Today In Music History: March 3rd

As some of you might remember, I used to post daily music history bits on the old SFTDC FB page. Well, as fewer of you might know, my main computer crapped out recently, trapping most of my music collection, as well as my music history archives, on the hard drive (which hopefully still works). Recently, however, FB has begun converting its pages to a Timeline type of format, meaning one can now navigate through old posts much easier. While some might not like that ability on their personal profiles, it’s actually quite handy on the pages. Especially when you’re looking for posts from specific dates. So now, using the old SFTDC page as an archive of sorts, I can resume my Daily Music History posts.

However, rather than posting them onto the new SFTDC page, which tends to clutter everything up, I thought I’d instead just post all of the videos and info here. That way everything stays much cleaner on the page, and this blog will actually get used. So, without further ado, here’s today’s music history.

+ In 1978, Elvis Costello released ”(I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea”, the first single from his sophomore studio album (and his first with The Attractions), This Year’s Model. The track reached #16 on the UK Singles chart. The music video was directed by Jon Roseman, who has also worked with the Eurythmics.

+ In 1992, Soundgarden released the third and final single, “Rusty Cage”, from their third studio album Badmotorfinger. The song reached #41 on the UK Singles chart. The music video was directed by Eric Zimmerman, who has also worked with Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, and KMFDM.

+ In 1997, the animated television series Daria premiered on MTV. The show was a spin-off of Mike Judge’s Beavis And Butt-Head, in which Daria appeared as a recurring character. The show ran for five seasons between 1997 and 2002, totaling 65 episodes and 2 made-for-TV movies. Here’s the theme song, “You’re Standing On My Neck”, performed by all-female alternative rock group Splendora.

I’ll Just Go Ahead And Leave This Here…

Look at me, I’m on Google+ now (not likely that anyone gives a shit, considering how extraordinarily empty Google+ is at the moment).

Well, after a roughly two week break from posting videos on the FB page, I’m now back to business as usual. Hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving (those who celebrate it, at any rate).

Still no word on the radio show, though it’s still listed on the schedule on WMHD’s website. I’ve been trying to find online solutions so that I can start doing shows again. I’ve been looking at Mixcloud as a possible solution, though I still don’t know a whole lot about it. From what I can tell though, it seems like it would be the best route.

So, perhaps sometime soon (possibly at the beginning of the New Year), I’ll be doing shows again through Mixcloud. So, that’s something to look forward to at least.

I’ve not much else to say, so I’ll go ahead and cut this one short. Just wanted to tell all (one) of you out there who uses Google+ about the new G+ Page.

SFTDC FB Page One Year Anniversary

Well, considering today marks the one year point since I started the Songs From The Decompression Chamber Facebook Page, I figured I might as well write something here since I haven’t updated this blog in fucking eons.

Now, mind you, it hasn’t been a year since my first broadcast, it’s just the one year mark since I decided, “Hey, perhaps I should make a page for my new show so I can spread the word about it”. The anniversary of my first show is next month, for anyone who is curious.

And, unfortunately, it doesn’t look like I will get an on-air celebration. From what I can tell, my show is essentially dead and not coming back. It’s not official yet, but I definitely have no idea when the next time I broadcast will be. Because of this, my SFTDC FB Page is really the only thing left of my show. Well, that and this poor, neglected blog.

I’m not even really sure what I want to do with this blog. Initially I was going to use it for album reviews, but I quickly grew tired of writing ridiculously long blogs that I’m pretty sure no one ever really ended up reading. And by “album reviews”, I mean “long-winded, slightly comedic rantings centered around a particular album”. I might pick that up again sometime, but I’m not sure if I wanna try to write about strictly new releases or perhaps switch it up a bit with some classics (and maybe some not-so-classics).

I do think, however, that I might do an end-of-the-year Top 10-type list. In fact, I’m actually listening to my “2011″ playlist as I’m typing this. (While I’m thinking about it, you should totally check out John Heckle.) So that should be something to look forward to next month, at least.

Well, I suppose I’ve nothing much more to say. Might as well keep this one short. For anyone reading this who is already a fan of the FB Page, thank you. I did really enjoy broadcasting, but since I haven’t been able to do that for the past couple of months, I dig that I have a place to spew forth my music geek knowledge. Thanks!

Vivian Girls – Share The Joy: A Review

I can’t remember when it was that I first heard the Vivian Girls. I do know it was back in those heady days of late 2008, when everyone in the country was running around trying to keep another rich old white fuck from becoming President (unless, of course, you happened to like the rich old white fuck, in which case you were running around trying, yet again, to keep the black man down).

If memory serves correct, however, it was from one of those spam Friend Requests that were so popular amongst musicians and attention whores on MySpace (remember MySpace!?!?!). However, I can’t be too certain as this was around the time that I decided that ALCOHOL IS GREAT and, more often than not, my day was not complete without the consumption of at least a little of it.

However, for consistency’s sake, let’s say it was through MySpace that I first heard the Alt-Surf Twee sound of the Vivian Girls. The first song I heard was undoubtedly the June ’08 single “Tell The World”. I fell in love instantly. It had that great lo-fi alternative sound, while the vocals had that detached cool that New Yorkers have been perfecting ever since Lou Reed sang about heroin and “waiting for the man” back in 1966. And indeed, there are echos of The Velvet Underground & Nico within the track. Plus, who could forget that video!? It was like watching an updated version of every underground band’s music video from 1988. If 120 Minutes still existed, it would fit PERFECTLY, sandwiched somewhere between a Dinosaur Jr. clip and Matt Pinfield sweating profusely.

(Quick Side Note: Did you know 120 Minutes is coming back? ME NEITHER! I’m glad MTV likes to keep people informed about shit they’d actually care to watch.)

Anyways, I’ll try not to get too much into detail, but for the most part the Vivian Girls’ self-titled debut album followed the same sound as “Tell The World”: Lo-fi Alt-Surf Twee. It was quirky as all fuck and I absolutely loved it. Their second album shed a lot of the surf elements for a more aggressive, almost punky sound. It was rough and rattled and made me think of early 90′s American Alternative. Again, I fucking loved it. It wasn’t as quirky as their debut, but any album that includes such a kick-ass rocker like “The End” is good in my book.

So, with that, let us get to:

Share The Joy

The Vivian Girls’ three albums can be broken down thusly: Their self-titled debut, featuring Frankie Rose on drums, is the group as a child. Everything from the simplistic, lo-fi songs to the hand-drawn, children’s book-style cityscape cover art gives the impression of childhood.

After dropping Frankie Rose for Ali Koehler, the group recorded their second album, Everything Goes Wrong. Much of the child-like demeanor of their first album has been toned down considerably with this release. The songs are louder and sound more distressed, and Koehler’s drumming style is at once both more precise and yet rough, rattled, and all around more erratic than the first album. This is the teenage incarnation of Vivian Girls. You can imagine them staying out late at dirty punk clubs, drinking cheap vodka from plastic bottles and smoking cigarettes, maybe even considering getting a mohawk. Even the front cover is a bit more grown up: a mountainous desert landscape at dusk.

So, with the first album being childhood and the second being the teenage years, Share The Joy combines the two to form a sort of grownup/young adulthood version of the Vivian Girls. The songs have elements of the childlike, Surf-Pop style of the first album, but with the Alt-Rock distress and world-weariness of the second album. New drummer Fiona Campbell combines the precision of the second album with the simplicity of the first, and Cassie Ramone and ”Kickball Katy” Goodman expand their playing and writing just enough to feel more mature while still keeping the basic sound of the group intact. Even the front cover is a combination the first two albums’ art work: a hand-drawn mountainous landscape.

The album starts out with the six-and-a-half minute track “The Other Girls”. A surprise to say the least, considering many of their earlier songs never ran much past the three minute mark, and many of the tunes on their debut weren’t much longer than a minute. The song slowly warms up, like a fluorescent light bulb that’s just been turned on, before bursting forth in a slightly unfamiliar gallop, slowing down into an Alt-Pop strummer for the verses, which are then punctuated by slightly 60′s Psych-Pop harmonizing for the choruses. The song makes me think of the Breeders or early Broadcast, and I don’t have a hard time imagining Kurt Cobain digging on the track, were he still around.

The second track, “I Heard You Say“, returns to more familiar ground: a three minute Alt-Surf Pop tune with wonderful harmonies, again like 60′s Psych-Pop. As I mentioned before though, the track does sound much more mature than their older material. “Dance (If You Wanna)” is one of the weaker tracks, featuring the Country-Western rhythmic swing utilized on a few tunes from their debut. The song is noteworthy for making use of the acoustic guitar, a first for the group as far as I know.

“Lake House” is a noisy little chugging stomper with a few passages of strumming that are reminiscent of “Satellite” by Luscious Jackson. The song isn’t as strong as some of the tunes on the album, being mainly a matured version of their basic sound, but it works for what it is. “Trying To Pretend” starts out with a little acoustic strumming before bursting forth with Alt-Rock energy and Old Western style drumming. Indeed, the song seems to be inspired by soundtracks from old spaghetti western films from the late-60′s/early 70′s. The track ends with a reprise of the acoustic intro.

“Sixteen Ways” is a dirty little surf-rocker that makes me think of Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet (the cats who did the music for the Kids In The Hall series). “Take It As It Comes” features spoken word passages straight out of a 60′s Girl Group pop song ala “Leader Of The Pack” by The Shangri-Las. The track melds pure 60′s Bubblegum with the Vivian Girls’ style perfectly. A definite highlight of the album.

“Vanishing Of Time” is a slightly noisy little pop gem, featuring 60′s Pop drumming, Psych-Pop undertones, and Alt-Pop underpinnings. Certain parts of the song sound like a slow motion version of their track “The End” from their previous album, and it even sounds like they use the same chord progression. “Death” contains another 60′s Girl Group-esque spoken word passage, and the overall sound is within the same stratosphere as their first album, only tightened up here. The track contains a bit of keyboard, giving it that 60′s Pop feel.

The final track, “Light In Your Eyes”, is the second longest song on the album (and indeed, might be their second longest song overall, clocking in at 6:07). The track builds tension in the beginning with tribalistic drumming and a simple thrumming bassline. The delicate vocals sit high above everything else, with just enough reverb to create a dark 60′s Psychedelic atmosphere, almost like The Velvet Underground, but a little faster. The track suddenly shifts into more of a 90′s Alt-Pop tune and continues to build from there, traveling forward on a simple keyboard melody which is then layered with xylophone. After a short guitar solo which works off of the same keyboard melody, the song explodes into a wonderfully noisy outro, ending with a bit of feedback and nasty pickup-switching pops before blinking out, thus bringing a close to the album.

Though Share The Joy isn’t a huge departure from their previous efforts, I do quite enjoy this album. It has a great balance between their first two records, and the addition of instrumentation, as well the expansion of song lengths (Holy shit! SIX MINUTES!?! What, are the Vivian Girls going PROG!?) gives a hint that, given the right producer and the right batch of songs, this group could go on to make one of the all-time greatest pop-infused Alt-Rock records. Although, I’m sure many could argue that they already have.

Final Rating: 8/10; Overall, the album isn’t a huge leap forward for the Vivian Girls, but the maturation in style, while still keeping the elements that make the band great, is enough to warrant a serious listening. Whether you’re a die-hard fan of the group, or you’ve never heard them before, there’s enough wonderful material here for nearly anyone to enjoy. Certainly recommended if you are partial to early 90′s alternative rock.

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – Belong: A Review (or my half-assed attempt at one)

Considering that this is technically my first proper post, one would think that I would take a little time out and explain some things about myself, my reasons for creating a blog, and my intentions with said blog. Well, think again motherfucker!

Rather than going through all the boring details of how I became interested in music, and what music inspires me the most, and how my taste in music makes me automatically better than you, I decided to just dive in and review an album straightaway. Mainly because this particular album is already almost two weeks old, and mainly because I have all the time in the world to talk about myself in other posts (which in all honesty is probably about as entertaining as watching someone pulling their prick in public with hopes of receiving a few measly, half-hearted applause). So, without further ado…

I can’t remember exactly where I first heard or heard of The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. I’m usually pretty weary of anything Indie Rock these days, but I had gone through a miniature Noise Rock phase followed by an equally miniature Twee Pop phase right around hearing The Pains (as they will now be called within the confines of this blog), so its not too unusual that I immediately enjoyed them. This being said however, I don’t really remember much about their first album outside of their November 17th, 2008 single “Everything With You“, which is just a brilliantly brilliant fucking tune and I defy you to tell me a reason why it is not.

Reading through the wikipedia article on their self-titled debut, however, reminds me of a few gripes I have. Not with the band, but with people’s perception of the band (and, well, music in general). I remember reading the list of bands The Pains had been compared to (My Bloody Valentine, Ride, The Jesus And Mary Chain, The Smiths, Joy Division) and thinking “Wow! That sounds fucking awesome!” Upon hearing the album however, I remember thinking “Wow! This sounds minimally, if at all, like any of those bands. People are fucking stupid! And ”Everything With You” is a brilliantly brilliant fucking tune and I defy you to tell me a reason why it is not.” More or less, that’s what went through my head. Mind you, I wasn’t upset that the band didn’t live up to some impossible standard set by these twats. No, I was more upset by the completely ham-fisted way people described their music. Seriously, do people even listen to themselves when they describe a band?

I could go on and on about this, but I’ll leave that for another post. However, I will say this: just because a band is either remotely Indie Rock/Pop or Post-Punk, THAT DOESN’T GIVE YOU PERMISSION TO THROW AROUND THE SMITHS AND JOY DIVISION LIKE CONFETTI AT A FUCKING PARADE YOU PRAT. Also, after having just finished listening to The Pains first album again while working on this post, I can safely say that it is made up of equal parts “Strawberry Wine” by My Bloody Valentine, “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction (Thank God)” by Talulah Gosh, and “Never Understand” by The Jesus And Mary Chain. That’s it. Album reviewed.

Now that I’ve taken care of that, we can move on to their most recent album, Belong, which was released March 29th of this very year, on the same label as their self-titled debut, Slumberland Records. When I first heard about the album, I was quite excited, not only because The Pains were releasing a new album, but also because said album was to be produced by Flood and mixed by Alan Moulder. Now, for those of you who don’t know, Flood has produced some of the biggest albums by Nine Inch Nails, U2, Depeche Mode, Nitzer Ebb, and The Smashing Pumpkins, as well as working on albums by New Order and the Sneaker Pimps. Alan Moulder has worked on albums by The Jesus And Mary Chain, The Smashing Pumpkins, Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Saul Williams. Obviously, these are two cats who know what they’re doing and do not fuck around. How could one not be excited by this?

Of course, while reading up on the new album, I could not escape the comparisons people were making, particularly to My Bloody Valentine’s “Loveless“. Now, Let me say this about that: I’ve not actually heard Loveless all the way through. I have, however, heard most of their early singles and EPs, as well as their debut album Isn’t Anything, and I suspect that plenty of people who HAVE heard Loveless probably haven’t bothered with much of anything else by the band. Be that as it may, I was still very much interested in the new album, trying to imagine the group’s Alt-Twee sound reinforced by chainsaw guitars.  One particular review/blog/twat noted that the first song sounded very much like their previous effort, a “red herring” as they called it, since the rest of the album plunged ahead in this mythical new sound.

So, you can imagine my disappointment when I began listening to the album and noticed that the first song, in fact, sounded quite different from their debut album. In a fantastic way, but not in the way I imagined really. At this point, I realized that, yet again, music reviewers are idiots and I was gonna have to go on my own instincts with this one. So, now, FINALLY, the review:

The opening track to Belong, aptly titled “Belong”, does actually start off sounding, more or less, like any song from their previous album. This changes at around the 14 second mark however, when the guitars lurch forward in a wall of muted distortion that is VERY fucking Smashing Pumpkins circa 1993. In fact, the whole song sounds like the Pumpkins, if they had gone through a ‘cute’ phase. “Heaven’s Gonna Happen Now” continues very much in the Pumpkins vein, though this time around The Pains channel the track “Perfect” from their album Adore.

In ways, these two tracks could actually be seen as red herrings, considering what direction the next four tracks take. “Heart In Your Heartbreak” starts off with a Post-Punk chug that quickly evolves into something resembling a really great New Order rock-based album track, all of which is then subtly transformed into something similar to early 80′s Echo & The Bunnymen or R.E.M. (specifically “Radio Free Europe”) or even The Distractions’s “Time Goes By So Slow” . The next track, “The Body”, continues in the Echo & The Bunnymen vein, while incorporating a lyrical style not too dissimilar to Bernard Sumner‘s (indeed, many of the lyrics on the album share a kinship with Sumner’s writing style) and a delivery like Jim Reid from Jesus And Mary Chain. The song has a certain air and ambition about it that makes one think of early 80′s U2, and the snare fills towards the end are so Stephen Morris-on-his-late-80′s-Acid-House-trip, it took me everything I had to keep from jumping out of my chair and dancing around with a pair of maracas like Bez. A definite highlight of the album that should be made into a single before the summer is up.

“Anne With An E” sounds like an acoustic version of “Just Like Honey” by the Jesus And Mary Chain with all the reverb intact. Its not one of the stronger songs on the album, but its placement within the track list is absolutely perfect. “Even In Dreams” starts as a U2 chug-a-long while lead singer Kip Berman continues evoking Bernard Sumner-style lyrics. The track slowly and subtly evokes the Smashing Pumpkins at first before bursting forth with a final chorus that could easily serve Billy Corgan’s nasally whine just as well as it does Berman’s hushed, almost whispery vocals.

The next two tracks, “My Terrible Friend” and “Girl Of 1,000 Dreams” are probably the weakest songs on the album. Mind you, they’re not bad, they just don’t seem to fit as well with the rest. One gets the impression that these two tracks were probably the first to be written for the album, and indeed probably could’ve served as the A and B-side, respectively, of a non-album single bridging their debut and Belong. “My Terrible Friend” is the better of the two, resembling “Age Of Consent” by New Order, while ”Girl Of 1,000 Dreams” evokes the Jesus And Mary Chain, but not in any particularly interesting manner. Granted, not a bad song, but it probably would’ve made a much stronger B-side rather than an album track.

The next song, “Too Tough” continues with the JAMC kick, but in such a way as to evoke the overall spirit of the album. Indeed, the album is wrapping up, and this track is a great way to begin bringing about closure. Finally we come to “Strange”, which begins with a drum beat reminiscent of “In A Big Country” by Big Country (or “Weird Science” by Oingo Boingo). The track takes on a more U2 feel when the guitars kick in, and the ambiance is slowly brought up by Peggy Wang’s subtle keyboard work. The song builds beautifully with layers of guitar, reverb, and keyboard, before slowly fading away, bringing the album to a close.

Overall, I think this is indeed a fantastic album, and certainly in the running for best album of 2011 thus far. The progression The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart have made from the Alt-Twee sound of their self-produced, self-titled debut to this anthemic, nearly stadium-sized sound makes me feel as though that this is indeed a band who are going to big some day. In fact, if The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart don’t make an album worthy of being called one of the greatest albums of all time before this decade is up, I will eat my fucking chair.

Final Rating: 9/10; The album as a whole is fantastic, the progression in sound and style that the band has achieved is phenomenal, and the production and mixing are perfect, but a few of the songs don’t stack up too well on a song-by-song basis. In short, go out and buy this album. You will love it.

Under Construction

I know a ton about music history.

Then I got a show on Rose-Hulman‘s radio statio, WMHD 90.7 FM The Monkey.

Then I made a Facebook Page for the show.

Now I’ve made a blog.

 

More to come…

 

(This post could’ve just as easily been called “Testing, testing…” and the body could’ve simply read “1, 2, 3.”)