POX Archers of Loaf

Is there really not an AOL poll or POX or anything but the reunion thread!? That seems weird. I have to think about mine. Tis funny: they're not my favorite band in the world or anything, but picking ten of their tracks is harder (for me) than for a lot of bands that I like better. I think at one point or another, every song from Vee Vee, most of the first album and most of the compilation have been favorites. Lately I'm even coming around to White Trash Heroes a bit, which seemed unthinkable at one time.

Off the top of my head, I've got:

Web In Front
Wrong
South Carolina
Tatyana
Assassination on Xmas Eve
One Slight Wrong Move

...and then like every track off of Vee Vee. And maybe more. Hmmmm.

Wow, actually going back to Vee Vee now and it sounds so surprisingly good. Wouldn't want to get into a Pavement vs. AOL argument, but sonically there's really no question.

I was WORLD'S GREATEST ARCHERS FAN for about ten straight years, so this is close to impossible for me. I don't spin those discs now as much as I used to, but I still remember every millisecond of every album pretty well.

I'll have to think about this some

I loved loved loved Vee Vee. Haven't listened to it much in over a decade, but they were a hell of a band. There aren't too many good guitar bands anymore so a reformed Archers is kind of cool.

1. Lowest Part Is Free (they can never top this)
2. Harnessed In Slums
3. Plumbline
4. Nevermind The Enemy
5. What Would You Expect?
6. Death In The Park
7. Underdogs of Nipomo
8. Let The Loser Melt
9. Web in Front
10. White Trash Heroes

you are entirely otm about lowest part is free!

Yeah, Lowest Part Is Free! is their best track, no question about it.

south carolina
web in front
wrong
backwash
audiowhore
lowest part is free!
what did you expect?
harnessed in slums
attack of the killer bees/rental sting
fashion bleeds

i like their later stuff just fine (and i liked the barry black records, particularly the first one) but their first few releases were, like, epochal life events for me

Just gonna take a stab at it...

Lowest Part Is Free!
Harnessed in Slums
Telepathic Traffic
Revenge
Wrong
Jive Kata
Toast
Web in Front
Vocal Shrapnel
Smoking Pot in the Hot City

Really wanted to include Chumming the Ocean and White Trash Heroes, but those just really don't seem like full-band compositions/performances, rather Eric Bachmann's early forays into solo-dom.

harnessed in slums
revenge
web in front
lowest part is free
wrong
underachievers' march and fight song
might
audiowhore
what did you expect
backwash

i would honestly have an easier time choosing from post archers/crooked fingers releases because there are more of them and they're more varied

might
what did you expect
tatyana
web in front
powerwalker
+ the entire "Vs. The Greatest of All Time" EP

I remember I got some sort of sampler from Alias Records before that EP came out and I was so excited to hear new Archers and Audiowhore blew my mind

actually it didn't really blow my mind, it really just rocked my world

web in front
backwash
greatest of all time
fabricoh
chumming the ocean
form and file
fashion bleeds
white trash heroes
telepathic traffic
bacteria

GOAT was the last thing I got by them (hard to find over here, had to get a friend to bring it over the ocean by hand iirc) and even though I <3 everything else they've done i just never put the time in for it. Perhaps I still could...

Smoking Pot in The Hot City
Harnessed in slums
Telepathic traffic
Scenic Pastures
Web in front
Death in the Park
floating Friends
White Trash heroes
fashion bleeds
killer bees/rental sting

Discovered the Loaf and their excellence way after their demise. I think it was their name that shunned me and they just slipped through the net. Stupid me, as I'm guessing they were a live treat?

very. less so later on tho

favorite band ever in high school.

Lowest Part is Free
Telepathic Traffic
Web in Front
Might
Harnessed in Slums
Mutes in the Steeple (studio version)
What Did You Expect?
Nevermind the Enemy
Scenic Pastures
White Trash Heroes

"web in front" has been on everyone's list - prob my favorite of theirs too

this thread is a good excuse to revisit their non-icky stuff

Web in Front : Archers of Loaf :: Whip It : Devo

It's the song by the band that people who've never known the name of the band might now, but one that fans still kind of embrace as being a really good song.

now=know

it's funny cause i felt that till i heard harnessed in slums

i haven't heard their records in a long time but what i remember is that there was a pretty steep drop off. The first couple singles were GREAT, first album was GOOD, first EP was INSANELY AWESOME, Vee-Vee was a bit of a slip and then after that I lost track. EB's voice/style got really grating and the songwriting/lyrics got even more noticably annoying.

Their initial energy was really raw and cannot be denied though. Good stuff while it lasted.

wait a second, though -- "grating" and "annoying" are pretty relative terms

what sounded annoying in 1996 might sound a lot better now that it has had, what, 15 years to mellow?

i will stand by the decade + of crooked fingers stuff; there are some missteps, but the guy has never ever stopped trying and has continued to experiment with his voice and songwriting and musicianship for a really long time after he wrote those three or four songs everyone loves

this is not POX crooked fingers, but don't knock it til you've tried it imo

All the Nation's Airports is their best album. The songs are all mostly great and it's cohesive in a way that Icky Mettle isn't. And though I dig Vee Vee it drops off something fierce in the second half.

Of course nothing matches Vs. The Greatest Of All Time.

i like their later stuff just fine (and i liked the barry black records, particularly the first one) but their first few releases were, like, epochal life events for me

― mookieproof, Thursday, January 20, 2011 12:19 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

This. Suffice it to say that if I picked ten (which I'm not even going to try to do) they would almost certainly all be off Icky Mettle and Vee Vee.

haha my ringtone is the solo from 'fashion bleeds'

it's gotten pretty annoying after several years : /

i guess it makes me sad to see EB basically relegated to "nostalgia act" status

("nostalgia" is a great song btw)

I've been relistening to everything the past week. The one that's surprising me a lot is White Trash Heroes. I've always found it a really depressing way to go out. Some years back, I remember some blog or other doing a "great overlooked albums" feature on it, which I can't find now. Still didn't help.

Now, suddenly, it's sounding pretty good. I never sold the CD, so on some level I must have thought it was salvageable. My favorite part is the 1:2 of One Slight Wrong Move (which I always liked) into noisefest Banging on a Dead Drum.

I'd forgotten that Xgau was such a huge fan:

http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=Archers+of+Loaf

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/comicnrrd/archersofliz-1.jpg

Hahah thats so awesome :D

I have just realised (JF is gonna kill me for this) that I have owned a copy of Vee Vee for YEARS and.. um.. well, I've never listened to it.

But I love Icky Mettle! "Might" and "Last Word" are frequently thrashed along to at my place. Heck I was listening to it just earlier, funnily enough.

Having had a cassette of Icky Mettle for many years, I now own the glorious LP re-issue and it sounds better than ever. I took it to record club:

http://devonrecordclub.com/2013/09/23/archers-of-loaf-icky-mettle-round-53-toms-selection/

those reissues were all glorious, it was great to finally replace all my old cassettes

ERic Bachmann covers David Bowie's Heroes for the AV Club, once he gets them all to kneel before Zod.

http://www.avclub.com/video/eric-bachmann-covers-david-bowies-heroes-236887

um so basically his solo album is rly good?

I propose 38% of ILM's Pavement worship and discussion be diverted to Archers of Loaf

fair redistribution

I mean having a good rhythm section should count for something

those points get deducted again for the band name. (kidding! sorta)

white trash heroes > terror twilight definitely. aw hell, icky mettle > slanted & enchanted.

that reminds me, their LP titles kinda stink too. LOL (sorry, i'll stop)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4f/Vs_the_Greatest_of_All_Time_cover.jpg/220px-Vs_the_Greatest_of_All_Time_cover.jpg

this makes up for them tho

let the morrisp melt

lol

white trash heroes > terror twilight definitely. aw hell, icky mettle > slanted & enchanted.

This holds for all comparative albums, except maybe Brighten the Corners > All the Nations Airports

It's probably a little unfair (on both sides) for this band to be perennially compared to Pavement... tho I remember a review for "All the Nation's Airport" that described AoL as sounding "like Pavement if they were drunk instead of stoned," which does seem pretty on point.

(I bought the disc on that recommendation, so guess it worked in their favor)

aye, not that the loaf are utterly stern and serious - the speed of cattle in particular is pretty humorous - but pavement are musically much more whimsical.

http://www.furious.com/perfect/archersofloaf2.html

Eric Johnson liked a lot of British music, especially Big Country

hahaha, I always thought the leads from vs. the GOAT (eg the one towards the end of "Lowest Part Is Free") had that same cheesy "bagpipe" MXR pedal sound

i was disappointed at the time, but white trash heroes was a great way to go out

i like your tattoo depiction

the synth line on fashion bleeds is so sick

Fashion bleeds would be in my best of, I get it in my head all the time.

The first Archers of Loaf album, “Icky Mettle,” was released 30 years ago today. pic.twitter.com/M6t8j4RgLb

— Gummy Arts (@gummyarts) September 7, 2023

a true classic of indie rock salute!

Also a reminder of my first semester of college
30 yr anniversaries always make me think damn I’ve been alive a long time. I don’t “””feel old””” I feel like damn I’ve been alive a loooooooong time.

Im just being honest — it’s the least I can do.

I saw my current age onscreen this afternoon (while scheduling a flu shot), and was legit shook. It's first time I thought, "That can't be right..."

You’ve got it all wrong

(Lol)

lmao LL

i was disappointed at the time, but white trash heroes was a great way to go out

― mookieproof, Friday, June 19, 2020 10:07 PM

If it only that were still true.

ugh, where'd that "it" come from

the lazy voice is making noise

https://images.genius.com/3cb7bb66d374742f72fa78a83d4117fb.500x500x1.jpg

came out 30 years ago yesterday. distance was up, static was down

i was living in anchorage and tried to get two different record stores to order it for me; they both failed because alias records was a joke. ended up having a store in north carolina mail it to me

now the 30th anniversary of vee vee <3

Yeesh! I missed the EP anniversary last year, but here's how I got into AoL. A friend's band had sent an unsolicited demo around, including to Alias Records. Alias said no thank you, but sent back a huge package of cds, stickers, promo photos, etc. In that package was a cassette of Icky Mettle and a cd of Archers of Loaf vs The GOAT and when we were all sitting around listening to those there was a unanimous "HOLY SHIT" reaction from everyone in the room.

About a year later, one of the guys from that band, a couple other mutual friends, and myself all started a different band and our chief influence was AoL (we even covered "Wrong" at live shows).

Can barely believe that was all 30 (plus) years ago now.

awesome

I heard "Miss You" by Lisa Loeb tonight in the grocery store aisles and her cadence, style + delivery reminded me of why I never got into the Archers of Loaf beyond the first few singles.

I can’t for the life of me figure out why “Web in Front” is considered an all-time indie rock classic.

keep figuring

I heard "Miss You" by Lisa Loeb tonight in the grocery store aisles and her cadence, style + delivery reminded me of why I never got into the Archers of Loaf beyond the first few singles.

I am still trying to wrap my head around how these are connected at all.

I'm also wondering if they actually heard "Stay"

Some strange comments here

I'm saying that Eric Bachmann was highly influenced by "Stay (I Missed You)".

Community note

lol wut?!

I feel like this revive might actually have a point but I'd need to go through their catalogue, or icky mettle and the speed of cattle at least.

"Stay" didn't come out until a year or so after Icky Mettle, so the Loeb influence must be on the later work.

I mean unless Eric Bachman. Was haunting the coffee shops near Brown University in the late 80s.

who even are you ppl

Not sure if this is what the original poster meant but yeah the melody style is pretty similar.

Think of Bachmann singing the “I turn the radio on turn the radio up and the woman was singing my song” and “you said that I was naive and I thought that I was strong oh”
That’s Archers as heck or probably more Crooked Fingers.

“You’re the web in front you’re my favorite guy stuck a peanut in my backbone smoke it down from there all I ever wanted was to be your guy I’ve got a magnet in my head”

Is that Archers or Loeb? Interchangeable.

No I did not look up lyrics or listen to the songs.

Someone check if Lisa Lieb is a bowhunter

thank you SA. kindly let me know where to send you a BTC.

It's also in the phrasing, in particular the use of triplets in the vocal melody.

Crooked Fingers could have straight up covered "Stay" and no one would have blinked an eye.