Tag: alt

548. Siouxsie and the Banshees

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Episode 548 is SIOUXSIE AND THE BANSHEES. There was a goth girl at my high school who was really into Siouxsie and the Banshees and, despite never having heard their music, I declared that therefore I hated the band. Many decades passed and I have gotten into many other bands that also emerged from the late-70s UK punk scene (Wire, Buzzcocks, Stranglers, etc.). So I thought Siouxsie and the Banshees deserved a try. Well, I didn’t dislike it for the reasons that I thought I would have hated it in the 1980s. But I still didn’t like it. I found their music … boring. And Siouxsie Sioux’s wailing annoying. I don’t want to write off all things labeled “goth rock” because of this, but it doesn’t help.

Favourite album: The Scream

Favourite song: Hong Kong Garden

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: Nah

539. Meat Puppets

~ ernopepper ~ 1 Comment

(December 2023) Episode 539 is MEAT PUPPETS. In a slightly alternate universe, I would have been into the Meat Puppets from the beginning. But maybe because I didn’t hang around the college radio station enough, I never experienced that entry point that many of my peers did (same goes for me with lots of SST and other bands that followed a similar career arc, like Flaming Lips and Butthole Surfers). Coming at this retroactively, I’m not sure how to approach them. Is it through their first punk offering, their odd prog-guitar/slacker-vocal thing from the late 80s, their Nirvana-aided 15 minutes of MTV fame, their later conventional rock and country rock? Don’t get me wrong, there is lots of good music in here. And I appreciate that they evolved and didn’t rely on retreads.  But I can’t figure out what makes their music special enough to make me want to return to it. Maybe my hipper peers can inform me.

Favorite album: Meat Puppets II (1984)

Favorite song: Lake of Fire

Best mid-period album: Too High To Die (1994)

Best late-period album: Lillipop (2011)

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: Kinda depends on your preference, given their style evolution (see above). But I’d recommend the first two raw-sounding albums.

538. The Stranglers

~ ernopepper ~ 2 Comments

(December 2023) Episode 538 is THE STRANGLERS. I have this odd fascination with the late 1970s UK musical moment, when vocalists chose to assert rather than deemphasize their British accents; Johnny Rotten’s God Save the Queen being a prime example. The Stranglers were among the burst of groups that emerged from the punk or punk-adjacent scene featuring angular and bass-driven beats and think accents: Wire, The Jam, Buzzcocks, The Clash, Gang of Four, the Damned, etc. Lovely stuff. The Stranglers’ first three albums are classics of this style, but they also stood apart, neither political nor in-your-face. Their sound evolved over the years, not chasing fads but also not plowing new ground. They’ve stayed active until the present, and while the recordings are successively less interesting, they’re not bad. “Golden Brown” is both their most popular and most unusual song with its neo-baroque pop sound.

Favourite album: No More Heroes

Favourite song: (Get A) Grip (On Yourself)

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: Listen to the first three albums.

530. Butthole Surfers

~ ernopepper ~ 1 Comment

(October 2023) Episode 530 is the BUTTHOLE SURFERS. Based on long-ago exposure to their first EP, I thought they were a punk band. That was true in that moment, but over their career they were a lot else, and that else is hard to characterize. It’s a mishmash of rock, noise, metal, psychedelic, experimentalism, tape collages. The attitude was irreverent and inflammatory, designed to shock and offend. I had no idea until now that the 90s alt-rock hit “Pepper” was by the same dudes who gave us “The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey’s Grave.” Butthole Surfers is a group that earns its cult following. I love bizarre stuff but on first listen I’m not sure it’s my kind of bizarre. Ask me after a few more listens, I may change my mind.

Favorite album: Locust Abortion Technician

Favorite EP: Butthole Surfers

Favorite song: P.S.Y.

Favorite freak-out covers: Hurdy Gurdy Man and American Woman

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: Per above, I’ll need more to pass judgment. but I got enough to say that they deserve their cult following.

513. Ween

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(August 2023) Episode 513 is WEEN. This is Weird Rock, one of those acts that makes you wonder: how does someone think up this stuff?  This duo out of Pennsylvania attacked the peak alt/indie years with satire, irreverence and deconstruction, evoking what Zappa’s Mothers did to the counterculture era.  They did so from every angle: rock, prog, punk, soul, funk, island music, country (a whole album!), etc. Like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates, you have no idea what the next song will bring. On first approach I can’t decide whether they are subtly subversive geniuses or try-hards that don’t quite hit the mark. It will take more listens. Although I suspect that will lead me to the former.

Favorite album: The Mollusk

Favorite song: Dr. Rock

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: It is worth a try, and I may offer a firmer recommendation after subsequent listens.

503. Bongwater

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(6/14/23) Episode 503 is BONGWATER. Some bands are so off-the-wall that part of the appeal is listening and wondering “how could anyone think of such a thing?”  Such is Bongwater: part band, part performance art project of the duo of Mark Kramer and Ann Magnuson (who you will recognize as an actor from various TV shows and movies).  There are sound collages, bizarre stories spoken over trippy psychedelics, shock lyrics, and lots of far-out cover songs. They had a brief and unique run in the late 80s/early 90s.  I am drawn by the audacity.

Favorite album: The Power of Pussy

Favorite song: Folk Song

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: Try it if you like bizarre stuff

496. Violent Femmes

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Episode 496 is the VIOLENT FEMMES. Their first album is the soundtrack to my college dorm years, providing drunken sing-alongs for students trying to get real-life affirmative answers to the questions in “Add It Up.” The Femmes were alt music a decade before we started using that term. They’re labeled folk-punk but I’d call it geeky neo-skiffle. There’s a clear resonance with Jonathan Richman, but I hear parallels with They Might Be Giants (and a bit of Talking Heads, not surprising given their association with Jerry Harrison). I stopped following them after the second album and expected a drop-off from there, so I was pleased to find out they generally kept it fresh and fun over the decades.

Favourite album: Violent Femmes

Favourite song: Add It Up

Special sauce: the bass work of Brian Ritchie

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: The first album is essential, especially for those of us of a certain generation, but it’s worth exploring other stuff too. 

489. The Flaming Lips

~ ernopepper ~ 1 Comment

(April 2023) Episode 489 is THE FLAMING LIPS, the durable indie/alt band out of Oklahoma that constantly reinvents itself led by the creative weirdness of Wayne Coyne. Their initial sound was very much 80s college radio, evolving into fuzzy guitar-driven psychedelic music, when they got their 15 minutes of pop fame through MTV’s play of “She Don’t Use Jelly” and a guest appearance at the Peach Pit on 90210. Starting in 1999, though, they shelved the guitars in favor of synths, creating a lush and heavily-processed sound, which bored me.  Coyne’s weak voice, while fitting on some songs, is a liability in the heavier tunes, although this is “fixed” by the later processing, for better or worse.  Kudos to them for recording (with mixed success) reinventions of Dark Side of the Moon and Sgt. Pepper’s, a quadrophonic experiment, several concept albums, and even a Christmas disc.

Favorite album: In a Priest Driven Ambulance

Favorite song: Unconsciously Screamin’

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: the four early 1990s albums (from “Priest” to “Clouds”)

281. Wire

~ ernopepper ~ 1 Comment

(March 2023) Episode 481 is WIRE. Pink Flag (1977), their minimalist first album, identified them as a punk act, but they were more arthouse than mosh pit. Along with their next two excellent albums, Wire proved quite influential for post-punk and new wave. Except for breaks in the 1980s and 1990s, Wire has had consistent output, constantly self-reinventing among various pop/rock flavors. While admirable, I don’t see myself returning to any of the post-1987 albums, unlike the first three to which I definitely will.

Favourite album: Chairs Missing

Favourite song: Practice Makes Perfect

Favourite later album: Send (2003)

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: the first three albums

475. Japandroids

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(February 2023) Episode 475 is JAPANDROIDS, an indie guitar/drum duo from Vancouver. My feeling about them is this: the teens who thought they were punk because they listened to Blink 182 grew up to be the Millennials who assumed they were still edgy/cool by liking Japandroids a decade later. I wanted to like this band, and I appreciate the energy, but it comes off as annoying hipster-fuel. So, Millennial.

Favorite album: Post-Nothing

Favorite song: Crazy/Forever

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: take a pass