I hadn't heard of cranes til I stumbled across them on Bandcamp the other day. Their new stuff is too light/airy for my tastes, but these Peel Sessions from 1989-1990 that release in a few days-- the two songs up so far.. wow. I LOVE her voice.. the great kinda minimal music behind it, reminds me of Björk a little sometimes, but maybe with SLIGHTLY more edge and more 80s-ish guitar. Check it out, let me know what you think.
Which of the following musical artists has the greatest "albums per year" ratio? By that, I mean, the number of full length studio albums (excluding live albums, collabs, or compilations) recorded over the number of years they have been or were actively a recording artist or band.
Vote now!
The ratios will be posted tomorrow after the poll is closed.
Which of the following different musical artists has the greatest "albums per year" ratio? As with yesterday's poll, I mean, the number of full length studio albums (excluding live albums, collabs, or compilations) recorded over the number of years they have been or were actively a recording artist or band.
Vote now!
The ratios will be posted tomorrow after the new poll is closed.
Years ago, I started a 'bands I've seen live' list to try and remember shows I'd been to and what years they were. But it got lost. So I started a new one the other day on a spreadsheet and I named it the accurate title 'bands I've seen live (even the ones I hated)'. I'm not gonna share it here quite yet (has anyone else done one of these?) aaaand it's also not quite done. Memory's hazy! I'm up to 101 bands. Wild. Some of the bands I saw multiple times. Still need to work out some of the years/venues (to see how much remembering that sucks, and to see if I want to document all of that).
Anyway, it's been a fun and interesting project so far. Time is so strange. Sometimes things seem more or less recent than they actually were.
Some good Monday wake up music, a band I just discovered the other day -- Barren Womb. They have a new album coming out in February, and this one is from 2020. It SMOKES.
I don't even know what to compare it to. They call it 'doomsday rock' - I might hear some Helmet or Fugazi or something, I dunno. Refused? Clutch? It's great, dynamic, fun, loud, catchy-- GREAT all the way through. And one of the coolest riffs might be in the last few seconds of the album!
I have a funny story, it's pretty long, but just - wild things happen in life sometimes.
I was 19 and my friends and I were in a band in Maryland in 1999 (as I had been since around 1993. I played bass and was one of the band's 3 singers, along with the other guitarists). The drummer was driving his truck to take us all to see Fuel (just looked up the date/venue, thanks, internet - it was May 21, 1999, and we were going to Recher Theatre in Towson, Maryland).
We dug Fuel but weren't familiar with the other bands opening. So we see Fuel, and Finger Eleven opened for them also (who we liked as well, maybe more later? I'm not sure if we did by then?) and also this other band that I didn't know.
So after this first band plays, I see them sitting over at their merch table. Their show had been really good! So I walk up and I'm looking at their stuff. And one of the guys in the band points at the CD on the table (his own album) and just calmly goes, "you should buy it. It's good". And I laughed, and was like, okay. But only if all you guys sign it. And they're like, HELL yeah! They all signed it. I still have it.
That band was then called Virgos Merlot (originally called The Devine, and eventually just Virgos). I later heard them a little on the radio ("Gain" mostly). The lead singer and main songwriter for The Devine, Virgos Merlot AND Virgos was a dude named Brett Hestla. The album was good. DAMN good (for the late 90s).
But keep in mind that Brett Hestla can fucking SING. And he can fucking WRITE GREAT SONGS. And keep in mind, they are BETTER live-- Virgos Merlot could PLAY these songs. The recording is great, and pretty solid, but really doesn't even fully capture how cool they were live. (If you wanna hear the full Signs of a Vacant Soul album, the link is at the end of this post - even just the first song.. the dynamics - check the end of the song, it's a sonic ASSAULT. And the album has a couple decent ballads, too.)
(Also, another YouTube link below- Virgos Merlot did a demo for Til Tuesday's "Voices Carry" and it RIPS. Just a demo. But it's worth a listen.)
Flash forward a few years. I'm in another band in the mid-2000s, another STATE, as I now lived in Florida. (The band I was in at that point sounded kinda more like Fuel -- the one in 1999 didn't, we sounded more like Weezer).
Anyway, my band in the early/mid-2000s often played this club in Fort Lauderdale and Virgos (what they're called then) comes to town. And my band opens for them! Wild. (Couldn't find the date of the show and I don't even remember the name of the venue then to look it up- just a club. My old bands have all been scrubbed from the internet by time, and so have this venue's dates, apparently.)
Back then, Virgos had recently done another album called The Path of Least Resistance (that was REALLY damn good- the FIRST link below is just to "Ammunition", probably my favorite song on the album -- it has a real STP feel).
Path only has that one link on YouTube, the songs aren't even split off haha. Ah, the 2000s. And check that soaring vocal hook RIGHT off the bat in "Collapse", the album's first song, if you listen - the album is GREAT.
Brett was around doing other stuff for a while (I think he was friends with one of the guys in Creed- they were from Florida too). I think even Path gets a little Christian-y (I'm not sure) - but it sounds STELLAR. Just love the guy's voice and songwriting. If you want a SOLID rock band, man, this stuff is ridiculous.
Brett might still put stuff out, I should look it up. Or he might just produce more now. What a singer and songwriter though. Like, WAY better than Creed. Frustrating that bands like this got overlooked and stuff like Creed got so big.
Anyway, if you've read this whole thing, kudos, and hope you dig these tracks.
Dolly Parton has been dropping one track at a time for her upcoming #rock album #Rockstar. The newest track to drop? Her cover of "What's Up?" featuring Linda Perry.
Roger Waters reimagines Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon.” He’s releasing a completely new version of the record, calling it, plainly, “The Dark Side of the Moon Redux.”
I’m sure many fans will be putting up a fight. But I, for one, am super excited to hear it. I suspect it will be a wild ride.
Which sounds exactly like some other song but I can't think of it for the life of me.
I'm pretty sure it's a song by Brian Jonestown Massacre or Dandy Warhols or something in that #NeoPsychedelic#Rock genre.
Of course, BJM cranks out so much music that it's like looking for a needle in a haystack. Perhaps someone with a better mental catalog of music can help.
Ever wanted to get into Guided by Voices but didn't know where to start? I made a playlist a while back of my favorite songs of their songs of theirs (and from Bob Pollard's solo stuff), from across the years.
So. Here we go. In no order, just listing off what I loved. With so much more to discover.
Ericka's Favorite #Music of 2023.
We will start with #RockMusic first.
ROCK (all formats):
ALL THINGS BOYGENIUS: THE RECORD AND THE REST
Paramore: This Is Why
Yo La Tengo: This Stupid World
Dolly Parton: Rock Star
PJ Harvey: I Inside the Old Year Dying
Julia Zivic: Live At Guava EP
Meet Me @ The Altar: Past Present Future
Olivia Rodrigo: GUTS
Arlo Parks: My Soft Machine (& anything else she wants to do)
#23From2023 - #Slowdive - Everything is Alive (Dead Oceans). Seldom does a band on a second career run match the quality of their work 30 years earlier. I'm not saying this release tops Souvlaki, but Slowdive's deeper plunge into billowy dreampop is a natural progression from 2017's comeback effort. I miss the Cocteau Twins so damn much, and while "Alife" and "Kisses" aren't that, Neil Halstead and company bring a similarly keen melodic factor to their new work.
The Moody Blues - Nights in White Satin (youtu.be)