that stage where you think they aren't popular anymore but are actually way more popular than they were when they had "buzz"

i mean, in some ways, it's kind of cool. they seem like the most average guys who happen to play in a band but who also work in the IT dept. or something. like they have a regular gig playing a restaurant patio in the summer.

i remember the nuttiest show i'd ever been to, which was one of the first: bush at sec taylor stadium in ames iowa, after their first album. it was the first big-ish, current-ish band to play that corner of the world in forever. i have never heard people scream louder or longer for an encore than that. they weren't very good (they were bush) but it was like budokan. some people just aren't that jaded about music (if you want to be charitable about it) and if you can get a handle on the affections of that kind of audience you'll be good for a long time.

^^^yeah i think that's true. you can kind of hit a sweet spot of utter mediocrity + rock star moves and people just kinda dig it.

p-nut will be slapping his five string long after oddfuture are distant memories, RIP trollcore

lol I was about to say "there's one Bush song that isn't that bad" but then I couldn't for the life of me remember which one I was thinking of because all of the ones that came to mind were terrible

is the other guy with a mic just a backup singer? can every member of 311 only take on one musical task at a time?

he's the rapper, right?

Uhhh.... Velvet Underground and Big Star?

Big Head Todd still exists?

they just had a new song on classic rock radio here! a john lee hooker cover i think.

they do! it might be a colorado thing? i don't think they'd go anywhere else and play huge places, but here they're heroes. they play red rocks every summer afaik

they were like my pick for stupidest band name back in the mid-90s

Dizzee Rascal

I think everyone knows the Arcade Fire is huge.

A quick look confirms Zucchero, Faithless, Eros Ramazotti, Status Quo, Jamiroquai, Toto, Daddy Yankee and Calle 13 do arena tours these days.

god, i should just do a poll for best red rocks bill this summer. a sampling:
Jethro Tull with Special Guest Kansas
Blues Traveler / Matisyahu / Toad the Wet Sprocket
Kenny Chesney, Billy Currington, Uncle Kracker
Chicago with the Colorado Symphony
STYX / Yes
Train / Maroon 5 / Gavin De Graw
Unity Tour 2011: 311 and Sublime with Rome
The Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George Lopez

woah

don't stare into the abyss too long

The Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George LopezThe Divine Rascals Tour with Carlos Santana and George Lopez

hoos that sounds like it's right up you alley

see, hoos has already lost his mind

your

callejón i should say

xp

lmao

"WHO DOESN'T LOVE WILCO."

http://thenakedhero.com/wp-content/uploads/raised-hand-1.jpg

Wilco

― Handjobs for a sport (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, May 17, 2011 6:06 PM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark

i think i saw them around 2005 at merriweather, which is huge, and the roots opened for them. at that point they would've been accurate for this thread.

also 90% of these bands are enjoyed by my cousins, who are all recently married in their mid-30s and used to be really into DMB. and like, hiking, and shit.

In Canada probably, but outside?

They topped the Norwegian album charts for a few weeks last August.

1) have an identifiable, instantly familiar sound
2) stick with it through thick and thin, even in the midst of experimentation
3) write catchy, comfortable tunes
4) have no contempt for sentiment or easy appeal
5) have no vested interest in staying current
6) avoid confrontation and shock
7) connect with an at least moderately affluent audience that can raise kids & grow old with you

8) get threatened by Scott Stapp

Record Store Day
There's a new BEN HARPER record in stores today. Participating record stores have a really big litho to GIVE you as a special gift TILL they're GONE.

the Flaming Lips play way larger venues now than they did for Transmissions..., Clouds Taste..., and Soft Bulletin

1) have an identifiable, instantly familiar sound
2) stick with it through thick and thin, even in the midst of experimentation
3) write catchy, comfortable tunes
4) have no contempt for sentiment or easy appeal
5) have no vested interest in staying current
6) avoid confrontation and shock
7) connect with an at least moderately affluent audience that can raise kids & grow old with you

― contenderizer, Tuesday, May 17, 2011 3:16 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

i think half of these kind overstate "safeness" as a virtue of these bands to their fans. half of the acts listed in this thread could drop a futuristic techno rock opera and most of their audience would be like "awright! return to form!"

311 futuristic techno rock opera? Really?

if they dropped a full-on drum'n'bass album warning about the ills of a world without weed and hackysack their fans would explode with joy

i think some dude is right, for example, a lot of mars volta's early following and loyal following were at the drive in fans, but they def opened up to an album as bonkers as frances the mute

y'all haven't heard P-Nut in the 24th Century yet? it's crazeee.

radiohead never gave up the "buzz" part but i think their continued popularity has a lot in common with what we've been talking about here, same with bjork

yeah Radiohead and Bjork are basically the versions of this that gained (or never lost) the 'cool critical darling' tag

some bands i wish this kind of thing would happen to or happen faster, like how long does Ted Leo need to keep plugging away before he wakes up one day and is headlining huge venues?

maybe if he changed his name to Big Head Ted?

like it's always surprising to me ppl i know that have pretty like normalish taste in music that will listen to any weird half constructed minimal techno thing because it's radiohead and they hear thom's voice on it

i think half of these kind overstate "safeness" as a virtue of these bands to their fans. half of the acts listed in this thread could drop a futuristic techno rock opera and most of their audience would be like "awright! return to form!"

― bile al (some dude), Tuesday, May 17, 2011 12:33 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

that's fair. i wasn't trying to make a blanket statement about all bands of this sort, only describing a formula that applies to a subcategory of them (pearl jam, black keys, my morning jacket, lots of jam bands). i stressed safeness (or comfortableness) as a virtue not to be snide, but because it is a virtue of a sort, and one that doesn't earn a lot of pop-cultural or critical attention.

for bands like flaming lips and ween, projecting sincerity and avoiding controversy clearly aren't the point.

WOW from 311's FB page:

823,097
people like this

yeah jeez WEEN, surprised it took this long for them to get mentioned

oh wow yeah them totally

very non-hipster musical tastes (they love they might be giants)

just coming here to say :(

i had no idea about their following until the last band i was in, the singer was a super fan and like it sounded they have almost a borderline deadhead/phishhead level of rabid following, she would buy every ween new thing no matter what

very non-hipster musical tastes (they love they might be giants)

just coming here to say :(

― underrated earl sweatshirt fans i have boned (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, May 17, 2011 2:55 PM (0 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

what's wrong w/TMBG? i fucks with lincoln

yeah i've met people with insane collections of ween bootlegs, otm about deadhead/phish levels of diehards.

nothing, I love the first three albums (Lincoln is the peak) just that... well, if yr a TMBG fan you're already outing yourself as something of a nerd, they're a weird band to cite as a "non-hipster" taste because they certainly aren't mainstream or AOR or whatever

xp

just fyi every band I know dreams of getting to this stage. this stage represents total arrival. you don't have to worry about your haters and you don't have to be constantly trying to win over new people.

weird it's almost like I said exactly that aerosmith

you also know what color you energy is