In many ways I am quite a dull man. I do not partake of the alcohol, the nicotine, the meat and the drugs. However, that doesn't mean that I want my artists holding back in a similar style. I would be particularly disappointed to discover that Josh Homme didn't indulge himself in all four, for example. Sometimes the absence of a vice, normally drugs, can remove the essential ingredient of what made a band interesting in the first place. The best example of this that I know is Mercury Rev. Originally they were a mess of smack addled freaks who made two genius albums of psychedelic pop. Then they kicked out the most messed up member, singer David Baker, cleaned up and became increasingly dull over the years. Now while I understand why for personal reasons they wanted to clean up (they wanted to live rather than die, which is fair enough I suppose) but part of me wishes they pick up the phone to give Baker a ring, and pick up the needle to go back to the days when they were actually good. Is that wrong?
Mercury Rev - Chasing A Bee
Mercury Rev - Bronx Cheer
As this is unlikely to happen, I have to comfort myself by listening to those two old albums, and to their closest contemporary musical equivalent, Animal Collective, whose Panda Bear released the very fine Person Pitch album a couple of months ago:
Panda Bear - Comfy In Nauticaa
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5 comments:
Totally, utterly disagree. Baker left and - whatdoyaknow - they started consistently writing actual pop songs. whole album's worth, even. Deserters Songs will be listened to in decades when those earlier records are forgotten. See You On the Other Side is only slightly less fantastic. And though the two subsequent albums are overblown and over-produced and self-important, "In A Funny way" is their greatest ever song, a thing of absolute beauty.
I love the two songs you've chosen though.
While I agree that Deserters Songs has some pretty good songs on it, that self importance you mentioned just permeates through everything, resulting in considerable irritation for me. I saw them live at the time of 'All Is Dream' and I have never found a performer as irritating as Donahue was that night, all Jesus Christ poses and egocentric gestures, I wanted to slap him.
Props to you for mentioning See You On The Other Side, another sorely underrated album, it finds a happy medium between the drug fueled madness and all that twee pixies and elves nonsense that they do nowadays.
Personally, 'See You...' knocks 'Yerself Is Steam' into a cocked hat (but nothing beats 'Boces') and I've always been very disappointed that they never drew on it at all in the post-Deserters live show. Deserters itself is a great album, but it's the work of a completely different band. The two (?) albums since then have rubbed up against a horse's ass.
Hi James...found your blog in my nights music fossicking. Thanks for the comments. I too think Yerself and Boces blow any of mercury rev's future albums out of the water, and most 'rock music' after them for that matter. Glad you mentioned Animal Collective and Panda Bear....they're keeping the dream alive for all us psychedelic noise freaks. Have you got your hands on "spirit gone, spirit vanished" by AC? Still amazed by it after many months of solid listening.
Have you got any other recommendations which draw on a similar musical pedigree?
Hi Nick, thanks for digging back this far into the blog. Since I wrote this, it seems that the influence of psychedlia has become even more important in US indie, with the likes of Yeasayer, and even MGMT. I picked up a copy of Uncut magazine recently, and the cover CD was exactly this subject, featuring Black Mountain, Stephen Malkmus, Caribou and others. Interesting stuff.
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