viddy viddy
Dec. 15th, 2005 10:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vuzhfinally i'm getting around to trying to catch up with some of the music video the Mr. ICS (IX?) has been shooting my way. i felt the pressure mount when i opened the mailbox today to find it all full of Skinny Puppy and Cocteau Twins bootlegs, i figure it was time to catch up with Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Bill Bruford.
SGM... wow. i liked everything i heard from them way back when Alex recommended them to me a few years back, but i never really followed them seriously. they're like Tom Waits + Godflesh + Einstürzende Neubauten + Fantomas + Thinking Plague and i dunno what else. with an equation like that, they really ought to be my favorite band in the whole world. they're probably hovering somewhere near Crash Worship status on the testosterone--meter, though... good thing they have the hottie chick singer/instrumentalist to offset all that sheer, heaving manliness. the lead singer guy's facial-hair-extravaganza IS highly suspect, however. he's a hippie-goth Rob Zombie. i think he had a pierced uvula.
man, those crowds in Jacksonville, Florida just can't shut the fuck UP, can they?
i don't get why people pay to get into a concert, then talk to their friends very, very loudly throughout the show, paying no attention to the performers. don't get it, never will. buy the shirt and then go to the bar across the street you darned loudmouths.
the DVD glitched out after about half an hour of SGM fun, so we fucked off to the Bill Bruford DVD, which we almost gave up on, since the first three menu items had no sound at all. luckily everything worked for the David Torn "Cloud About Mercury" performance, which was quite entertaining, even though i have never much cared for the CD of the same name. i'm not sure exactly what i liked about the performance, since it's such complete fusion wankery, but it did hold our attention for a while. caerie loved the Miami Vice drums! i wonder if those little hexagonal pads only had the one set of sounds back then. Bruford starts rocking those, and i expect David Torn to step up and say "Ladies and gentlemen... JAN HAMMER!!" he really wouldn't have been that out of place, either. caerie wondered what Mark Isham was playing at one point, the long, skinny little instrument... a piccolo trumpet?? with four valves? anyone? me, i was taken aback by what a ponce Mick Karn is, i don't think i've ever seen him play on video before. that is one dude who is convinced of his coolness. he's a believer. the full-band sound has that curious '80's sheen to it, but it's also tonally indeterminate, with Torn's guitar being all twang-bar and early digital pitch-shifting, and Karn's fretless bass which never seems to hit quite the right note, and Ishams slurred, weird melody lines. yeah, they're a bunch of wankers, but entertaining wankers! i bet Howard Moon would've liked the show.
SGM though. i should oughta get me one of their record albums.
maybe i should get a few new "neo-prog" "avant-prog?" (or whatever you call it) albums and rock out for a while. i haven't been in much of a proggy music mood for the last... year?
Miles Davis too, i've been rockin' to "On The Corner" for the last week and wondering why in the hell i don't have more of his stuff. he rocks MUCHO ass. i've long loved "Bitch's Brew", i probably should get my own copy rather than borrowing other people's copies for extended periods of time.
SGM... wow. i liked everything i heard from them way back when Alex recommended them to me a few years back, but i never really followed them seriously. they're like Tom Waits + Godflesh + Einstürzende Neubauten + Fantomas + Thinking Plague and i dunno what else. with an equation like that, they really ought to be my favorite band in the whole world. they're probably hovering somewhere near Crash Worship status on the testosterone--meter, though... good thing they have the hottie chick singer/instrumentalist to offset all that sheer, heaving manliness. the lead singer guy's facial-hair-extravaganza IS highly suspect, however. he's a hippie-goth Rob Zombie. i think he had a pierced uvula.
man, those crowds in Jacksonville, Florida just can't shut the fuck UP, can they?
i don't get why people pay to get into a concert, then talk to their friends very, very loudly throughout the show, paying no attention to the performers. don't get it, never will. buy the shirt and then go to the bar across the street you darned loudmouths.
the DVD glitched out after about half an hour of SGM fun, so we fucked off to the Bill Bruford DVD, which we almost gave up on, since the first three menu items had no sound at all. luckily everything worked for the David Torn "Cloud About Mercury" performance, which was quite entertaining, even though i have never much cared for the CD of the same name. i'm not sure exactly what i liked about the performance, since it's such complete fusion wankery, but it did hold our attention for a while. caerie loved the Miami Vice drums! i wonder if those little hexagonal pads only had the one set of sounds back then. Bruford starts rocking those, and i expect David Torn to step up and say "Ladies and gentlemen... JAN HAMMER!!" he really wouldn't have been that out of place, either. caerie wondered what Mark Isham was playing at one point, the long, skinny little instrument... a piccolo trumpet?? with four valves? anyone? me, i was taken aback by what a ponce Mick Karn is, i don't think i've ever seen him play on video before. that is one dude who is convinced of his coolness. he's a believer. the full-band sound has that curious '80's sheen to it, but it's also tonally indeterminate, with Torn's guitar being all twang-bar and early digital pitch-shifting, and Karn's fretless bass which never seems to hit quite the right note, and Ishams slurred, weird melody lines. yeah, they're a bunch of wankers, but entertaining wankers! i bet Howard Moon would've liked the show.
SGM though. i should oughta get me one of their record albums.
maybe i should get a few new "
Miles Davis too, i've been rockin' to "On The Corner" for the last week and wondering why in the hell i don't have more of his stuff. he rocks MUCHO ass. i've long loved "Bitch's Brew", i probably should get my own copy rather than borrowing other people's copies for extended periods of time.
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-16 05:39 am (UTC)I think Grand Opening & Closing is the better of the two. Both are uneven, though. Their live show was front-to-back stellar, but on record they sometimes dick around to little purpose.
The live album is absolute crap. Don't get it.
neo-prog
I think that term usually refers to bands like Spock's Beard.
BTW, when I saw SGM, I heard Nils Frykdahl (the lead singer guy) naming his influences, and he did mention Neubauten. Also Henry Cow, Art Bears, Swans and "contemporary classical." I asked him what composers he was into, and he said Ligeti and Penderecki.
Also, if I haven't recommended them before, Frykdahl's previous band Idiot Flesh are awesome. I have their album The Nothing Show and it's like a cross between Mr. Bungle, Thinking Plague and Marilyn Manson.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-16 05:51 am (UTC)I think that term usually refers to bands like Spock's Beard.
so what are Thinking Plague / 5uu's et al?
he did mention Neubauten. Also Henry Cow, Art Bears, Swans
definitely Neubauten... and Swans, i probably should've said Swans instead of Godflesh, since Godflesh were pretty heavily Swans influenced.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-16 06:01 am (UTC)Well, a lot of people on rec.music.progressive call them "RIO," but a number of people have objected to that on the grounds that these bands aren't really doing the same thing as the original bands in the RIO movement. (Mike Johnson has actually told me repeatedly that he doesn't like it when people call Thinking Plague "RIO," although in his case I think it's more because he doesn't like being pigeonholed.)
I usually just call them "avant-prog."
I don't know anything about Godflesh. What are they like?
no subject
Date: 2005-12-16 06:19 am (UTC)avant-prog, that works for me.
Godflesh would very likely not be your kind of thing.
they were a blend of industrial and grindcore that hit before industrial music had incorporated any of the heavy metal elements that ended up ruining the whole scene (for me). they were very, very stark and repetitive and felt brutally heavy for the time (although now they sound kinda quaint)
they were an important pivot for the genre, and i liked them enough then that i still like them now. i think if i was introduced to Godflesh now, i would wonder what the big deal was.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-16 01:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-16 06:00 am (UTC)wait a sec... there are more than one bands like Spock's Beard??
dear me.
that's bad news.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-16 06:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-16 06:22 am (UTC)maybe it's unfair to just lump all the bands that suck into one genre though.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-16 01:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-16 06:04 am (UTC)http://www.gepr.net/genre2.html