Ohhhh, ending off with a safe status classic band preceded by a bunch of bands which would never see radio airplay, to maintain alternative status. HOW #####!!!!!

Bad Religion and Social D have gotten plenty of airplay in their time.

Ohhhh, ending off with a safe status classic band preceded by a bunch of bands which would never see radio airplay, to maintain alternative status. HOW #####!!!!!

Thanks, Barry.

Who gives a flying #### about radio airplay? No one I hang out with has listened to commercial radio for 20 years. There's 1000 times more amazing music out there delivered in ways other than via commercial radio than there is on commercial radio, and you don't ever have to listen to a commercial or some jackass DJ. Not to mention having to hear the same goddamned song five times a day---or even twice a week---which is something I never understood the appeal of even when I was a little kid.

Well the Descendents are the greatest band in history, so I can't really fault someone for listing them.

Relatedly, is there any genre where the difference between their contemporary fame and their posthumous fame was greater that for 80's punk?

Bad Religion and Social D have gotten plenty of airplay in their time.

Indeed.

And it's not like Radinsky is looking for any kind of street cred. I interviewed him a couple of years ago when he was the pitching coach at Lake County and he was a really quiet, introspective, almost shy guy. He seemed really uncomfortable talking about himself - his baseball career, his return from cancer, his music. It seemed like all he wanted to do was talk about his pitchers.

I really, really liked the guy. I found him to be the complete antithesis of the stereotypical me-first athlete columnists always ##### about.

Relatedly, is there any genre where the difference between their contemporary fame and their posthumous fame was greater that for 80's punk?

Tell that to the guy who wrote 'Skate to Live' with Scared Straight. If only I could remember his name....

When Radinsky left Ten Foot Pole, there was a spate of quotes from TFP claimed baseball was the reason he could no longer commit to the band, but IIRC Radinsky said that was never the case and it was about TFP wanting to break into the MTV market.

I wouldn't expect him to say anymore than this is a short article like this, but I don't suppose anyone remembers anything else about it?

I find it amusing that someone sees Lagwagon as one of the most crucial bands to listen to. I could never tell them apart from ten other bands on Fat Wreck Chords. But I guess he knows what he's talking about.

I still listen to classic rock radio or country when I'm driving (if the Braves aren't playing). Can't remember the last time I listened to the local Top-40 or alternative station.

So you're the audience for one, rather than the other.

Thank you Joe C for getting my High Fidelity reference. Can you explain it to Salvomania.

No Salvo, I am not selling that Captain Beefheart album this week.

If you can do the dance to, what is it, "Walkin' on Sunshine"?, I'll be totally timpressed.

It is Friday....that tape is for Mondays only.

With Little Latin Lupe Lu....by the RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS!!!!!

I love that movie. It's definitely in my all-time top 5.

"oooooh...is she in a coma?"

Thank you Joe C for getting my High Fidelity reference. Can you explain it to Salvomania.

Who gives a flying #### about High Fidelity or any other crappy mainstream movie? There's 1000 times more amazing movies out there than those being foisted upon us by the left-coast factories, and you don't have to endure some pop-culture pap pretentiously imagining itself to be some illuminating view into a quirky world whose inhabitants only make me want to punch them in the face.

It's true in pretty much all music, but it seems like it's doubly true for Punk Rock. Most bands have one album in them, tops, and then the rest is pretty useless. Even the really good bands in his list (Minor Threat, The Descendents, Black Flag, The Adolescents, Bad Religion) have pretty much one album's full of material, and then had pretty much nothing in the tank after. Some figured it out pretty quickly (the Adolescents and Minor Threat) and some didn't (Black Flag and The Descendents) and some still haven't figured it out (Bad Religion).

The world is full of bands whose first albums are all time classics and the rest are firewood (Violent Femmes, The Romantics, The Kinks, The Beatles, Gang of Four, Echo and the Bunnymen).

It's pretty rare, especially in punk, for a band to rattle off three or four great albums. Rare enough to where I can't think of one offhand. The Jam had two really good ones and the Misfits never really had a great record but had a couple pretty good ones. But for the most part it's Fear, the Sex Pistols, Suicidal Tendencies and the Angry Samoans; one huge moment of glory followed by nothing worth even mentioning.

The world is full of bands whose first albums are all time classics and the rest are firewood (Violent Femmes, The Romantics, The Kinks, The Beatles, Gang of Four, Echo and the Bunnymen).

Someone is being provocative.

The world is full of bands whose first albums are all time classics and the rest are firewood (Violent Femmes, The Romantics, The Kinks, The Beatles, Gang of Four, Echo and the Bunnymen).

Uh, what's wrong with Ocean Rain?

I'm not touching the Beatles.

You're crazy. Echo and the Bunnymen's first album didn't even have a drummer and all the songs are very repetitive in a juvenile way. "Villiers Terrace" is a nice song but should be about 90 seconds long. That's like saying Nirvana peaked with "Bleach".

And Bad Religion's first album was generic hardcore thrash, except for "Into the Night" and a couple other songs. Later on they released about five albums in a row on which almost every song was as good as "Into the Night".

I guess if you like Minor Threat more than Fugazi you'd like just about every band's first album as long as it's faster and more rudimentary than their later work.

Jesus and Mary Chain always seemed pretty great, and they picked up where your precious Echo left off.

/tying it together

Jesus and Mary Chain always seemed pretty great, and they picked up where your precious Echo left off.

/tying it together

I see what you did there.

When I was in college Radinsky was the only baseball player most of my friends had heard of, because he was in Maximum Rock N Roll. All of these friends also hated the Beatles and the Kinks. It's a background thing.

It's pretty rare, especially in punk, for a band to rattle off three or four great albums. Rare enough to where I can't think of one offhand.

You can argue that with a better editor The Clash would have put together three great records: The Clash, London Calling, and a Sandanista! that had gotten the Maxwell Perkins treatment. Though at some point in there the term "punk" becomes a bit problematic.

But generally punk bands have one mode (or two meant to complement each other, a la Operation Ivy). Stray from it and you can't do much, repeat it and it gets boring or you get too competent and less energetic.

Which of course is why its so amazing that a band like Dead Moon can put out basically the same album 20+ times and have it continue to be awesome.

Someone is being provocative.

"Provactively poor."

- another movie quote...from "24 Hour Party People"

It's pretty rare, especially in punk, for a band to rattle off three or four great albums. Rare enough to where I can't think of one offhand.

Wire, the Fall, the Buzzcocks, the Mekons & the Ramones all come to mind in about 5 seconds. I suspect I could think of loads of others without much effort.

See also: Damned, the.

Wire

Since it's now sort of on topic, has anyone here seen Wire live in the past few years? I'm thinking of going when they come to Boston in October, but don't want to bother if they'll seem old and a little sad.

The concept of "with a better editor" annoys me. The album has 18 songs and you like 11 of them. Is that worse than having 13 songs and you like 11 of them? If I actually like the band, I like getting the other windows into their personality.

(this applies to bands whose albums are all over the place like The Clash, not bands whose songs all sound similar).

Since it's now sort of on topic, has anyone here seen Wire live in the past few years? I'm thinking of going when they come to Boston in October, but don't want to bother if they'll seem old and a little sad.

Saw 'em in Chicago in 2000, I believe, & Atlanta a couple of years after that. Definitely worth seeing.

Has anyone heard of this album that supposed to be pretty good. It is called "Blonde on Blonde" by some guy named Bob Dylan(?)

It's pretty rare, especially in punk, for a band to rattle off three or four great albums. Rare enough to where I can't think of one offhand.

X-Albums 1-4 all excel
Minutemen Albums 2-4 were their creative peak, cut tragically short
Husker Du Albums 3-7

That's just off the top of my head.

Saw 'em in Chicago in 2000, I believe, & Atlanta a couple of years after that. Definitely worth seeing.

Thanks gef - do you recall if they played alot of stuff from Pink Flag/Chairs Missing/154 era, or more of a mix with newer stuff?

Has anyone heard of this album that supposed to be pretty good. It is called "Blonde on Blonde" by some guy named Bob Dylan(?)

Nice album. I hear he later got baptized in Pat Boone's swimming pool. Too bad they didn't hold him under for an hour or so.

I'm not saying your point is necessarily false, Voros, but the thing is that a band has two choices. First, they can keep making the same album over and over, in which case only their first album is the great one and the rest is firewood. Or, their music can change and go in different directions, in which case any individual listener will most likely only think one period of their output is "great" and the rest firewood, but different listeners have different tastes and so will think different periods are great. E.g. to me Radiohead made one great album ("The Bends") and the rest is firewood. But someone else will think the Bends is blah and Kid A is fantastic, because their musical tastes are very different to me.

I was actually chatting to a musician friend of mine about this not so long ago, and he said it's because you spend years trying to make it as a musician, you've been writing songs every day from your early teens, working out what works and what doesn't, honing your craft until you've really got a body of work, and then you can persuade someone to give you money to record and distribute it. So that first album is your life's work. And then they turn around and say OK, now give us another album, you've got six months.

And yeah, The Clash, and Wire definitely fit the bill. But then we start getting into definitional type issues about what punk is, and I definitely don't want to get into a Max R&R;slag fest.

Joe C --

In Chicago, I'm almost positive that they encored with "Pink Flag," & I think the first 3 LPs accounted for around half the playlist. Of course, at that time none of the Read & Burn EPs had come out, much less Send or (of course) the brand-new one (which I haven't yet heard -- ordered it just yesterday, in fact).

Not sure about Atlanta. I know they played some new stuff that hadn't come out yet, like the great "Mr Marx's Table" (which I recall mainly because I grabbed the lyrics sheet off the stage ... I guess it was so new that no one had learned the words by then).

Let's see ... Here's an excerpt from a review of a Chicago gig from 4 years ago, which will give you a bit of an idea of what they were leaning toward playing live back then:

The eleven-song set consisted entirely of material from Send. Highlights included Spent, Lewis's yelps on In the Art of Stopping, Newman's sarcastic "chorus that goes ba-ba-bang" on Comet, and the almost melodic Mr. Marx's Table. Any missing melody from earlier Wire material was made up for by the range of fascinating rhythms and the variety of guitar sounds.

Two encores followed, the first comprising four tunes from Pink Flag, albeit radically remixed to echo the new aesthetic of Wire Mk III: Strange (which the crowd seemed to know via the REM version), 106 Beats That, Surgeon's Girl, and Pink Flag. The second encore was a punishing version of I Don't Understand.

So that first album is your life's work. And then they turn around and say OK, now give us another album, you've got six months.

AlouGoodbye, when I read your comment my first thought was Elvis Costello and My Aim is True. Elvis followed that up with some pretty good albums though in This Year's Model and Armed Forces.

The concept of "with a better editor" annoys me. The album has 18 songs and you like 11 of them. Is that worse than having 13 songs and you like 11 of them? If I actually like the band, I like getting the other windows into their personality.

Sandanista! has 24 songs over 3 LPs and I like, I don't know, maybe 12 or 14 of them. I could defend several more in court despite my personal preference.

But it's really difficult to listen to the record straight through, especially the 3rd disc, and to not find it uneven (not varied, uneven). It's asking a lot of a listener to give him a record you'll have to flip over or swap five times over something like two hours. If the material was completely compelling it would make sense, but too much on it just feels like it was cranked out too quickly and with too little care, and variant versions of other things that seem a bit unnecessary. This is true on every album, sure, but the vast bulk of Sandanista! makes it problematic.

Look at it this way: there are only a handful of triple albums in rock history. Putting one out is an exceptional decision; a band should have exceptional material to justify it. I can't really argue that The Clash did here. They were reaching.

Wire:

It came out too late last year to make my list...but 23 Years Too Late will be top ten this year.

Oh, yeah...albums/CD's are the suck always have been.

I've never made it all the way through Sandinista. I don't think I ever even made it to the 3rd disc.

Hell, except for the first time I played it back in, I guess, 1/80, I seriously doubt I've ever listened to more than a couple of songs off the second disc of the insanely overrated London Calling.

I always loved the weird third disc of Sandinista. It's so...textured... it has that weird dub vibe to it, and weird vocals/vocalists (kids, women, etc.)... kind of collagey... "Charlie Don't Surf," "Version City," "Lose This Skin," "Silicon on Sapphire," "Junkie Slip".... those are great, weird, textured songs....

I always loved the weird third disc of Sandinista. It's so...textured... it has that weird dub vibe to it, and weird vocals/vocalists (kids, women, etc.)... kind of collagey... "Charlie Don't Surf," "Version City," "Lose This Skin," "Silicon on Sapphire," "Junkie Slip".... those are great, weird, textured songs....

Go to the mall.

Go to the mall.

I did once and all I remember is the blood and the screaming.

Nice to see a player with musical tastes that align closely with my own. Would have been nice to see more along the lines of the Minutemen, or even darker stuff like Saint Vitus, but some stuff is just too "underground," I suppose. It's still nice to see any hardcore mentioned at all.

Of course, had he mentioned groups along the lines of Maho Neitsyt and Terveet Kadet, I'd be even more impressed. And if he mentioned anything about late-80s era Ripcord or Heresy, I'd start worshiping him. Somebody needs to tell him to get his ass over to www.7inchpunk.com, and in a hurry.

Oh, and even though this topic hasn't come up yet, I say Keith Morris was Flag's greatest singer, hands down. I like Henry for the later stuff, but nobody did the punk stuff like Keith.

One last note -- my favorite Clash album is "Give 'em enough rope." Guess it's just my taste. #39 is right, "London Calling" is extremely overrated.

One more thing (sorry, another edit): Voros is an idiot. Black Flag's best came on Slip it In, Loose Nut and In My Head. I don't see how they ran out of gas at the end.

Someone is being provocative.

Yeah. Meet the Beatles isn't that great.

Go to the mall.

I think that one was by Robin Sparkles.

The Buzzcocks: Noise Annoys is used to torture pre-school children in Afghanistan.

Wire: I am the Fly, words fail me...

X: Performance art is not music.

The Clash: Joe Strummer actually died in 1978, he just didn't find out until a couple of years ago.

The Ramones: The Ramones didn't have one good album, they probably didn't even have one good song.

Black Flag: They made the mistake of hitting their peak with the title track on their first EP. Nervous Breakdown is possibly the best song ever recorded by people who can't really play their instruments. Morris sells that song.

As far as rock bands being juvenile and repetitive, that's pretty much generally in the definition of rock and roll. When you forget that, you go from being a band to a "recording artist."

Oh and I was slightly kidding with the Beatles, though Sgt. Peppers was the biggest crime ever committed against rock and roll.

The reason why bands start changing things after their first album is because rock and roll is basically amateur music. The concept of a rock star is similar to the concept of a master fry cook. It makes no sense. The Rolling Stones have been a band for 75 years and they still haven't come close to a Wooly Bully or 96 Tears. If four random guys from nowhere in particular can churn out all-time rock classics and quickly go back to their day jobs, what the hell do you need the Rolling Stones for?

Ah, well -- we're all allowed to say stupid things. That's your quota for the day. I hope.

The Buzzcocks: Noise Annoys is used to torture pre-school children in Afghanistan.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Well we just have a different definition of what rock and roll is. If you're not at least in some small way pretending to be Little Richard playing your instrument (IE, committing a violent crime against it), you're not really rockin.

Buddy Holly died at 22 years old and was already out of ideas when he did.

Sgt. Peppers was the biggest crime ever committed against rock and roll.

I danced, I cheered, I bowed, I checked old notebook for Goldstein's number.

Buddy Holly died at 22 years old and was already out of ideas when he did.

True. (I suspect he would've turned into Paul McCartney, if he hadn't already. *shudder*) Also wildly irrelevant to whatever point you're fumblingly trying to make.

The point being that the history of rock and roll is about theft and tantrums. Stray from that path and you wind up... Well I'll let Sting explain it:

You Know, I Used To Be Kind Of Cool Once

When it comes to rock and roll, creativity comes in a distant 43rd place to adrenaline.

Putting one out is an exceptional decision; a band should have exceptional material to justify it. I can't really argue that The Clash did here. They were reaching.

It's interesting that a band from a type of music created precisely because of the excesses of Pink Floyd started behaving so much like them, and so quickly.

Then we don't disagree on anything, really. Except for the merits of Wire, the Buzzcocks & the Ramones. And I guess X. And, sort of, the Clash (I'd say Joe Strummer pretty much died a year later than you say).

I like Wire and Buzzcocks. Just not much past their initial output. And again I'm talking albums. Bands will come up with a tune or two but nowhere near enough to fill a side of an album much less a whole album. Sometimes their best bet are covers (7 Seconds managed to extend their shelf life slightly that way).

It just puzzles me that when Wire was recording "I am the Fly" somebody didn't stop for a second and say "wait a minute. What the hell are we doing?"

Were Pete Shelley's monitors broken during "Harmony in my Head?" It sounds like a Huey Lewis song. A couple years later and it could have made the Back to the Future Soundtrack.

"A Town Called Malice?" "Clean Sheets?" "American Jesus?"

Good god -- "Harmony in My Head" may well be my favorite Buzzcocks song, except maybe for "I Believe." Though of course all four Spiral Scratch tracks are ace.

I also have no problem whatsoever with "I am the Fly," either.

Oh, well. To each his own.

"Sixteen" is pretty good, too (not to be confused with "Sixteen Again.")

"I Am The Fly" is absolutely sheer uncut ############# genius!
You probably don't like "Outdoor Miner" either.....

"I Am The Fly" is absolutely sheer uncut ############# genius!

Yes, evil genius. The other day I was stuck in traffic next to a jackhammer and I could have swore he was playing I am the Fly on it. Repetitive is fine, monotonous is not.

You probably don't like "Outdoor Miner" either.....

(swoon)

Repetitive is fine, monotonous is not.

Note to self: Do not offer to lend Voros Wire's The Drill.

The Rolling Stones have been a band for 75 years and they still haven't come close to a Wooly Bully or 96 Tears. If four random guys from nowhere in particular can churn out all-time rock classics and quickly go back to their day jobs, what the hell do you need the Rolling Stones for?

Well, see that's not close to true, but since it's all subjective, you can pretend Let it Bleed and Beggar's Banquet aren't historically great albums and say things like this, but you don't expect people to take you as some kind of authority when you say them do you?

but you don't expect people to take you as some kind of authority when you say them do you?

I don't expect anything. It's my honest opinion. It's not like On Base Percentage. If I happen to think the Stones peaked with Time is on My Side, telling me I'm wrong isn't really going to change my mind.

The Avengers version of Paint it Black is much better than the Stones' version.

I saw ? and the Mysterians at the Empty Bottle about 10 years ago, and amazingly they put on a great show. It's really not as hard as some folks think. A bunch of Mexican kids from Michigan make a hit record, tour for a year or two, get jobs, go to Vietnam, and then play again 30 years later and can still bring it. Trying to wring more out of this kind of music than that, to me, is pointless.

If I happen to think the Stones peaked with Time is on My Side, telling me I'm wrong isn't really going to change my mind.

I'm not telling you you're wrong, you're sitting here telling everyone else who reads the thread that they're wrong about just about every band you feel like naming. I also find it entertaining that you believe that it doesn't take all that much talent to write great rock/blues music.

I'm not telling you you're wrong, you're sitting here telling everyone else who reads the thread that they're wrong about just about every band you feel like naming. I also find it entertaining that you believe that it doesn't take all that much talent to write great rock/blues music.

It doesn't. The Surfin Bird was written in 15 minutes in the recording studio.

It takes some talent, but it just so happens that it's an amount that an awful lot of people have. Hence the term "one hit wonder." A little bit of talent, a lot a bit of theft, and some half competent power chords and you're well on your way.

And yes I'm telling people they're wrong, that's what having a contrary opinion means: I'm right and you're wrong. Unless you view telling someone they're wrong is some sort of unforgivable insult, I don't see what the problem is. If you think the term "wrong" is too harsh, insert "I have a contrary opinion" anywhere it appears.

It's interesting that a band from a type of music created precisely because of the excesses of Pink Floyd started behaving so much like them, and so quickly.

as a huge Clash fan (and someone who ... well, tolerates Pink Floyd) I have to take issue with this. The Clash branching off into reggae, dub, funk, what have you is nothing like those bloated operatic prog albums. This is a mistake you make when you think the Clash fit a narrow category of punk. The first album had (White Man in) Hammersmith Palais and a cover of Police and Theves. It also had White Riot and What's My Name. They were always an expansive, genre-jumping band.

Sandinista! was overstuffed and could have been plenty paired down, but Strummer himself said they didn't want to do it because they wanted to have a complete document of the month-long period in which they recorded it, and there's something admirable about that.

Sandinista! was overstuffed and could have been plenty paired down, but Strummer himself said they didn't want to do it because they wanted to have a complete document of the month-long period in which they recorded it, and there's something admirable about that.

And a bit self indulgent, no?

And the first album didn't actually have White Man in Hammersmith. That came after, and then snuck onto the U.S. version along with a few others and a toned down version of White Riot. Protex Blue and a few others were removed.

And a bit self indulgent, no?

Yes and no. Maybe it was self indulgent in the sense that they thought people would be interested in hearing stuff like One More Dub and Version Pardner. But they cost themselves a ton of money releasing a triple album for the price of a single LP. That's the sort of thing you only do if you truly believe in your material.

Full disclosure: I'm a massive, massive Clash fan who actually digs stuff like Lose This Skin and loves The Sound of the Sinners, so maybe I've lost all sense of objectivity when it comes to the Clash. That's entirely possible.

Voros makes Lester Bangs look like a prog-rock fan!

I love Lose This Skin, One More Dub and Version Pardner. And I think gef is crazy for not liking the second half of London Calling (How the HELL do you not like Death or Glory, Koka Kola, Four Horsemen, I'm Not Down or Train in Vain?).

But did we really need to hear five year olds sing Career Opportunities?

But they cost themselves a ton of money releasing a triple album for the price of a single LP.

The Clash only started making money in the early 90s, that's how much money they lost.

It's not really like that. :) Music is about enjoyment essentially, whereas baseball is about winning. I'm pretty sure I'm one of a select few people who enjoy "The Ballad of Jerry Curlan" but I do anyway. I actually think that THAT is quite clever.

Here's my answer to his "crucial" song list (rank not relevant):

1. Favorite Shirt - The Figgs
2. Bad Little Woman - The Wheels
3. Infested - Course of Empire
4. You Can't Sit Down - Hound Dog Taylor
5. I Wanna Be a Homosexual - Screeching Weasel
6. The Israelites - Desmond Dekker and the Aces
7. Out of Touch - 7 Seconds
8. Come See Me - The Pretty Things
9. Alternative Ulster - Stiff Little Fingers
10. Out of Control - The Milkshakes

As you can see, there's nothing particularly creative or visionary about any of it (trust me on that for the ones you don't know). I suppose Infested might be, but it's really just a rock song (IE, lots of stolen bits and pieces from years past).

This list is subject to change anytime within the next 10 minutes and all intervals thereafter.

Also anyone's list who is any different than mine is WRONG!!

The Clash branching off into reggae, dub, funk, what have you is nothing like those bloated operatic prog albums.

And the first rap song by a white band.

One thing the Clash has uniquely is an enormous amount of respect among the Jamaican community in London for their ability to play reggae a lot better than 99% of the white bands who've tried. And they had a hit among the black community in New York.

And the first rap song by a white band.

That was actually Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen. :)

the first rap song by a white band.

Magnificent Seven? One of my favorites.

the first album didn't actually have White Man in Hammersmith. That came after, and then snuck onto the U.S. version along with a few others and a toned down version of White Riot. Protex Blue and a few others were removed.

so that means, what, six months after they released the first album they turned in Emerson Lake and Palmer?

8. Come See Me - The Pretty Things

you mean...8. It Came to Me - Q65

And the first rap song by a white band.

I think "Rapture" by Blondie actually beats it out, although it's very close.

Has Mission of Burma been mentioned? Vs. and Signal Calls and Marches are amazing and way ahead of their time. They have been recently remastered and sound amazing.

Great thread

:) We can go on with the obscure 60s garage stuff all day Repoz, but only one of us is old enough to remember it. Mine comes from time misspent as a volunteer DJ.

Besides The Wheels should have been obscure enough.

Hadn't heard it before, thanks (I'd thought I'd at least spilled across everything in my DJ days). Definitely same sort of thing, though I'm a little shocked a relatively obscure Dutch band from the 1960s has a My Space page.

If it wasn't for having to field all those Amon Duul requests I might have got around to it.

I seriously doubt I've ever listened to more than a couple of songs off the second disc of the insanely overrated London Calling.

Wow - I think I prefer the second half to the first. Great album

so that means, what, six months after they released the first album they turned in Emerson Lake and Palmer?

I said it was quick. :)

Actually I don't have anything against White Man and there's a few post '77 Clash songs here and there that I like (and a couple of '77s that I don't). I was just pointing out that it wasn't actually on the first album, and instead there was a much more typical '77 song about condoms.

It just strikes me as ironic that a band that had trouble coming up with enough songs for their first album (I've been there, and it was a three song demo) so quickly ran into the problem of releasing albums with way too many.

I think "Rapture" by Blondie actually beats it out, although it's very close.

Magnificent Seven beats it by six months.

And I'm with Phil, the second half is brilliant. Mick Jones as rhythm guitarist is nonpareil on the second half, as good as anything Keef ever did.

Has Mission of Burma been mentioned?

Eric Van's favorite band.

Magnificent Seven beats it by six months.

Magnificent Seven appears to have been recorded first, although Rapture was released first.

Mine comes from time misspent as a volunteer DJ.

HA!...At least I got paid in beer (unless Ira Kaplan stole that too!).

Yeah, my only pay came in free concert tickets.

WZRD - Chicago

Repoz - been meaning to ask you for ages...

What's your favourite Yo la Tengo record??

And I think gef is crazy for not liking the second half of London Calling (How the HELL do you not like Death or Glory, Koka Kola, Four Horsemen, I'm Not Down or Train in Vain?).

Actually, those last 2 songs are the only particularly good ones on that disc -- all the others all pretty much point to the utter rot that consumed most of Sandinista. Ah, well, it was a nice ride while it lasted.

favourite Yo la Tengo record??

Natch, I go 45...which would be the first one in 1985 (The River of Water/A House Is Not A Motel--Egon Records) not because it's great or anything. Just the fact that Ira had the cojones to even put out a disc after some of his tepidio afterhour gigs at Maxwell's...we're we goofed on them all the time.

My fave quote from a few years ago upon looking back at that scene..."Outside of Ira Kaplan, the last person you would've figured to make it in the biz was Jim DeRogatis."

X: Performance art is not music.

I'm sorry, but it wasn't performance art. Billy Zoom, to borrow a phrase from the former NYT critic Robert Palmer, is the best neo-Chuck Berry guitarist since Keith Richards. DJ Bonebrake and John Doe were an amazing rhythm section. John and Exene were tremendous at harmonizing. They could bring it on the album, and bring it live, too.

Referring to X as performance art and not music is about as incorrect a judgment as you could proffer.

To steer in another direction: gef, I saw the WATCHMEN preview before Batman last night. I forget if you had read that one back in the day or not, but it gave me chills and I practically teared up. And this was after dissing the IDEA of the film while waiting in line.

"Outside of Ira Kaplan, the last person you would've figured to make it in the biz was Jim DeRogatis."

Drummer for the Ex-Lion Tamers, if memory serves (to evoke Wire again).

As far as rock bands being juvenile and repetitive, that's pretty much generally in the definition of rock and roll. When you forget that, you go from being a band to a "recording artist."

I tread into the murky realm of personal opinion here, but if that's how you feel about rock, how could you possibly not get bored with it?

Listening to the same album over and over ought to be just as bad as making the same album over and over.

gef, I saw the WATCHMEN preview before Batman last night. I forget if you had read that one back in the day or not, but it gave me chills and I practically teared up. And this was after dissing the IDEA of the film while waiting in line

Not back in the day, no, but I did finally read it a couple of years ago. I liked it well enough, though for me it paled in comparison to V for Vendetta (which probably got a somewhat unfair boost by echoing my political views to a pretty fair extent). In any event, if the movie approximates the quality of the Vendetta film, it'll be well worth watching.

How was the new Batman? I seriously doubt I'll watch it anytime soon, if ever -- the number of superhero movies I've ever watched can almost certainly be counted on the finger of one hand, expecially over the last 15 years (I did see the first 2 Superman movies in the theatre in the late '70s), & I rarely ever catch any film anywhere but in front of my DVD player (though I'll almost certainly take in a showing of the new X-Files movie when it opens) -- but I'm curious.

As far as Watchmen, I can see how it wouldn't have as big an effect on someone who didn't read it when it came out in the 80's, and had political relevance for the era, and creative influence on a kid in his teens, as I was. I was never a big fan of 300, the director of which is doing this one, but if it allowed him to cut his teeth as a practice run for this film, that's fine with me. (That being said, who knows, it still might be a glaring disappointment.)

Superhero movies have been almost all terrible, which is what made IRON MAN seem like such a masterpiece comparatively. I love X-Files as much as any nerd, but I can't imagine it's going to be that great.

As far as Batman, I mean, I don't know. It really depends on what you like and what you're expecting. Personally, although it was lauded, I thought the previous Batman that everyone liked was really about as average as could be.

This one, however, was not. It was damned good, in my opinion. Ledger really did do an amazing job, there are a couple of clunky lines, but overall it really overcomes a lot of the problems that plague comic book films. The film is DARK DARK DARK, seriously. Really dark. A workout to watch, but it really is well-made. I don't want to talk too much about specific things and let anything leak, but I'm a harsh judge, and this new one passed my smell test.


Out of curiosity, why don't you go out to films?

Drummer for the Ex-Lion Tamers, if memory serves (to evoke Wire again).

Yup, and currently half of the team on Sound Opinions, which I should really listen to on-line.

Out of curiosity, why don't you go out to films?

Mainly because I'm both cheap & relatively poor (as I like to say, if you're going to be one, you might as well be the other). When I lived in North Little Rock I'm sure I went to at least a movie a week, because we had a pretty neat second-run theatre that charged, if memory serves, $1.50 on weekends & $1 for every other showing, except for Tuesdays, when admission was 50 cents. Montgomery, alas, has no such establishments, which I find sort of amazing, but then any number of things about this place amaze me in a negative sense.

Also, for some (psychologically oriented, I'm sure) reason, more than 99 percent of what I've felt like watching the last 4 years or so has been horror, & the number of horror movies that get mass release & are worth paying even matinee prices to see ($5.50 or thereabouts here, which I'm aware is pretty darned good compared to the going figure in many places) is extremely limited. The last few I recall catching -- Shutter, Grindhouse, Land of the Dead, Descent, Doomsday, Silent Hill -- ranged from good-but-overrated to moderately enjoyabe to tepid to criminally horrible (Grindhouse, of course; as I've implied before, in a just world Tarantino would be in prison for fraud & theft & the sort of general smarminess that probably characterizes the garden-variety pedophile). Cloverfield was a happy exception.

Rock and Roll tends to be derivative and generic, a sound get's developed by musicians then copied by others who take it to the mainstream. And the Rolling Stones are, uh, not good. They just straight copied early blues riffs then re-packaged them for teenage whiteboys used to listening to 50's rock n' roll, then repeated themselves for another 40 years. Unlike alot of rock and roll artists at least you can say they were good showman and could play their instruments competently.

Alot of rock acts where the musicianship is of a high standard tend to change formula alot and drift into more experimental realms, e.g. radiohead just got better as they started to abandoned straight ahead rock and melded in other genres - notably infuenced by techno, free form jazz and modern classical (Xenakis, Ryoji Ikeda, John Cage, Stockhausen, etc.).

But then I got bored with most hopelessly derivative rock about 6-7 years ago because it all started either sounding the same or I new who the original artists was they were ripping off.

I never really liked hardcore punk, always found the songs too samey and 'singers' who just scream into the microphone have always been a pet peeve of mine, not mentioned, but Big Black always annoyed the hell out of me for this reason. I always liked the music they created but Albini's singing made me want to stick broccoli in my ears!

Geez, BFFB, this thread makes me want to melt all my CDs. What the HELL HAVE I BEEN DOING WITH MY LIFE?

That being said, I'm down with Xenakis and Cage, but they aren't modern. ;-)

This thread is like a parade of pretentious people with shitty tastes in music.