Naming a supergroup is serious work - THE HARD QUARTET thread

This is more than a Malkmus vehicle, they deserve their own thread.

https://www.stereogum.com/2271896/stephen-malkmus-matt-sweeney-jim-white-emmett-kelly-are-the-hard-quartet/news/

Guybrush
2 days ago
"Raise your hand if you've been personally victimized by Billy Corgan"

Quality comment

“You may be entitled to compensation”

Steve and Co
Can’t wait to completely ignore this. Actually I can start now

could've started two minutes ago

Hey, more for us!

First Hard Quartet single "Earth Hater" coming tomorrow per their Instagram

"who is Emmet Kelly" not revealed by initial google results

I was surprised to discover an acquaintance from high school has played with Kelly for the past few years!

the Malkmus/Sweeney pairing on Traditional Techniques was inspired so I'm really excited for this.

https://www.gq.com/story/exclusive-introducing-the-hard-quartet

So here’s that first track:

https://thehardquartet.bandcamp.com/track/earth-hater?utm_source=track_release&utm_medium=email&utm_content=fanpub_fnb_trk&utm_campaign=thehardquartet+track+earth-hater

And the video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlveAf37fjE

I also could not remember who Emmet Kelly was, but I have listened to Natural Information Society a couple times and I vaguely remember BPB putting out those songs with Cairo Gang long past when I got deeply bored of him. Seems like the least “super group” worthy member by far. I’ll probably listen to this at least once because it has Jim White.

ugh this is not my thing at all
disappointed!

> I vaguely remember BPB putting out those songs with Cairo Gang long past when I got deeply bored of him.

I invite you to revisit that era, some of Will's best material imho:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kbemqxw37g

from GQ: Even the band name—a pun that benefits from saying it out loud

Ok at the risk of looking like an idiot - I dont get it?

i was wondering if it was a Four Tet pun - hardcore tet.

Kinda eh…but I’m more likely to listen to Molly Hatchet than Pavement these days.

Meat Puppets have been my old indie rock jam this past month.

the single is disappointingly slight

really like this so far

i think i like it? sweeney’s fingerprints are all over it.

I mostly like it too! It is slight, but imo it does the job nicely of giving me a taste and wanting more. Def hear the Sweeney influence here and the guitars sound great.

Xp Emmet Kelly is also the guitar player for Ty Segall. I feel that sound is in there.

it sounds like plenty of malkmus's work with the jicks, just it's bafflingly short.

i also hate the way the drums sound & sit in the mix

agreed with this^^^

the mix is weird. i assume they have a whole album in the can so looking forward to hearing more but yeah this isn't as exciting as I wanted it to be

A bit of an early 90s side project featuring Don Fleming vibe to this

This Is HardQuar

I kind of liked it.

Yeah, it's grown on me more since yesterday. I dig it and can't wait to hear more.

I think it helps that this all came about so suddenly and didn't give us much time to know what to expect.

https://evgrieve.com/2024/08/waiting-for-hard-quartet-video-on-st.html?m=1

i also hate the way the drums sound & sit in the mix

― ufo, Wednesday, July 31, 2024 1:32 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Even the band name—a pun that benefits from saying it out loud—was the result of an organic process via group text thread

Barf

I don't get the pun -- what's the joke? That it sounds like "hard core tet"? What's a tet aside from Vietnamese celebration?
Usually I will give Jim White a try but i am not inspired by "Earth Hater" at all.

2xLP:

Tracklist leak:
Chrome Mess
Earth Hater
Rio’s Song
Our Hometown Boy
Renegade
Heel Highway
Killed By Death
Hey
It Suits You
Six Deaf Rats
Action For Military Boys
Jacked Existence
North Of The Border
Thug Dynasty
Gripping The Riptide

It’ll be interesting to see if this band and this album can win over the thread.

(I really, really hope they’ll do a CD for this, especially since Matador seems to be phasing out that format.)

Have they? I know their recent EPs have either been vinyl or digital only and the Butthole Surfers reissues didn't get CDs, but the other albums from this year did - Spoon reissue, Kim Gordon, Bar Italia, etc. Anyway, definitely hoping this gets a CD release as well!

It seem like the reissues/archival things are increasingly not on CD, while most “new” proper albums are.

Anyway, brother, here’s wonderwall:

https://thehardquartet.bandcamp.com/album/the-hard-quartet

new song is better!!!!!

https://pitchfork.com/news/the-hard-quartet-announce-debut-album-share-new-rios-song-video-filled-with-rolling-stones-easter-eggs-watch/?fbclid=IwY2xjawExg_ZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHVOupHcrHxgOx9ndbmHa4E7R2LV7-7ZDuwGfvHZE5L-HUYQHWirwhCKRJw_aem_Lj1bCVHGuCUb1s5R9JnTGQ

Must be some lengthy jams coming, both lead singles are sub 2 and a half minutes, but a double LP?

New song is better, still don't love the mix, White's drumming is the thing that is moving this to some place interesting

promo is 52 minutes — not quite sure how that pushes it into the double LP zone. no epics, longest song is about six and a half minutes. maybe there's some bonus stuff on side 4?

Maybe the 4th side is an etching about what good friends they are!

Malkmus does love a 3-sided LP, but looks like there are three songs on sides 3 and 4
https://f4.bcbits.com/img/0036919674_10.jpg

Matt Sweeney, a songwriter, guitarist, producer and vocalist best known for his work with Chavez, Superwolf, his music for Red Dead Redemption 2 and his guitar work in the company of a panoply of artists from Guided by Voices and Cat Power to Johnny Cash and Adele.

Disappointed in the Zwan erasure in the Bandcamp bio.

I think that’s probably intentional on his part.

(Zwan was great, though.)

This makes me want an entire album of Sweeney material. His song contributions on this are sublime.

― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Thursday, 17 October 2024 11:40 (four hours ago) link

it's pretty different from his contributions to this album but the chavez albums are incredible

if you don't already know them

I know it would never have happened with the egomaniac running the show, but I would have loved to have gotten some Sweeney and/or Pajo written songs for Zwan.

big trad techniques fan over here

My favorite Malk since 2005 for sure but his solo albums don't stick around for me.

TT is interesting, though I tend to return to it less often than the others, and on a random song basis. I’m glad he did it!

The Sweeney songs sound a lot like the Superwolves record from a few years back, too.

Jim White doing rock drumming is especially fun here. Fan of him otherwise too, but the fill near the start of "Rio's Song" is a good example.

The Matt Sweeney songs are the highlight imo.

― mizzell, Tuesday, October 15, 2024 6:07 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

never in doubt imo

in terms of the overall flow of the album i could have done with like two less malkmus songs. as much as jim white makes things interesting, he is in his plod mode for a lot of this.

Great show tonight. Jim White is so fun to watch play drums. He dances behind the kit.

what did they play? just the album or did they throw in any covers or songs from other bands or anything?

They played the album in sequential order.

^^^
They did a little reprise of Action for Military Boys at the end. I was hoping for a cover.

SM seemed to be having more fun than with Pavement. They all seemed to be into it.

he was in pretty good spirits when i saw him with pavement last year

idk if i'll go see the hard quartet though, they're playing here but i'm not sure it's worth it if they just play the album

fun show tonite. lots of passing of the bass among the three guys in front.

live version made it clear that "thug dynasty" owes more
than a little to "i only have eyes for you."

also they should change their name to mangenius

(or softboygenius if they'd prefer)

I think they should re-appropriate SKWM

This makes me want an entire album of Sweeney material. His song contributions on this are sublime.

― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Thursday, 17 October 2024 11:40 (four hours ago) link

it's pretty different from his contributions to this album but the chavez albums are incredible

― na (NA), Thursday, October 17, 2024 12:23 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

already a big Chavez/TradTech fan - i mostly meant this iteration of Sweeney material is really grabbing me and would love to see more of this vein mined.

Speaking of Silkworm, the loose, Stonesy, dare I say chooglin’ quality to the playing on Hard Quartet comes closest to matching the off-hand magic of the Crust Brothers Marquee Mark CD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLTwPUno3TM

xps Yeah, lots of big Trad Techniques fans around here (myself included). Think that album's gotten more favorable attention on ilx than most other post-Pavement Malkmus albums have.

The Hard Quartet album rules. Agree with everyone that it's the most Pavementy thing Malkmus has done since Pavement. I get some of the comparisons to BtC ("Heel Highway" specifically has some parts that sound like certain parts of "Type Slowly" and "Starlings in the Slipstream"), but to me the vibe of this album is pretty different. Reminds me more of Pavement before BtC (but after S&E). It has that same kind of looseness.

Outside of the Malkmus songs, "Our Hometown Boy" is the major standout for me. There's the obvious Big Star influence, of course, but I also hear it starting off as a pretty good Dave Davies song in the verses and then turning into a beautiful Ray Davies song in the chorus. I don't like "North of the Border" as much, but I really like the guitar on that song. Reminds me of Malkmus's playing on some Silver Jews stuff. Thinking "Federal Dust" and this release in particular: https://www.dragcity.com/products/hot-as-hell-live-1993

The Matt Sweeney songs that aren't "Rio's Song" work best for me if I think of them more as interludes or disconnected parts of a suite than as full-fledged songs in their own right. They're of a piece with each other in a way that stands out against the relative eclecticism of the rest of the album, and they're a good bit shorter than all the songs they fall between. I like them and I'm glad they're there though! The album feels more epic for being able to take a few stops along the way to be like "hey, let's see what Matt's up to now."

But yeah, "Hey" is gorgeous. That and "Six Deaf Rats" are the ones I really can't get enough of. Loooove the breakdown in the middle of "Action for Military Boys" too. There's a whole lot to like all over this album.

this album is a great example of the gap that exists between "really great songwriters" and "one of the best to ever do it"

no shame in being one of the former, of course. i enjoy their tracks. but SM's songs are a different species ... and, i mean, his best here are lucky if they make a CD-length compilation of his all-time best tunes, right? his consistency has been patchy for a couple decades now, but he's still capable of towering highs.

I've listened to orders of magnitude more of SM than the other two songwriters, but I don't think his songs are better than the other two. He has the two worst songs on the album.

well, that may be true ... i haven't listened to it trying to determine the worst songs. which two are you talking about?

For me, the first two tracks. I've come to like them a lot, but I don't think them as much as everything else.

think = like

Great last night in London. On the album I like Our Hometown Boy, Rio's Song, Jacked Existence about as much as the best of the Malkmus tracks but live the big mid-album SM ones - Six Deaf Rats particularly - felt a step ahead - space, looseness, dynamics, lyrics.

new tour dates, very stoked!

if you see this band and Sharp Pins open, don't miss them! i can't promise they're good live, but this year's album is great: https://sharppins.bandcamp.com/album/radio-ddr

psst — 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OlctYkxkjQ

Thanks, tylerw!

grabbed tickets for the boston show next year, always nice to have something to look forward to.

I love the simplicity of playing the debut album in order live.

This Cairo Gang record (The Corner Man) I bought for $3 is awesome.

This will mean the most to the gearheads, apologies if it was already shared

https://guitar.com/features/stephen-malkmus-matt-sweeney-the-hard-quartet/

live session with Nate The K on WFMU (starts at 1h3m51s):

https://ftp.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/145817

Jacked Existence
North Of The Border
Hey

followed by an interview with Matt & Emmett.-

And now we’ve got a set up on Archive for org fam

https://archive.org/details/thq2024-10-22/04+Rio's+Song.flac

A 10 minute version of “Six Deaf Rats”?!? Yes, please.

https://thehardquartet.bandcamp.com/album/lies-something-you-can-do-coreopsis-trail

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

New single, an Emmet Kelly number

B-side is a psych fuzz growler

RIYL endless bourgie

Oh, this is great 👍🏽

Both of these tracks rip. Fucking love this band.

Good. The Bside gives me a European Son vibe. But, That's not SM on vocals??

I had to listen a couple of times to realize it wasn't SM. Emmett Kelly's voice is normally much better, lol.

Steve Shasta nearly stumbled upon a perfect iLM handle, “endless bougie.” I’ll leave it for someone else.

I dare you to open the noize board EBoog thread and witness the drama me saying that ~20 years ago caused 😂