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And Vince Garaldi for sure.
He did all the great Peanuts music as well as "Cast Your Fate to the Wind".
Died of a heart attack in his early 40's in 1976 or 77.
His Christmas album makes up most of my all time favorite holiday music. I can play a few of the Christmas songs on piano cause I got one of the transcribed books when I was a kid, but I could never master the improvised sections.. He was truly a mad genius, and definitely died way too young.
Will never suck:
Fela Kuti Nina Simone Charles Mingus Iggy Pop
Still around, with opportunities to start sucking in the future:
The Knife (early flirtations with suckitude redeemed by current awesomeness)
Amon Tobin (last album came close to sucking, but not there yet)
Gang Gang Dance Devotchka (the one good thing I learned about from Nic Harcourt)
Contemporary Noise Quintet (the Poles may yet rescue contemporary jazz from its current slide into suckitude)
my bible of non-suckisms:
(music artists/bands/composers who NEVER put out anything WACK that have substantial discographies):
MAN IS THE BASTARD
dystopia
CRASS
john coltrane
alice coltrane
albert ayler
beter brotzmann
gyorgy ligeti
bele bartok
iannis xenakis
autechre
aphex twin
bola
scorn
godflesh
napalm death
carcass
boredoms
john zorn
ruins
joy division/warsaw (no new order)
death in june
nurse with wound
zoviet france
high on fire
black flag
minor threat
fugazi
death
discordance axis
discharge
tragedy
cripple bastards
all finnish hardcore
most swedish hardcore
mostjapanese hardcore
darkthrone
immortal
autopsy/abscess
the stooges (no iggy solo)
mahavishnu orchestra
sun city girls
cathedral
infest
minutemen
MDC
wire
nomeansno
please note that such HIGHLY good/influential acts are left off such as
bad brains
cro-mags
agnostic front
miles davis
hawkwind
judas priest
manowar
irn maiden
black sabbath
deep purple
frank zappa
soft machine
pink floyd
misfits
bad religion
mercyful fate
slayer
killing joke
cocteau twins
psssh...
that's off the top of my head, not including generic pop shit and not even including world music.
so anyhow, the point is, there's plenty of decent shit out there that refuses to suck
etc...
'cuz they did put out some lesser records here and there...
I was going to say Autechre, but then I remembered that everything they released after Confield was total shite. The brilliance of their earlier stuff tends to overshadow the downhill slide of the past several years, but really...
Ah well. All this listmaking is just ridiculous geeksnobbery over matters of taste, but here's a Fun Fact: I actually fell asleep in the El Rey during their Autechre's 2005 show for the Untilted album. I wasn't drunk, narcoleptic, or trying to make a statement. It was seriously that dull...
I'll try not to mention bands that have already been mentioned.
all still working:
scientists (sort of still working)
nightingales
the fall
the mekons
killdozer
future of the left
nick cave and the bad seeds
get hustle
nels cline
deerhoof
cesaria evora
flesh eaters
ruins!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the stooges
the ex
lounge lizards
country teasers
mark stewart (mostly for his adrian sherwood stuff)
laughing clowns (possibly risen from the dead)
jesus lizard (definitely risen from the dead)
guitar wolf
johnny dowd
pere ubu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
suicide
saccharine trust
wire
dead:
early 80s hardcore
gun club
minutemen
pop group
harpoon
mclusky
velvet underground
joy division
bottom 12
eno's first 4 solo albums
captain beefheart
shock headed peters
can
this heat
the double u
the intima
don caballero
the haters
abe vigoda
slug
loomis slovak
c.a.r.p.
man is the bastard
c.r.a.s.s.
ecstatic sunshine
my big red toe
peppermints
numbers (not the newer album)
amps for christ
battles
I can agree with you, GodLovesUgly, on Cat Power, with one caveat:
She likes to talk the fuck out of her audience....and it is annoying.
One time, I went to see unwound, blond redhead, and cat power play.
When she played, she had all kinds of boring stories and ramblings between songs...and she played first, which pissed me off because I was anticipating unwound's last show I would ever see. So, let me add to my list:
I have a big ol' crush on the idea of Ecstatic Sunshine: "two guitars, two humans," according to both their website and their MySpace page, the latter of which is too ugly to link. Some of the tracks on their album Freckle Wars are fantastic, especially the ones that come up toward the end of the album; the first few feel more like exercises than songs. By the time you get to "Golden Rule" or "Swirling Hearts," though - tracks eight and nine of twelve, respectively - you're in near-prog territory, and the chops are starting to joust with the hooks for privilege of position, which is way cool and quite welcome, since as of right now the band's formidable chops are a half-lap ahead of their hooks. When they're in full gallop, Ecstatic Sunshine remind me a little of an Alabama acoustic duo called Flop, who explored similar two-guys-playing territory in the early nineties. (For those keeping score, this is the most obscure reference I have ever made.) One gets the feeling that ES is one of those bands who will be poorly served by the indie club tradition of putting a band on a stage and having a bunch of people standing around staring at them: all the less interesting aspects of what they're doing ("how amazing! they can play their instruments!") will get the focus in such an environment. What's good about this band is the sound they make, not the fact that they're able to make it.
Generally speaking I wouldn't give advice, since really, what do I know? But the one thing I'd like to hear more of on the next Ecstatic Sunshine album is production. The production here is very much in the what-the-band-sounds-like tradition. There's nothing inherently wrong with that tradition; it suits some bands beautifully. But take, for example, the drop-down-to-one-guitar moment around the two-minute mark of "Ramontana." What you'll hear is the sound of a single electric guitar coming through an amp with what I assume is a little amp reverb, though it could be the room. This moment might have been dramatic; spectral; distant; intense; lost; even a little ominous. There are a number of ways one might have gone with the tone. But because of the verite approach employed here, it's none of those things; it's just a bit less of what you were getting when both guitarists were playing a minute before. An engaged producer could go to town on a moment like this, using all sorts of techniques I'm not well-informed enough to name; but I'm not willing to blame whoever manned the boards for what's missing here. Ultimately, it's the band's decision. This is a band that should embrace the studio environment as an opportunity to expand their interesting and absorbing vision; great things could happen. On the last track, "Little Dipper Big Dipper," there's a hint that they're leaning this way already - the tones start to shift and deepen, and one of the guys starts saying "hey" or "hi" rhythmically. (Occasional interjections like these are the only vocals on the record.) Quickly, but not suddenly, two dimensions locate a third: it's almost as if a visual element has been introduced. The texture deepens. The field of vision blurs a little. It feels natural.
It's a good moment, one of several like it from the album's second half. I hope Ecstatic Sunshine makes more albums and plays around with the knobs on the mixing board more next time. I have the feeling that they have a masterpiece in them.
also, bastard noise is gonna skull fuck the west coast this month.
Jan 31st-Annie's Social Club, San Francisco
Feb 1st-Gilman, Berkeley
Feb 5th-Knitting Factory, Los Angeles
i mean, even if this is just eric yelling over some dudes laptop making noise, im into it, but the premise of a "return to the MITB sound" is giving me all sorts of boners because i keep hearing rumors about them having real instruments this time around.
Bernard Herrmann.
He scored the Twilight Zone series (best tv series ever), Scorcese's Taxi Driver, and of course is famous for the Psycho theme. He did a lot of Hitchcock films. Herrmann is just fucking genius. I go to bed listening to his Twilight Zone scores.
okay, rbi. Maybe if they try to stick hot dogs up their butts when the play....maybe then you will like it. Need I post the video of your favorite band, G.G. Allin doing this? NO. I don't. I like some a bunch of the music you like, but, like you, I think some of the music you like is not very good.
her shows are boring now so maybe you'll like her more. she just plays through songs straight! she hardly talks and has that weird backing band. i liked it back when she was solo, on the bottle, rambling, never finishing a song and making weird clicky sounds. it was a lot more unique and endearing. now it's just like, a regular ol show instead of an experience.
...
pavement
the stone roses
primal scream
unrest
th' faith healers
red house painters
the geraldine fibbers
blur
pulp
sigur ros
sleater-kinney
sonic youth
stereolab
!!!
grizzly bear
hum
mogwai
my bloody valentine
lush