albums of note that I'm hearing for the first time

Never listened to The Meat Puppets before. Is it common knowledge that everything after Meat Puppets II is garbage?

Nick wrote:Never listened to The Meat Puppets before. Is it common knowledge that everything after Meat Puppets II is garbage?

I don't know if it's common knowledge, but I certainly wouldn't agree with that statement!

In particular I think Huevos is utterly fantastic (a Paves favorite iirc... in my head cannon there was a SLRJ review of it and it was awesome, but might just have dreamt that). It's some country fried chuggin along zz top shit and I highly recommend you spin it!

I have a whole bunch of their albums that I've listened to like once, and I think I'm due for a re-tread.

LOL I just listened to Huevos and that is that album that inspired my post. I am not getting ZZ Top similarities from this. Everything after II seems like bad honky tonk bar band shit that feels like 88% is a total joke.

ha, to each his own I guess. I sort of love (bad) honky tonk bar band shit.

Up on the Sun is one of my favorite albums. The title track, hot pink, and swimming ground are the ones although the whole album is good. If I could throw away one track it might be maidens milk but I even get down with that one sometimes.

Just curious, what kind of expectations did you have about how they would sound?

If it is honky tonk bar band shit, then it’s some of the most inventive of that style. After listening to meat puppets II and up on the sun last night I’d still have to give it to UOTS.

I guess they dabble in the country sounds on II. But I felt like it meshed well on that album with the continuation of the weird punk shit I like from their first album and the bulk of II. I didn’t anticipate as I moved through the rest of their catalog they would decide Meat Puppets evolution meant leaving the punk sound behind and becoming something that resembles a blend of honky tonk/country/Americana.

I suppose I have some preconceived ideas about this artist that were formed before hearing any of her work and that doesn't bode well for an enjoyable listening session. Maybe I wasn't in the best headspace for this the first time around and I kept thinking about how much I'd rather be listening to Television instead for some reason (not knowing that Tom Verlaine does play on one of the songs here), although they sound nothing like this and have nothing to do with it.

The second time through I enjoyed it much more and love how much room these songs have to breathe and roam. There's a Kim Gordon-ness to some of these songs that I was never not going to like.

The third time though my wife gave this the gong seven minutes into "Birdland" and that kind of thing always kind of kills an album for me for a while.

Once again, if an album is a "classic" then please don't append its original form (and its ostensibly "good" or "fitting" closing track) with bonus some live song that no one asked for!

Darkside - Psychic

I can’t remember where I read it but someone had mentioned this album as a ‘new psychedelic classic.’ I did not seek it out at that time because I wasn’t convinced it would be true and I was also going through a phase where I didn’t want to try new music for some reason. It was like being at a restaurant that is known for seafood  or something but you still pick the burger (safe option) because you don’t want to spoil the overall experience with something you may not like.

Anyway, a couple weeks ago I was shopping for Christmas presents and I stopped by my favorite weird place to find cool records, Highland, IN Disc Replay! I decided to sift through all of the records because I was also killing time on company time. I found it and actually left it alone right away for the same reasons mentioned earlier. I kept searching, found a copy of The Residents - Eskimo, bought that one, and left the store. Since I was killing time anyway, I hit the vape a few times, chose a direction to drive, put Darkside on, and drove. I was surprised and not by the album. I’m a fan of Nicolas Jaar’s solo work so I sorta expected the textural stuff that flows throughout. What I didn’t expect was the seductive guitar lines of Dave Harrington. Psychedelic? Sorta. Sexy as all fuck? 100%. The overall sound of the album is like a sexier Tame Impala - Currents. A darker nighttime sound, not as pop driven as that album, but the ‘disco-lite’ vibe is similar. I drove to Cedar Lake, pulled into a parking lot off of the lake and stared out at the snow that had just begun to fall. It’s a good record I thought, definitely worth the $15 they were selling it for but why was it going for so low? Discogs had OP copies in between $25-$35. I headed back towards the shop hoping someone hadn’t picked it up during my journey. It was still there, and it had a slit on the bottom of the sleeve. For an album that was supposed to be a new classic I thought they’d price it closer to what it’s worth, the slit wasn’t that bad. So I bought it and just listened again while typing this up.

Does it deserve the ‘new psych classic’ tag? I guess that depends on what you want out of a ‘psych’ album. If you’re looking for an album to journey on a half gram or more of shrooms then I would not consider it. For me, song driven stuff is actually sorta terrible for that experience, I prefer ambient. However, as an album to drink with, get high, etc, I’d recommend. I suppose if I was 20 when it came out I’d have considered it classic, now it’s just a cool record in my collection.

Little Neddy goes to war wrote:

I didn't understand what PC music was when it was a thing people were talking about, but this sounds great to me right now. I also don't know if this is considered an A.G. Cook album of note, but I'm into it. "Aquarius" and the Michael Jackson song that isn't a Michael Jackson song are faves.

*more like genres of note that I’m hearing for the first time

I’m like 8 years late to this observation, but this was pure genius:



AG Cook Edit (sorry, can’t find the YouTube… track 9 in video above and at):

https://m.soundcloud.com/heestin/joey-lawrence-where-does-that-leave-me-a-g-cook-edit

Had some time on my hands today and read through the Ambient thread. Am now listening to The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid for the first time ever.

Just finished a cup of coffee, watching the snow fall from my couch and seriously feel the most blissed out and optimistic in weeks.

These days, there isn't much that gives me lift like hearing about a solid bro feeling blissed out and optimistic. Cheers to that.

Amen.

Pylon - Gyrate Plus

I read some interview one of the Animal Collective dudes did about his favorite records and this was on the list. For whatever reason I remember the description sounding like something I'd want to listen to while studying or writing. Not the case at all! This is just a really fucking badass punk record that grooves... extremely cool. Like somewhere at the intersection between The Slits and Bikini Kill. I am not good at writing intelligently about music. This is rad.

I know nothing at all about this band, but I like them now.

The first time I heard a single note from this, I was in the car with my mom on the way home from a college visit during my junior year of high school. I was really interested in all things-communications and was looking to go to a school where I'd get to dabble in writing and broadcasting and that kind of thing. So we visited a mid-sized private college and got to be part of the big tour and meet with an admissions counselor, etc. I had been hoping to get to see the campus radio station but for some reason we never got a chance to do that. Getting back in the car for the hour's trip back home, I tuned the car radio to the frequency of the station and the first song they played was "I Was Dancing in a Lesbian Bar." We were both totally transfixed by this as we drove away. Within a few minutes the station signal faded so I never found out what the song was.

And yet, it was unforgettable and so and easy to remember so it wouldn't be long before I could simply look it up online and see who the artist was.

And this eventually lead me to The Modern Lovers but then I just stopped there and never went back into Richman's solo work, even to hear that song again, even though it left such an impression on me and became this holy grail of what I assumed "college rock" was or something like that, lol.

Years later I'd hear "That Summer Feeling" and that just threw me for a loop. I'd certainly heard a lot of songs about nostalgia but none that were as vividly bittersweet in such a moving way. I had no idea it was from the same album as the one and only other song I'd heard from him. Was I just not curious at all? Beats me!

I finally listened to this from beginning to end two days ago and every little bit of it is great. The whole first side is pretty much perfect. Nothing wrong with side two unless you compare "Rooming House on Venice Beach" and "Grunion Run" to "You Can't Talk to the Dude" and "Tandem Jump," which I suppose tilts the meat of the album a little closer to the front than the back. But they're all great songs!

If "Twilight in Boston" isn't one of the best closing tracks of all time then I just don't know anymore? A top 100 list of such tracks surely must also feature "Night Falls on Hoboken", a coincidence or a knowing nod? (Someone should start a blog about this stuff!)

I was singing "You Can't Talk to the Dude" quietly to myself all day at work yesterday and keeping my mask on so no one would notice.

This is a great album! I followed it up by listening to most of another one he made from a couple years later and... yeah, this one was special, wasn't it?

I mean, it almost goes without saying but


That album inspired a whole ass lame somb thread where I gushed about being in love with Jonathan Richman in a way at the time unknowingly but still inspired by the way he sings about being in love with life. I was in London on a work trip a couple weeks ago, and I saw this sign and the only regret I have is that I went to meet up with work people instead of blowing them off and dancing:

My mom would always say, anytime she was exasperated by me over matters where she just couldn't get through to me, no matter how hard she tried, "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink!"

Likewise, having been on this message board and the one that came before it and the one that came before it, I really don't know what to say right now.

I still have 2 compilations (from 2008? 2011? 20???) of handpicked selections of Ween songs chose by pvaes and sausage, on my computer that I just never listened to (but always planned to someday).

I don't know what to say, I just never listened to them before. Who knows why! I expected this, or certainly their albums as a whole, to be something that this one definitely was NOT.

I feel like I've missed out on something very essential to the experience of being here with all of you for so long by just ignoring this for my whole life.

you definitely have

but, I'm sorta envious of you. I think I took for granted how wonderful - and seemingly endless - it was to discover new life-affirming music ALL the time in my 20s. Around every corner. I'm sure some of those experiences are in front of me with music, movies, and the like, but the bulk of them, I think, are in the past.

Michael K. wrote:but, I'm sorta envious of you. I think I took for granted how wonderful - and seemingly endless - it was to discover new life-affirming music ALL the time in my 20s. Around every corner. I'm sure some of those experiences are in front of me with music, movies, and the like, but the bulk of them, I think, are in the past.

Post is hitting hard tonight.

Michael K. wrote:but, I'm sorta envious of you. I think I took for granted how wonderful - and seemingly endless - it was to discover new life-affirming music ALL the time in my 20s. Around every corner. I'm sure some of those experiences are in front of me with music, movies, and the like, but the bulk of them, I think, are in the past.

I've been thinking about this stuff a lot recently. Maybe too much!

https://slate.com/technology/2014/08/musical-nostalgia-the-psychology-and-neuroscience-for-song-preference-and-the-reminiscence-bump.html

Air - Talkie Walkie.

I think this album has been on every single iPod I’ve ever owned ever since it came out and my little bro told me it was good. But I never listened to it in full until right now (I know this isn’t true, but I’m feeling like I’ve never even heard one song by this band? I’ve had this album forever and if you’d have asked me my opinion of Air anytime in the last decade plus I’d have been like, “That Talkie Walkie album was good iirc.”).

The second song reminds me of some my generation 8-64 bit video game and I don’t know if it’s Dracula’s Castle theme from Simon’s Quest or if I just think every song sounds like that classic theme.

Anyway, first three songs are delivering big time as I clean the house and do dishes with headphones on and I’m jazzed for the rest of the album.

You should listen to Moon Safari if you haven't. It's good.

Sold. Thoroughly enjoyed Talkie Walkie all the way thru.

Joni Mitchell - Shadows and Light

This woman has been a huge blind spot for me throughout my music life. I knew her place in the 20th century rock canon, but had not really realized why she was so popular. Obviously her singles are important and great, everyone has heard Big Yellow Taxi and likely loved the line ‘pave paradise, put up a parking lot,’ it’s masterful. But I didn’t totally realize that her jazzy, folk sound was exactly what I’ve been looking for forever. Jam band music is often terrible, but when it’s done right, with the right players, who have a telepathic understanding of what should happen next, it’s revelatory. This album is like that; you got Jaco Pastorios, Pat Metheny, and Don Alias, PLUS Joni! Joni’s guitar style can be summed up as Liz Phair’s mom. In fact, Liz owes everything to this woman, her seductive, honest, and not bashful, style was perfected by Joni before she was born. Coyote is literally the best song ever written. I will not unpack it, listen to it, and you will know what I’m saying. I could probably write so much more but I don’t want to hype it too much. If you’ve never given her a chance, this is a good entry point.