Pop Culture Blog: Music, Movie and Humor

Leveraging low-hanging synergies outside the vertical fruit box since 1999.

Wadio Pwops: Taz Sounds Off On Lush.


in Musical

Taz hasn’t chimed in for a long, long while. I love the way the man writes, and his knowledge of 80s/90s indie rock makes me look like a Menudo fan, so I wanted to share. I added a few hyperlinks for the uninitiated:

“Imagine my delight as I had my first proper shufty of the year at The PyeMan’s magnificent Blog (been on holiday in Thailand for 3 weeks folks, so that explains the neglect of this otherwise essential source of info for the Hamid Zeitgeist…) when I saw that 4AD post-Pixies Great White Hopes, LUSH came into the focus of the red hot laserbeam of impeccable taste that is Pye In The Face!

It warmed the cockles of my retro-indie loving heart! Took me back to days as a black denim 501s, trenchcoat and suede brogue wearing grad student in the early 90s and the late late nights wallowing in Lush’s dreamy soundscapes from the ‘Scar’ mini-LP and their first 12″ EP featuring De-Luxe, Thoughtforms, etc. Shoegazing was indeed a much maligned sub-genre of a great time in underground Brit popular music. The pioneers were the peerless My Bloody Valentine and the groundbreaking dronesters-par-excellence Spacemen 3 but the torch was then manfully carried into pastures newer and poppier by Lush, Pale Saints, Chapterhouse, The Telescopes, Slowdive, Catherine Wheel and many many more.

Some fell by the wayside, some enjoyed a modicum of success… ALL were interesting and worthy of both fiscal and emotional investment! These were heady times for guitar-driven bittersweet bedsitland indie-rock, and like Dave, my iPod still has a corner occupied by classic albums by the above, plus the other subsequent bands who kept the dream alive like Spiritualized and Low.

The great thing is, Shoegazing has now morphed into ‘Newgazing’. Check out my favourite exponents of this artform for the enlightened, NYC’s very own Ambulance Ltd. Their debut album is magnificent in it’s own right but will have you clued-up indie-kids digging out your old Lush and MBV albums with a wave of nostalgia. Respect to you PyeMan… once again your cultural barometer is giving all the right readings and the calibration is faultless! De-Luxe indeed…Taz, Frankfurt.”

There are worse things to have in your inbox first thing in the morning, like animated elf porn. Wait – did I say “worse”? Good to hear from you, homesnake!

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Wednesday Wadio: The Beta Band’s ‘Dry The Rain’.


in Wednesday Wadio

“Repeatedly described as shambolic stoners in the press, as if their music was the result of some serendipitous sensimilia incident rather than hardwork and talent, their importance was consistently exaggerated while their talent was dismissed. You think the trumpet at the end of “Dry The Rain” was an accident?” – Stylus

I’m cycling this diddy back through the lineup. It’s been live on Radio Pye for a while now, but I’ve never written anything up on it. Is this a cop out? Nah – It’s a lot harder to write about something than it is to simply fire it up on a server. Besides, it’s long overdue and practically buried now with over 50 songs and 6 months worth of tuneage jammed into my little corner of the ether.

Most of you probably know Dry The Rain as ‘the song from High Fidelity‘. You remember – John Cusack makes a claim to his record store co-workers that he can sell multiple copies of a song immediately, just by placing it on the store’s sound system. “I am now going to sell five copies of The Three EPs by The Beta Band.” All of the patrons start bobbing their heads to the music like Romero zombies before lining up at the cash register to start their unhealthy obsessions with The Betas.

I met a girl recently who told me a story about spending a night drinking with the Betas here in Boston at Bukowskis. The band hasn’t recorded together in a couple of years, and I never got to see them live, but her description of the silly fat little Scottish troupe had me laughing – she thought they were completely winding her up until finally someone else recognized them too. They were like the Wizard of Oz and Phil Spector, rolled into one anonymous lump behind a lush wall of sound – so complex that it takes 100 listens to catch all the nuances. Dry the Rain reminds me of There Goes the Fear in that respect. I would have therefore bought them around 657 rounds. Another song I just cannot get tired of.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsbR2dEmHGc[/youtube]

“The Beta Band’s “Dry the Rain” achieves a level of pop euphoria rarely reached since, well, “Oh! Sweet Nuthin” by the Velvet Underground.” Audio-Ideas

If you can catch the cowbell, washboard and rain stick by your first listen, you’ve probably also noticed that it’s about 3 separate songs jammed into one. First the drums pick up intensity about 2 minutes in, turning it from groovy to downright danceable. Then, for the last 3 minutes, it completely changes pitch and a new sing-song chorus assures you “I will be your light” and rounds the masterpiece out. If you’ve never listened to me before, listen to me today – listen to this fucking song.

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Lifestyle Changes Are Retarded.


in Heartwarming

There’s that famous story about the little Russian boy who gets all kinds of overzealous with the wolf sighting claims. I feel a bit like like that panicky, potato-eating pest right about now – because I’m about to do it again. Yes, folks, I’m announcing some immediate and most unfortunate lifestyle changes.

It snowballed. It was just too much packed into one weekend. Thursday I went out for beers after paintball. Friday I went to a birthday party. Saturday I was invited to a co-worker’s day BBQ at his new house in the burbs, and then last minute was invited to Central Square for someone else’s going away party that evening. Sunday morning someone poured me in the direction of North Station for an early Bruins game before sufficiently Superbowl Sundaying the shit out of myself until about 10pm. I woke up yesterday with a sore throat that looked like a python vivisection, and called in sick. Not good.

If you take my list of weekend activities and look at them each separately, it could all come across as good clean fun. I held a baby. I rooted for the home team. I played with a dog. I went undefeated in a sporting event. I cooked burgers, ribs and steak for 10 people. I saw some folks I hadn’t seen in nearly a decade. But you have to understand, with the exception of the first 5 minutes of my being in the same room with the baby, all of these events were soaked with enough booze to make Courtney Love stop and suddenly scream “Now just hold the fuck on for a minute here people“.

I have had a great life, and my friends are the most important things in my silly existence. Many would kill to run in the circles I’ve developed over the years. But I can’t keep up anymore. I’m going to be that creepy guy who comes to the party and doesn’t drink, making everybody else extremely uncomfortable. I may also be employed – which is really where this whole diatribe stems from.

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Friday’s Quizzlet: The Crack Hole.


in Monday's Quotelet

Appetizer: On a scale of 1 to 10 (10=highest), how sociable are you?
I’m a solid 8 I think. People think of me as a connector, but I can be quite the lone wolf, too. The addition of Tivo to my bedroom understandably has not helped this. If I’m not alone for a little while each day, watching true crime shows, I can’t think straight. Or rub myself.

Soup: Name 3 DVDs you currently own.
I have about 300, so this is a little moot. I will name the 3 most embarassing ones, how’s that? I simply don’t know how I ended up with Rush Hour 2. I will also openly admit to owning The Black Hole and A Nightmare on Elm Street. And the fact that I have obviously never truly learned the value of a dollar.

Salad: If you were to win a superlative award now, what would it be?
The same one I won when I was a senior at Vermont Academy – “Talks Least, Says Most”. I would have also appreciated the class clown one, or “Most Pranks Played on Rest of Campus”. Considering we were at a school you could have been thrown out of for belching, we sure frigged around a lot.

Main Course: What is your favorite radio station?
I am all about the Podcasts these days. My favorite has to be Ricky Gervais – and it also happens to be the #1 podcast in the world right now. If you like the American version of The Office, which I know you do because it’s incredibly awesome, have a listen to the guy who created it. Most podcasts are ridiculously bad, but if you sniff around long enough you’ll find some doozys.

Dessert: Complete this sentence: I believe _______ because ________.
I believe I can fly, because I believe the children are our future. I also believe that fallen R & B singers deserve a bit more sympathy. And crack.

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