Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Heritage Artists
People often ask who my "influences" are in a musical sense. While many point to Joy Division (I've frankly never heard that much of them in my own music), here's a couple of others that are still kicking (or kicking again as the case may be for 25 years, incredibly, only 5 yrs longer than MDID has been a "band")
Echo and the Bunnymen - their new LP is called Siberia and it's out later this month. Scenestars.net is streaming it in it's entirety for a limited time, along with the new
Gang of Four - Their new LP, out in October is Return the Gift.
While impressive upon first listen, the Echo LP doesn't stand up for me on repeated listening, although I do like tracks 03, 05, 09 and 10 quite a bit, which is about 400% more songs than I liked off Flowers (they hearken back a bit to Heaven Up Here, my favorite Echo LP back in the day, although if I ever pull out Echo now, it's usually Crocodiles, and Will Seargant's guitar sounds as good as it's sounded in a long time)
Gang of 4 has employed an interesting concept (that I've toyed with briefly and even employed myself a bit in the Shiner CD..) in re-recording 12 songs from Entertainment and Solid Gold, and the 2 "good" songs off of Songs of the Free for this new record. It's fun for the fan to listen to, but it's hard to improve on those old classics. It's definitely "bigger" and maybe a little dirtier sounding, and for all those Bloc Party fans who never heard them in the day it'll be a big 'wow'. Can't say I care for the super trebly-rubber bandy sounding bass, tho'. It's amazing how perfectly they still play these songs.. I can't remember how to play half the songs on my first few records. Versions that stood out for me were those of Not Great Men, Anthrax, What We All Want, Ether. Disappointments: No "Outside the Trains Don't Run on Time" (my favorite G of 4 song) and no "I Found that Essence Rare", an omission that I find a little mind-boggling. We do have our tix for the Chapel Hill show next month already. I've only seen them live once one other time, on the Solid Gold tour in 1982 or 1983. I was completely blown away by their frenetic performance. We'll see if the years have done them good.
Echo and the Bunnymen - their new LP is called Siberia and it's out later this month. Scenestars.net is streaming it in it's entirety for a limited time, along with the new
Gang of Four - Their new LP, out in October is Return the Gift.
While impressive upon first listen, the Echo LP doesn't stand up for me on repeated listening, although I do like tracks 03, 05, 09 and 10 quite a bit, which is about 400% more songs than I liked off Flowers (they hearken back a bit to Heaven Up Here, my favorite Echo LP back in the day, although if I ever pull out Echo now, it's usually Crocodiles, and Will Seargant's guitar sounds as good as it's sounded in a long time)
Gang of 4 has employed an interesting concept (that I've toyed with briefly and even employed myself a bit in the Shiner CD..) in re-recording 12 songs from Entertainment and Solid Gold, and the 2 "good" songs off of Songs of the Free for this new record. It's fun for the fan to listen to, but it's hard to improve on those old classics. It's definitely "bigger" and maybe a little dirtier sounding, and for all those Bloc Party fans who never heard them in the day it'll be a big 'wow'. Can't say I care for the super trebly-rubber bandy sounding bass, tho'. It's amazing how perfectly they still play these songs.. I can't remember how to play half the songs on my first few records. Versions that stood out for me were those of Not Great Men, Anthrax, What We All Want, Ether. Disappointments: No "Outside the Trains Don't Run on Time" (my favorite G of 4 song) and no "I Found that Essence Rare", an omission that I find a little mind-boggling. We do have our tix for the Chapel Hill show next month already. I've only seen them live once one other time, on the Solid Gold tour in 1982 or 1983. I was completely blown away by their frenetic performance. We'll see if the years have done them good.
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i saw gang of four a few months back a the metro... amazing show. very high energy... you could hardly tell it was a reunion show, it felt so fresh and alive.
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