mogwai, i never got em

YOUNG TEAM

always sounded like a half-arsed slint tribute band

this is a massive and overplayed fallacy. sure there's the occasional similarity but I find the actual music to be very different. slint weren't particularly hot on synths and effects-pedal mayhem, for instance. slint were after something far sparser, far more distant, ugly and bewildering, with far more emotional insecurity and panic. mogwai want to drown you in bliss and slay you with heaviness. there's emotion there but it's controlled.

'slightly more trad rock structures' is completely WRONG when it comes to an MBV or Bark Psychosis comparison, if you're talking song-structure. If you're talking instrumentation, you might have a point, but I suspect you're not.

yeah i have listened to it. all very samey, actually forgot which tracks were which.

I don't know about the rest of you, But I've never though of Mogwai to be tangentially related to MBV, or shoegazey at all. Nor have I thought they were like Bark Psychosis either. I love Mogwai, but mind you, I haven't given more than half a thought to post-happy songs Mogwai,. Also, I've been a big Mogwai fan since I was 14, an thus my, shall we say critical appreciation, for them is limited, possibly because of the more palatable nature of their music. On the other hand, "Mogwai Fear Satan" is an amazing romp of an all time favourite song, to name one example.

maybe i haven't heard the more freaky, out-there stuff, but that slowly playing notes in minor chords over slow, clunky beats then rocking out is soooo slint. not saying they're awful, just a bit dull.

"never though of Mogwai to be tangentially related to MBV, or shoegazey at all."

hmmm...one of their biggest influences is meant to be "isn't anything"

shoegazing is a silly term anyway, tbh

also, the term "post-rock" fills me with dread
also, mogwai were never shoegaze
also, some of their melodies and textures are out of this world. i'm gonna suggest a mixtape in a second.

if you can't tell the difference between 'tracy' and 'mogwai fear satan' then i have no hope for you

mehlt OTM, save for the fact that of all 'Gwai songs, MFS is perhaps the one I've most grown out of.

pc user, get their best two albums, rock action and happy songs. far more synthy and varied than the first two, also much shorter. awesome range of styles.

My all-time faves are "R U Still In 2 It" and "Dial: Revenge". I'm a rucker for their mopey-songs-with-vocals stuff.

(see also: "Take Me Somewhere Nice", probably Dave Fridmann's finest hour)

and by "rucker" I meant sucker.

"pc user, get their best two albums, rock action and happy songs. far more synthy and varied than the first two, also much shorter. awesome range of styles."

i have heard those records

mogwai obvs came after shoegaze and post rock, but always sounded like they were just picking various bits of more innovative bands and making it easier to digest.

suppose what i'm getting at is if you just wanna rock out there is better stuff for that, and if you wanna hear some mind-blowing experimental guitar stuff there is waaaay better stuff than them.

MOGWAI - Classic or Dud?

let's have a new one tho, eh?

I only posted that (it was mine) as my initial question on that thread mirrored yours.

I like "Hugh Dallas" off that Matador comp. Could never get into YT or CODY so I gave up.

mogwai mixtape

1) Yes! I Am A Long Way From Home (5:57)
2) CODY (6:33)
3) Year 2000 Non-Compliant Cardia (3:25)
4) Kids Will Be Skeletons (5:27)
5) Folk Death 95 (3:34)
6) Tracy (7:19)
7) Stanley Kubrick (4:19)
8) New Paths To Helicon 1 (BBC version) (8:13)
9) Ratts Of The Capital (8:25)
10) Waltz For Aidan (3:44)
11) Ex-Cowboy (9:09)
12) 2 Right Make 1 Wrong (9:31)

Really, Rock Action needs to be listened to in one piece, which is why only one of its songs features here. It happens to be their very best song (IMO). Well, that and "Kids Will Be Skeletons".

suppose what i'm getting at is if you just wanna rock out there is better stuff for that, and if you wanna hear some mind-blowing experimental guitar stuff there is waaaay better stuff than them.

despite what i've said in their defence there is a lot of truth to this statement. mogwai were for me the gateway drug, however, and i will always treasure them for this.

With pc user around I will never be ILX's worst poster.

i am tempted to think pc user is somebody's conceptual side-project

With pc user around I will never be ILX's worst poster.

-- wanko ergo sum, Sunday, 16 December 2007 19:44

cause i'll be giving you tips on how to up your game.

thank me later

everything starts and end with Young Team,and it's hard to believe they will ever make again anything of sagnificent

At this point they're the sort of band that consistently puts forward solid releases without much use for "significance". I'm OK with that.

ok but they are boring

At this point they're the sort of band that consistently puts forward solid releases without much use for "significance". I'm OK with that.

-- Simon H., Sunday, 16 December 2007

definition of boring.

they are not strange enough. there's nothing uncanny about them.

primary colour emotions, innit.

Again, PC user has a point, in that their songs are often emotionally straightforward. Frequently, they're so beautiful or apocalyptic that this doesn't really matter. 2 Rights actually employs a genuine emotional progression, which is why it works so stunningly as a piece of music. Their albums need to be listened to as a whole for the required effect, which is something I rarely do nowadays.

definition of boring.

Not everybody I listen to can constantly be innovating, changing things up (although yes, the majority should). I need a few "comfort" bands. I see nothing wrong with this.

we are in 2008 next month.
mogwai are trying to stretch the 90's towards the present.
repeating the formula again and again...

otm. Mogwai's genre is not a time-tested 'comfort' genre. It's basically a relic.

"time-tested"? whatever. I find them comforting. chasing what's newest can be a fool's errand at times. (and I listen to tons and tons of new music.)

another thing is, that lots of great bands are/were making the mogwai thing, but better and/or more interesting.

(slint at least knew when to quit, and became a legend)

also what is more "time-tested" than four blokes with guitars? gimme a break.

x-p

Oh - I was all set to roll my sleeves up and charge in on this thread. But to be honest I'm don't really recognise the descriptions of the folks praising them or the folks criticising them.

I quite like them but I have lots of problems with them too, their smugness, their musical complacency, their limited set of influences (and the obviously includes MBV and more specifically the bit in you made me realise when that noise happens and the world implodes and every member of the audience has their psyche destroyed more effectively than any brainwashing cult could do - thetan cleared indeed.)

So Mogwai aren't as good as MBV or Slint, but they can kick up a glorious guitar abuse racket on occasion - and that's fun enough.

They may not be in the top ten bands ever (or even the top ten bands from Glasgow ever) but almost all of their albums are worth the money, and a night at a Mogwai concert is rarely a night wasted.

"and a night at a Mogwai concert is rarely a night wasted"

except for wasting some listening ability...

verse-chorus-verse, jangle, you know. xp yeah sorry about 'time-tested' i'm old.

" have lots of problems with them too, their smugness, their musical complacency, their limited set of influences "

=boring.

Again, PC user has a point, in that their songs are often emotionally straightforward. Frequently, they're so beautiful or apocalyptic that this doesn't really matter. 2 Rights actually employs a genuine emotional progression, which is why it works so stunningly as a piece of music. Their albums need to be listened to as a whole for the required effect, which is something I rarely do nowadays.

-- Just got offed, Sunday, December 16, 2007 3:05 PM (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

I agree with this completely.

pc user, get their best two albums, rock action and happy songs. far more synthy and varied than the first two, also much shorter. awesome range of styles.

oh my god we are the same person! those are easily the best 2 albums mogwai has ever done, i keep telling people that and they are still like YOUNGTEAMYOUNGTEAMYOUNGTEAM - which is good and all, but the hype should have settled down on that one because mogwai got better than that.

i like your mixtape but any mogwai best-of (that i'm a part of) has to include "Friend of the Night" which for me is their best song, at the end when the piano line repeats in the final "chorus" part and it gets all MBV-noisy in the background - utterly sublime, i get goosebumps whenever i play it loud, and i choked up when i heard it live a couple years ago. in my eyes, a masterpiece.

gotta play it loud though!

Rock Action is, I think, their best album.

I'll agree with that. Each albums has its moments, but Rock Action is the most solid effort, start to finish.

Get Ten Rapid, which has a very satisfactory amount of rock action. Rock Action, however, has almost none.

That's actually kind of why I like Rock Action - it's very sparing with the "rock" stuff and very generous on the pretty, melodic side of things, which is ultimately the one I prefer. Also, I'm a huge Gruff Rhys geek, which helps.

" have lots of problems with them too, their smugness, their musical complacency, their limited set of influences "

=boring.

Actually no. in fact it is rarely the case

i liked come on die young, personally. they were very very loud live when last i saw them (five years ago?) the blur: are shite shirts were classic. wish i still had mine

Get Ten Rapid, which has a very satisfactory amount of rock action. Rock Action, however, has almost none.

LOL IRONY

For the most part, I'm siding with the RA/HSFHP camp, but I've gotta spread some love for some of their pre-YT records, particularly: "Superheroes of BMX," which has a low end whallop that hits harder than much "extreme metal" and without all the growly vocals, noodly guitar solos & comic book affectations (not that there's anything wrong with that). And, for the record, "Summer" > "Mogwai Fear Satan" - that extended xylophone/bass coda kills me.

BTW, I still sport my "Blur: Are Shite" T-shirt, threadbare and motheaten as it may be.

i don't think they ever bettered their first half dozen singles (particularly summer and helicon), but this is the sort of opinion i tend to sport

helicon 2 is an amazing track, with nary a hint of mbv or slint in sight

you know i can probably tolerate their early stuff (pre-young team) more,
quite like "superheroes of bmx".

BTW, I still sport my "Blur: Are Shite" T-shirt, threadbare and motheaten as it may be.

-- Pillbox, Sunday, 16 December 2007 22:58

see, i thought that was all a bit smug and attention seeking.

surely that was the point though

not that i was terribly impressed by the whole thing. i quite like it when bands slag other bands, it's entertaining.. but at the same time it's so often used as a last ditch effort to wring some notoriety out of an otherwise unremarkable band. which arguably mogwai really didn't need to be doing at that particular point. it's not like blur were likely to respond and it's not likely to have lost (or indeed gained) mogwai many fans either

they are really loud live, right? that's something. i guess. um, good for them!

see, i thought that was all a bit smug and attention seeking.

Yeah, it was certainly a prick move, but I appreciate the audacity of it. I don't remember exactly how the story goes, but didn't Mogwai have the first round of those shirts printed up for sale while they were on tour opening for Blur in retaliation for what they perceived to be condescending treatment from Albarn, etc.? I actually really like Blur, more than Mogwai I think, but from what I've read/seen/heard, they have an ever-so-slightly inflated sense of self-importance so, in the end, I think their smugness easily trumps that of Mogwai, shirt or no shirt.

"helicon 2 is an amazing track, with nary a hint of mbv or slint in sight"

Erm, Helicon 2 is the most MBV-ish song Mogwai do, the loud bit with the repeated three descending chords is page one in the MBV play book.

The quiet bit sounds like big country though.

I guess I'm more thinking of comparisons of both bands live, and MBV's fondness for doing 10 minute one chord soundstorms which are more Mogwai's epics like Fear Satan... Actually MBV's soundstorms are more like the gates of hell bursting open...

on preview: the t-shirts were when Blur headlined T in the Park and Mogwai had a mid-day in a tent slot. The bands had never meet and none of Blur had shown any awareness of them, never mind condescended to them. From what I hear, it would be rather ironic if Braithwaite et al were complaining about the treatment of support bands.

I've always wanted one of the "Scottish Guitar Army" t-shirts.

i remember listening to 'ep + 2' while driving twenty miles with my dad in the car. i'm pretty sure he didn't like it. i listened to it a lot for a while though. i know i still love 'young teamn', which came to me after 'rock action," which i'm not really sure about.

i saw them live a few years later and

BOOOOORRRRRING

i am tempted to think pc user is somebody's conceptual side-project

-- wanko ergo sum, Sunday, December 16, 2007 7:46 PM

nearly agree. properly obnoxious, but not nearly subtle enough to be a piss-take.

boring guff shit

they're alright
but they haven't done anything that hasn't been done in a more interesting and better way by somebody else.
'rock action' was underrated, however, and 'young team' is very solid
but like i commented on another thread, pretty average

this pc user is on some next shit.

listen and learn.

Give yourself an uppercut, cockhead.

they are not strange enough. there's nothing uncanny about them.

This is pretty much how they've struck me over the years. They never seem to reach out in any way. Vin Ordinaire artrock.

Who's more entryist, Mogwai or Sigur Ros?

Give yourself an uppercut, cockhead.

-- King Boy Pato, Monday, December 17, 2007 10:43 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

you started a war you can't afford, numbnuts.

Friend Of The Night is the second-best track on Mr. Beast (after Folk Death 95). The others are decidedly mediocre. I remember hearing FOTN on their Myspace before relase and being immensely excited. When it turned out to be both the second a) -best and b) -longest song on the record, I was most aggrieved.

The more I think about it, the more it becomes clear that Young Team is their worst pre-Beast studio album. It had insane pinnacles, yes, but subsequent albums filtered out some of the unnecessary padding. Rock Action is a masterpiece. Happy Songs also (pretty much). Many people think of CODY as a great album whose songs don't really stand out from one another, flowing instead as one seamless being. I'm not entirely sure about this, myself.

It's true that I don't really listen to much Mogwai these days. At school I'd make an enormous point of having Mogwai and Blur as my two favourite bands. Nobody got why this was at all ironic.

rock action has to be one of the dullest albums i've ever bought. i only bought it cuz hearing about mogwai for so long finally got to me. what a dud.

"average". "ordinary". that about sums it up for me. not BAD or HORRIBLE, just bleh. and a pale imitation of everything they are imitating. i leave their fans alone though. for the most part. it's like picking on buffalo tom fans. or eels fans. or silkworm fans. there is no fun in it.

well there's a reason i don't listen to them much any more, despite me fondly remembering them as 'masterpieces' from my earlier youth. that reason being folks like yourself have introduced me to far cooler shit :D

i think if mogwai opened up your ears to new sounds and noises than they served a very useful purpose. and that's why i don't go out of my way to put them down. i think their heart is in the right place. i probably dig a lot of the same things that they dig. music-wise.

Christ, I'm all set to wade into a Mogwai thread and I see a dig at Silkworm fans. I'm outta here.

see, they're just so sensitive. can you imagine if i were really being mean?

and i really do try. i even have a bumper sticker on my car that says *Be Kind To The Bland* on it.

we must imprison them in a cell and feed them avant-garde metal until they crack

and hey for what's it worth i bought 3 godspeed albums once upon a time. i am not immune to mountain-climbing crescendo rock. or shoegeezery. or track suits.

i even hyped godspeed mightily AND THEN NEVER LISTENED TO THEM AGAIN:

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0052,seward,21008,22.html

i'm only human. flesh and blood. a man.

I am, of course, mostly joking--I think Silkworm fans at this point pretty much accept the hopelessness of their situation and move on. Someday, some of you will see the light. I had to listen to Firewater on and off for two years before I did.

The strength to defend the very-good-but-rarely-great Mogwai has, however, left me entirely.

shoegeezery

"riposte-rock"

I have every GY!BE album but that's another thread :-/

Basically, this entire thread has been one long handwringing session entitled "Why I'm Over Mogwai But Am Loath To Attack Them".

Face it, Stereophonics > Mogwai

Mogwai are definitely a gateway band, but thin&meek&uninspiring&I don't feel any nostalgia, just a sense of wasted time. This is not reflected in the quality of their merchandise however, which I have found to be EXCELLENT.

can we please discuss how mogwai live >>>>>> mogwai on record next?

mogwai live are too loud for me, but they are good.
but explosions in the sky are a much better live post rock band if u ask me.

louis: you might think you're over them. you're not. none of us are. one day, as i discovered recently, they may well return to your life when you least expect it and you will be knocked on your fucking arse.

i adore them. but then i also adore M83 and polly scattergood, which means i'm plouging a VERY lonely furrow on ILM. care-bloody-ometer.jpg ;)

can we please discuss how mogwai live >>>>>> mogwai on record next?

also, yes, this. 2 rights at camber sands, the time they played sunday lunchtime. probably the closest i've come to a spiritual experience in my entire life. if anyone sniggers at that, i will fight them to a bloody death.

see i like m83. there's definitely something there with them, they've taken cues from stuff like MBV and made it sound a bit more solid and glossy with whatever tech they're using, updated it. there's a pop element in there i find really fresh in that context.

I love Christmas Steps/Xmas Steps. I love "Come on Die Young."

I clicked on this thread thinking "88 posts on Mogwai in '08?".

The only thing I've heard by them that I like is that version of Alvenu Malkenu.

haha, scott. i read that review back in the day. i bought the record. i haven't listened in years. also, i don't buy that you did your homework before you blazed.

with their early stuff at least, the quiet bits are nice, but the noisy bits are: shit. 'like herod', case in point. i don't hear any mbv in their to be honest, though i do remember at college the indie dj once played out -- i guess this was hearsay, but i'm told -- the kevin shields remix of 'fear satan'. which was marginally more interesting than his remix of that hurricane #1 record, facing it.

the Government Commissions version of Like Herod is several times better than the album one. when i first heard it i sat there stunned.

Agreed. The Evening Session version of Like Herod perhaps edges out Fear Satan as my favourite Mogwai track. It's immense.

ysi

I must be in the strange few who can't hear Slint or any MBV, too than. And I listened to some of Rock Action (what I could take), and it just seemed like a really bad indie rock album to me. Though I loved Happy Songs...

i do warn you in advance that it is the noisiest thing mogwai have ever done, with the possible exceptions of "with portfolio" and "stereodee"

xp

It's on the Government Commissions album, as mentioned above.

top 5 most ear-shattering mogwai moments on disc:

1) like herod (govt. commissions)
2) with portfolio (owwwwwwww make it stop)
3) stereodee (includes mogwai's first and only venture into disco O_o)
4) ex-cowboy (death by vacuum-cleaner)
5) superheroes of bmx (ep version)