How many more years until we get a shoegaze/dream pop revival?

There's been a lot of MBV copping in the electronic field these past few years. And a generation of kids that weren't around the first time around seem pretty hip and knowledgeable about the genre.

shoegazing is still a popular form here in the states, thanks mostly to tonevendor and their clairecords label. most have accepted that it's slowdive that perfected the form and not mbv. that might not be a popular opinion and i could have just made it up.

Hahah. All too accurate.

There was a claim once that .05 percent (or somesuch number) of music being made anywhere was 'new' and everything else is stuff presumed dated, buried, etc. but actually is still being made by tons of people somewhere beyond the view of institutional/personal taste arbiters. Thus with the gaze, from then to now.

I'm rather hoping that shoegazer doesn't go mainstream, and get diluted, dumbed down and commercialised into next year's Franz Ferdinand/Kaiser Chiefs/Killers-style fashionmusic. Though that's not all that likely to happen, given the lack of commercially infectious swagger in the movement. The closest to that would be the shoegazer influences in the sound of commercial bands like Doves.

I don't care if it stays underground or goes overground fashionrock. It doesn't really matter to me as the latter doesn't make much of an impression on me anyway. So long as there is still music which pays attention to the *texture* and harmonic structure, I will be a happy girl.

The only way it could really go overground would be for there to be a radical rethink of the way that the NME etc. presents What Is Cool - shoegazing in many ways is kind of anticool with regards to the sort of things the NME has been paying attention/lip service to lately. A reaction against fashionrock.

Or perhaps they just need a luscious pouting frontman like Mark Gardener again to be the acceptible face of shoegazing.

OTM. M83, Engineers, Sennen, all sorts of current stuff is massively shoegazey. And yay to that.

Of course, if "shoegaze" ever becomes NME-cool, it'll be more a case of the label "shoegaze" being appropriated for something different that borrows superficial elements of shoegaze without its deeper culture. Much in the way that "new wave" these days means the current crop of sharp-suited NME-Carling-Xfm fashionbands and Gof4/XTC copyists.

malory = new slowdive
pia fraus = lush + rocketship

who is the new revolver? moose? chapterhouse? midway still?

Depends on the pay.

But I heard a compilation of new shoegazing bands a few years ago and you know what? It really sucked. Where is the talent? Wait, never mind don't answer that - I have to play PIL one more time...

I did think Manual did a fabulous job of the shoegaze thing, though and that wasn't too long ago.

One of the best shoegazer albums of the year:

Autumn's Grey Solace - Riverine
http://www.projekt.com/projekt/product.asp?sku=PRO00166

2004

one of the best shoegazer albums of last year:

destroyalldreamers - À Coeur Léger Sommeil Sanglant

xpost

the stuff i've been hearing on the club ac30 label has all been darn good. the televise ep in particular is very good indeed.

Ah, the second coming of that dog, then.

OK, it's official. The Nu-Gaze Revival is over, it's been in the Guardian now:

http://music.guardian.co.uk/rock/story/0,,2135273,00.html

alan mcgee, who was quoted as saying "mogwai's new album is the best art-rock record since loveless" now denounces all of MBV's achievements as a "joke". what, pray, is this man on?

good article, plenty of great acts in there, mingling with some not-so-great ones it must be said. serena-maneesh a surprising omission. no mention of engineers either; they've rather fallen off the radar, haven't they?

It's not what he's on, it's what he's not on any more. Put that man back on drugs, STAT.

It's a weirdly lopside article, it only really seems to talk about shoegazing boys. Which is kind of not what shoegaze Mark I was about.

But that's my dead horse and I'm gonna stop beating it.

Alan McGee talking shite shock.

I thought it was funny him slagging off Coldplay as bedwetters considering his own music as Biff Bang Pow.

It's a weirdly lopside article, it only really seems to talk about shoegazing boys. Which is kind of not what shoegaze Mark I was about.

The bands or the people watching them? They could've dropped in Lush or Curve I guess but that aside, I don't see gender touched on there in any significant way

Yes, I've seen Beach House lately. Ditto Howling Bells. And there is nu-gaze that isn't DUDEISH. I mean, Serena Manish aren't DUDEISH.

Aw well, I know this is my own personal bugbear.

I blame BJM for the DUDEISH stuff.

I suppose a picture of Rachel Goswell is better than ignoring women, but it's still a bit... "men act, women appear".

beach house are fucking amazing. totally love that band.

serena maneesh is pretty freakin' dude-ish! sometimes hilma the nico look-alike doesn't play with 'em.

There were, like 2 or 3 girls playing with SM last time I saw them. I think it was pretty evenly split along gender lines. And all the stuff I've heard of them is woozy boy/girl vocals coz, well, they're trying so hard to be MBV.

I need to get the Beach House album, I think I would love them.

(Though I'm as guilty as the next girl of objectifying pretty boys when I see them in bands. Just got told last night "no, we can NOT put TEY on the cover of Plan B just because you want to marry them all." ::cries::)

I know, I know, it sounds so petty, doesn't it? Honestly, it's not like I'm counting. I don't have shoegazegirls.xls or anything. But it's just so glaringly obvious to me when I go to gigs or read articles and I don't see ANY women.

woulda been only two girls in sm, i don't think they've ever had three lineup. and there's like five dudes or something. i dunno. emil grew a beard.

definitely get the beach house record.

Oh, I thought the singer was a girl, too. Maybe just a really androgynous boy. It was 2 boys, 3 girls, then, I think.

That reminds me, I was supposed to review Beach House (and the whole Bella Union gig) but I've completley forgotten. Eep! Got a lot to write this weekend. Oh! And interview A Sunny Day In Glasgow - now there is my dream nu-gaze band. More sisters in bands, pls.

you sure you saw them? sm is like 4 dudes and occasionally 2 girls - sometimes with a dude filling in for one of the girls.

Yes, I am sure I saw them. It was at Sonic Cathedrals. A year ago, maybe more. I distinctly remember 2 girls and a third person of indiscriminate gender.

Female bassist who must be yr Nico lookalike, female keyboardist, and the singer I couldn't tell. (I thought there might have been a female drummer, but that might have been a different band from the same night.)

yeah they don't have a female drummer.

Yes, I just checked w/Nat and it was May of last year.

http://a840.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/00674/93/80/674260839_l.gif

Ha ha, I wrote them off as a haircut band at the time, because the sound at the Legion was so bad.

did you see dead meadow the week before?

did you buy your dream machine ticket yet?

No, I missed Dead Meadow... I think I was drinking next door with the Texan? Emsk went and said it was GRATE.

No I still haven't bought my Dream Machine ticket yet because FMM agreed to go with me, and now it looks like she is going to wimp out and ARGH, I don't even own a tent so I need a festival veteran to go with me. Unless there's a B&B nearby? I have no idea. Lynch has pissed off to Thailand or wherever this week and it's so hard to get any real info out of him, he just twiddles his beard mysteriously and says "IT WILL ALL WORK OUT..."

dead meadow are fucking awesome, i should go try and find the cdr i have of their new album. they are gonna be in the uk next month, btw.

yeah i finally got it together to try to get back in touch with lynch and dammit of course he's gone.

You should come anyway, it's going to be totally awesome.

I think I am actually going to SET UP a Paypal account (I have tried twice before and been DENIED.) to get a ticket for myself. Sod my loser friends and their banjo altercations. ;-)

Ah! Emsk will be happy Dead Meadow are coming back, I'll tell her. We'll go to that.

i have no money. the only way i am possibly going is if lynch pays for my ticket.

Dead Meadow are playing Green Man, really looking forward to that!

'kinell, Paypal, STILL won't let me sign up. Bah!

He just might...

I'm sure they can find a way to get you here. Have Rog sell one of his 47 million vintage guitars to raise the money. ;-)

i wish dead meadow was playing the dream machine.

i wish i had stolen rog's expensive telecaster that got stolen here in january so i could sell it to go to the dream machine.

don't tell him i said that btw.

what is dream machine?

I am soooo telling him it was you wot nicked it. Ha ha. He's already bought another one.

Speaking of people what don't answer their email... trying to get him to fill in on 12-string at our next gig. Even Sande answers her email quicker than him. :-(

Why paypal? It just doesn't work for me. I was all WHY CAN'T I JUST GIVE YOU THE CASH but no. Blinkin' 'hippies.

x-post Dream Machine is a private psychedelic festival on an island somewhere put on by Beardy John what does lights for Sonic Cathedral and tour manages teh Early Yares and Yndi Halda and other folks. It's the same weekend as Reading which is why no one will go.

rog's even worse with the phone.

Pretty pumped for seeing Dead Meadow! Only watched half a show from the back of the room before, need to fix that

Bloody guitarists and their lack of social skills...

Oh wait.

(Just kidding. He knows I love and want to marry his guitar collection his MS-20 him.)

omg you want to marry rog? he's like the neil to dave's rik to phil's vivian to brendan's mike. or something.

He has, like 8 million vintage jazzmasters and old Gretsches and early 70s telecasters and voxes and Korgs and fuzzboxes, oh my! He looks like a cross between Sonic Boom and Jack Kerouac! He's one of the few guitarists I know that I'll actually admit is better than me! He owns more stripey shirts than... I don't know, Dennis the Menace! He's got MORE PEDALS THAN ME. No boys have more pedals than me. I'm totally impressed.

Wait, this is embarrassing. You're gonna tell him! OK, he totally already knows unless he is stupid. But sshhhh, I'm gonna get all embarrassed and turn red.

Omigod, I'm totally blushing now. 8-0

He looks like a cross between Sonic Boom and Jack Kerouac!

now this is going way too far.

It's the same weekend as Reading which is why no one will go.

DOES NOT COMPUTE.

also, on a nu-gaze tip, anyone heard sonicflyer? fucking ace dreampop set at latitude, they did.

You're just jealous. :-P

He's totally got that kind of dirty dronerock boy crossed with a beatnik vibe. And lovely brown suede shoes. And a jazzmaster, god he's got a '65 jazzmaster, the jammy bastard!

Except when he's come from work and ha ha, we both work in banking, but he's got to wear a SUIT and I don't. It's his own fault, he always used to bounce up to me in clubs and go "you're that girl off the TELLY" which was totally flattering.

OK, I'm going to shut up now because this is so gonna get back to him now and then he'll never talk to me or pose for drawings for me ever again and I'll never be able to show my shoes at Sonic Cathedral again.

x-post Chuck, people I know be WORKING at Reading, yeah?

I like me Dead Meadow.

It's interesting how much of gaze has sublimated into metal. And a band like the Angelic Process:

http://www.myspace.com/theangelicprocess

...captures what Kate is talking about. Two people, man/woman, both sing. They've been getting PTW/Stylus attention and deservedly so.

Ooh, that sounds interesting - wish I could listen to MySpace at work.

I always said 'gaze and metal were much closer than people gave them credit for - they are both genres that really pay attention to the *texture* of guitar.

FMM just wrote an article for Terroriser about the influence of Krautrock on Metal - you wouldn't think there would be any, right? But she got all these people like Jesu to talk about it and it is actually there.

dude ned i think "old growth" might be their best yet.

Indeed? Very good, I'll keep an eye out for it.

Has anyone heard Paik? They're from Detroit originally and they've been around for ten years or so. A friend of mine introduced me to them last week and I'm totally enthralled with a couple of their albums, esp. "Corridors." I would describe it as, "Hey, someone put math rock in my shoegaze." Actually, the thing I like best about them is that they don't merely use lots of effects but properly employ the Kevin Shields slamming the whammy bar on your Jaguar/Jazzmaster style of playing, but within a different context. All instrumental. Highly recommended.

Paik = fantastic. Reviewed a few albums for the AMG, seen them live at least twice if not more. Whenever they start playing a set my brain shuts off, it's just that loud and great. That said a more 'mathy' band in that vein would be the almighty Kinski, probably.

Problem is, too often "mathsy" = DUDEISH.

FMM just wrote an article for Terroriser about the influence of Krautrock on Metal - you wouldn't think there would be any, right? But she got all these people like Jesu to talk about it and it is actually there.

There was a thread about this like a week ago or so! (Also that's great that Terrorizer got Frances to write something)

New Kinski is pretty good, more straight-ahead/thudrocky than their stuff before maybe

Yeah, I saw that thread. I wondered if it was her, but no. Thing is, whoever asked the question was all "no hawkwind!" but a lot of metalers who like krautrock said they actually got exposed to krautrock through Hawkwind.

Problem is, too often "mathsy" = DUDEISH.

True. That said, Kinski's bassist is female, so.

Women can be dudeish. ;-)

OK, I don't know what I'm talking about any more, and I just took more codeine for my back so I'm not gonna make much more sense for a while.

Dude, the bass player in Paik for years was a woman.

See? Bill just called me a dude! ;-)

OK, I guess this is all above board and legal now and we're supposed to publicise it.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1350/1037934075_a023bb027a_o.jpg

Paik are great!

x-post -- Hippies.

Feck awf, it's gonna be great. We got a B&B and everything ! No camping with dirty hippies for us. Wah hey!

A vast improvement!

Oh god, I'm so ashamed of myself for all that blatant lust upthread. He will never speak to me again. :-(

It's weird, it's sooo blokeish. But most of the organisers are women!