Hardcore for Nerds

thisistheglamorous: hardcorefornerds: Sugar - ‘Tilted’ (edit) and ‘JC Auto’ (live) vinyl rip,...

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 20:12:06 +0000

hardcorefornerds:

Sugar - ‘Tilted’ (edit) and ‘JC Auto’ (live)

vinyl rip, 9:59.

Copper Blue is their great album. Beaster (which these songs are from) is the one you turn up LOUD and makes you want to play guitar.

exactly. File Under: Easy Listening is good too, but it isn’t a patch on these two.

Sugar - ‘Tilted’ (edit) and ‘JC Auto’...

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 15:28:00 +0000

Sugar - ‘Tilted’ (edit) and ‘JC Auto’ (live)

vinyl rip, 9:59.

Vinyl Sunday: Sugar - ‘Tilted’ b/w ‘JC...

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 14:44:51 +0000

Vinyl Sunday: Sugar - ‘Tilted’ b/w ‘JC Auto’ (live) [Creation Records, 1993]

velveteenrabbit: migue-e:magicspells:...

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 13:05:21 +0000

velveteenrabbit:

migue-e:magicspells: againstyourskin:

Explosions In The Sky - Your Hand In Mine

good night.

don’t listen to much EITS but I love this track because of its use on Friday Night Lights (the film and, in an adapted form, the TV show).

Hardcore for Nerds: Friday Sounds and Videos - Friday Night Lights and Band of Brothers Themes

raptoravatar: triplevision: Greenwich Village. (PHOTO: The...

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 18:19:42 +0000

raptoravatar:

triplevision:

Greenwich Village.

(PHOTO: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan via pureblog)

This is the kinda photograph I’d describe as intensely meaningful without being able to illustrate its actual meaning.

I remember seeing this cover at 15 or 16 and thinking, in that same way one once would have looked at an astronaut, accountant or cowboy as a career goal and thinking, “Yes, that.” It certainly seemed simple and plausible enough. Write 4 or 5 unimpeachable classics (“They don’t have that many chords in them!”), say what you feel in a simple, true way so the girl will love you, find gritty snow, take a slightly under-dressed walk during which warmth and affection end up working as the same thing. I don’t know if there’s a meaning to any of it, but what I do know is that there’s some incandescent feeling on the other side of it that I’ll probably never quite have the intellectual tools to cut myself away from and will probably die craving.

I got into Dylan through Highway 61/Blonde on Blonde/Blood On The Tracks, and (probably about the same age) someone recommended Freewheelin’ to me, at the same time that I first heard Fugazi’s Repeater. Since then I’ve always preferred the early stuff.

douglasmartini: Woods- “Blood Dries...

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:44:00 +0000

douglasmartini:

Woods- “Blood Dries Darker”

Woods/Pitchfork.tv/Ray Concepcion live video a-rb. (there only seems to be two, though, this one and ‘Rain On’)

also, Velvet Underground comparisons on that guitar wig-out.

Life Without Buildings - ‘Sorrow’ (Any Other City,...

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:10:21 +0000

Life Without Buildings - ‘Sorrow’ (Any Other City, 2001)

like an even more minimalist Velvet Underground (especially ‘Sunday Morning’) except Sue Tompkins is both Lou Reed and Nico, and that troublemaker John Cale isn’t around (okay, I like the drone stuff, but the laid-back feel of the latter two VU albums with Doug Yule is - almost - equally sublime)

also, “eyes like lotus leaves, no not even like” is possibly my favourite line of theirs, in that it’s an energetic, skipping alliteration and a profound quasi-Buddhist truth.

no, not even like.

"What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, ‘This life..."

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 21:37:07 +0000

“What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, ‘This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!’ Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, ‘Never have I heard anything more divine’?”

- Friedrich Nietzsche (via dsfincannon:badbrains:idiopolis)

Happy Thanksgiving, Internet.

(via velveteenrabbit)

Refused: Protest Song ‘68

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:03:13 +0000

Refused: Protest Song ‘68

raptoravatar: Song: Non-Objective Portrait of Karma Artist:...

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:55:18 +0000

raptoravatar:

Song: Non-Objective Portrait of Karma

Artist: Circle Takes the Square

Why aren’t there more bands right now that do the blender-core thing (i.e. every kind of heavy music at once/in rapidfire succession + postrock compositional sense)? I mean, on an album-level it’s a lot of birthday to consume at once, but it still feels like a genre that’s pretty perfectly suited to the modern condition. CTTS need to finish their next record, because we need more conceptually adventurous bands with the chops to make screaming bloody murder into something uniquely sublime.

Also, recs on bands currently mining this territory are more than invited.

via marchingtheme:songsforcoscos:ailan:

I want to know the answer to this, too. preferably in the form of one single, shining band that is an exemplar of hope, rather than a series of recommendations I have to track down, but that’s just me being picky.

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved,..."

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:55:00 +0000

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”

- Jack Kerouac (via dommm) (via chelseaalltogether) (via unconventionalitismnessity)

This is shit to live by.

(via raptoravatar)

despite the rather unfair but not totally baseless takedown it earned for Kerouac in the AV Club’s Lifetime grudges, I still like this quote and its ubiquity. same reason I’m still surprised and a little disappointed when I meet someone who doesn’t know who Kerouac is.

put Separation Sunday to 'save' but having doubts as to whether I'll ever download it.

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:34:32 +0000

andrewtsks:

hardcorefornerds:

piano and organ is to the Hold Steady what horns are to (most, not all) non-Op Ivy ska. seriously, if it’s not about the music, then it might as well be beat poetry drumming.

What’s wrong with piano, organ, and horns? Do you not like Bruce Springsteen either?

do I have to over-extend the throwaway analogy (couched somewhat in the terms of a SAT question) by talking about the relative importances of Bruce Springsteen and third-wave ska?

put simply, the use of piano, etc. in the Hold Steady (I’ll accept that this might more evident in Boys and Girls In America) is yet another facet of their damning preciousness, whereas the similar bands I do like either use it sparingly or not at all (the Bouncing Souls, over various albums), or else do it in a way that makes for an aesthetically interesting/hook-y record (the Gaslight Anthem, ‘59 Sound).

douglasmartini: Woods- “Rain On” superb (I like every version...

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:33:00 +0000

douglasmartini:

Woods- “Rain On”

superb (I like every version of this song, though).

like some kind of cinema verité for music videos.

Bouncing Souls, ‘Break-Up Song’ from How I Spent My...

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:40:00 +0000

Bouncing Souls, ‘Break-Up Song’ from How I Spent My Summer Vacation (Epitaph Records, 2001)

‘I don’t want this anymore’ is all I heard her say,

as I grabbed my stuff and headed out the door.

With my music in my ‘phones and my bike under my feet,

things started to look different as I got out on the street

Sometimes I see her face in the new people that I meet

We’re not who we thought we were when we saw this dream

Sometimes when I just can’t sleep I hear the words you said to me

Sometimes it takes a painful loss to realize you are free

I wake up and I move on, I admit the past is gone,

I wake up and I refine

Moving foward to the next lifetime, I leave it all behind

Sometimes when I just can’t sleep I hear the words you said to me

Sometimes it takes a painful loss to realize you are free

How did you get so deep inside of me?

How did you get so deep inside of me?

As a counterpoint to all the Hold Steady love elsewhere, here’s some semi-classic Bouncing Souls, a band which I like far better musically and, while it’s not literary gold, I like lyrically too quite a lot. This is from before the Bouncing Souls started becoming overtly Springsteen-like, when they were just emerging from the cocoon of happy-go-lucky, sloppy punk-pop to something just as authentic, but also a little bit more meaningful. It’s simplicity with a purpose, musically as well as lyrically. How I Spent My Summer Vacation is possibly the happiest album ever recorded, even on the song ostensibly about the opposite emotion. As a technique, it’s a traditional punk rock - or, even more so, punk-pop - one, whereby a depressing topic is exorcised or catharsisized by a characteristic sort of joyous abandon. The Bouncing Souls added their own eternal optimism in place of punk’s more traditional nihilism. Here, the optimism is in freedom, self-knowledge and the escape into the diversity of the urban street-scape. The escape isn’t final, of course, because life’s not like that, but life is also about hope and freedom (personal, social, political): a constant motion.

put Separation Sunday to 'save' but having doubts as to whether I'll ever download it.

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:23:00 +0000

piano and organ is to the Hold Steady what horns are to (most, not all) non-Op Ivy ska. seriously, if it’s not about the music, then it might as well be beat poetry drumming.

eMusic's Best Albums of the Decade

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:54:40 +0000

eMusic's Best Albums of the Decade:

hello Hold Steady again (Separation Sunday #2); Is This It, #1; The Argument, #12.

obviously it’s restricted to albums they have for download (though in saying that, it’s clear how much good stuff they really do have), but it’s certainly a not unworthy list.

tumbledublin: Freebird Records, Temple Bar (Dublin, Ireland)...

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:22:12 +0000

tumbledublin:

Freebird Records, Temple Bar (Dublin, Ireland) (Via shehatesthesu)

Sorry to see you go Freebird.

Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca was the only thing I ever bought here. At least the branch, so to speak, in the Secret Book & Record Store on Wicklow Street is still going (where I buy much more stuff). here’s the thumped thread.

douglasmartini: blue-monday: yvynyl: Woods chillin’ with...

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:11:11 +0000

douglasmartini:

blue-monday:

yvynyl:

Woods chillin’ with pints, on tour in Europe with Espers and Cave Singers.

(via honeymoon music)

All of this warmth and flannel is basically what I expect Woods to look like all the time.

Essentially, this is what they look like all the time. Plus, a Woods/Espers/Cave Singers tour sounds like a dream come true for me.

in case you missed it (not that I wrote that much about it), I caught this tour in Dublin a couple of weeks ago. Espers didn’t exactly thrill me, and I left before Cave Singers came on, but Woods were superb. dude with the Guinness in the photo spent the entire set kneeling down, swapping cassette tapes, singing into a pair of headphones, and generally being quite reminiscent of Dan Deacon. which isn’t something you see every day.

also, nice pub (I see Greyfriars, so I’m guessing Edinburgh).

WOUNDS

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:24:00 +0000

WOUNDS:

saw them Friday night in Crawdaddy, supporting (with Adebisi Shank) Joe Lally.

astonishingly close to what I’d imagine seeing the Swing Kids live might have been like. the screaming was right on, the guitar sound was in its textures - hell, perhaps even in the chord progressions, if I was able to tell properly - exactly like what I fed for a year or two of 90s hardcore, emo/screamo, San Diego-core, all that sort of beautiful noise. the performance - divided between stage and floor, in front of the early crowd - was as expressive as it was confrontational, insane and aggressive. there was a techno interlude very close to the beat of ‘Refused Party Program’, or at least that was the slice of my listening life that it activated, and in fact all their songs had a sort of disco edge to them. maybe the whole thing seemed a little like a facsimile to me of ancient, decade-old styles (and to others, less appreciative, an unsignifying noisy mess) but even if it was only that, it’s a ‘photocopy-of-a-photocopy’ à la Sonic Youth.

Karl of Those Geese Were Stupefied (from whom I found out about this band, though I hadn’t heard them properly before this week) remarked about a previous show that:

“I honestly wouldn’t envy any band in the world who tried to follow Wounds. Unless you’re actually Minor Threat or something, it’s going to be nearly impossible to match them for volume and energy, and if you drop either of those off, you’re always going to come off a bit tame.”

In this case, it was the bassist from Fugazi who was headlining, and Wounds were followed directly after by Adebisi Shank, who are insane in their own right even I don’t particularly like them (thus, a punk-noise and metal-noise band were supporting a guy with a bass - although, to be fair, he is quite loud and had an excellent guitarist as well). But for me personally, theirs was indeed the most physically and sonically impressive performance of the night (not that I didn’t enjoy Joe Lally’s centre-floor sean-nós). And it makes them unique in an Irish context, for that level of commitment to art as a process of flailing about and making the most amount of concentrated noise possible per second of a brief and angry set. Perhaps if Fight Like Apes weren’t so tied in to synthy pop - albeit of an unusually aggressive kind - they could challenge for the crown, but for now Wounds stand alone.

no mp3s that I know of, so click through for the myspace tunes. lacking some of the provocative harshness of the live experience (especially in the vocals), but it’s got that violently nostalgic beat locked down.

Patti Smith - ‘Till Victory’ from Easter (1978)

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:29:15 +0000

Patti Smith - ‘Till Victory’ from Easter (1978)