and they were teenagers. /hipstermoment.

[TallGuyCM]

I listened to Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and Matt Sweeney's Superwolf again today. Probably the 3rd or 4th time I've put it on front to back, and this time around this song in particular really jumped out and sunk its teeth into me. Possibly my favorite song either one of them has ever penned:



That guitar line is so hypnotic...

[Aurgasm]

I really love music and would love to make a career in both making music and organizing/producing musical events.

but the "industry" is disgusting.

hoping that I come up with something soon because academia is boring the hell out of me.

/rant

[Aurgasm]

I listened to Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and Matt Sweeney's Superwolf again today. Probably the 3rd or 4th time I've put it on front to back, and this time around this song in particular really jumped out and sunk its teeth into me. Possibly my favorite song either one of them has ever penned:



That guitar line is so hypnotic...

this is lovely. I really love his album with Tortoise as well.

[Originalbob]

Not sure where to put this, but browsing through my Crate & Barrel magazine, I saw they have a free playlist:

1. Animal Kingdom -- Get Away with It
2. Brown Recluse -- At Last
3. Bess Rogers -- Come Home
4. Bill Fay -- This World
5. James Vincent McMorrow -- This Old Dark Machine
6. Morning Parade -- Headlights
7. The 1900s -- Babies
8. The Elected -- See the Light
9. The Tallest Man on Earth -- Wind and Walls
10. School of Seven Bells -- The Night

I haven't heard of a few of these bands, so I cannot critique the playlist. Just thought I'd share it!

[nosurprises12]

Ever get those moments where you hear something so good you're almost mad at yourself for not discovering it sooner?

[roberto73]

I just picked up a vinyl copy of The Dream Syndicate's The Days of Wine and Roses, an album I've loved for many years. It was only after listening to it last night that I realized this was their debut. I don't know why this hadn't occurred to me sooner, but Jesus Christ. So confident. For my money, one of the best debut albums ever.

[buddy]

r.i.p. terry callier

[TallGuyCM]

Zen Arcade at 7th best? Hmm...