Twin Peaks: The Return - Roadhouse Songs POLL

Awesome! Thanks for doing this. I actually just started rewatching the entire series. Going with NIN because 8 is probably my favorite episode of tv ever

We have done this already. I’d have included Green onions & Audrey’s dance in this rerun

xp I’ve also been revisiting the whole series! (Took a long break between the movie and The Return.)

I didn’t see that this has been done (at least on ILM). Yrev very sorry for the repetition...

probably james

Still Shadow

Lissie for me. Amazing performance. I had never heard of her before & it led me to discover her work, I've enjoyed several of her livestream concerts last year.

I also really liked Sharon van Etten. Also The Veils, surprisingly so as I didn't think much of them beforehand.

Au Revoir Simone - "Lark", made even better by the sexy & sultry moves of Annie Hart

the answer is still “tarifa”

A Violent Yet Flammable World

Au Revoir Simone - "Lark", made even better by the sexy & sultry moves of Annie Hart

― electrobiscuit, Tuesday, January 5, 2021 3:57 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

an extremely hairy-handed post here

The sexy & sultry moves of the delectable songstress Annie Hart

I liked when Chromatics were shown playing there a 2nd time like they were a house band of sorts.

"Tarifa" is def. closest to my personal taste, and I think it's very effective in context (I have a particular affinity for Part 6, and the song caps it off perfectly).

One wrinkle is that we watch the show with captions on ("[oddly reverberating]"); so all these songs' lyrics are displayed onscreen, and I find "Tarifa"'s lyrics to be almost irritatingly vague (though I guess that's par for the course, lol).

Didn't notice this the first time but Joey Castillo does NIN guest drumming

"Axolotl" is the worst. I’d scream too if I were stuck in a bar watching that sh1t!!

Structurally this stuff worked I guess but Dave I really don't care about your favourite bands also fuck me Trent Reznor is a silly man

Man I love so many of these tho! The roadhouse as a location in general feels u+k to me, the little flakes of soap you get from the booth chatter. The couple of songs that are not my thing (vedder & veils) I still really like how they work in the scene - the Charlyne Yi scene is one of my favourite moments of the whole series

I’m sure last time I voted for James (still cool but also sharp dressed man another one that should have been included in this poll), this time I’m torn between snake eyes tarifa and no stars

I didn’t include “Sharp Dressed Man” or “Audrey’s Theme” because the idea was to poll the “performances” (not well-known songs that appear as recordings).

No I know, I’m arguing (only slightly tongue in cheek) that green onions, audreys theme & sharp dressed man are just as much “roadhouse performances” as these bands miming to recordings of their songs. No hay banda 😉

No Stars is the answer.

I love how her voice is peaking, resonant, threatening feedback.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njloaV9eE7I because people must have forgotten it

xxp guess I’d rather do a separate poll of songs played on jukeboxes / over the radio, or in a totally non-diagetic context (like that... odd use of Shawn Colvin’s “Viva Las Vegas”). The Otis Redding song in Part 15, during the big Ed & Norma scene (which I just watched last night), is fantastic

Something funny about the Shawn Colvin song is there’s a cognitive dissonance… my brain wants to think that it’s Sheryl Crow’s “Leaving Las Vegas,” which would be another weirdly “on-the-nose” music choice for that scene (with an unclear degree of irony), but it’s not. It’s another famous song, though not famous in that version.

I won’t go so far as to suggest that this effect was intentional, meant to reflect Cooper’s unstable identity at that point (but if anyone wants to run with it…).

Sorry for the bump, but the more I think about it—“it’s a famous song about Las Vegas, performed by a singer with the initials ‘S.C.’ who was popular in the ‘90s; played while a character rolls through the Strip and out of town... but not the song you’re thinking of!”—the more I do think it’s at least a “music supervisor joke”... but maybe also meant to play into the idea of subverted expectations, things that aren’t what they appear to be, etc.

I’m sure if I search, I’ll find a Reddit thread from 2017 where someone raised this point.

(There may also be something around the idea of an Elvis cover specifically. Interestingly, I see that ZZ Top also covered the song.)

Maybe also too on the nose, but Xiu Xiu could’ve done something cool as a roadhouse act.

Dave I really don't care about your favourite bands

Lol I think they were all chosen for atmospheric and aesthetic reasons more than whether these are his or anyone's favorites. I personally would not care to see any of these bands live aside from maybe NIN. Chromatics are great on record but I'd be bored by their show. But they're the acts who make perfect sense playing at the 2017 version of the roadhouse.

In a separate soundtrack poll I would be torn between "Sharp Dressed Man" and the Uniform songs blasting from the Las Vegas gang's car.

ts the roadhouse vs the bronze

the first time my then-in-utero daughter kicked was during the nine inch nails performance. a few weeks later we saw them at webster hall and she kicked again, also during "she's gone away." so i'ma go NIN here.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/save-the-fall-city-roadhouse-restaurant-inn

I have a soft spot for early NIN up to The Downward Spiral. Bored by the rest for the most part. But that song/performance in ep 8 was legitimately rad. Most memorable one of the group for me and gets my vote without hesitation.

The nin and "Shadow" hit me the hardest, so it's one of those two.

I saw the episode with James last night and again I couldn't stop lmao. God what a dork.

james was always cool

the first time my then-in-utero daughter kicked was during the nine inch nails performance. a few weeks later we saw them at webster hall and she kicked again, also during "she's gone away." so i'ma go NIN here.

― adam, Sunday, January 17, 2021 12:11 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

love this

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Chromatics and/or Rebekah

Chromatics and/or Rebekah

The Eddie Vedder song is actually pretty nice. (What an episode!)

I had forgotten that Audrey’s Dance is actually “performed” by the Roadhouse band (in my memory, it was on the jukebox)—so I agree it would have fit here, too.

NIN or "Shadow" for me. As the NIN performance fits the mood of the whole unbelievable episode 8, it'll get my vote. Eddie Vedder felt surprisingly poignant in the context.

Voted for Shadow again but I did love it when No Stars appeared (though someone throwing around Autotune allegations spoiled the party a bit). Big fan also of Johnny Jewel's Windswept, which plays as Dougie stands around for hours outside the office. I feel like that ended an episode too but maybe not.

Listening to No Stars again, I can't get the Autotune thing out of my head, even though it would probably never have occurred to me if someone hadn't mentioned it.

It would be cool if they had used actual live performances, but I know that takes a ton of work to get right (and they filmed the roadhouse performances all in one day).

For what it’s worth, they did a good job of adding room tone, etc. (Some of the artists lip sync better than others.)

The autotune is good not bad and clearly not meant to go unnoticed, just like how in the original scene of James recording just you in the living room it is not a “goof” that there are studio effects and instrumentation that would not be there in a realistic show. iow *continues to tap “no hay banda” sign*

This might help

I didn’t notice the autotune! I do think they strived to make the performances seem “realistic” / fit the instrumentation seen onstage (they even removed a saxophone(?) line from ‘Tarifa’; or maybe it’s an entirely different recording than the version on SVE’s album, I dunno).

you’re right, it’s the album version with the brass removed

Don't understand how NIN couldn't win this by a mile, the track is the most like Badalamenti's "Pink Room" from the FWWM soundtrack— sinister and menacing rock'n'roll.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

The autotune is noticeable imho but it creates a perfect unsettling atmosphere. I remember watching the scene late at night, and the autotune and the subtle switches from english to spanish to english made me feel as if I was hallucinating for a moment there. My significant other also noticed something aurally confusing going on in that performance. I haven’t rewatched the series - and I probably never will - but I might rewatch that episode just to see if it was an anomaly or there is actually some Lynch sensorial manipulation going on.

The autotune is noticeable imho but it creates a perfect unsettling atmosphere. I remember watching the scene late at night, and the autotune and the subtle switches from english to spanish to english made me feel as if I was hallucinating for a moment there. My significant other also noticed something aurally confusing going on in that performance. I haven’t rewatched the series - and I probably never will - but I might rewatch that episode just to see if it was an anomaly or there is actually some Lynch sensorial manipulation going on.

i forgot to vote so maybe it's my fault but 0 votes for axolotl? no way!

Ok rewatching that scene right now and it’s definitely trippy to hear and I think it’s really the autotune which is causing that sort of uncanny valley effect + the change in language halfway through. I might not have been as focused of the autotune the first time around.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njloaV9eE7I

I kind of wish they doubled down on the effect, make it sound more vocoder like. I’m tempted to edit it until it sounds like a machine singing it

Moka, your double tweets were very appropriate for this thread (I thought maybe they were intentional) :-)

The autotune seems more like an aesthetic choice since she can definitely sing it live from what I’ve seen. Eg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqzfQWse2uI

The autotune seems more like an aesthetic choice since she can definitely sing it live from what I’ve seen. Eg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqzfQWse2uI

Hahaha they are appropriate but not on purpose... idk what’s happening I only click submit once and they seem to double.

Fixed... I think

I don’t dig “No Stars” too much, or these other songs co-written by Lynch that have these sort of vague, empty lyrics that gesture toward “songwriting” without actually getting there. It kind of works for “Just You,” because it’s like a semi-parody of an old r&b ballad—but “No Stars,” and those Julie Cruise songs... I dunno, it’s not “good” lyricism, I guess it’s supposed to carry an atmosphere that doesn’t come across for me.

I love the vocal effects, that sense of peaking.
Wild West is the track I like in spite of itself - really not my thing, but there's something about it...

I did however vote Chromatics because they are one of my favorite bands and from all the songs in here “Shadow” is the only one I still listen to fairly often.

I would have loved to see something like Scott Walker or Morphine or The Cramps in the roadhouse.

There’s many artists who’d have worked in my head...; Portishead, Nick Cave, Hope Sandoval, Bohren & der club of gore, Robert Wyatt, Nicolas Jaar, Zola Jesus, Dean Blunt, Merzbow....

Regarding songs by David Lynch, Ghost of Love used to be an obsession of mine when it came out. I didn’t hear it on Inland Empire first though, I think I heard it in something related to fashion? Maybe a perfume or clothing ad... or even in a runway show.

xp I bet Xiu Xiu were pretty disappointed not to be called on.
Also xxxp - singing it live is no guarantee that autotune isn't being used, it's a realtime effect and can be used with great subtlety to sweeten vocals undetectably.

I absolutely hated the autotune on No Stars when I watched the episode, it was immediately noticeable and it sounds fucking awful to me, intentional or not

It's not 2004, do people really care about autotune?

“...What year is this?”

I felt particularly bad for Xiu Xiu not being included

Also poor HudMo, not his fault but that one had a real Adult Swim vibe

Vedder's song seems pretty "live" to me. I don't think it's lipsync'd?

🎶 i took your picture from the frame 🎶
🎶 and now you're nothing like you seem 🎶

Just got through The Return for the first time. I thought most of these songs were pretty great, or at least atmospherically appropriate.

It is always a pleasant surprise when new-NIN isn't boring. That's not to say that new-NIN is entirely boring - I think they've gotten a lot better in recent years - but it's still a pleasant surprise when they aren't. This was a solid fucking song!

The performance I liked best was probably Lissie's Wild West. That was a fun track from an artist I've never heard of before and she was really putting some energy into it onstage.

I lived in an apt. bldg. with Lissie for a few years, in the mid-2000s
#uselesstrivia