i was one of the lucky 50,000 or so who got to see nirvana's second performance at the reading festival in 1992. it was my first visit, just for the day, and i'll never forget bouncing up and down with everyone else to "in bloom" trying to save my reading fest poster from getting crushed while clutching a plastic bag containing this great indie compilation cd. put together by melody maker, it's a pretty good survey of the early 90s indie scene with a good smattering of bands demonstrating the scene's inherent quirkiness. so i'm glad it didn't [...]
by Bill Pearis DOWNLOAD: The Cribs - We Were Aborted (MP3) DOWNLOAD : BOAT - Prince of Tacoma (MP3) DOWNLOAD : BOAT - We've Been Friends Since 1989 (MP3) DOWNLOAD : BOAT - Lately (MP3) DOWNLOAD : BOAT - I'm a Donkey for Your Love (MP3) DOWNLOAD : BOAT - Last Cans of Paint (MP3) DOWNLOAD : Pants Yell! - Cold Hands [...]
I still feel the same way about my birthday as I did last year - probably even more so. A general sense of malaise bordering on abject disappointment and mild despair. I really am that maudlin. Or it's just compounded with my regular mood trough. Another year, another jumbled assortment of unfulfilled goals. In the great words of Howard Moon, "You should celebrate that day alone...in sombre isolation." There's no doubt that if I had a birthday party, which I haven't since I was a child, it would end up like Howard Moon's; I'd be dancing away in [...]
Stricken City have finally released Songs About People I Know , an incredibly brief album (they call it a "mini-album") with eight songs, hardly a blunder in sight, and a hell of a lot of promise. if this was the early '80s Stricken City would be labelmates of Orange Juice , as this release features eight of the prettiest, shambling C86 -style pop nuggets since the Postcard era. intentionally angular and amateurish, playful guitar lines, fidgety bass and one-finger keyboards, all deliciously cut with Rebekah Raa 's striking, spectral chirrup, which [...]
I know many of you are way too young to remember the 1960's daytime Gothic Soap Opera Dark Shadows, but my friend David from River Road in Millington, NJ and I used to watch the thing with his older brother Joe. There was this game by Mattel called Creepy Crawlers that very famous in the mid 60's that allowed you to make rubbery monsters from a mold. My guess is that the game would never get by the child safety inspectors today, but back then it was very popular. Between that and The Munsters & The Adams Family, which were [...]
El Perro del Mar - Change of Heart Thoughts : ...interesting. Amazing Baby - Supreme Being Thoughts : Looks like a cross between a Gap commercial and an iPod Commercial. Cursive - Let Me Up Thoughts : A bit slow at first but an awesome ending. Download their Daytrotter session here . Cursive – [...]
Surge como uno de los tantos proyectos de sub corrientes musicales que crecen día a día en Hamburgo. Y utilizo el prefijo sub ya que la forma de clasificarlos en género y culturalmente está fuera de los parámetros. No es nada nuevo; El utilizar instrumentos electro-acústicos y algunos elementos de electrónica parte como propuesta de ensamble. Sin embargo, Me Succeeds cuelga influencias de los 90's como lo sugerían los pocos sampleos de Ned's Atomic Dustbin grabados en cinta, sonidos galácticos como los de la banda pre-Björk solista: Sugarcubes, Voces distorcionadas como el caso de Dinosaur Jr [...]
I was an admirer of the music released by The Sugarcubes in as much that I bought singles and albums, but usually a few weeks or months after they had been released rather than on the day they hit the shops. I was slightly sorry to learn of their break-up in 1992, and while I was interested to hear that their female lead singer was going to pursue a solo career I didn't think it was one that would a big impact outside of her [...]
It seems like we're having kind of an experimental week, and who am I to blow against the wind? SoSB made me think of Bjork and Bjork made me think of her ambient post-rock Icelandic brethren, Sigur Ros. These two musical entities are more related than just being from the same country--Sigur Ros got their start on Bad Taste Records, owned by Bjork's band prior to going solo, The Sugarcubes. Interestingly, this band has its own word for a kind of scat-like language they use in certain songs. From [...]
"Green Eyed Love" is the downbeat album-closer from Michigan soul singer Mayer Hawthorne's Stones Throw debut LP, A Strange Arrangement . On first blush its lyrics seem to suggest he's got a thing with a tempestuous, ill-advised green-eyed girlfriend. Or with weed. The twist is that Mayer's green comes not via girls or herb, but through slotted spoons and sugarcubes. A fix of absinthe later, Hawthorne's watching lips grow out of bathroom tiles and girls get multiplied and colorized; not your average look for soul-rooted music, coming from a guy who's not your average look for a soul-rooted artist. [...]
Boston band Rubblebucket are musical omnivores, but their favorite dishes consist of funk, jazz and soul. Their sophomore album Rubblebucket is a heady mixture of African rhythms, rock guitar and thundering trombone and trumpet. Lead singer Kalmia Traver has enough power to make herself heard above the mayhem. An that's a good thing because her lyrics go a lot deeper than most high energy party time songs . Philips Van has the slow approach of the Sugarcubes and Hommage is a Far East instrumental to calm [...]
A connected post today, with tracks from Gus Gus, members of whom were previously in the Sugarcubes with Bjork where we have remixes by Justin Robertson. It's almost as if some thought goes into these posts. Gus Gus featured previously here . But briefly: Gus Gus began as a creative collective of nine members, ranging in ages from 19 to over 30 and spanning a wide spectrum of backgrounds and interests, including two film makers, a computer programmer, a photographer, a DJ, an actor, a political campaigner and a film [...]
TUNE IN Today (by clicking the rather conspicuous link above) For Altrok's Daily Retro! Today at 11:30am Eastern, we'll have The Smiths, Pop Will Eat Itself, General Public, Japan, R.E.M., The Vapors, Ultravox, Paul Kelly, Marianne Faithful, Morrissey, Bronski Beat, The Lemonheads, Dire Straits (in their new-wavey mode) , Love & Rockets, XTC, Nine Inch Nails, The Bongos, The Sugarcubes and so very many more! And if you miss it today, there'll be another two-hour-long selection coming up tomorrow and every weekday (Monday-Friday) at 11:30am Eastern . But don't put [...]
There is one artist whose absence from this list is hard to ignore, especially if you know me. That would be Madonna. Madonna is one of my favorite female artists ever, but she will not be #1, she would not have even been #14. There are a lot of similarities between Madonna and Icelandic singer Bjork. Like Madonna, Bjork has been making music since the 80s, with her band the Sugarcubes, and is constantly reinventing herself. But the main difference between the two is there is only one Bjork. Madonna's voice is unforgettable. Judging her strictly on her vocal talents, [...]
Warts and all, 24/7 marks GusGus at a level of maturity that allows them to shun the sonic pyrotechnics that have charmed dance outfits across Europe, while communicating more. Forget for a moment that Iceland's wealth has evaporated like steam from a geyser. For before the crisis, GusGus represented everything about the country for someone who's never visited it: rigorous experimenters conveying the kind of abject isolation that presents itself in a vast windswept landscape like their own. Yet, rather refreshingly, they did it with all the conscious whimsy of Kraftwerk, rather than the suicidal intensity of [...]
This post features Acid Ted favourite Justin Robertson in his Lionrock guise. Although Lionrock was an early name used by Robertson, in the mid-90s it became a name for his band - who were rather good live. They put out one good album - An Instinct For Detection - but split following wrangles with the record company over the second album, a lack of promotion and poor sales. Producer Justin Robertson began recording as Lionrock in 1991 after plotting a successful career as a DJ and remixer. Aloof from [...]
Goth punk veterans reform and get a 1996 makeover from ambient stars The Orb. Heavy and slow, Killing Joke (at least early in their career) was a quasi-punk/metal band dancing to a tune of doom and gloom. They eventually became less heavy and more arty (the latter seems almost impossible) — more danceable even. The origins of Killing Joke lie in the Matt Stagger Band. Paul Ferguson was drumming for the group when he met Jaz Coleman (vocals, keyboards) in the late '70s. [...]
Kippi Kaninus - Happens Secretly Released October 5th on Brainlove Records Ltd Edition Digipack CD / MP3 download Kippi Kaninus is the alter ego of Gudmundur Vignir Karlsson from Reykjavik, Iceland. He creates subtle multilayered electronica with melodic evolutions, microbeats, sampled instruments and manipulated sound. He is the newest signing to Brainlove Records . Kippi started small, with a self-released album in the year 2000. He made only [...]
Depeche Mode (l to r): Andrew Fletcher, David Gahan, and Martin Gore. You may have gathered from my posts that I'm not one to go out to concerts very often. I enjoy live music, don't get me wrong, but life sometimes gets in the way (along with geography), making it difficult to get to the city to see someone I'd truly be interested in paying to see perform. In my youth (oh oh, Jim's on the 'old man kick again') I lived for concerts and live shows. One of my fondest concert experiences was [...]
Last week's posting on Geneva made me delve a bit more into the shelf that holds the 5"CD singles and promo discs that aren't in inside plastic cases...and because of this they don't have a place in my anally-retentive alphabetical system. And every now and again I'll share one of them with you. I'm sure many of you know that Bjork enjoyed a fair bit of fame pre -solo career with The Sugarcubes , who until the recent emergence of Sigur Ros were probably about the [...]
![The Cribs - We Share The Same Skies [Later... with Jools Holland]](http://cache.elbo.ws/youtube/624iQ2Veaw8_130.jpg)
‘09 Been Kind
Vampire Weekend - Cousins
WKND PLYLST!! This has nothing to do with NEW MOON!
Zipper (Dj Manaia Remix)
