Old Mercury Rev or new?

Haven't heard all of Boces but I love Bronx Cheer.

Lego My Ego.

'Yerself is steam' - the sound of the record is great. 'Chasing a bee' really sets the album up.

I think I marginally prefer 'All is dream' to 'Deserters Songs' out of the later stuff - it's just that bit more coherent thematically.

Saw them recently and enjoyed it immensely, but wish I'd seen the earlier incarnation as well.

I love Yerself is Steam and Deserter's Songs for entirely different reasons, but I find both See You On The Other Side and All Is Dream unbearably cloying and melodramatic.

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drd300/d308/d30857n3478.jpg

Search out, if you can, the UK single of "Carwash Hair" on CD -- "Carwash Hair" itself, very different and lovely demos of "Chasing a Bee" and "Coney Island Cyclone" and an untitled half-hour noise/collage piece that's surprisingly...well, catchy, almost.

for some reason, no record store in nyc will buy the grasshopper cd from me.

Haha I was going to revive this and I did last time! Oh man. Yes. Boces is awesome. I get it out a few times a year and love the crazy psychrock messy gloriousness of this album. Yrself is Steam, also great.

OLDOLDOLDOLDOLDOLD

Boces is amazing, one great final track away from perfection (maaaaan, if it had ended with Frittering)...and Yerself Is Steam is almost as good.

Deserter's Songs is almost unlistenable, barring 'Tonite It Shows'. All Is Dream, fortunately, is a considerable improvement.

What I've heard of SYOTOS is fairly glorious, but I don't actually own it.

I took me years to realise 'Yerself Is Steam' was a pun, or play on words :(

Same here!!! I felt so stupid :(

Now you, go to my Bell Hollow thread~!

I'd go with Middle-Aged Mercury Rev - "Boces" and "Deserter's Songs" are both completely brilliant. SYOTOS has some serious dud moments, but is redeemed by "Empire State" and "Peaceful Night".

Newest Rev stuff just makes me...sad. I tried listening to "Hello Blackbird" and it sounded like the background music/soundtrack to a book on tape.

I took me years to realise 'Yerself Is Steam' was a pun

I glanced upthread just as I was about to post this, and just had my MIND BLOWN. I feel like an idiot.

I can't think of another band who, having seen them live, I totally went off almost instantaneously.

"Yerself Is Steam" is the best - the long version with the extra tracks. "Boces" is rubbish except for a few tracks. Never really got into "See You" but I tried listening to it recently and it didn't make too much of an impression. I think you had to be there for "Deserters Songs", it seems to be be pretty much unlistenable to me now. I bought "All Is Dream", played it once and never played it again.

Define "new". I find "Deserter's Songs" their best ever, but that album is now 9 years old and they haven't quite managed to follow it properly.

I think you had to be there for "Deserters Songs", it seems to be be pretty much unlistenable to me now.

Could this be true? I find it hard to believe. Loved the record when it came out but havent pulled it out in a year so. Will reassess this weekend.

Deserter's Songs is almost unlistenable
UH. Although they pushed it much further out live, which is probably tainting my memories of it. Live it was v. v. good

re: Yerself is Steam

I rocked the Poster Children's "If You See Kay" for several months before "getting it"...

I think you had to be there for "Deserters Songs", it seems to be be pretty much unlistenable to me now.

The problem is, between that and The Soft Bulletin, you can hear what would become ten years of unlistenable, tedious BS on the part eight million bands who heard those albums and thought they were the invention of rock and roll.

Yep

So yeah, you had to be there. I heard it right when it came out and loved it, and really have no desire to listen to it ever again. (This said "Goddess on a Hi-Way"'s line about 'we explode like two bugs on glass' is an all time winner.)

Yeah I'm curious about all the Flaming Lips comparisons. Ive listened to Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi and I can kinda hear it I guess.

The Flaming Lips connection never held water for me. If anything, new Mercury Rev sound like Supertramp filler tracks.

I have deserters songs and I never listen to it, did they just keep heading off into noodly oblivion?

the connection is jonathan donahue and david fridmann

I was about to say, there's a pretty huge connection, actually! That said Elvis's point re: Supertramp is spot on.

if there's one thing i can't stand--it's up

up up up up up up

genius

a rare example of lyrics, song-title and album-cover working together to complete a (beautifully warped) psychological jigsaw puzzle

Although they pushed it much further out live, which is probably tainting my memories of it. Live it was v. v. good

otm. when i saw them in the summer of 1999 i was completely obsessed with deserters songs. when they played "tonite it shows" live it took me a good verse-and-a-half to figure out what the fuck song it was; that's how different the arrangement was from that on the record. and it was fucking blinding.

so i love deserters songs and all is dream (which i was lucky enough to hear before its official us release date of September 11, 2001), but the secret migration was basically self-parody. the david baker-era records definitely have their moments, but he's far too cutesy for me to tolerate for long.

i don't know where the deserters-songs-as-the-reinvention-of-rock-n-roll notion came from...probably from the uk music press, desperate for some distant sonic relation to pet sounds.

I loved and cherished Mercury Rev in their various incarnations up to and including Deserter's Songs. For all the freewheeling lunacy David Baker brought to the table, and two stunning humdingers right out of the gate (Yerself and Boces), the band seemed to be maturing gracefully, and all the better for it, with Donahue at the helm.

But then came All is Dream and the technicolor dadrock rut. Donahue let the success of Deserter's Songs go to his head and melancholic whimsy soured overnight into cloying self-indulgence, perfectly encapsulated by Dream's overstuffed mystical-shit sleeve design. And yet there was an even more ostentatious record, and one more hideous New Age abortion of a cover design, down the pipeline still.

Well, I'm sad (but not surprised) that, based on this report, the potential for a return to form doesn't seem likely with these next two LPs. Rather, with song titles like "A Squirrel and I (Holding On... and Then Letting Go)," it looks as though Donahue would like to lead us further into the kaleidoscopic surrealism of his own ass. I can only imagine what the cover will look like.

Here are the tracklists. They're pulling an NIN and giving one away for free. Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on ol' Hippie Jonny:

Snowflake Midnight (the pay one):

01 Snowflake in a Hot World
02 Butterfly's Wing
03 Senses on Fire
04 People Are So Unpredictable (There's No Bliss Like Home)
05 October Sunshine
06 Runaway Raindrop
07 Dream of a Young Girl as a Flower
08 Faraway From Cars
09 A Squirrel and I (Holding On... and Then Letting Go)

Strange Attractor (the free one):

01 Love Is Pure
02 Taken up Into Clouds, Changed and Rained Down
03 Pure Joie De La Solitude
04 Persistence and the Apis Mellifera
05 Fable of a Silver Moon
06 Loop Lisse, Loop
07 In My Heart, a Strange Attractor
08 Incident on Abeel Street
09 Af Den Fader Kommer Den Sol
10 Because Because Because
11 Nocturne for Norwood

i think i'm "agog" at this.

I've heard both. They fail to constitute a stunning return to form.

:( if he's being serious

also plz to babelfish the tracklists

i like see you on the other side best

01 snowflakes 02 Butterfly' which are in the hot world; The people of feeling 04 people of 03 will not be able to predict quite to, s wing fires (There' Does not like s, from 07 dreams 08 of the young girl is distant with the escaper raindrop flower of 06 where anyone happy) October 05th sunshine at the house 09 squirrels and I (… Catches above and making after that goes) 01 loves with 02 clouds which are pure to adopt, changes and like expense 03 Pure Joie De La Solitude 04 stubbornnesses which pour and Apis Mellifera from heart of repetition 07 of 05 emergence 06 repetitions Lisse of month, 11 Nocturne in Attractor Abeel distances which are strange Af oyster fader Kommer oyster Sol 10 because of 08 events 09 in because for Norwood in because

11 Nocturne in Attractor Abeel distances which are strange Af oyster fader Kommer oyster Sol 10 because of 08 events 09 in because for Norwood in because

this reads like the last garbled transmission before apocalypse

say what you will about The Secret Migration, but I think "Vermillion" is maybe the best track they've done in the last ten years. so so so good.

BOCES!!!

xpost: stephen - I liked "Vermillion" too (not quite as much as you, tho). I'd also pluck "In a Funny Way," "Nite and Fog," "Spiders & Flies" & "Tides of the Moon" from the detritus for a Rev compilation or something. There are probably a handful of other defensible tracks as well, but it's difficult to focus on the qualities of those albums when they're so overwhelmed by all that sweeping grotesquery.

The most depressing part of the whole thing is that the band are totally squandering their secret weapon: Grasshopper's devastating guitar freakouts. Remember those? They always seemed to climax gorgeously at just the right part of the song, usually by mangling some leitmotif with feedback and sending it skyrocketing. That's the kind of grandiosity I'd like to see from them, not JD crooning about twinkly stars amid tympani drums and harps. Combine the two approaches, sure, but relieve Grasshopper of cello duty and give the man his guitar back. I'm no rockist or anything -- just being sensible.

i'd agree with all that ^^

& sometimes it's sensible to be rockist :)

09 A Squirrel and I (Holding On... and Then Letting Go)

hahaha

I hear they're still an amazing live band, and I'm sure a lot of their recent material sounds better dirtied up a bit. I haven't seen them since 1998, but I'll check em out at ATP this September (pauses to daydream about MBV). As long as they rock the fuck out of "Chasing a Bee" (which I hear they still do) and maybe "Frittering" (less likely, but still possible), I will be more than happy.

I'll check em out at ATP this September

oh! you're going too, huh?

shhh, don't ge too excited. You'll scare Kevin away.

Yeah, some friends in NYC got tix and one is mine. I couldn't afford to spring for the accomodations at the time, tho, so I'm just kind of hoping something works out. I'll probably be sleeping in a car, but fuck it. The roster of bands at that show reads like a bulleted list of some geek fantasy my teenage self would have dreamt up in 1997 (so as to include Mogwai, otherwise 1994 or so). I still won't believe it until I'm personally witnessing the opening blast of "Only Shallow." The rest of the bands are just the icing on the cake.

I couldn't afford to spring for the accomodations at the time, tho, so I'm just kind of hoping something works out.

yeah same here ^^

i have no idea what i'm gonna do; a lot of the cheap(er) hotels in monticello are booked already, so who knows? i may call a weekend or two before and see if anyplace has had cancellations/has new openings.

also, i'll have the girlfriend with me so sleeping in a car is pretty much out of the question.

I think an underrated tune from Secret migration is "First time Mother's Joy". Lovely harmonies.

Sometimes "Frittering" is the only song you can hear when it's 3AM and you're feeling a bit melancholy, and the praise upthread for it is correct. The way the voice trails off at the end of most of the lines is the human equivalent of a wounded or lonely animal howling at the moon.

Frittering kills me every time.

Just listened to this earlier tonight. Stunning.

What do we call that old-timey style of singing the female backing vocalists usually emulate on their songs? Best epitomized on "Endlessly." It sounds pre-WWII and from out of the early cartoon soundtracks.

mellotronny

What happened? I used to have Yerself is Steam AND Boces, but they're gone! Oh no.

What do we call that old-timey style of singing the female backing vocalists usually emulate on their songs? Best epitomized on "Endlessly." It sounds pre-WWII and from out of the early cartoon soundtracks.

Sounds like a musical saw or theremin, to me.
I don't have a copy of yerself is steam anymore and that makes me sad cuz sometimes I need to hear "Frittering" and "Coney Island Cyclones."

o shit yeah they had a musical saw when i saw them on the DS tour

this looks pretty sweet: http://www.nyctaper.com/?p=3059
the recording, not the beard.

even if their recent music hasn't grabbed me, i've always enjoyed them live.

I'm a Rev-head from wayback when they were still entangled with the Flaming Lips, and for me there's no contest here. Search: Yerself Is Steam, Boces, See You on the Other Side [VERY under-rated IMO], Carwash Hair, Deserter's Songs. Destroy: everything after that! I was flat-out appalled at the tepid loungey whine of All Is Dream, and what I've heard from more recent releases hasn't really motivated me to rejoin the fold.

yeah i dunno -- I need to give Secret Migration another chance. I didn't really come to a conclusion on it. Couple of friends said it was their bes since Deserter's, but that might not be saying much. Honestly, though, these guys need a serious reissue campaign of the early stuff -- I think they'd have a resurgence if younger kids heard stuff like Yerself, Boces and See You On The Other Side.

Reissues would be fantastic! IMHO, Secret Migration radiates lame MoR-ness, but another listen is always a good thing.

haha, i realized I meant Snowflake Midnight, not Secret Migration ... Secret Migration I did come to a conclusion on -- sucks!

The Secret Migration has, like... two good tracks?

yeah maybe. a lot of it is soooo bad though. I liked All Is Dream, though I haven't listened to it in forever.

I thought All is Dream was the one with two good tracks (mainly the first one)

I want to listen to Chasing a Bee right now.

I liked all is dream but didnt care much for what came after.

I really like All Is Dream, hate Secret Migration, and Snowflake Midnight grew on me.

dunno about this live recording, strings sound really out of tune

ooh too bad. haven't listened yet, but the description sounded good.

Mercury Rev's first two albums are two of the greatest psychedelic rock albums I know. See You On The Other Side was OK. Deserter's Songs was OK. That's as far as I'll go. What they're doing now is bottom of the barrel stuff.

well, yes. but I think you're being generous to Deserter's Songs

Why? It's probably better than The Soft Bulletin and at least comparable to it. I'm wondering if people would rip it so much if it didn't come from Mercury Rev. The major downfall of post-David Baker Mercury Rev is Jonathan Donahue's falsetto voice. He didn't seem to sing like that on the first three records. It's grating.

no their downfall was being schmaltzy and boring

Really kicking myself for having lost all the early live MR I'd managed to collect when the hard drive they were on crashed. Wish somebody'd reseed them to Dime.

Always liked that David Baker era, possibly plus the lp afterward. The solo lp as Shady was pretty cool too.

can someone suggest the best OLD rev youtube stuff to watch - i never managed to see them in their prime

The solo lp as Shady was pretty cool too.

Huh! Never knew that existed. It's on Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/7jWizxSOaZZ7uDGCd5Wn6H

Looking that up, also found David Baker has a new band. Also on Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/artist/1QBoxeY3NcUIZ3lNw3Tl4l

Yeah, the Shady album is pretty good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe1x-oApWt4

First MR I heard was Deserters Songs, which I love, but I dig the Baker-era to a degree. Too much of the time his approach strikes me as third-rate David Thomas, but the noise makes up for it.

All Is Dream is decent, but after that, whew, a serious plummet.

I think David Baker's influence on the band is overstated. Yes, their best albums were the first two. But all he did was contribute vocals.

I find the 'early Rev good, post-SYOTOS Rev the WORST SHITTY SHIT EVER' mentality kind of hysterically over the top

If anything I find AID a slight improvement over DS - it takes a few more risks. Early Rev is total genius, let alone 'good'!

I'm currently playing Yerself - Boces - SYOTOS and am very happy. "Frittering", jesus.

Still love DS, however.

"Yerself" doesn't do much for me production-wise-- I'm not a fan of Fridmann in general and that record is especially sonically squashed. Vocals and guitar annoy me, they pop out in this frustratingly intrusive way. I dunno, I've heard rehearsal space recordings from psych bands that sound pound-for-pound deeper and more interesting that this record. I don't think I've ever switched off a record in frustration more often.

I've listened to "Boces" a bunch and I like it!

i've been listening to yerself and boces a lot lately, and they sound as amazing as ever. syotos never did much for me, weirdly. i should probably try again. i liked deserter's songs okay enough at the time, but all is dream was so bad it actually kinda made me hate deserter's almost instantly when i went back to listen to it. ("wait...this is just as corny and pompous and twee...") "schmaltzy and boring" is otm. it's like shitty self-serious indie rock being smothered in 100,000 pounds of icky saccharine incidental movie music from the 40s. i wouldn't check out the newer ones on a bet.

their live shows around the deserters period were incredible

what do they even do now? didn't grasshopper and donahue do some harmony rockets shows semi-recently, i.e. maybe they've moved beyond the i-want-to-be-willie-nelson-in-space stuff?

say what you will about the flaming lips but they never did fully lose their love of noise (it's kinda hard to imagine mercury rev recording a collaboration with lightning bolt at this point), and i'd probably take dippy self-aggrandizement and obnoxious omg wtf lol antics as a way to stay in the spotlight over the rev's slow petering out into "worthy of a two-and-a-half-star review in rolling stone" release pattern/ongoing rep-tarnishing.

what do they even do now?

Bizarre. I pulled out Boces and played it for the first time in years pretty much at the exact time last night that this revive came up. Oh well - Boces is fantastic. YIS is one of the all time evers - Frittering - my god. I've not heard the 3rd much at all - I know I have it but I've not put much effort in.

There's a lot of strange stuff on Spotify - was there a lot of post - DS albums? Hmm.

Never heard of this before: http://open.spotify.com/album/3kDihlAmqg2HS9wSAVq0C4

They have a few obscure releases from the '90s. I know they have a 7" live split with Spiritualized.

their live shows around the deserters period were incredible
otm, the one i saw (late 98?) was outta site.

"Yerself" doesn't do much for me production-wise-- I'm not a fan of Fridmann in general and that record is especially sonically squashed. Vocals and guitar annoy me, they pop out in this frustratingly intrusive way. I dunno, I've heard rehearsal space recordings from psych bands that sound pound-for-pound deeper and more interesting that this record. I don't think I've ever switched off a record in frustration more often.

I've listened to "Boces" a bunch and I like it!

― friday goodness thank it's (flamboyant goon tie included), Sunday, January 20, 2013 1:14 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I did hear that YIS was recorded with no 2 members in the studio at the same time, might be a bit of an exaggeration but I think it was mainly individual overdubs done at different times.
Don't think they'd played live until after that was recorded. something like their 6th gig was a Dylan support or so I heard.
Think they'd all been involved in an art project or something which meant they weren't really a band until after it was recorded. & they picked their name from a Chris Roberts review where the 2 words appeared out of a field of text Exploding Plastic Inevitable style or at least that 's the way I'm remembering reading it at the time they emerged.

their live shows around the deserters period were incredible
otm, the one i saw (late 98?) was outta site.

― tylerw, Saturday, January 19, 2013 9:47 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM seconded. Saw them in the summer of '98; "Tonite it Shows" live was a wonder to behold.

I saw them about that time and hated them with a hatred rarely matched before or since... hold on, hwne was "Soft Bulletin"?

... 1999, yes so it was around that time because the Flaming Lips were supporting them and absolutely annihilated them

@ Stevolende that is very interesting!

something like their 6th gig was a Dylan support or so I heard.

That's true. Here's a quote from David Baker from back in like 1993:

We did play one show with Bob Dylan. I don't think anybody at that show remembers us playing except for the fact that there were six people on the stage making them deaf. It was at Yale University. We played our regular stuff for 2000 people who didn't know we were going to be on. We figured it was the wrong thing to do to play with him because we're not like him. But we figured that it would make sense. The crowd was old and young. It was the young republicans sitting there getting mad, and screaming at me afterwords, yelling 'You fucking shattered my ears' or something. And then this old guy, maybe about 50 years, grabs me and I'm going 'Oh shit, maybe this is big mistake.” But he goes 'That was fucking awesome. I haven't heard anything like that since Hendrix.' So it was the older people, the ones who talked to us, who seemed to like it. The younger ones were saying 'That's not music.'

I just remembered what I think the art project was, think it was films, nature/wildlife films and possibly specifically subaquatic ones.
So the future members of at least the 1st Mercury Rev were a pool, or part of a pool of local musicians doing film soundtracks which is why they were coming in at different times and overdubbing. The films provided the original supposed coherence, if I have the picture right.

There was some relationship/collaboration with Tony Conrad too, right? Or am I remembering that wrong?

'That was fucking awesome. I haven't heard anything like that since Hendrix.' So it was the older people, the ones who talked to us, who seemed to like it. The younger ones were saying 'That's not music.'

This rules.

As much as I like it Deserters' is like half a record, counting up the incidental tracks

There is something very stilted and dead about all Mercury Rev to me, if you ever loved The Olivia Tremor Control you don't need any of this fucking rinse.

what

I like OTC fine but they are way more retro pastiche than Mercury Rev ever was

Which goes to show that retro pastiche>>>>>standard widely acceptable overproduced retro with cloying pity me schtick.

Uhhh, wut? Have you actually heard any early Mercury Rev?

Yeah, I kind of feel like we've suddenly begun talking about some other band called Mercury Rev. Maybe there were two.

"Pity me schtick" is not something I've ever associated with (any incarnation of) Mercury Rev.

Sorry folks I will stay off this thread. I just immensely dislike them and shouldn't even be on here. For what it is worth I bought Yersrelf Is Steam when I was a teenager and hoyed the fucking cassette in the bin after 2 days.

O_o

"Pity me schtick" is not something I've ever associated with (any incarnation of) Mercury Rev.

"it's not time for the real live sign, it's not time for these fears of mine" *wall of feedback*

"The Dark is Rising" is some old sad sack down by the river stuff tho. There's that Neil Young influence that's kind of mopey.

I can definitely hear the Neil influence, but I always interpreted the tone of that song as winking/wistful, rather than wallowing.

Single link argument for BOCES:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h2VvMgwIF4

"Something For Joey" live from the Phoenix Festival (1993)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tDKrWsSBSg

David Baker also produced the one and only Comet album "Chandelier Musings" (1996). Here's the closing track from it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0dRvYZjAMk

Mercury Rev >>>>> Olivia Tremor Control

I once thought that the name of a good box set of early Rev would be: "Emotion Recollected in Insanity"

New Mercury Rev...

https://soundcloud.com/bella-union/01-the-queen-of-swans/s-PeV2u

MERCURY REV ANNOUNCE NEW STUDIO ALBUM - THE LIGHT IN YOU - OUT SEPTEMBER 18 VIA BELLA UNION

http://files.ctctcdn.com/2950a13a001/bb6408aa-b17d-4d65-9cdc-253d574ee4f2.png

The Light In You tracklisting:

The Queen Of Swans
Amelie
You've Gone With So Little For So Long
Central Park East
Emotional Freefall
Coming Up For Air
Autumn's In The Air
Are You Ready?
Sunflower
Moth Light
Rainy Day Record

was there not a major shake up in the line-up leaving only Grasshopper and JOnathon wassisface as there from Yerself days and everybody else leaving. So the band on See You On The Other Side is still basically the old band, een with Baker having departed and whatever after that as a newer band?

I love the early line up anyway, wish I hadn't lost all the live stuff I'd managed to get hold of by them when a harddrive crashed. Seems way too familiar a story from a couple of years back, lost a load of stuff by several bands that I'd been dying to get before getting it then it vanished overnight.

Do still have the Roskilde 92 thankfully.

lol self-parody tracklist

this band needs to stop

I love everything they did from Yerself Is Steam to All Is Dream but this new song is not great. Sounds like something from The Secret Migration. They should have changed things up a bit more. I was hoping this album would be their Embryonic.

Yeah I really, really wanted this to be good but that song has shot down my expectations.

I love both Yerself Is Steam and Deserters Songs but really dislike everything else they did, kinda feel like those are the only two you need. See You On The Other Side is way tweer than DS. Remember All is Dream being just unlistenably melodramatic and soft focus and never bothered with anything else.

there's quite a major one missing from that summary

Boces wasn't really considered major at all the last time I bothered paying much attention to Mercury Rev (about 14 years ago). I remember loving Bronx Cheer and being faintly underwhelmed by the rest and have never really bothered to go back.

The first one is the only one I ever get the urge to play these days, but even then I still really love it.

Boces>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>everything else

It's really weird to see a band grow and change so much from album to album only to end up at fucking All Is Dream and be like "OK, cool, let's just do this forever."

I think All Is Dream is a great album but it would have been nice if they'd developed from that sound. The Secret Migration was such a boring retread of that album. Judging by this new single the new album could well be the same. Maybe the album is more varied. I can't believe after seven years away they thought this was good enough.

https://open.spotify.com/track/58sbCIxg0nsjJ1MfbCWWX9

Was just listening to this. It isn't horrible. At all. I'm not sure what to think.

The big crashing Coldplay drum pattern was not exactly what I was hoping for. Surely The Secret Migration is not anyone's favourite Rev album? I liked Snowflake Midnight just fine. Probably alone there.

Tears of Silver pic.twitter.com/qXZqP8sgXA

— grasshopper (@mercuryrevvd) July 15, 2017

Was surprised to see they were playing a small club in my town last week, and despite hating just about everything since All is Dream I got a ticket out of curiosity & nostalgia. And I gotta say they pulled it off, it was pretty good!

I wasnt sure what to expect having never seen them live, I wasnt even sure if it would be just Jonathan & Grasshopper blooping around w/keyboards or what, but it was a 5-piece rock band, heavy on guitars with a few Yerself Is Steam songs and even a tune from Jonathans tenure in the Flaming Lips. Idk how it would have played at a fest or something, probably wouldnt have worked on a big stage, but in a small club to 100 people I was very pleasantly surprised.

Yeah when I saw them a few years ago for the first time at last, for a Deserter's Songs tour, it was very enjoyable. They've found a niche and it works well for them.

I loved teh David Baker years and glad to see taht at least Spotify has a couple of live sets from that era around.
Not seen them in like 29 years apat from on TV. There was a good 3 song set on something in 99 I think on the bBC part of a larger celebration.
Haven't listened to their later stuff much but those first 3 or 4 plus whatever live sets from the time and the mopping up compilations that came out at teh time are all great.

I heard the live set that came with caribou's Swim cd when i bought it in Rough Trade when it was current and it reminded me really heavily of that early era MR. The Caribou Vibration Ensemble, not sure if there is any more of that stuff anywhere that sounds that similar to that set with Marshall Allen cos I think they went through a number of different lineups live but do hear similarities with taht specific set.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMZ9E6ZK81g

i know i asked this on another thread

but does anyone know where the cover art from BOCES or Something For Joey single comes from? i know the yerself is steam artwork is an edited photo of patricia highsmith and SYOTOS is a still taken from a 70s 7-up commercial

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

also some cool rev knowledge to behold

the car wash hair cover art has lettering thats falling down. that was actually an accident. someone bumped the table they were using to glue the letters on and they just dried that way. jonathan told mooneyham he liked it so they stuck with it.

Their pre Deserter’s Songs artwork was incredible.

i also vaguely remember reading that the 30 or 40 minute track on the car wash hair ep is a mashup of random movie dialogue with actual recordings of one of the band members during a psychiatric visit

take it with a grain of salt since i have no way of verifying this

that would fit with its title ('lego my ego')

anyway they should have changed the name after baker left

Not posting it, but if you search Youtube for (ahem) 'Lionel Richie's Dick' you can see the video from which that psychiatric hospital section is taken... pretty harrowing stuff of course

Supposedly from an HBO documentary on schizophrenia that the band had a tape of

Oof this new one is... not great...

Jonathan deciding to do a spoken word delivery instead of a falsetto is definitely a choice.

Man, I didn't know they had a new one out. Listened to some of it and... ugh. They sure know how to lean into their worst tendencies.

It's as though they are trying to make junk Goodwill records.

Aaron Freeman (Gene Ween) did sort of a similar thing with his Rod McKuen covers album, except that was really good and had singing instead of bogus spoken word blabber.

I actually kind of like it. Leaning into their more ridiculous tendencies

I couldn't really get past Mood Swings. The music is okay but the words and delivery sound like a parody of slam poetry