Rodan/Rachels: Classic Or Dud/ Search & Destroy. (RIP Jason Noble - August 2012)

I have enjoyed listening to Rodan once or twice in my life, though.

Rachel's are fairly good. i have to be in the mood. I feel like such an art-ass talking about them though.

The promise it held out was that it really was unmoored from tradition, opening spaces, creating alternate paths, taking the emotionallycomplex turn from hardcore, maturing almost.

The Biblesilver Changes into Shiner one-two punch still knocks me out. And the class signifiers weren't bougie at all, nor self-consciously intellegentsia middle-class, but more sortof disaffected gothy drama-poets fucking around in the lower suburbs and feeling pain. But not "oh we're so much better" pain but more like Duckie in Pretty in Pink young & horny & tryina figure it all out while feeling hemmed and limited by their surroundings. A sorta "this? this *can't* be all there is" intro-extroversion and romanticization of the everyday.

Plus you gotta remember that Rodan changed the game for so many groups, but most took off on the mathy side and left behind the hardcore chug married to lyrical baroque which they fused -- like as intensely emotional without ever courting total absurdity as anything I know. (which probably means that there are scads of metal bands out there that do it one or two better).

Rachels never turned me on really.

1) there's more than one flavor of high school poetry
2) yes, rodan begat slint. so what? doesn't mean you actually need to listen to them if you don't live in louisville, ky, circa 1993.

but seriously, i think sterling saying that "Rodan changed the game for so many groups" really discounts quite a bit of what was happening in san diego and baltimore/dc (i will concede even the first unsane record) did for "mathier" indie rock whatever that means.

Most of Rachels on the other hand is duddy. Although Search: music for Egon Scheile which is most engaging.

Yeah and the other gives you Tori, and the other-other gives you the Violent Femmes, and the other-other-other gives you The Smashing Pumpkins (or maybe that's the same as another other) but whatever because Rodan's is spikier and with more tongue.

2) yes, rodan begat slint. so what? doesn't mean you actually need to listen to them if you don't live in louisville, ky, circa 1993.

I dunno if Rodan begat slint actually -- they have v. little in common besides some post-hoc (ahem) label.

The Rachel's are one of the worst cases of the Emperor's New Clothes ever, and a terrible embarassment.

That's because Tortoise biteth the big one, regardless of similarity of influence.

Same thing though. Hate their music, but the Rachel's are some of the nicest people I've ever known, esp. the Grimes siblings.

saw 'em once in a barn at bard, where bob weston played bass from the soundboard and made the evil acoustical place sound magical.

I'm really liking it, it fits so well at this time of year; despite being recorded in summer times (in 2008) it definitely has an autumnal feel. It's very intimate, just beautifully recorded solo piano playing, with some field recordings of birds at a couple of points, but nothing too obtrusive. Music to make my heart ache.

I just got a copy of Rusty too, it's dead good.

Reading about following this solo album it turns out that Rachel's weren't named after Rachel Grimes, she wasn't even a founding member. I assumed it was, so you live and learn. Named after a car apparently instead.

rusty is amazing. i also listened to hoover's "lurid traversal of route 7" last night

Rusty is brilliant. I like the Rachels and enjoyed the Rachel Grimes album.

I've never heard Rodan. I was big into Rachel's, though I only caught them after the fact. I take it I should procure myself a copy of "Rusty" then?

damn right

It used to be damn hard to find but in the ebay era its easy i think. I found mine in the lateish 90s in Glasgow after years of looking.

So it is OOP then? I'll give discogs & eBay a visit in that case.

eMusic has it if you use that.

I've never heard of a remaster but there's always cd's on ebay so I'm guessing it's not been OOP it was just hard to find in UK record shops.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/RODAN-RUSTY-CD-NEW_W0QQitemZ110441769609QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMusic_CDs?hash=item19b6d7aa89

hmmm vinyl
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/RODAN-Rusty-sealed-Vinyl-LP-Slint-Polvo_W0QQitemZ230367575533QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMusic_on_Vinyl?hash=item35a2fa3ded

I should get it on vinyl sometime but shipping vinyl with the current exchange rates is really expensive now.

please note rodan sounds nothing like rachel's

it's angry and confrontational. BRUTAL!

Both excellent to me.

As for Rachel's being 'classical' for indies who didn't get classical - so fucking what? Music For Egon Schiele sounded better to these ears than wAGNER OR rOSSINI or any of that pud that i've wasted too much time trying to appreciate

I remember seeing Rodan at the time and dismissing them as an ersatz Slint.
Years later ,I actually listened to that Rusty album.Listen to 'The Everyday World Of Bodies' should be the soundtrack for the Exorcist. It is Good Morning Captain's evil twin

It is Good Morning Captain's evil twin

awesome.

THE RAIN. HAD A SOUND.

Aye, I wouldn't be expecting Rachel's similarities at all. I've read a wee bit about Rodan, just never really heard them.

Thanks pfunk, that eBay CD link looks like a reasonable choice to me.

love rusty. usually bust it out every year or so.

Shameful to admit this, but when a girl I had a major crush on played me Music For Egon Schiele in 1996 my mind was pretty much blown by the idea of current bands making this kind of music. Oh to be young again.

If a girl had played me Music for Egon Schiele in 1996, I would've had a crush on her. (Actually, I think I heard them for the first time in 1996 on a mixtape from a girl I had a crush on.) (And in 1997 one of the first conversations I ever had with a girl I would go on to date for two years was about Rachel's.) (And in early 1999 I developed an instant crush on a girl I met in Rome just because I saw a dubbed cassette in her dorm room with Rachel's on one side and Michael Nyman on the other.)

I think all of these girls were also into, like, Nick Bantock books.

RIP Jason Noble. Thanks to aerosmith for passing along word.

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/jasonnoble/journal

http://www.thelouisvillepaper.com/2012/07/04/jason-noble/

Bummer. Thanks for the music. RIP.

rip

RIP. Loved Rodan, liked some things by Rachel's and Shipping News too, didn't even know about Per Mission until reading Ned's second link so I think it's time to change that.

Devastated by this, so very sad. didn't even know he was poorly, poor jason :(

feel like i want to shut myself away in my bedroom and blast some fucking rodan

though bible silver corner would totally do me in right now

FUCK

oh no! RIP

Wow. Knew he fought cancer three years ago or so. Hope he had a good life during that extra hard-won time. Sad.

Sad news.

Geez, heard about this yesterday. "Rusty" was a major record for me, really blew me away when I heard it. Sad of course, gonna listen to "Rusty" right now.

Man, shit. Some brilliant stuff in that career.

https://www.facebook.com/JasonNobleBenefit

listening to the Rachel's for the first time, wow, really gorgeous music

yesterday was Jason's birthday, and Greg King uploaded a great anthology of Jason Noble onstage banter from in between Rachel's songs/shows

link is here

http://www.actualblood.com/

Only just discovered this tragic news.
Still remember Rodan live and loved Rachel's too.
Very sad.You made some great music Jason.

Bring it

http://www.touchandgorecords.com/news/detail.php?id=588

Ha, I was way harsh on this thread. I don't remember what this band sounds like tbh.

These bands, even.

And stream is up

http://pitchfork.com/advance/125-fifteen-quiet-years/

Memories flooding back of sitting on the stage at the Edinburgh Venue watching them play a set that was the 3 tracks from the peel session, Tooth Fairy & Every Day World of Bodies.
Still one of the best shows I've seen.

https://rodan93.bandcamp.com/releases

25 years ago a Louisville band called Rodan released the only record they’d make in their two year tenure. Rusty would become one of those records that launched a thousand very fucking good bands in the 90’s, an historical moment in real need of poets and punks and beautiful freaks who could render some sense and beauty out of the cultural grey water.

So here we are, and we still need a match and something that burns furious and long in the dark, and so, BAM! Surprise: newly discovered Rodan tapes have been pulled out of a secret time release vault in the floor of the Hat Factory in Baltimore, the studio where Rodan recorded early versions of the songs that would comprise Rusty. These fluid, energetic prototypes ring out like raw power emerging from a cocoon in the ground, like the twenty-five year brood of a very rare, winged insect shaking off the soil and–finally, blessedly–flying right into your ear.

All proceeds will support Girls Rock Louisville which aims to empowers girls, trans (regardless of identity) and gender non-conforming youth from all backgrounds by exploring music creation in a supportive, inclusive environment. GRL views music as a force for change and community building and as an opportunity to develop self-confidence, self-expression, and involvement in social justice.

- Joseph Manning Louisville, KY 2019

Track Listing:

1. Bible Silver Corner
2. the Everyday World of Bodies
3. Jungle Jim
4. IRS (Gauge)
5. Exoskeleton

Notes on the recording:

Recorded sometime in the first half of the year 1993 at the Hat Factory in Baltimore by Forrest (Tony) French.
Tapes rescued and transferred to digital by Adam Reach in 2015.
Remixed and Mastered by Keven Ratterman in 2019.

This recording of Exoskeleton appeared previously on How the Winter Was Passed (three little girls records).
These songs were appeared on a tour cassette called Aviary which included the original 5 songs recorded at the Hat Factory in 1992 with Jon Cook on Drums.

Tracks 1-4 were recorded again in late 1993 by Bob Weston.
With Kevin Coultas on Drums they became the most of the album Rusty (quarterstick records).

girlsrocklouisville.org
www.quarterstickrecords.com/bands/band.php?id=65
credits
released April 4, 2019

Jason Noble - guitar, vocal
Jeff Mueller - guitar, vocal
John Weiss - drums
Tara Jane O'Neil - bass, acoustic guitar, vocal

Everyone I knew in an indie rock band in Glasgow circa 2003 loved this record.

Louisville, Kentucky has produced some great music.

Niiice. Although I'm less a fan of Rodan than I am pretty much every act which derived from it (partic. Tara Jane).

bible silver corner is my fav on the album and rachel's is my favourite rodan related band

really sad to me that two of the dudes in rachel's are dead

bob weston! no wonder this shit sounds so good