Belly - "Untogether": Classic or Dud?

her voice is heartbreaking on this song. Definitely a highlight of a tremendous album.

come on, tanya's voice wasn't all fo nothin, fer sher

aaargh! i went with the bump xpost cus the timing was too great :-) heartbreaking...

It is a great song -- one of those Belly compositions that actually evoked the same sad, sweet, mysterious sexual vastation at the heart of lots of Throwing Muses.

yes! i'm putting it on again

wow... that syrupy nostalgia feel is really somethin. with what is that, the banjo? no, no - what is that 2nd string?

so, so classic. One of the sort of holy trinity of wistful, high-pitched, accoustic, vaguely inebriated-sounding female-sang early-90s alt-rock, along with The Sundays' "Here Where the Story Ends" and Mazzy Star's "Fade Into You".

Why does no one want to sound like this anymore?

here's where the story ends is pretty beautiful

i don't know that it quite touches this song tho, a little too stylized?

umm... Untogether vs. Low Red Moon (that's the title right?)

i mean i have to go w/ the latter, too amazing

There is so much to love about Star, all that Grimm-brothers sinister prettiness. Untogether is grebt of course, but Stay is the perfect closer.

it's been way too long since i've heard this record, but i remember the kickers being 'stay', 'someone to die for' and 'full moon empty heart'. there really isn't a mediocre song here though let alone a bad one

it's a shame she fell so far into dollar bin territory with her solo stuff. surely she has another record like this inside her..

i know, that's what i keep hoping. it's so strange how different this is from her later solo albums. i <3 Slow Dog

gonna put this on at work today :)

Ah, the usual suspects ;)

yeah, we need our own I Love Tanya, Kim and Kristin board :-)

oh, man..im gonna have to find my tape of this....i loved it at the time and may still do. sure the market got kinda flooded, but where did this sort of sound go. godd questionxpost

I don't think she had the talent for much more than two good to excellent Belly albums (which is fine with me).

it's true, xp

i actually have this on tape! i later bought the CD for longevity but i relish my tape days with these girls.

come on alfred, have you heard Lovsongs for Underdogs?

that whole thing is beautiful.

I had this on tape too, copied from the local library. Don't worry, I bought it eventually, and two copies of King (which I also love, in a very different way, and think is underrated), and various singles...

I pretty much lived inside Star for much of my early teens. This was my first favourite track, but after a while something began to grate about it and I think it actually ended up my least favourite, while Stay was my next choice for favourite. I loved them all, though. So beautifully creepy and alienated. I haven't put it on in years but will still often think of the lyrics from it.

In an interview Tanya said they didn't know how to sequence the tracks at all so they just went slow track - fast track as far as they could, and it works pretty much perfectly for me.

("This" = Untogether, as in thread title)

I'll tell you what's a great unheralded Belly song: "Spaceman."

AHHH! so my ancient cassette of this just got mangled in my cassette deck (should have known better) any chance anyone could upload this and email me?

btw: demos on her site:
http://www.tanyadonelly.com/mp3s.html

thanks bb, am downloading now. excited by this :"They were originally meant to be the second Breeders album, so Kim plays on a couple. "

uh oh

hmm i can prolly upload at home... will try later. sorry to hear bout your tape :/

ahhh, nature of the format. the hilarious thing is the cover i made. its a crop of janet jackson's belly from a rolling stone cover with carefully and drawn belly logo and a big black star over janets navel

digging the demos, but really want to hear untogether

haaaaa, janet!

ok i can definitely send you untogether at least, in a bit.

this is also so nostalgic for me, this album -- it really marked a spot in my childhood, like nothing else could've. nice to have that.

no hueg thing, but if someone can send the album my way, id be a thrill.

i saw belly twice. once fer free in the park in albany on mothers day and they killed. they were a force live. second time was with catherine wheel (they did some song together as an encore, not just the catherine wheel number she did back up on, but another) and a not yet world-known jewel opening. jewel was utterly agonizing, but i recall tanya strutting the stage in a red gown and just destroying with a heavy take on low red moon. catherine wheel then took the roof off with a 20 minute take on "black metalic"

and yes, entirely nostalgic. star is a strange mix of sexuality and powerful femininity. that fun little balance between strong and sweet.

can upload the album in a few hours, if still needed...

just destroying with a heavy take on low red moon.

i would kill

creepy it just came on

yeah, thinking back on it now is pretty thrilling...it was entrancing, almost like a (ride's) "dreams burn down" kinda of heavy, but with tanya belting into the sky. i recall running into people the next day and it was all we caould try to talk about...which is hilarious to think of now.

it would be awesome if either of you could up it! ill be out most of the afternoon, but would really appreciate the surprise of finding it upon my return

wow

what is untogether about? old friends? it's quite intense

bb, did you receive my (ilxor-assisted) mail?

Ha, I remember in high school the starting quarterback going on and on about this song to me. I had kind of missed it amidst all the other greatness on Star, but I remember going home and playing it and yeah the quarterback was right.

LOL what?? that's so random

we didn't have quarterbacks like that at my highschool... :/

"White Belly" is the song that always gets me from this album. You know, gets me right there.

Yeah, I like this thread. It's time to appreciate this excellent record again.

That was some hurricane
Rode in on the back of a heart attack
Made a mistake on a fire escape in San Francisco
Made my way back in a hallway in L.A.
Put on your black dress,
Float on your back.

The details elude me, but this poor girl has definitely Gone Bad. :(

such a great song

I might have to dig this LP out - the spine is white, right? (Albums are not organised). Such a drop off after this debut; I even sold my copy (fancy limited hardback A5 book) of the second album cos I couldn't imagine ever going back to it (I rarely sell records).

Belly were great the two occasions I saw them - in Liverpool and Leicester in '92. In L'pool, took a nice photo of Tanya at the bar only for some curly-headed geezer to photobomb me at the last minute, shoving his gormless mug into shot. Last frame on the film too. They did "Green" from the Muses debut - heartstopping stuff. In Leicester, Leslie Langston played bass...still have the autographs somewhere, sad little fan boy that I was/am.

Got it! Green and purple spine - would never have guessed...

Hm only ever heard "Feed the Tree" off this one and it never did much for me, so never investigated further... good idea to reconsider it seems?

"Green" is !?!? amazingness, and what made me buy the 1st Muses album back then after hearing it on the radio.

yup green and purple

Feed The Tree is the weakest track on the album

yr mad

"Star" in its entirety rules! I love this particular strain of early 90s girl-fronted indie rock (in the best possible sense of the term). It evokes a very clear sense of that time, allthough my sense of it is probably not very accurate. I'm not able to expand on that..

"Stay" is fading out now.. Ah what a great band.

this is one of the more unique albums i have ever listened to, and one of the best

I never cottoned to their sophomore album, it just paled in comparison at the time.

Revisit it. we'll help!

yeah King is phenomenal

This seems to be the only Belly thread as such, so! Reunion for this year, shows in the US/UK.

http://bellyofficial.com/

Site's overloading so:

Belly is very happy to announce that we will be reuniting to play some shows this coming summer in the US and the UK. Dates will be announced as they are confirmed, but right now we can tell you with relative confidence that the UK shows will fall in the middle of July, and US shows will be scattered throughout August and possibly into September.

We’ve also got a handful of brand new Belly songs in various stages of writing and recording, that we’ll be releasing one by one over the next few months. First previews will be right here on the website!

In the meantime… new swag! We’ve got a couple beautiful new t’s and other extras designed by Chris Gorman, with more to come.

Please keep checking this site, as we will be updating it regularly with news and information (and music).

We are very excited to be playing together again, and hope to see you out there in Summer of 2016!

sometimes I think Star is better than anything KH ever did.

Mmm, "Star" vs "Hips And Makers", that's a tough one.

aaahhh UK dates aahhhh

I never got to see them live (too young when I was obsessed with them, or so I thought, then they split up) and I was so so jealous when a later same-aged classmate had a Belly tour sweatshirt

maybe 19 years later I can finally get myself a Belly tour sweatshirt

First Lush, now these guys - 2016 is making the 90s me very very happy.

I really love 'king', but I only discovered it last year.

I saw Belly on both of their original US tours, and got my Star CD signed by all four members after their show at Peabody's Down Under in Cleveland. Very, very excited about this! Plus I tweeted this yesterday and got a "Like" from Lush:

https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/12662504_10207671222715310_2135803939436637204_n.jpg?oh=4416c0aea6b1cf989945cca2c8a89a2f&oe=576912F5

Yeah, now if we can just will Harriet and Dave to get their act together I'll be in heaven.

for a) people who are really excited for this b) people who are snarking about constant '90s reunions

a) tanya donelly released a series of EPs over the past few years and they are very, very good
b) maybe if people had, like, paid any attention to that fact, then this would be different

I'm very fond of her solo work. Which I think has mostly gotten progressively better.

And I would never snark about '90s acts reuiniting as long as it isn't just a nostalgia-heavy cash in (which I don't really have time for regardless of band or era).

oh, sure, wasn't addressing anyone in this thread so much as The Conversation

How good are those new EPs? I was only barely aware of their existence, I didn't really enjoy This Hungry Life and I was under the impression she had given up music to become a doula.

they're quite good although if you didn't like This Hungry Life I don't know whether you'll like them. at any rate, there are five of them, all on her bandcamp: https://tanyadonelly.bandcamp.com/album/swan-song-series-vol-1

(in retrospect, apologies for dragging in outside... I don't even know what to call it. I think of it as slime, Internet slime that sticks to the skin. it just infuriates me how, unless you've been designated an Important Legacy Act, the music press, critics and that general diaspora consistently ignores the actual new output by these acts, and then mocks them once they do the one thing that gets their attention!)

'90s indie rock stars really should just be content to keep working as paralegals and yoga instructors.

i actually needed a reminder to finally listen to the swan song series, so thanks katherine

So I had been planning to buy tickets to the Belly show at the 9:30 in DC, when they announced a show in Chicago. It's at the Vic Theater on Sept. 17, the day before the Lush show at the same venue. So now I have tickets for both of those.

so

So. That sounds like a pretty cool pair of nights to the version of me that still has the energy for shows.

Classic

Got tix to see Belly perform a "warmup" show Friday night for the upcoming reunion tour. It will be at a small club (150 max) in Newport, RI. They're playing there Saturday, too.

I see 4AD is re-releasing Star on vinyl this month, too... swirly colored vinyl looks nice.

I am going tomorrow night and I am soooo excited

They were great. The show I saw was intended to be an open rehearsal, but they played through every song perfectly.

Went to last night's show at The Vic in Chicago, it was terrific. The were super tight as a band, but also funny and loose on stage and having the time of their lives. Chris and Tom Gorman's parents were there at the show, watching from the balcony level.

For this tour (the last night of which is tonight in Minneapolis), they're forgoing having an opener and playing 2 sets with a ten-minute break in between, plus a 2-song encore. (Before they started playing, alluding to the fact that Riot Fest was going on this weekend (including sets by Sleater-Kinney and Morrissey), Tanya said, "Thanks for coming out tonight, I know you had a lot of other options." Someone in the audience shouted "FUCK MORRISSEY!" and after a pregnant pause I turned around and shouted back, "Don't count on it!" which got a huge laugh.)

I took a ton of photos -- here's a good one of Tanya and you can see the whole set here.

https://scontent.ford1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14317375_10209602031944334_7075146040471953843_n.jpg?oh=e6e78112fe12bfbefea4abb38c3da2f4&oe=5838B1A3

Set list:

https://scontent.ford1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-0/s526x395/14330078_10157316411755408_4872588797258596397_n.jpg?oh=a17d7c112f8f0ea665bf25607022e9af&oe=5875EF08

dope!!

Also, Gail Greenwood wore a Cubs tank top and told the crowd, "You're welcome for Theo Epstein."

The were super tight as a band, but also funny and loose on stage and having the time of their lives

this is exactly how I felt about seeing them, Greenwood was a lot of fun on stage. Also a two hour set with no support act really worked.

New tune from the upcoming record: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH14dKCsLxM

low red moon is the best song Tonya Donnelly ever recorded

Now They’ll Sleep imo

low red moon is incredible. star is one of the great great guitar albums.

<3

I've listened to both Star and King within the last few weeks, I go back to those as much as almost any '90s indie rock records, and more than most.

bummed i didn't get tix for The Breeders/Belly at The Greek Theater, Berkeley, which is tonight. Thought we'd be seeing Bruce in December so resisted doing both, then lagged on planning this out when BS had to cancel shows. Boo! @ me!!

your information is incorrect, they are playing the Warfield in San Francisco tonight.
The Breeders just added a second show at the Chapel tomorrow, although Belly is not listed as the opener: https://folkyeah.com/#/the-breeders-san-francisco-1024

https://www.thewarfieldtheatre.com/events/detail/491459

xpost, i was going by faulty memory. you are correct sir. still wish i had a ticky. wait, where did Shakey come from? hello!!

**ck!! wish i were nearer, i'd go in a hearbeat to either/and or both

Shakey, there was another show added tomorrow at The Chapel but the price is hilarious and I'm not sure if Belly is playing with.

lol, i didn't scroll down far enough before posting!

Spoiler Alert: Tanya is involved with quite a bit of the Breeders (righfully as she was a member) later show numbers.

(I'm going tonight fwiw)

Color my fast fading heart