S/D: (american?) indie rock 1987-1992

(inspired by donut bitch's trumans water thread.)

Add:
Pussy Galore
The Gories

Antiseen, *Honor Among Thieves*
Big Black, *Songs About Fucking*
Dag Nasty, *Field Day*
Death of Samantha, *Where the Women Wear the Glory and the Men Wear the Pants*
Green River, *Dry As a Bone*
Halo of Flies, *Garbage Rock*
The Holy Cows, *We Never Heard of You Either*
Precious Metal, *That Kind of Girl*
Saint Vitus, *Born Too Late*
Scrawl, *Plus Also Too*
Urge Overkill: *Stay Tuned 1988-1981: The Urge Overkill Story*
The Zeros: *4-3-2-1....Zeros*

uhm, what else...let's see:

-Gun Club
-the Wipers. First 3 albums.

Slumberland Records: Velocity Girl, Whorl, Black Tamborine

and the Simple Machines label: Tsunami, and...

and Teenbeat, of course: Unrest, and much much more

Can't vouch for most of this as I wasn't interested at the time, and still not much since, but maybe others can.

Anyway, the marginality and mediocrity of a lot of the bands people (including me, in a lot of cases) are listing in this thread should give you a good idea why some of us who were obsessed with indie rock circa the mid '80s were listening more to Cover Girls/Expose/Stacey Q/Tiffany/Poison/GnR/Real Roxanne/etc. just a few years later, and (at least in my case) were extremely skeptical about Nirvana (not to mention Pixies/Pavement/Phair/etc.) just a few years after that. These really were slim times for indie-rock (and as far as I'm concerned, the slim times didn't even end until only the past couple years, but heck, what do I know). Anyway, that *Gimme Indie Rock* compilation really is a pretty smart place to start. That Death of Samantha album might be the only really great album on my list, too. (Actually, Sonic Youth's 1987 *Sister*, their best album by far, is as good as anything anybody's mentioned here--though maybe since, like Big Black, they're in Azzerad's book already they don't count.)

ART PHAG!

1. Doomsday performed by Verlaines
2. He Is God performed by Big Dipper
3. Alive Again performed by Live Skull
4. Lives of the Saints No. 135 (Naked Wife) performed by Honor Role
5. I'm Like You performed by Urinals
6. Standing at the Crosswords performed by Great Plains
7. Charmed Life performed by Half Japanese
8. Red Barn [live] performed by Salem Sixty Six
9. I'm in Heaven Now performed by American Music Club
10. Coming Through performed by Pastels
11. Aberration performed by Nice Strong Arm
12. Flesh-Colored House performed by Bastro
13. Quest performed by Phantom Tollbooth
14. Gravity performed by Tall Dwarfs
15. Ultravixen performed by Volcano Suns
16. Stanley performed by Antietam
17. I Wish I Was Adopted performed by Happy Flowers
18. Party in My Heart performed by Chills
19. Somebody's Baby performed by Yo La Tengo
20. Two-Week Vacation performed by Embarrassment
21. Oddity [live] performed by Clean
22. Do It performed by Death Of Samantha

Wipers and The Gun Club were both good groups. "Youth of America" by the Wipers and "Fire of Love" by The Gun Club are the first two to check in my book, but really they both are pretty consistent except the last couple of Wipers albums.

Mudhoney's early records were great. I remember that I really liked their self titled record better than that Nirvana band, which was just ok. I've seen people slag that self titled album for years and I never could understand why people either liked Superfuzz or Every Good Boy... so much more.

"Buzz Factory" by Screaming Trees is one of the most overlooked records of that period. It is their only album that I really liked. The more they smoothed out their sound, the worse they became. Lanegan has such a cool voice with all that wah wah guitars.

I liked all of The Feelie's albums, but their first one "Crazy Rhythms" is a definite step above the rest.

"Songs About Fxcking" is another great one, but most of "Rich Man's Eight Track" which includes Atomizer is also quite grand.

Flipper's first album "Generic" is another one to check, it is a favorite of mine.

Now they came a bit later than 92, but an indie band that I thought was good that no one seemed to like is Engine Kid. They got kind of slagged off as either a Melvins or Slint rip off, which they were of both, but that combined sound is pretty good if you ask me. I saw them live in Louisville with Silkworm with about 10 people and they were fun. Their album "Angel Wings" is one to pull out of the cheapy bins used, if you like this kind of thing, I think it is pretty good. Their other album is a bit more spazcore and I didn't like it.

Silkworm when they were a four piece was a good band, as a trio they lost much of their dynamics.

(And some of the best songs on that Homestead compilation, not to mention a bunch that Nathalie named, came from Flying Nun Records in New Zealand, which actually sounded way more alive indie-rock-wise than the United States did in the late '80s and early '90s. And the Urinals, though American, were MUCH earlier -- Their *Negative Capability...Check it Out* compilation is pretty great, end to end.)

Urinals100 Flowers

this part confused me.

Gun Club and Wipers key phases were early 80s, btw.

"College Rock" and "Postmodern Rock" (and "Modern Rock," too!) were, like, Love and Rockets and Midnight Oil and the Church and R.E.M. (and maybe, okay, the Replacements and Husker Du, etc.); it was mainly stuff on commercial (and lots of college) stations -- college rock, in fact, tended to imply a certain folky wispy wussiness. Indie was indie (which isn't to say it wasn't also lots of OTHER names); don't know how WIDELY the term was used, but it was there. (And grunge was "sasquatch rock," as far as I cared, but never mind.) (And Big Black and Pussy Galore and Scratch Acid and so on were Pigfuck.)

Then again, I'm from Detroit. And wrote for the Village Voice and stuff. Which obviously might make my experience different than some.

I was about to say. That was just pop radio for me in high school -- like I had been listening to already!

Fugazi's "Margin Walker" EP is actually pretty good.

- I recommend things like Barbara Manning's _Lately I Keep Scissors_ & Lois' _Bet the Sky_ (from 1995) despite Jess' known aversion for twee fuckery; Lois might err on the twee side, but it's still a solid record, & Ms. Manning ain't twee @ all, & if you dig her, it'll make a fine segue into exploring the happy-go-lucky side of Flying Nun (cf. the Clean, the Verlaines, Tall Dwarfs, etc.)

- Also on the side of twee, but decidedly untwee (when they wanna be) - Field Mice & Heavenly. That 2 CD Field Mice retrospective won't totally redeem the damning stereotypes that color the wunderbar world of indie-pop, but it goes a long way in justifying the existence of the genre/subculture (well, maybe not the subculture). And, for what it's worth, Saint Etienne covered one of their songs. After the first Heavenly record (which is twee with a lowercase t that wants to be an i with a heart as the dot) (not that this is a bad thing), it's all snide, rude, and charming skip-a-dee-doo-dah that'll win you over if you let it.

- Scrawl's a definite must-hear in this category, though I'm partial to the 2 Simple Machine re-/releases (the _Bloodsucker_ EP & _Velvet Hammer_) in terms of Scrawl's hookiness, or "pop smarts" (the former) & Scrawl's ability to pick at scabs until they bleed (the latter)

- On the rockier Clevelandy side o' thangs, there's Prisonshake - they have one full-length I'm aware of (which is pretty good & available via ScatRecords.com), but my pick is _I'm Really Fucked Now_, which I THINK is a European or Australian collection of songs from some ridiculous multimedia release the band put together (consisting of a tape, a CD, and a 7"? - darn me for not hitting the Trouser Press guide right next to me). It's great, though, if you want your indie rock to "redeem" blues-based thuggery.

- As a catch all introduction, you could do a LOT worse than snagging that _Human Music_ compilation, given all the threads you can investigate from there. The included Yo La Tengo song (covering Jackson Browne or Eddie Money) is 15 types of shit, though. There's the Flying Nun angle, of course, as well as the Cleveland Rocks! axis (Death of Samantha, Great Plains), and there's also the Embarrassment and the Urinals.

- The Embarrassment monkeyed with the usual canonical postpunkian icons we all know & take for granted, and then added a little of that eau de spazz that typifies the scattershot ramblings of the socially awkward middle class white kid weaned on Stan Lee & grape soda. The _Heyday_ retrospective is all you need (though _Blister Pop_ makes a fine addendum). If you like your spazzing to be a little more esoteric (& not so groovy), then you'll want the Great Plains in your life.

There's more to be said about the Urinals & 100 Flowers, and maybe pre-Imperial Unrest, and perhaps Small Factory, and lord knows what else, but I'm starting to wander a bit with the thoughts, so I'll stop here.

Thinking Fellers
Death of Samantha
Urge Overkill
Slovenly
Couch Flambeau
Phantom Tollbooth
Laughing Hyenas
Sister Ray
Wedding Present
My Dad is Dead
Lazy Cowgirls
The Embarassment
Repulse Kava
Cosmic Psychos
Fastbacks
Unrest
The Fibonaccis
Snapper
Clawhammer
The Scene is Now
Snapper
Crystallized Movements
The Original Sins
Great Plains
Fish & Roses
The Bats
Union Carbide Productions
feedtime
Dustdevils
Vomit Launch
Pontiac Brothers
Scrawl
Pooh Sticks
Crawlspace
Mecca Normal
The Shams
Drunks With Guns
The Neats
The 3Ds
Breaking Circus

Pain Teens & Tar -vs- Spacemen 3 & My Bloody Valentine

And maybe I'll talk about Run On (the band following Fish & Roses) & the Cannanes & This Kind of Punishment & Tsunami's awesome cover of My Dad Is Dead's "Water's Edge" (tho if Baked Bean Teeth DOES come on thread, he could cover the first 3 things I mention in much greater detail - conflict of interest notwithstanding - than I could hope to).

Again, see what I wrote above. I actually remember that, when Sebedoh and Pavement and Guided By Voices (and Beck!) first came out, we were calling them "Lo-fi", NOT "indie." "Indie" was just way too broad a category to define them. Though for junior high kids, maybe it was.

Yes!!! Go out and buy *Sin Gulls (Goring St. Eddy* and "Bring Me the Head of Trent Reznor (Chuck Eddy Mix)" right this very second!! "On the Floor Again" is probably as good a song as anything by Flipper.

The Milkshakes, The Prisoners, The Mighty Caesars, The Headcoats, Delmonas Five, The Dwarves, Pagans, The Gories, The Mummies, The Devil Dogs, the Cramps, JackKnife, MonkeyWrench, Slant Six, Supersnazz, 68 Comeback, Bassholes, Gibson Bros

yeah, when did thomas jefferson slave apartment start? i forget. but fritz (who i hope has a sense of humor) did mention the gibson bros., who, while not as good as the disco gibson bros. who did "cuba" in the late '70s, could still be pretty nifty. Anyway, "weirdo basement stuff" makes me think of Vertical Slit aka V3 aka Phantom Limb aka Ohio's late grate Tim Sheppard, who made lower-fi-than-Lou-Barlow's-dreams stuff that actually *rocked,* long before Pavement learned how to muffle bad poetry through broken Burger King drive-thru intercoms (which is the best stuff PAVEMENT would ever do, but i'll shut up.)

Let me second and third this recommendation.

Why would someone get mad about calling Husker Du indie rock? What disqualifies them? Or did she think it was an insult to Husker Du, because they were really "punk" or "hardcore" or something?

Okay, I feel better now. Carry on.

I'm sure you do; I actually *like* some Pavement stuff. But I bet you don't hate Pavement as much as I hate My Bloody Valentine!

I listed the elements further up in that 'graph, but I'll repeat them again for clarity: "hard-edged guitar, catchy melodies, pretty harmonies, weird and sarcastic lyrics, propulsive energy, and clever songs". It wouldn't be too hard to pick any one of these elements and go back and find some band that supposedly did it better, but the point is that the Pixies combined them all, and in a way that sounds natural and seamless and makes immediate sense, at least to me.

Yeah, I should've listed the Gibsons (and the Billy Childish axis, and the Gories, and Prisonshake, etc.) (oh and Honeymoon Killers and Love Child and Unsane and Antietam and the Mono Men and the Terminals and yeah you can really go on forever with this stuff) (so that's why I missed out on the rave era!)

Other good comps not mentioned were Away From the Pulsebeat's Mondo Stereo and Matador's New York Eye and Ear Control. Actually it's pretty hard to overstate the work Gerard Cosloy did in just documenting all of this shit during his tenure with Homestead. I don't know what the deal is with that label - whether as I suspect it was some kind of tax loss deal for Dutch East India - but the sheer number of releases while he was at the helm really got a lot of the stuff down that would have otherwise gone unrecorded. Much of it was pretty forgettable (ok, a lot of it), but his zeal for the stuff was honorable. Homestead kind of seemed like the Prestige to SST's more insular Blue Note. The Ken Katkin era was OK, but didn't seem as exciting; Cosloy's early Matador continued that feeling of the most vital releases.

Somewhere around here (in the archives, har har) I've got the old Spin column from like '89 or something where Byron Coley lists his 100 best "underground" records of the 80's. I should type it up if I can find it.

Also, Pixies are just Pere Ubu with all the interesting parts removed.

Airlines (unbelievable cover of Nick Drake's "Road" as streamlined rock)
High Risk Group (three singles, all of which rip)
Fertile Virgin
Wimp Factor XIV
Buffalo Rome (pre-Magnetic Fields band)
Velocity Girl (those first two singles were AWESOME)
Fire In The Kitchen ("Simple English"!)
Autoclave (plus the first two Helium singles and the EP)  
Wanton Loveboy (does ANYBODY else remember them? two great singles)
The Spinanes (esp. the first four singles)
Baby Tooth (holy God, "Jet Lag"!)  
WCKR SPGT  
the Glands of External Secretion (both singles are killers)

I could go on and on and ON.

Pere Ubu and Wings and Steve Miller and the Cars (and T. Rex I guess) all combined hard-edged guitar, catchy melodies, pretty harmonies, weird and sarcastic lyrics, propulsive energy, and clever songs (unless they didn't.) So did Led Zeppelin. So did lots of people.

I think I trashed *New York Eye and Ear Control* in Spin when it came out! Though I vagely remember not hating the Cop Shoot Cop track.

I also think I voted for a Head of David EP in Pazz and Jop once. And I might've even voted for a Greenhouse of Terror EP the same year!

Yeah, that's what I meant about the hippo vs. fly comparison.

Just like Guided By Voices are '60s rock with all the interesting parts removed. (That was obviously a major trend in '90s indie.)

I'm assuming New York Eye and Ear Control is different from the Albert Ayler album?

Like Michael Jackson, for instance.

If you rolled all these bands together, you might have something very close to the Pixies - but before the Pixies existed, no one would have thought to even mention these bands in the same sentence - that's what they accomplished!

Plus, I never bought Frank Blank's supposed "dementia." And indie fans rate dementia way too high, anyway. But again, that's just me (a guy who probably rates Michael Jackson's dementia way too high!)

i always liked tom's take

(sorry jess)

Ok, this thread actually made me just pull out Doolittle for the first time in at least 10 years, no joke.

Scott, everything by Ubu up through the original break-up was hot, c'mon man. You're right about the Wipers and Nirvana though, he borrowed a lot. The alienation themes, the curt song structures, the repeated lyrical phrases - you can really hear it in the Nirvana covers of "Return of the Rat" and "D7" - they sound like Nirvana songs! I wish they would have covered "Up Front" too, that's a total Nirvana blueprint.

The funny thing about Nirvana is you see "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on all these critics top singles lists because of its "importance" or whatever, but I could never rank it so high because as a big Nirvana fan it seemed like such a disappointment! It was just them sounding like the Pixies when I wanted them to keep sounding like Led Zeppelin, just like all those other Sub Pop and AmRep bands I dug at the time. I mean, I liked Cobain for his guitar riffs! Not his fucking lyrics and melodies. The other funny thing is that most of these people like Gerard Cosloy and Byron Coley and Baked Bean Teeth hated Sub Pop because it sounded like heavy metal.

I'm also thinking that the Pixies should maybe not be included in these American Indie band lists. Their sound is certainly brighter and cleaner than many of those above and they were on 4AD and Elektra, so...

TS: Listening to old stuff that "doesn't stand the test of time" VS. Forgetting about something you "LOVED" six months later?

no.

TS: Listening to old stuff that "doesn't stand the test of time" VS. Forgetting about something you "LOVED" six months later?

vs.

well I kinda agree with chuck's take on the Pixies i.e. they're what you'd be into if you didn't know much about what else was going on (which was definitely the case when I liked 'em - as soon as I found out about some more interesting bands [most of whom are listed here] I dropped 'em like a hot potato).

Do I listen to those other groups? Fuck yes. Just in the past couple weeks I've listened to the Great Unwashed, Jay Clarkson (there's a New Zealand obscurity for you!), the Wipers, and the Jesus Lizard. Hell, I listened to Daydream Nation just last night. They're not "just examples" for me, and I'm sure as hell not planning on selling my records from that era any time soon.

And, like I say, I just listened to Doolittle for the first time in 10 years (or more, hell if I remember). It was pretty much just *there*. It sure as hell didn't move me like the Wipers or any of the New Zealand stuff. Christ what an overrated band. Although that "Silver" song was pretty great. Did they ever end up doing more stuff that sounded like that?

I listened to Urge Overkill's Supersonic Storybook a couple months ago and I couldn't believe how great it sounded. I totally forgot how good those guys could be.

I'd rather listen to Prince than Halo of Flies right now, but I love the latter and you'd have to pry Music for Insect Minds from my etc.

Much love to the Cows tho, YES!

Dope Guns & Fucking, Vol. 1! There's a fucking comp for you.

I'm kinda waiting (hoping?) for the day chuck and Geir Hongro get in some fantastic FITE. Hopefully their two equally ridiculous viewpoints will somehow obliterate each other in a glorious explosion of misplaced priorities.

But for the 87-92 transition I'd take plenty of poppy things: Blake Babies, Beat Happening, first Versus singles, Small Factory, Dinosaur Jr., Minutemen, Dead Milkmen, Jawbox, Antietam, Camper van Beethoven, Throwing Muses, Galaxie 500 and the first Luna, etc. Maybe some Cramps.

Anyway, that's the thing, Shakey, these bands (Urge, Halo of Flies, The Embarassment, etc) don't have the stature; it never attained stature as most of the lame critics around couldn't give two shits about this scene when it was thriving. They only bothered to learn about American independent rock because they "had" to, in Nirvana's wake. Spin was the only mag really touching the stuff. Mission of Burma and the bands covered by Azerrad certainly had a degree of stature, respect, but certainly wouldn't have had a book written about them by Michael fucking Azerrad without the blasted Nirvana phenomenon. I mean, who the fuck is Michael Azerrad?

I mean there were all sorts of bands in America doing interesting stuff. The Sub Pop stable came along and they try to sound like hoary 70's metal. Personally I loved it, but most of what comprised the indie scene hated that stuff. Then Nirvana blows up and you get dorks like Eric Weisbard and Powers (obviously two tireless documentarians of the late 80's underground American scene) or whoever writing about how "important" and "powerful" rock music was. God was that shit depressing to read. Lit-crit dorks who glommed onto rock music because it made career sense.

I mean, of course I wouldn't expect someone who didn't come of age during this time period to really value these forgotten records; but sorry, I trust someone like say, Spencer Chow's (no offense) opinion ('none of these bands is as good as MBV') on this stuff about as far as I could throw it. That is if he'd actually bothered to hear the majority of the bands mentioned "upthread". He'd just complain that they didn't sound bright or clean or whatever. These groups didn't ask to be judged against the trillion dollar recording budget of MBV. And of course Spencer (or anyone) sure as hell shouldn't trust my opinion on dance music! I mean, I only just bought Todd Terry's To the Batmobile Let's Go last night!

Welcome to my bright, clean, trillion-dollar world!

Also, I was just concerned about the throwing around of "you don't know Indie" stuff which in my case (and certainly in Jess' case) is just not true. And your statement that "That is if he'd actually bothered to hear the majority of the bands mentioned "upthread"," points to a lack of understanding that people have different tastes depending on things other than ignorance.

That was the period that I was at (various) art schools, and I was pretty much focused on British music (Or bands that might as well have been British such as Throwing Muses - on an English label) but it was really a goldmine period. Velocity Girl, wow, I loved those early singles to death - my friend played My Forgotten Favorite at a party a few months back and we all started singing along. Truly, a forgotten favourite.

Does anyone want to save me hours of web time and cut up a shortlist of the "American underground"-era bands I would or might like? As mentioned, I always went for the ones that were arty, poppy, post-punky, jangly, Anglophilic, dreamy, slop-rocky, lo-fi, etc. etc. -- not so much the ones leaning in the hardcore, sludgy, grunty, or Sasquatchy directions. But if there are things in that territory I should start with, I'd be happy to. (I have enjoyed a Honeymoon Killers record, I think, and also even an Alice Donut one, although it's possible I'm just mixing them up with Mary's Danish, who I liked better.) Oh, and of course I'd be more interested in which records are actually findable and buyable these days. (Ahem so yes, I'm bound to like Blake Babies / Dinosaur / Camper Van / Let's Active / Galaxie type stuff, but would love to go back to some other things as well -- any particular suggestions?)

*starts conversation in circle again*

"Ahem so yes, I'm bound to like [college rock] type stuff, but would love to go back to some [indie rock] as well -- any particular suggestions?"

I should also say, the flexibility of "indie" distinctions is beginning to hurt my brain. I don't at all understand the common line Chuck takes above, that "indie rock" is just "rock on an independent label" -- because that definition makes the term "indie rock" largely pointless (e.g. it means Hanson were briefly indie rockers) simply in order to pretend that there isn't a generally-recognized stylistic thing or common bits of fan-base linking a lot of bands together. (Yes, acknowledging "indie" as a style means fighting forever over what does and does not "count," but it seems lazy to just back down and say "well if it's on an indie label..." -- not to mention that you can have the same what-counts fights about whether a label's really indie and whether the music's really rock.)

I take the college / indie distinction and certainly understand it, although I'd actually venture that what's being called "indie" here was actually a subset of "college." (I.e. add a bunch of British acts, pop, synth-pop, goth, new-wave, 10K Maniacs, and a bad reggae hour, and there's your "college.")

further - surfing pointers EP
further - born under a good sign
further/fluf - she lives by the castle 2

hahahaha, I don't know why you associate the two. Buck Pets:Replacements::Connells:R.E.M.

I was just kidding about the Connells, too, as I pretty much loathe 'em. They did play a free show in the park by my parents' house once (with Material Issue) and it was funny to watch all the punk rockers show up and mock 'em.

i am taking quite a few packages to the post on saturday, i can make you a CDR if interested email me.

FWIW - The ad that Kim deal answered to become the Pixies' bassist - They were looking for someone to do a "Husker Du/ Peter Paul & Mary" thing.

But what, exactly, do we gain by *limiting* the definition? I've never understood this with heavy metal, either -- Isn't it somehow more objective or whatever to take in ALL working definitions of a genre when determining what a genre's highpoints are, and work from there? Otherwise, you're limiting yourself by the arbitrariness of your defintion. And if, by "indie rock," one just means "the timid grooveless lifeless sexless rock'n''roll-hating tedium that emerged in the wake of Pavement and Sebadoh" (just like if, by "heavy metal," one just means "the grooveless ugly rock'n'roll-hating horror-shtick tedium that emerged in the wake of Iron Maiden or Slayer"), well, pretty much ALL of it sucks. So why SHOULDN'T Hanson's (or Precious Metal's, or Saint Vitus's) rock recordings for indepedent labels count as indie rock? Just because Pixies and Pavement fans never *heard* them, or liked them? Well, what if Pixies and Pavement fans were *wrong*, you know?? I'm not saying they WERE, but it seems to me that we should at least leave open that possibility. (Though I do of course agree that defining "independent label" and "rock" leave open lots of room for argument; they're hardly absolutes. But hey, "room for argument" is a GOOD thing, isn't it? Just because indie rock is polite and scared to fight doesn't mean I should be, you know?)

Back to the Pixies for a second: I read the Tom Ewing piece that Jess linked to way upthread, and enjoyed how he made a case for them (though I want to ask how the hell one KNOWS when they're singing about UFOS; I NEVER understand what that guy's singing about -- all I know is that I like the song about marijuana if you got some gouge away and hate the one about monkeys hitting him in the head or whatever.) Anyway, the one line that pissed me off in Tom's thing was this one: "Nirvana changed everything about how rock bands work." I have no idea what he's talking about. The only thing I can see they changed is that some bands might've had A&R people coming to their shows who didn't have A&R people coming to their shows before. And some hair-metal bands who had fun hair before Nirvana got boring hair (and less catchy melodies) after Nirvana, maybe. Beyond that? Zilch.

Finally (or not): I loved O. Nate's post about me. But I *still* don't get why people thought I was trying to pull one over on them in those old reviews he's referring to. I was EXPLAINING, in SPECIFIC MUSICAL TERMS, why, say, Cinderella or whoever were better than Pavement or whoever. I was serious as a heart attack. And I was right!

Also, Mr. Diamond may or may not be pleased to note that I reviewed Todd Terry's *To the Batmobile Let's Go* in the Voice when it came out (along with S-Express, the Justifed Ancients of Mu Mu, and Coldcut, I think -- proto-mashup music!) And I liked it, I think.

also, again, chuck, it was JIM Shepard, not TIm.

misc: 1)never got Pixies-mania myself. some OK songs, lousy as fuck live. 2)Great Plains were a great band. Love their stuff. Ron House was and still is the Man. 3)never got slintmania either -- just left me blah, and didnt really care for a lot of the bands supposedly influenced by them 4)chuck eddy talking about cinderella -- that's the chuck I know love. ;-)

I mean, the sense I get here is that you're just politicizing the issue: you don't like the way the gatekeepers of what "indie" means have set it up. And in this sense I'd completely agree with you -- the idea of "indie" as a style is constantly used to make all sorts of irrational distinctions between things, to ignore things that probably shouldn't be ignored, etc. But this focus on the label as independent or not seems, in that respect, maybe a little cowardly, because its solution to that problem is just to pull the rug out entirely, reduce the gatekeepers keys to complete meaninglessness, and kill off the word's utility rather than bothering to bend it into something you find meaningful. I don't see anything wrong with letting "indie" as a style term be one of those words, like "punk" or "metal," that people are forever arguing with one another to define and redefine. Yeah, that argument can be tedious -- and looking at the label certainly establishes a concrete rule and shuts that tedious argument up forever. But it does so by jacking everything up to oblivion -- by saying that an early Sonic Youth record is better considered in a field with Hanson's early work than it is alongside Daydream Nation. Clever as an argumentative tool, useless to the way people actually listen to and think about music.

how could these lyrics not be about UFOs:

they got a ranch they call
number fifty-one
they got a ranch they call
number fifty-one
can't see it all
'less your flying by
just sitting there square
baking in the sun
beneath the sky

they're gonna put it down
right on the strip
they're gonna put it down
on the Vegas strip
they're gonna put it down
and step outside
into the lights
right outta that ship
saying Hi!

i was driving doing nothing on the shores of Great Salt Lake
when they put it on the air i put it in the hammer lane
i soon forgot myeslf and i forgot about the brake
i forgot all laws and i forgot about the rain
they were talking on the 9 and all across the amy band
across the road they were turning around and headed south with me
it got so crowded on the road i started driving in the sand
my head was feeling scared but my heart was feeling free
the desert turned to mud it seems that everybody heard
everybody was remembering to forget they had the chills
then i heard the voices on a broadcast from up on the bird
they were getting interviewed by some Goodman whose name was Bill
i'm almost there to Vegas where they're puttin' on a show
they've come so far i've lived this long at least i must just go and say
hello

I mean, when it comes down to it, for me: we all trust our ears and our brains to make sonic distinctions between nearly every other genre, ones that have nothing to do with weird hard-and-fast rules about how the records were created. Beyond that: we're content to have our ears and brains understand that there are overlaps and gray areas -- that Tom is "garage" but also kinda "psychedelic," that Dick is more "hardcore" than "emo-core," that Harry combines elements of grindcore and Southern blahblah. No matter how fun the rug-pulling is, surely we can all accept that there are a few central and particular sounds that have happened in American rock of the past two decades that constitute different forms of something we can safely call "indie rock," and name them as such. (Even the indie gatekeepers manage to do this, within their little realm: "slowcore" isn't defined as "something released on Vernon Yard" -- it is, like any genre or sub-genre term, a way of describing a particular semi-nebulous thing that nonetheless has enough shape and significance that it's handy to stick a label on it and save yourself time.)

jess, you should search their 97-02 records. on METAL BLADE oh yes.

And in general, my problem with people pretending that unfluid borders exist around genres, ANY genres, is that doing so ignores the grey areas and ambiguities that make genres so fun. This is sort of an obsession of mine, actually. I even wrote a book about it once!

Plus, the Goo Goo Dolls (who sounded like the Replacements) DID put out albums on Metal Blade. And the Gibson Bros. were a blues band.

And though I'm crankier than Scott, he's krankier than me.

Heh Chuck, one reason - besides just generally filling in gaps in my dance collection - I'd been looking for the Todd Terry thing was reading some of Kogan's posting around here got me looking back at old Spins for some of his writing, and I had one where he reviewed it. He sort of talks about how the music doesn't work in album form (I disagree - this thing is GREAT! And I found the cd for $2!). The same issue has a basically laudatory review of Britney Fox that I was sure would be by you, but it was by Rob Sheffield.

Hey, I think Motley Crue's Too Fast For Love and Guns N' Roses Live Like A Suicide are a couple of the greatest indie rock records ever! Ok, yeah, that sounds disingenuous, but it just points out the mutation of the word "indie"; I'm sure if you looked up contemporaneous reviews of GNR's Lies they would say like "packages GNR's indie debut with new acoustic material." But I mean, did GNR really have different aesthetic or political aims than Green River? No one would balk at calling Green River's records indie rock. ANd they were big and dumb and loud and more or less stepping stones on the way to Pearl Jam or whatever.

Oh, sorry, one last "indie" thing that's finally made me figure out where I stand on this: the Postal Service. I guess I'd pretty much agree with Scott's way of putting things -- I'm sure if any of us were writing about this record, we'd say that it involved one guy with an IDM project collaborating with the singer from a chimy guitar-pop band to make an electronic pop record. This would be true and right and probably the most accurate way to approach it, musically speaking. But it would leave out the fuzzy cardigans and the fact that the Postal Service pretty much comes from and is pointed back at a particular socially-constructed "indie" massive -- it's slightly more likely to wind up with people who own more Pavement records than Human League or Oval ones -- and it's basically that fact that I think keeps the term meaningful.

I only ever heard one record, *No Dead Time* by the Panoply Academy Legionairres. And yup, I kept it, so I *must* like it! I forget what it sounds like off hand, though. Didn't even know they were from Bloomington (until just this second, when I checked allmusic.com).

And someone could ask: if another trio made the exact same records Rachel's did, but in a conservatory context and for classical audiences, why would that be in a different genre? But the difference, I think, is that those records probably wouldn't have been made or enjoyed in a different context. The word ______ is doing some work somewhere in there.

And not only that, I always thought they were better than the Replacements anyway. *retreats from everyone's ire*

Does any of this help w/ your inquiry?

*Frown*!

It's not even my favorite Unrest LP (that would be the much less "eclectic" Kustom Karnal Blackxploitation) - but if someone asked me to define indie rock in 40 minutes, I'd play Malcolm X Park.

i do like how jess started this thing and then ran like hell.
what was he listening to from 1987 to 1992 anyway?

Hstencil made a stupid-ass comment to him. Ok, now everyone can come along and say I made a stupid-ass comment to Spencer. I tried to clarify that I surely wasn't attacking Spencer; obv opinions are opinions! anyway, I just thought his invoking of names like Dinosaur, G500, Sonic Youth and the Pixies represented a kind of gloss on this era and its ethos (I mean, 3/4 of those bands went on to general corporate alt-rock status; not knee-jerk dismissing major labels here, just pointing out that the thread ostensibly concerned the independent faction). I just think that quite frankly anyone who really investigated and enjoyed this particular era of American rock in any kind of depth wouldn't have come up with that particular list.

Anyway, it's embematic of the way history is written that Jess felt compelled to start the thread - and god bless him for doing so! I mean, fuck, 99% of young writers coming up today wouldn't give two shits about discovering exactly who the hell Clawhammer or Slovenly were or what the heck their whole deal was. It just shows how conscientious Jess is about his passion and his work as a writer to want to investigate this largely written-out period.

(scott between 1987 and 1992 my favorite bands/records were public enemy, g'n'r, the batman soundtrack, and various and sundry weird al cassettes.)

oops

That said, the Mommyheads (before they tried to figure out a way to turn the inappropriate Phish comparisons into cash).

1. Dive performed by Nirvana
2. Shove performed by L7
3. Stumblin' Man performed by Tad
4. Red Head Walking performed by Beat Happening
5. Ugly Sunday performed by Mark Lanegan
6. Change Has Come performed by Screaming Trees
7. Tomorrow performed by Fluid
8. Retarded performed by Afghan Whigs
9. House performed by Babes In Toyland
10. Come to Mind performed by Mudhoney
11. Long Black Veil performed by Walkabouts
12. Between the Eyes performed by Love Battery
13. Saddle Tramp performed by Dickless

The best way to "listen" to this is to dance to it - you can change your steps, add a body move, etc., with each entrance and exit of a rhythm pattern, each change in timbre, which gives you something to do while your partner is staring off into space.

That, you know, you struggled with its use-value?

Oh well.

I think Malkmus finally found some semblance of a rhythm section, for one thing (with the emphasis on "semblance," but still.) Plus, I think Malkmus and I, by some coincidence, are both sorta going through simultaneous Wishone Ash/*Kiln House*/Procul/Lizzy/Fairport aging-white-guy rural-prog nostalgia periods right now, which helps.

Basically, though, I just think the new album feels WARMER than he usually has before. (Though, by the way, it's not like I never liked old Pavement at all; I was actually a *fan* of their early singing through fast food intercom EPs -- after that, I kind of couldn't figure out what their point was. And live, they seemed to have as much contempt for their audience as any band I've ever seen. On the other hand, heh heh, I kinda had contempt for their audience TOO, now and then! So maybe I shouldn't have minded. And some of those Jim Croce melodies they stole could be extremely pretty -- I admit it!)

So yeah, I was just being Chuck. (Whatever that means.)

I was just referring to the notion that you appear to me to enjoy going against any indie/alternative whatever consensus. While there are a number of writers who dislike Pavement, I think alot more loved Slanted and Enchanted, and Crooked Rain Crooked Rain (and even those earlier efforts you referred to)--and still find them more distinctive then Malkmus' current release (I know I like those 2 albums more then his current "rural-prog nostalgia" effort). Upstring you talk about when you got into Stacey Q, and I recall discussing this with you and Frank Kogan and others in the Why Music Sucks zine way back when. I was touching on the whole idea of you going from once writing about Forced Exposure fanzine type stuff for the Voice to writing about Stacey Q, and the whole concept of liking or rejecting music in part because it was associated or not with a certain 'alternative'(whatever that meant or means) sensibility. But you like what you like, and I like what I like and while I think you may like to rile up certain indie/alternative/whatever types, it sounds like you (also?)just find the Malkmus effort "warmer".

Sterling, The pazz & jopp thing may be no be/all end all re: quality but what is? Sales? NME's chart? Rolling Stone magazine's interpretation? The Wire? Simon Reynolds? The amount of bootlegs sold on street corners? ILX contributors? MTV? So, ok, whether or not Pazz & joppers or whomever agree, I still find Crooked Rain more satisfying aesthetically then Malkmus' latest.

Two words : Nigel Godrich

My fave songs on *Pig Lib* are "Water and a Seat," "(Do Not Feed The) Oyster," "Craw Song," and "1% of One," only the last of which is nine minutes long. Michaelangelo, what exactly makes Malkmus's earlier stuff more "song"-like to you? I'm not arguing; just curious. The guy's words have almost never made any sense to me whatsoever...but I suspect you mean his new melodies aren't as pretty, maybe? Hmmmm.

I'm tempted to needle Hstencil some more re: rural prog, but I don't actually hate it. it does seem like a kind of dead-end genre--probably no more than, say, microhouse or jungle, granted, but I suspect I'm just saying that because I don't hear Malkmus doing much of interest with it.

Life Is A Rock (But The Radio Rolled Me)
By: Reunion
(Norman Dolph-Paul DiFranco-Joey Levine)
1974

B. Bumble and the Stingers, Mott the Hoople, Ray Charles Singers
Lonnie Mack and twangin' Eddy, here's my ring we're goin' steady
Take it easy, take me higher, liar liar, house on fire
Locomotion, Poco, Passion, Deeper Purple, Satisfaction
Baby baby gotta gotta gimme gimme gettin' hotter
Sammy's cookin', Lesley Gore and Ritchie Valens, end of story
Mahavishnu, fujiyama, kama-sutra, rama-lama
Richard Perry, Spector, Barry, Rogers-Hart, Nilsson, Harry
Shimmy shimmy ko-ko bop and Fats is back and Finger Poppin'

Life is a rock but the radio rolled me
Gotta turn it up louder, so my DJ told me
Life is a rock but the radio rolled me
At the end of my rainbow lies a golden oldie

FM, AM, hits are clickin' while the clock is tock-a-tickin'
Friends and Romans, salutations, Brenda and the Tabulations
Carly Simon, I behold her, Rolling Stones and centerfoldin'
Johnny Cash and Johnny Rivers, can't stop now, I got the shivers
Mungo Jerry, Peter Peter Paul and Paul and Mary Mary
Dr. John the nightly tripper, Doris Day and Jack the Ripper
Gotta go Sir, gotta swelter, Leon Russell, Gimme Shelter
Miracles in smokey places, slide guitars and Fender basses
Mushroom omelet, Bonnie Bramlett, Wilson Pickett, stop and kick it

Life is a rock but the radio rolled me
Life is a rock but the radio . . .

Arthur Janov's primal screamin', Hawkins, Jay and Dale and Ronnie
Kukla, Fran and Norma Okla Denver, John and Osmond, Donny
JJ Cale and ZZ Top and LL Bean and De De Dinah
David Bowie, Steely Dan and sing me prouder, CC Rider
Edgar Winter, Joanie Sommers, Osmond Brothers, Johnny Thunders
Eric Clapton, pedal wah-wah, Stephen Foster, do-dah do-dah
Good Vibrations, Help Me Rhonda, Surfer Girl and Little Honda
Tighter, tighter, honey, honey, sugar, sugar, yummy, yummy
CBS and Warner Brothers, RCA and all the others

Life is a rock but the radio rolled me
Gotta turn it up louder, so my DJ told me
Life is a rock but the radio rolled me
At the end of my rainbow lies a golden oldie

Listen (remember) they're playing our song

Rock it, sock it, Alan Freed me, Murray Kaufman, try to leave me
Fish, and Swim, and Boston Monkey, Make it bad and play it funky

(Wanna take you higher!)

I don't understand what's so difficult to understand about his lyrics, either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWGSK8IfRCI

^ great Big Dipper footage

^^^ This song is immense, it blew me away when I got that 3-disc retrospective Merge put out a couple of years ago.

But. It's so good that the songs that follow pale in comparison to a ridiculous degree. I still haven't heard all three discs because of it.

love "faith healer," and that's a great clip, but deny that it so thoroughly outshines the rest of their scant catalog. they're not a band of a million hits, but they've got a few. i wouldn't even call myself a fan, necessarily, but "lunar module" and "ron klaus wrecked his house" stand among my favorite songs of the era, looming, in my mind, even over "faith healer". they're nowhere near so corkscrew tense and clever, but far more beautiful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS3WsiNCBpY
(not the best version, and tragically quiet, but you takes what you gets)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQbBcbByk_0
(ibid, though differently, and loud)

honestly, you'd be best advised to skip the crappy youtubes and just listen to the songs somewhere

I'll give 'em a go, but really it's 'corkscrew tense and clever' that I'm naturally attracted to, so my response may well differ to yours.

just got trumans water's spasm smash XXX0X0X ox and ass 2LP the other day, and that shit KILLLLLS.

they were fun live. they made a racket.

My latest cranky '80s indie-rock opinion (which Scott will be happy to hear) is that I've decided I like Human Sexual Response more than Skin Yard. (Though they were both pretty good, I guess. Definitely both influenced my '70s art-rock, too -- Roxy Music and King Crimson respectively, for starters -- though HSR's songs are a lot easier to hear. And they had a better sense of humor.)

(Also both pre-1987, but what the heck. And Skin Yard weren't that much pre-1987.)

i moved back to connecticut in the early 90's for a few years and lived with my brother and other fabulous furry freaks in a horrible house in new milford connecticut and we would go to T.K.'s Sports Lounge in Danbury on Sunday nites cuz Sunday nite was alternative nite much to the chagrin of the sports fans there and i saw a lot of latter-day indie rock stuff - i remember madder rose and maybe the lilies and definitely the swirlies and lots of other like-minded folks - and i never dug much of it but i did dig trumans water. buffalo tom. yeah, didn't like them. and our local, um, heroes would play. monsterland and st. johnny and hed and gnu fuzz and china pig and the awful awful bunnybrains.

Buffalo Tom

Four Squirrels

i just put on a 90's indie rock album by a band i've never heard of and its a singles comp and d.wolk apparently put out some stuff by them and that's actually why i'm listening to it. cuz i like his style. dymaxion. but i don't know if they are american. probably not. and its later 90's stuff. kinda cool so far.

But. It's so good that the songs that follow pale in comparison to a ridiculous degree.

MacDara, I didn't buy that Big Dipper collection, but if it's in chronological order, then all the other stuff that follows on the Boo Boo EP does kind of suck iirc. BUT: the first album proper, Heavens, was really good! If you like the tenser, tighter stuff, you really gotta give 'Younger Bums' or 'Easter Eve' a go. Second album was alrightish too, but the third (which came out on Epic instead of Homestead) aiieee, that was a huge stinker imo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEqr0PtvPxU

^ Skin Yard's best song -so fucking good- but the whole of the Hallowed Ground album was dead nice, had this cold clammy vampyric feel to it. Maybe even slightly Voivod-ish, but perhaps the later Die Kreuzen albums are a closer point of comparison.

not enough happy flowers love on this thread. they poop on skin yard!

They probably pooped on their cat too.

There should really be a Happy FLowers song title poll on ILM though.

I would have killed to see the Swirlies and the Lilys in the early 90s at the Danbury place. Also St. Johnny.

Anybody a fan of Uncle Wiggly?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSTnwVJT0Ho&feature=related

i love them especially the stuff that d.wolk put out!

everyone needs to go to douglas's website and buy these:

DBC219 World (of Dreams)'s Who Is Yahdoosh? CD

DBC216 Uncle Wiggly's Farfetchedness CD

love 'em both a bunch. i actually don't know a ton of uncle wiggly. the yahdoosh album is wiggly guitarist. so great.

I'll probably go do that!

Whether you liked the music or not (I can't remember most of it) the zines were hilarious and mean. Everyone hated everyone else's music.

god, what was i listening to in the mid-to-late 80s? a lot of critic's darlings, i guess... stuff recommended to me by option, the village voice and forced exposure on the one hand, melody maker and NME on the other. plus a random mix of what my friends were into and what i'd heard on college radio. lots of noisy weirdness that aligned itself peripherally with punk, but almost no traditional hardcore, and very little chart pop of any sort. a partial list:

dead kennedys
SST bands (flag, husker du, minutemen)
pussy galore
sonic youth
swans
REM
the replacements
the fall
laurie anderson
the jesus & mary chain
halo of flies
prince
camper van beethoven
violent femmes
the sub pop 100 comp
big black
the butthole surfers
dinosaur (jr)
scratch acid
spacemen 3 & loop
public enemy & run DMC
licensed to ill
the wipers
green river
u-men
beat happening
voivod
metallica
iron maiden
slayer
suicidal tendencies
guns 'n roses
bad brains
naked raygun
the pogues
elvis costello
the membranes
the pixies' come on pilgrim
the flaming lips' hear it is
throwing muses
the dream syndicate
the scientists (aus)
X (LA)
the dwarves' horror stories
the lyres
nomeansno
the cramps
the clash
foetus
XTC
wire
big stick's drag racing EP
king crimson
shriekback
throbbing gristle

i loved the volcano suns' all night lotus party, but it took me a while to work my way back to mission of burma. i remember investigating a lot of bands and records during this period, many of which i didn't much care for or follow forward: the fibbonnaccis, eugene chadborne, saqqara dogs, hugo largo, 10,000 maniacs, negativland, etc. going by mix tapes from the era, most of my real favorites were drawn from the list of usual suspects above, though i'd be interested in revisiting some of the stuff i couldn't make sense of at the time.

This MP3 blog runs a few years past 1992 more often than not, but it's a treat if you have some intangible hankering to hear Run Westy Run, Lucy's Fur Coat or Overwhelming Colorfast again.

http://ihatethe90s.blogspot.com/

...to continue that which doesn't really need the continuance, by the early-to-mid 90s i'd (temporarily) left the northwest by way of DC for chapel hill, NC. the music i was into hadn't changed much in its basic character, though the names and personnel were in constant flux. i don't have as many mix tapes from the '92 end of the spectrum, but here's what i can remember:

guided by voices (huge in my personal pantheon, occupying the place in my heart that husker du and sonic youth had a few years before)
pavement
nirvana (who i'd seen playing house party shows in '88 in olympia)
unrest (picked up on my way through DC)
mudhoney
tad (and sub-pop's endless et ceteras)
rapeman (the name, the name)
jesus lizard (like rapeman, the outgrowth of a previous favorite)
beck (i admit it)
sebadoh
NWA (belong in the above list, tbh)
MBV
more sonic youth (of course)
stereolab
polvo
superchunk
laughing hyenas
flaming lips (the flowering of)
the jon spencer blues explosion
mercury rev
the pain teens
the mike gunn (tom carter!)
caspar brotzmann massakar
boredoms
bongwater
the cows
more public enemy
a tribe called quest
digital underground
cypress hill
the pharcyde
black sheep
the jungle brothers
del tha funkee homosapien (very little rap, tbh)
drive like jehu (ex-pitchfork)
opal (but not mazzy star)
liz phair (didn't we all)
madder rose
antiseen (damn i wish i still had those joe young solo EPs)
the celibate rifles
the honeymoon killers
the lazy cowgirls
glenn branca (playing catch-up)
band of susans
L7
billy childish (milkshakes, headcoats)
the cynics
the nomads
the hard-ons (aus)
earth's extra capsular extraction
african head charge (and on-U in general)
john zorn (naked city, etc)
combustible edison
terminal cheesecake
main (ex-loop)
various bill laswell dub/noise projects
F/i
the gibson brothers
squirrel nut zippers (yuk, okay, but i worked with the brother of one)
flat duo jets
MOTO
the gories
the mummies
daniel johnston
jandek (never understood)
kyuss
monster magnet
entombed
truman's water and thinking fellers UL 282 (neither of whom i liked, but god knows i tried)
sun city girls (ibid, but with a bit more enthusiasm)

between the two punishingly exhaustive lists above, i think you get a decent cross-section of several threads of american indie rock during the period in question. i'm sure there's TONS of stuff i missed, ignored or didn't understand at the time, but i was working hard to "keep up" during those years, making lists of records i felt i needed to hear almost every month, and spending most of my time and money tracking down what i could. it's an interesting period to consider, from my POV, because it moves from the emergence of what would later be called "indie rock" (early-mid 80s, you can maybe nail it to the period when homestead formed and established labels like SST and touch and go started to push at the boundaries of punk/hardcore), to the point where indie became a formalized, codified genre in the mid 90s (thinking here of the bands that came up in pavement's wake: built to spill, etc). that's the point at which i started to lose interest in the genre.

I love the Cows, I listened to them the other day! And the Happy Flowers! Are Voivod really an indie / alterna band? I saw them live and regretted it.

Well, if we're gonna post long lists, I might as well at least link to a couple. These have LOTS of indie rock I was listening to back then on them (until I stopped). '86 and '87 are the most overwhelmingly indie, I think.

Probably some of the best (and worst) records of 1988, but not all of them

probably not the best 150 albums of 1987

probably not really the 125 best albums of 1986

probably not the 50 best albums and singles (and/or EPs) of 1985

Are Voivod really an indie / alterna band? I saw them live and regretted it.

― toni mitchell (u s steel), Wednesday, December 29, 2010 6:19 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

yeah, no, they aren't. context-setting, like the mentions of NWA, laurie anderson, guns n' roses, etc. probably should have thrown in fishbone, RHCP and jane's addiction, too. and though those lists are unforgivably long, as soon as i'd submitted them, i started thinking of all the loved ones i'd left off: robyn hitchcock/the soft boys, julian cope, lilies, swirlies, pastels, happy flowers (as you say), killdozer, hickoids, drunks with guns, GG, honor role, squirrel bait, big dipper, lemonheads, feelies, stop me now, for the love of god...

I do think of Voivod as part of this genre, but I suppose in part because the only time I saw them it was on a bill with Soundgarden and Prong.

I'm wondering how you can not like TFUL282?

because they won't stop being crazy and just rock the fuck out

^ this seems a terribly flip response. i haven't listened to TFUL in some 20 years, and even at the time only ever heard lovelyville and mother of all saints. all i really remember about either album is that "shuddering big butter" is both a funny phrase and a cool tune (i think). fundamentally, i guess they outwigged me. i found their music more interesting than enjoyable, and i'm a creature of simple pleasures.

u should check out Strangers To The Universe or Bob Dinners or Admonishing The Bishops, the TFUL282 are gods who walk among us. imo their best work came after the time period being discussed.

Man, this era was the halcyon time when I first started doing college radio. These were some personal favorites:

...
Repulse Kava
...

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Wednesday, May 21, 2003 12:51 PM (7 years ago) Bookmark

goddam, mr. diamond's list from 7 years back is awesome, brings back tons of memories, bands i left off those giant lists i posted yesterday, some of whom i haven't thought of in years. urge overkill, phantom tollbooth, sister ray, clawhammer, the original sins, crystalized movements, union carbide productions, feedtime, the 3Ds. such a great time to be an indie...

i wanted to highlight the repulse kava mention, though. i was listening to a used copy of their flow gently, sweet alpha LP in a record store a few weeks ago and loved it to death. it's a record you used to see for cheap all the time, and one that i always meant to get around to, but never did. turns out it's great! super-tight, minutemen-like garage jamming, all thrashy and gleefully rambunctious. non-pop catchy too, like the distilled essence of late 80s indie-punk, carducci's platonic ideal. sweaty, weird, secretive and totally dedicated to the moment.

u should check out Strangers To The Universe or Bob Dinners or Admonishing The Bishops

yeah, i've always meant to revisit both TFUL and truman's water. i'm a little more musically open-minded now than i was in my youth, and they seem to be beloved of many whose tastes i respect.

'Coercion' by Repulse Kava was a top song! They kind of reminded me a lot of Phantom Tollbooth at the time cos they had that jammed out noise thing going on and then suddenly they'd hook up to a tune and go shooting off into space like they were riding on the tail of a comet. Except I watched a couple of Phantom Tollbooth videos a while back and they were sort of terrible.

TFUL282 were fantastic, but if you picked up the wrong album, you could find them a wee bit ho-hum. Strangers from the Universe and Admonishing the Bishops are both solid places to start though.