I know it’s not the smartest thing to admit when you’re a contributor to a blog aspiring to be a source for the brightest and best in Rock Music These Days, but I’m a crotchety old grandpa man what can’t figure out what the hell it is The Kids These Days are listening to sometimes. I know, it’s a little embarrassing, actually.
I don’t try to be. I try to give new music a listen, especially when people I know and dig are into it. But so often I’m stuck thinking, “eh. Heard it.†But fortunately, I think I’ve finally figured out why, and it’s because the stuff I like has really fallen out of favor in the last few years.
Heh. I know what you’re thinking—“oh, yeah, ok, DJ thinks his taste in music is SOOO unfashionable, because he’s such a free thinking individual. What a laugh.†But no, seriously! When’s the last time a really great noise-rock band burned up the blogs? Hrm?
Here’s the thing–i love noise. Not necessarily NOISE noise, like Wolf Eyes or something, although in a live environment, that’s great (but you won’t see me ever buying a noise album–i listened to Maldoror once before shelving it permamently. It’s good! It’s very good! I only need to hear it once!), but, well, stuff like my band plays–i want hot shit songwriting mixed with enough feedback and dissonance or other weirdness to peel layers of enamel off your teeth. Noise can’t hold my attention without song structure, and pop music by itself bores me after a while. Hell, I love The Wrens more than most people I know, but what attracted me to them at first? The noisy bits on Secaucus, that’s what.
Somewhere in the last few years i stopped looking for new stuff as actively as i did in my early-to-mid 20s, which i suppose is a natural progression with age. When you’re young, every little subgenre of rock ‘n’ roll is new and bowls you over, and whoever’s doing it right then is who you fall in love with. For me, it was Brainiac and Girls Against Boys and Jesus Lizard and Jawbox and Sebadoh. Today, kids are going crazy for Ted Leo and Arctic Monkeys and shit. Ted Leo’s fine, but he’s not exactly kicking my ass with his heart-wrenching genius or anything (he may be writing genius lyrics, but i don’t pay attention to lyrical content until the music’s hooked me. Sorry, that’s just the way i am). I listened to some Arctic Monkeys and couldn’t believe that it only took about two years for someone to look at the White Stripes and Strokes and say, “hey, wait…what if we combine them? WOAH!”
I guess what i’m saying is that it’s my fault–i stopped actively looking for the stuff that kicks my ass and let myself get beaten down by the constant barrage of sensitive twee-pop shit (by the way, how the hell did a former child actor like Jenny Lewis end up an “indie songstress?” Did she really have to look far to find someone to put out her albums, for god’s sake?) and rehashed by-the-numbers genre revivals (Wolfmother? You’re shitting me, right? Wolfmother? Guys, Mike Patton hit the nail on the head with you jokers). For every Mclusky i arrive late to the dance for, there’s about 10 OK Gos begging me for a slow dance, and i can’t bring myself to even come close enough to do the junior-high hands-on-shoulders keep-your-distance dance with them.
Still, there’s some great noisy, dissonant music being made out there. It’s just operating really far under the radar these days—farther even than straight noise, for that matter! While I make an honest attempt to dig a little deeper and find myself some new noise-rock and dissonant post-punk, let me bring you up to speed on what’s being made today that I still love. And no, when I say “post-punk,†I’m not talking about that tired Gang of Four ripoff “dancepunk†horseshit like the CRapture. For the record.
The Paper Chase: This is probably the most vital and (ugh, god, I’m gonna say it) important (gah! I hate it when other people use that word to describe bands! Honest! I’m sorry!) band of the noise-rock/post-punk weirdness persuasion out there. They stumbled across my radar with their first full-length, Young Bodies Heal Quickly, You Know, back in 2001, and I’ve been a jackass fanboy for them ever since. If you’re unfamiliar, picture a lurching, pummeling rhythm section from the Shellac school with sparse, jagged distorted bluegrass guitar over it. Add in some creepy-as-shit piano, samples, and John Congleton’s tortured rhythmic vocal delivery and you’ve got a readymade soundtrack for a night of conscience-haunting REM sleep. Oh, and they’re maybe the best live act on tour today.
Melt-Banana: Yeah, lots of people should know about these guys, but frankly, I never see anyone talking about them, and I don’t see why, because they’re also the best live act on tour today. To one tops this Japanese art-noise-hardcore act when it comes to taking pure feedback and sound effects and shaping it into lightspeed punk rock. In recent years they’ve also had one of hardcore’s legendary drummers manning their kit as well—king of the blast-beat Dave Witte. These guys have also been around for years (close to 10 of them) and so probably don’t exactly fit the bill as a “new†band, but they’re definitely a band one would consider “essential†if they were the type of douchebag that referred to bands as “essential†(like, apparently, your humble narrator).
OK, those two bands are pretty obvious. Oakland’s Replicator are a little more under the radar thanks to an almost nonexistent touring schedule, but they definitely deserve a listen. They get compared to (uh oh, here’s the “s†word again) Shellac sometimes thanks to their mathy, clockwork rhythm section, but the guitars are a little less abrasive (but not much), and they add samples and overt political lyrics to the mix. Also, their song titles (“The Weight of 3 Marlon Brandos,†“Login With My Fistâ€) kick ass.
And finally, I’ve mentioned these guys before, but Milwaukee’s Call Me Lightning may end up being the band that brings noisy post-punk back into vogue. Just signed to French Kiss Records, these guys mix Jesus Lizard-style rhythms and guitars with an almost AC/DC-style attitude arena-rock approach. If there’s any justice in this world (and we all know there isn’t), their French Kiss debut will take off like a rocket and explode in the face of every Panic! At? The% Disco# fanboyorgirl. Dare to dream.
Next time! DJ lists his favorite noise-rock records from his second batch of formative years—aka the 1990s. My first set of formative years were the late 80s, but do you really want to read about how obsessed I was with Motley Crue and Slaughter in high school? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
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This measuring of the state of the union by rock gives me the snoozes. I think rock and roll was a by-product of the cultural revolution of the 60s, the melding of black and white culture. It ended when it went post-modern with the Ramones, and rap was an after shock.
I mean, what bands that have come on the scene in the past 3-5 years or so do you think are really going to matter in 10 years?
Rock and roll is fun. It doesnt matter. If it does matter to you, read a book. If it still matters after that, repeat. Preferably not books about rock and roll. A great book, btw, about software was called the Cathedral and the Bazaar. The same thing is going on here. You\’re lamenting about the collapse of the Cathedral. I think here at Superstarcastic we\’re having fun thrift shopping the ruins. At least I am.
\”The same thing is going on here. You\\’re lamenting about the collapse of the Cathedral. I think here at Superstarcastic we\\’re having fun thrift shopping the ruins.\”
While that statement sort of gives me the icks, i also sort of agree with it. Every new genre-revival band that becomes huge serves as a validation of the old \”it\’s all been done\” mantra. Still, if it has all been done, then i\’d like to hear more of the stuff that gets my blood pumping more than re-hashed 70s arena rock or sensitive singer-songwriter balladry.
It definitely HASN’T all been done yet; not even close. One of these days someone will crack it all open again… until then we’ll keep on listening to twists on old themes whilst trying to applaud innovation.
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Comment by jddunn — October 12, 2006 @ 9:19 pm
So, as per Joie’s request, I’ll repost my comment from over at your lj, where this all started. I’ve added a bit of backstory on where my line of thinking came from, so hopefully it involves a little less talking-out-of-my-ass now.
I have a suspicion(hopefully unfounded, since I’m getting old and searching less thoroughly for new stuff too) that both noiserock/pop and dissonant/angular post punk have gone out of fashion and are in a dormant phase. Which is a shame, since those are my two favorite things. But, a whole generation of bands who invented or perfected this stuff has pretty much gone kaput the past five years or so. In the meantime, the landscape has changed a lot in terms of promotion and who and what drives new bands becoming successful. Check this, from Christgau’s last Pazz and Jop article before he got pointlessly canned:
So, the cycle is way faster now, and the choices are way expanded, so attention spans are shortening. I suspect that favors accessibility and relatively clean poppiness, or at least fashionability of some sort. It’s been pretty good for the success and viability of indie music overall, but maybe not so great for those subgenres I prefer. Compare the crowd that was at T&G 25 with the average crowd at your average indie show nowadays. The T&G crowd was awfully old, unfashionable, etc. Which, mind you, I think is great! But, there are not a lot of new bands coming out of that crowd these days, and the younger crowd largely isn’t of that world, and that world isn’t really communicating directly with the younger crowd much either.
I assume/hope that it goes in cycles, and in another 5-10 years a whole generation of kids who are bored with the Shins and 3rd-gen dancepunk will rediscover like Brainiac, Jawbox and Unwound, and start new crazy noisy dissonant bands. We’ll see. I’m a bit worried that the structure and pace of internet-based music promotion and discovery favors ephemerality and poppiness. Which, hey, there’s nothing wrong with those things, but I’d hate to see them predominate exclusively and semi-permanently. I mean, what bands that have come on the scene in the past 3-5 years or so do you think are really going to matter in 10 years? I can’t think of many, and that’s kind of a scary thought.