Music Lounge Board Member of the Week?

[bmack86]

What are your favorite albums to drive to?

I really love Calexico-Feast of Wire when I'm driving thru the desert. City at night, I enjoy putting on some Kraftwerk, especially The Man-Machine. NEU!s first album is just about perfect driving music, though.

[bmack86]

And, soon I'll put up two albums, since I'll be leaving tomorrow night.

[bmack86]

Album number four is up.

The Screamers-Demos 77-78. One of the first synth punk bands. Excuse the quality, they only recorded demos.

[PassiveTheory]

Hey Bryan, what are 5 records in your collection that you still/often listen to that would surprise the people who know you on here?

[bmack86]

Kiss-Destroyer
Phish-Any number of live shows
White Zombie-Astrocreep 2000
Donna Summer-I Feel Love
Abba-Gold

[bmack86]

And entry number 5 is up. The Weirdos - Weird World, Vol. 1. Another fantastic first wave Los Angeles Punk band.

[RotationSlimWang]

If Dinosaurs still roamed the earth, rock music wouldn't exist because we'd be prey rather than the ultimate predators. We wouldn't have time to bang our heads and mosh because we'd be running from the chilling pounding of footsteps just around the corner. (Or, it'd sound like that Led Zeppelin reunion. badumcha)

If Buddy Holly and Richie Valenz survived the crash, they would have both been extraordinarily prolific fathers, and would have birthed a whole generation of goofily suave kids that can't play music very well, but who nevertheless would have gotten recording contracts because of their famous fathers. As a result, bands with marginal draw to begin with (Bread, Air Supply, light rock) would have flourished on independent labels. The punk movement never happens because the underground is so filled with light rock, and a whole generation of people are raised to believe that yachting and pink collared shirts are amazing. And, Don McClean would have no career.

Excellent comments, Bmack. Clearly humans could never have conquered dinosaurs, although they conquered everything else in the entire world. Thanks for the heads up.

Richie Valenz couldn't have been stopped from being a prolific father of rock music either. It's not like he was just some shlub one-hit wonder who was playing the opening slot of a three-act club tour. And you're definitely right about their impact increasing the volume of "light rock" in the future--after all, they were a unique pocket of light rock at the time. Actually everything sounded like that back then. Damn.

It definitely does make sense that it's hard to say if three-quarters of The Beatles would have been successful as solo artists but that Buddy Holly and Richie Valenz would've changed the face of rock permanently had they lived.

Some more questions:

1. GIVEN: Hitler was never born. NOW: What of underground hip-hop?
2. GIVEN: The Antichrist reveals himself on Earth and commences the real, biblical Apocalypse. A resurrected Christ never shows up to save all from the torturous collapse of society. NOW: How much more influential do you think No Age--a band I've never heard of anywhere but on this message board--will be in this terrifying reality?
3. GIVEN: Same as number two but Terminators instead of Antichrist and Grizzly Bear?

[SoulDischarge]

Ok. Hypothetical. Assuming Randy didn't have his head up his own ass 22 hours out of the day, what would his top 5 albums of all time be?

Also, always good to see some Screamers love.

[PassiveTheory]

Kiss-Destroyer

You're Chuck Klosterman in disguise, aren't you?

[bullokz]

algunz is here?

can we just all get back to stroking bmacks ego? please!?!?! can't you see he is getting upset! and he has to help his mom for christ sakes! ungrateful asshats, the whole lot of you!

**jared, you are next in line to bless this thread with all things great, so no need to keep posting. we see how anxious you are for your turn, even though you continue to make hipsters around the world proud with the nonchalant brush offs of what is really going on**

lulz

fucking awesome

[bballarl]

Lollerskatez

[bballarl]

Bmack: You need to select the new BMOTW before you leave. Just a head's up.

[wmgaretjax]

I'm really loving the Screamers record.

[mountmccabe]

I'm reticent to say. I think it will depend quite a bit on the next album. Right now, if they were to quit, they'd be remembered as a fun and exciting live band that put out two fun albums and, more importantly, galvanized a scene in LA for the first time in quite a while. IF they can knock out a few more albums that capitalize even more on their developing pop sense, they might be able to hit Pavement levvel. They probably won't be able to get any bigger than that.

2. GIVEN: The Antichrist reveals himself on Earth and commences the real, biblical Apocalypse. A resurrected Christ never shows up to save all from the torturous collapse of society. NOW: How much more influential do you think No Age--a band I've never heard of anywhere but on this message board--will be in this terrifying reality?

Randy, a question: Have you heard of Pavement anywhere but on this message board?

[SoulDischarge]

Are there any bands that you really love that you wouldn't want to see live as of 2009, either due to you not thinking they would translate well live, or have just lost the plot?

[bmack86]

Are there any bands that you really love that you wouldn't want to see live as of 2009, either due to you not thinking they would translate well live, or have just lost the plot?

It's not really fair to pick on the Germs I guess, seeing as how their singer died and the band's decided to play with a new one, but I really don't want to see that. I love the first two Weezer albums, but I'm pretty certain I'd never want to see them again considering how boring they were last time. As far as newer stuff, I've still never seen Six Organs of Admittance, and, while I love his albums, I'd be very worried that he'd come across as boring. And, sad to say, Neutral Milk Hotel. I don't know if he'd hold it together for a full show, even though the bootlegs I've heard of the last tour are insane.

[SoulDischarge]

I've seen Six Organs Of Admittance 2 or 3 times and it's a good show. Maybe slightly boring at times, but really captivating at others.

[AlecEiffel]

Richie Valenz couldn't have been stopped from being a prolific father of rock music either. It's not like he was just some shlub one-hit wonder who was playing the opening slot of a three-act club tour.

Richie Valens' career lasted less than a year before he died and he had three hit singles ("Come On, Let's Go", "Donna" and "La Bamba"). Your smart assessment is neither fair nor correct.

[wmgaretjax]

Six Organs of Admittance works great live... but he takes chances as well, and sometimes it doesn't quite work out.

[kreutz2112]

I listened to the Horse Flies album. It's not really my thing. Too much fiddle, it was overwhelming at points. The song "Rub Alcohol Blues" was great though. I have listened to that song multiple times since hearing it.

I am currently on my fifth listen of Signal Morning. It is fucking fantastic. My favorite track so far is "The Spinning Continuous". So catchy.

Downloading the rest of the albums for the week now.

[bmack86]

One thing I've noticed with Signal Morning that really sets it apart from anything Will Cullen Hart's done before is the limited instrumentation. His other albums are all very lushly instrumented, with lots of horns, samples, singing saws, pianos and all sorts of found sounds. For the most part this one is pared down to a traditional rock band with keys. Rather than drawing in the focus though, it's made the songs much more dense.

[wmgaretjax]

The thing about the first Circulatory System album is that the instrumentation felt excessive for the first time, unlike with OTC albums. I love the album, but it never quite came together the way that his previous work had. I love the new direction, and think it's the best E6 album of the decade.

[mountmccabe]

I listened to the first part of the album by the Saints before being pulled away. I def heard the influence of the Stooges. I am not sure I loved the horns, though. I like horns but not so much with punk; this is one reason I don't really go for much ska. I will, at some point, finish the album and almost certainly give it more time.

I have listened to the Circulatory System once and I quite loved it. They are a wonderful band. One thing that struck me is that they seemed to be switching songs even more rapidly than the CD track switched. I need to listen more, both for general enjoyment and to figure out what the hell.

[bmack86]

There's an hour long Grizzly Bear live set up on NPR for stream right now. They do quite a few new songs, and Dan plays his JoJo cover that he did for Ed's birthday.

[bmack86]

The thing about the first Circulatory System album is that the instrumentation felt excessive for the first time, unlike with OTC albums. I love the album, but it never quite came together the way that his previous work had. I love the new direction, and think it's the best E6 album of the decade.

I can definitely agree with that. It's got the wildly psychedelic feel of the OTC albums, but the first Circulatory System album seemed like it wanted to be like them, but it was missing the more direct pop songs of Bill Doss, and Hart didn't seem like he knew how to reconcile that lack of immediacy with his style. I guess he decided to just switch it up.

[kreutz2112]

I have never listened to the first Circulatory System album.

Funny story. I actually can thank Bryan for my listening to 2 great albums. Back in the day he had the Black Foliage album cover as an avatar so I listened to it and loved it. Same goes for Vision Creation Newsun. Who would have thought a 75X75 pixel image could have so much influence. Nice work, Bryan.

[kreutz2112]

On that note.

Bryan, what are some of your favorite album covers?

[bmack86]

Tie the OTC back to Pot. In 04, he posted a story about them getting together for a few shows thanks to ATP. Being that it was the first time I'd read him posting something that was not pure hatred, I had to check it out. I've been in love ever since.

[schoolofruckus]

Being that it was the first time I'd read him posting something that was not pure hatred

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

[bmack86]

On that note.

Bryan, what are some of your favorite album covers?