Bedhead - Classic or Dud?

They still crank out the occasional classic, like "Disease" from the most recent New Year alb.

And classic too!

The New Year grew out of a critically acclaimed '90s Dallas band Bedhead, which Kadane and his brother Bubba founded. Bedhead was tagged a "slo-core" group: It's been described as sort of what New Order or Galaxie 500 would sound like if they used no reverb or effects.

The original style, Kadane said, came from playing in a Velvet Underground-inspired experimental band with future Dixie Chick Martie Erwin (later Maguire) on fiddle.

"She very rightly left us for the Dixie Chicks," he allowed. "We wanted to find a way to produce that sustained tone of the fiddle or viola. The best way we could do that was to combine guitars, to just build chords from three different guitars."

I like Bedhead a lot, but something seems a little too rigid about their songwriting. Somehow it doesn't come off as natural to me, even though I like their sound.

the new new year album is really good!

Oh my God are Bedhead good. I just put on "WhatFunLifeWas" for the first time in a really long time, and it's likely to stay on the CD player for the rest of the week. It's kind of like the "Laughing Stock" of mopey indie-rock. So beautiful.

― Josh in Chicago (Josh in Chicago)

i support this bedhead

AHHH Bedhead are one my favorite bands ever. They don't get enough respect. WhatFunLifeWas is indeed beautiful and so good.

Mark, what do you think it connects with specifically this year in indie rock as you say?

Saw these guys at Barristers in Memphis in 96 maybe. It was an Easter sunday. They did an hour long set and then started taking requests. They begrudgingly did "Disorder" ("we don't usually do covers live..."). LA band Tristeza played that show, too. Good night.

Well, it seems like there are a few small scenes of bands that focus on guitars, esp. the tone of guitars & using space, and they sing a little, and they aren't nec. great singers, and pieces really hinge on builds and the way chord changes move and sound. Seems in the air a bit to me, and Bedhead did all of those things extraordinarily well. Not talking about bands that sound like this, but that the basic tool set seems familiar. Real Estate, to use one example (again-- obv. a super different tone.)

That's "SD band Tristeza" Trip..

oh, my mistake.

knew they were cali dudes.

I was just talking to the main-man of Real Estate and I mentioned the similarities I noticed between Real Estate and Bedhead, but he had not heard of them. His favorite band though is Yo La Tengo, and that made sense.

how can you call your band real estate? i seriously refuse to listen to the music of a band with such a stupid name. additionally they make it difficult for everybody to find them on the internet. i was too curious, i just listened to some mp3s. i was punished immediately. their music is a phantastic sleeping pill substitute.

i think real estate is a great name

about as great a name as hedge fund, carry trade or subprime.

Man, I miss this band so much. Hell, it's been long enough that I miss the New Year, too.

Oh hey

http://www.numerogroup.com/products/bedhead-1992-1998

Worth every penny, but ... wondering if they've remastered/whatevered the collection. Not sure Bedhead would benefit from a trip through the Louderizer as much as it would practically benefit, from a simple volume standpoint.

Take my money, Número Group! So stoked. Have most on vinyl or cd, but if the Codeine re-masters were a barometer, this is a safe buy. Break out the Darvon.and mimosas ...

Really happy about this, hope it gets a sightly larger bit of the masses to acknowledge their albums.

What an astounding band.

Box set out in a couple of weeks. Also new New Year LP.

Oh already noted soz!

Picking mine up at the post office tomorrow. Psyched!

Yeah, just heard about new New Year earlier today, actually.

HUh, what was this!?

OVERSEAS is: Matt and Bubba Kadane from The New Year with David Bazan and Will Johnson.

Whoa what is the release date for the New Year album? Is there a link with some info? (Band is un-googalable sadly)

how have i never posted in this thread, huge fan. breaking out my CD's i see that i own Beheaded, Transaction de Nove, 4songCDEP, The Dark Ages and Macha Loved Bedhead. also own that amazing The New Year Newness Ends CD.

Actually, the New Year was super easy for me to google. First result.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QO7mcpnbqY

That's awesome. What a perfectly suited shittily shot home video.

Chalk Bedhead up as another band it never occurred to me to search for clips:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mtnT2-Ble4

I wish I had a clip of them playing "Extramundane." I'd never seen a band playing with such economy before, with one guy just on maracas as needed, and the third guitarist just smoking a cigarette until his part late in the song popped up.

Box set arrived today, it's a lovely artefact and the book appears substantial. I'd only heard a couple of The New Year albums up til now, enjoying the box so far.

I was such a Bedhead fan that I took the New Year for granted and downgraded them as "not Bedhead." But really, it's Bedhead, and I feel like a chump for not seeing them quite as often as I could.

grantland's chris ryan on bedhead and 90s nostalgia, p. good stuff in this piece:
http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/what-fun-life-was-bedhead-90s-indie-rock-and-word-of-mouth-fandom/

Great read, thanks for sharing sloth!

full confession: i have not listened much to this band but know how beloved they are in a small/devoted community & saw this pop up - now's as good a time as any to do a deep spotify dive i s'poze

And you know me!

i was gonna shout you out ev but saw that there's another evan ITT so didn't wanna confuse anybody

Yeah great read. Too many of these sentiments in the article are exactly my experience. Hearing WhatFunLifeWas for the first time. I remember going to my friends and telling them how it was a perfect 10/10, and I meant it too. I haven't listened to them as much in the past years but they're definitely one of those bands that influence my taste and guitar playing heavily.

I can also relate to the record store clerk perspective. In fact, I put a Bedhead song on and a customer came straight up to the counter asking what it was, thanking me and gushing about it. So that was one of those "victories". Another notable victory was a very excited Polvo purchase under similar circumstances- this guy was so excited! Still proud of that.

Haha understood!

listening right now to beheaded, i like it a lot.

there would clearly be no explosions in the sky w/o these dudes

WhatFunLifeWas probably has more highlights overall, but yeah all three albums are beautiful.

One of my favorite attributes of a band is when they can capture a mundane vibe and repackage it as something beautiful without being melodramatic at all.

However Explosions in the Sky, to my last point right there^, are nowhere near as restrained.

lol not at all, sometimes to their benefit, others to the extreme detriment

There's something about a band with three clean patiently intertwining Fenders. I remember reading that after they lost their violinist (who went on the join the Dixie Chicks), they wanted to try to capture the texture of strings with their guitars.

That's apt.

Wow, I finally heard that Overseas record. The other guys in the group are not Bedhead, but boy do the Bedhead guys get their DNA pushed upfront in this band.

http://lebanesestudies.news.chass.ncsu.edu/2016/07/21/a-lebanese-american-rock-musician-in-texas/

Yay for another New Year album. I wasn't expecting one. Bedhead remains top 5 indie bands for me.

That New Year record has been coming out "next year" for like 5 yrs now

hey its out now

Wow, can't wait to buy!!!

Not bad, on first listen. Lots of keys on this one!

Not streaming, darn.

I used to underrate the New Year because I loved Bedhead so much. But then, especially when the New Year became inactive, it really occurred to me how few bands do/still do/ever did what Bedhead and to an extent the New Year did so well. So I am savoring this album.

damn "The Beast"

Stream on Bandcamp. This sounds very promising. Less repetitive than Bedhead if I remember them well, more varied with hooks and stuff.
https://daily.bandcamp.com/2017/05/03/the-new-year-snow-review/

This album is spectacular. I listened to it about five times today. It gets a little weaker towards the end, esp. the second last song breaks the flow but the rest is really very relaxed and melodic slowcore. Hypnotic stuff. Much better than the slightly kitschy Slowdive which is ok but gets too much press compared to this plain masterpiece.

It's really great. I've found that each New Year album, from the first album on, has always been a little tougher for me to get into than Bedhead ever was, and I readily admit I was so into Bedhead that I underestimated the New Year entirely until I saw them play at the Touch & Go anniversary party way back when and they were just so good it sent me back to the first two albums, which were suddenly so awesome it was like I'd never heard them before, which was all my fault. So this one I've been paying close attention to, and the effort has really paid off.

Really liking this. RE: Touch and Go anniversary performance - YES - this is where I listened to 'em w/ new ears, too. That whole three days was probably my fave ever fest, and to have New Year give an eye/ear-opening performance was a treat.

Album arrived in the mail - along with yet another t-shirt saying "THE NEW YEAR" which I will have to patiently explain to people.
There is a lot to like on the album, it's one of their best, or at least does not let the side down.

I think I actually prefer the New Year to Bedhead, who I liked in the era but those records mean more to me now then they did at the time. The New Year had me hooked pretty much right from the first record. Great band. Glad this record finally came into being.

The new New Year record is so good. So good.

Apparently an ambient New Year album was just released?

I don't see anything on their bandcamp or site.

on bandcamp with the name sigh of relief

drone vibe. reminds me, so far, of andrew chalk or mirror.

https://sighofrelief.bandcamp.com/releases
does not sound like bedhead or new year, low volume drone ambient, not my cup of tea.

I'd not seen this Italian TV clip before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPOHa_T8LLM

That's a real treat. 3 of my favourite songs of all time there!

Related, there is maybe something afoot. Matt was interviewed here a bit ago:

https://whatamimaking.substack.com/p/waim-podcast-107-matt-kadane-from-5ac

And I could have sworn the New Year recently tweaked its social media presence, too.

Oh, and btw, you can still get three signed and numbered Jay Ryan New Year 2008 tour posters for $15 (!!!!).

https://www.thenewyear.net/tnystore.html

Yep, stumbled across that podcast on the FB page last month, which was a nice surprise. Didn't really sound like there was anything happening as far as I could tell, but you never know with those fellas.