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What are you listening to right now?

Posted: April 21st, 2017, 8:30 pm
by Mal Shot First
Since Spacey intended his [DOT] thread to be primarily for Canadian music, I'll respect his intention and create a general thread for discussion of all other music-related things.

Re: What are you listening to right now?

Posted: April 21st, 2017, 8:39 pm
by Mal Shot First
I'm not really all that familiar with the Shins, but they pop up on my wife's Pandora station every so often. Today I heard a song, though, that I hadn't heard before, and I was struck by the Nirvana-ness of the first 20 seconds or so. Even the opening line is delivered in a Cobain-like manner (that is, more in terms of cadence than actual resemblance of the voice).



I'm not sure what gives me the impression of similarity. Part of it is probably the strumming pattern. Another part is probably the way the guitar sounds. The song gets less Nirvana-like as it progresses, but it caught my attention because of the opening segment. I kind of like it, overall.

Re: What are you listening to right now?

Posted: April 21st, 2017, 9:21 pm
by The Swollen Goiter of God
I listened to the Shins a bit in the early aughts. They were alternative darlings. I liked the thin vocals and baroque-pop-meets-garage aesthetics, both of which were fairly typical of the era, and both of which reminded me a bit of the Paisley Underground movement. You'll hear similarities to the Shins in some of the alternative bands and musicians contemporary to them. Acts like Doctor Dog, Snowglobe, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah come to mind, as do the Unicorns. I suppose The Decemberists fit loosely within that group, but the lead singer's vocal affectations annoy the hell out of me, so I tend to avoid them. Death Cab for Cutie, Andrew Bird, Sufjan Stevens, and Bright Eyes probably also fit loosely within the same group, but I never really got into these acts despite having them recommended to me and despite having giving an album or two of each a whirl.

I remember really digging the music video for the Shins' "So Says I" (it's been years since the last time I watched it, but I think I dug it because the Walrus fang reminded me of the Coke bottle in The Gods Must Be Crazy):



If there was one thing I didn't like about the Shins back when I was listening to them, it was their overworked lyrics. The singer sometimes choked on them, and it took me out of things.

I can hear the Nirvana parallel, but I also hear the kind of tweaked country-progression-filtered-through-alternative-sensibilities that might pop up in a Beck or Sean Lennon song.

My current circumstances have sucked the desire to seek new stuff right out of me. I listen to Dvořák's Requiem on repeat every weekday while I write, but I do this more to give myself an added layer of white noise than for any other reason. I've tried other things, but they were too distracting. I play it on top of another white noise file of my own creation. It does a decent job of blocking out the sounds of the YMCA, which helps me focus on my writing. (The story I'm currently working on is up to 159 pages, and I have at least another fifty I want to write before I start chopping. It's unlikely that the finished product will be under 140 pages.)

I guess I have listened to the new Chuck Berry song ("Big Boys") a few times. I like it. It's vintage Berry:



I also listen to "Chicken Attack" and "The Seagulls" once a week or so, but I've linked to those recently.

Re: What are you listening to right now?

Posted: April 29th, 2017, 9:34 pm
by The Swollen Goiter of God
It occurred to me later on that I mentioned a handful of bands with sonic ties to the Shins, but I forgot to mention Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane over the Sea, the '98 album most (if not all) of those bands (including [and especially] the Shins) were influenced by. Here's the title track, even though I'm sure you've already heard it:


Re: What are you listening to right now?

Posted: May 28th, 2017, 10:46 pm
by The Swollen Goiter of God
Fake Beatles!

















(Note: The Wyncote Squirrels were just the Liverpools pitched up. The label that released the Liverpools LP essentially just pitched up the whole LP, drew
or traced a "squirrel" [clearly meant to be evocative of a chipmunk], reproduced that squirrel three more times [two of the reproductions are flipped], slapped the squirrels on a new album cover, sat back, and waited for the money to roll in.)

I think Jubbers may have posted some fake Beatles stuff in the past, so there may be some crossover.

I thought about posting some Aerovons, but they're not exactly fake Beatles. They weren't the product of a record label throwing some session musicians into a studio to do knockoff Beatles tunes. They were a group of talented kids who were clearly, cutely Beatles-obsessed.

Re: What are you listening to right now?

Posted: May 29th, 2017, 12:37 pm
by The Swollen Goiter of God
I meant to mention last night that the Beatle Buddies are singing over instrumentals already created for a different Beatles clone called "The Manchesters." Similar situation to the Liverpools and the Wyncote Squirrels, but with all-new vocals from women instead of a simple pitching up of original tracks.

I also forgot to mention that the above track by the Liverpools and Wyncote Squirrels were actually repackaged Dovells songs. The Dovells had already tried unsuccessfully to sell some of the songs used on the Liverpools and Wyncote Squirrels albums under their own name. It's not clear to me if they're responsible for all the tracks on the albums or if they are just responsible for some/all of the original, non-Beatles-cover tracks. It's also not clear to me if they had anything to do with the repackaged stuff or if it was all due to unscrupulous Wyncote execs.

(The Dovells had already had some chart success, pre-Beatles. They're probably best known for "Bristol Stomp," a doo wop track, and their high-charting cover of "You Can't Sit Down," a Chubby Checker-esque rocker. [I forget the original artist's name. I'm pretty sure the Dovells version is the bigger one.] It appears they didn't really have a sound of their own.)

Anyway, here's the Manchesters' original version of "I Waited":

http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/GF/The_Manche ... Waited.mp3

Re: What are you listening to right now?

Posted: November 9th, 2017, 11:10 am
by Mal Shot First
Just heard this recently for the first time:


I like the sentimentality and irony in it.

Musically, it reminds me of some of the jazzy/bluesy numbers from the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack, which is not surprising at all since that show was essentially a mishmash of tributes to American pop culture. In its tone, "Farewell Blues" shares a lot of similarities with the Chet Baker song, I think.