Is it just me, or are things getting stupid with the shoegaze pedals?

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Re: Is it just me, or are things getting stupid with the shoegaze pedals?

Post by sal paradise » Sun Sep 11, 2022 7:51 am

cestlamort wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 6:50 am
timiscott wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 6:20 am
What I'm dreading is the Britpop revival that seems inevitable. Can you imagine how bad a Xeroxed Blur or Suede might be?
It’s already begun…
Epiphone Unveils Noel Gallagher model
The original was an 80s model… Not much newer than Kurt Cobain’s mustang when it was reissued in 2012… two guys selling a lot of albums off simple riffs.

Would also add that Bernard Butler, and Blur, did pretty awesome things for music.
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Re: Is it just me, or are things getting stupid with the shoegaze pedals?

Post by MrShake » Sun Sep 11, 2022 8:06 am

jorri wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 7:26 am
timiscott wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 6:20 am
Might bring Wire back though...
Took me a while to get this but i finally realised the connection...
What, did timi stutter?

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Re: Is it just me, or are things getting stupid with the shoegaze pedals?

Post by MrShake » Sun Sep 11, 2022 8:17 am

timiscott wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 6:20 am
Well... I'm enough of an antique to have supported Ride (for a local gig) on their first tour in the UK. Shoegaze went from them and MBV wanting to be Sonic Youth to me (a Londoner) walking into Sam Ash in 2017 to be served by a kid in a Ride t-shirt and then sitting in a Manhattan bar drinking 'Shoegaze' pale ale. It was pretty weird. I'm guessing it's to do with the twenty year (generational?) cycle of pop culture. What I'm dreading is the Britpop revival that seems inevitable. Can you imagine how bad a Xeroxed Blur or Suede might be? Might bring Wire back though...
I was like a baby brother in the US Midwest in the '90s. Everything got to us 5 years late and time was slower then, so I was in high school hearing MBV and Ride in '95? I was smitten and started doing my best to jump off from whatever scraps of that and The Cure and Joy Division, etc, I could find.

But after college, I worked a very successful indie label, and used to get endless shit for my regressive tastes. "The 90s called, they want their Dino Jr shirt back". About 5 years after I left, they signed one of the biggest OG shoegaze bands and some other heavy hitters from the original wave.

This wasn't far from the first big revival and I remember being super stoked to see Asobi Seksu and Ringo Deathstarr and adjacent things like A Place To Bury Strangers and The Big Pink and The Vandelles come up.

As far as the Britpop revival, my wife and I saw a local Boston show recently. She's got good taste but isn't a music geek quite like we are.

She leaned over to me and said "This is like they wrote a half hour of terrible London Suede songs and a shitty 'Live Forever' too."

I didn't know she knew who Suede was. The band were from Rhode Island.

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Re: Is it just me, or are things getting stupid with the shoegaze pedals?

Post by timiscott » Mon Sep 12, 2022 2:57 am

God help us all! Britpop was a horrible, horrible thing that degenerated (in middle class hands) into "Oi, guvnor, gor blimey!' bollocks really quickly. Elastica and Gene were the best of them. I saw a lot of those bands in little pubs. In one notable instance, it was Blur, Alex's girlfriend, their publishing guy, me and my ex-wife. Damon had flu and was vomiting onstage. Boke-life!

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Re: Is it just me, or are things getting stupid with the shoegaze pedals?

Post by s_mcsleazy » Mon Sep 12, 2022 3:48 am

i'm already seeing a bit of a revival for brit-pop. look at that sam fender dude. he's basically half way between oasis and ed sheeran. wonderwall hasn't left most buskers/open mic dude's repertoire. 40+ year old dudes are getting nostalgic for that stuff. a few months ago i was cycling in edinburgh and passed a pub that had a britpop cover band playing and the crowd fucking loved it. plus people seem to like noel ghallager's band.

honestly, outside suede, about 60% of blur's material, 40% of pulp's material and the odd elastica track, i'd be happy to leave britpop in the past. the only way i can think i'd wanna see it is because a lot of the british post-hardcore scene of the 00's was a reaction to how popular britpop was so maybe we could start seeing some more love for reuben, yourcodenameis:milo and million dead.

although i do wanna say, fashion wise, bucket hats and corduroy skirts are already coming back in fashion so maybe we will get a britpop revival. keep in mind the people who were teenagers during that time are now definitely old enough to have kids who are now in their teens going through old pictures of their parents like "oh mum looked so cool back then, i know..... i'm going to start dressing like that and posting it on instagram or tiktok" and that starts a trend.
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Re: Is it just me, or are things getting stupid with the shoegaze pedals?

Post by sal paradise » Mon Sep 12, 2022 4:24 am

90s fashion is already ubiquitous. I did some work with ASOS last year & I can confirm that anyone in baggy cargo trousers, vans & an old Melvins shirt would fit right in.
s_mcsleazy wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 3:48 am
honestly, outside suede, about 60% of blur's material, 40% of pulp's material and the odd elastica track, i'd be happy to leave britpop in the past. the only way i can think i'd wanna see it is because a lot of the british post-hardcore scene of the 00's was a reaction to how popular britpop was so maybe we could start seeing some more love for reuben, yourcodenameis:milo and million dead.
I pretty much agree with your take on the bands. Not sure you’ll ever see Reuben etc getting much love… without Internet, always hard to gauge how big those bands were. Seeing them at places as big as the Underworld was cool, but no idea who else cared outside London. Aside from Hundred Reasons, none of them really got major distribution did they?
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Re: Is it just me, or are things getting stupid with the shoegaze pedals?

Post by s_mcsleazy » Mon Sep 12, 2022 4:33 am

sal paradise wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 4:24 am
90s fashion is already ubiquitous. I did some work with ASOS last year & I can confirm that anyone in baggy cargo trousers, vans & an old Melvins shirt would fit right in.
s_mcsleazy wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 3:48 am
honestly, outside suede, about 60% of blur's material, 40% of pulp's material and the odd elastica track, i'd be happy to leave britpop in the past. the only way i can think i'd wanna see it is because a lot of the british post-hardcore scene of the 00's was a reaction to how popular britpop was so maybe we could start seeing some more love for reuben, yourcodenameis:milo and million dead.
I pretty much agree with your take on the bands. Not sure you’ll ever see Reuben etc getting much love… without Internet, always hard to gauge how big those bands were. Seeing them at places as big as the Underworld was cool, but no idea who else cared outside London. Aside from Hundred Reasons, none of them really got major distribution did they?
i'm kinda seeing some of these bands gaining "cult" appeal which i like (means jamie from reuben can keep buying dr. who figures) but it's more in that "god, how did these bands not get bigger?" kinda way. but at the same time, the same thing happened with shoegaze. i think one of us just needs to brave 4chan's /MU/ board to talk about that scene so people start talking it up and someone makes em a meme like what they did with shoegaze.
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Re: Is it just me, or are things getting stupid with the shoegaze pedals?

Post by sal paradise » Mon Sep 12, 2022 4:37 am

s_mcsleazy wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 4:33 am
sal paradise wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 4:24 am
90s fashion is already ubiquitous. I did some work with ASOS last year & I can confirm that anyone in baggy cargo trousers, vans & an old Melvins shirt would fit right in.
s_mcsleazy wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 3:48 am
honestly, outside suede, about 60% of blur's material, 40% of pulp's material and the odd elastica track, i'd be happy to leave britpop in the past. the only way i can think i'd wanna see it is because a lot of the british post-hardcore scene of the 00's was a reaction to how popular britpop was so maybe we could start seeing some more love for reuben, yourcodenameis:milo and million dead.
I pretty much agree with your take on the bands. Not sure you’ll ever see Reuben etc getting much love… without Internet, always hard to gauge how big those bands were. Seeing them at places as big as the Underworld was cool, but no idea who else cared outside London. Aside from Hundred Reasons, none of them really got major distribution did they?
i'm kinda seeing some of these bands gaining "cult" appeal which i like (means jamie from reuben can keep buying dr. who figures) but it's more in that "god, how did these bands not get bigger?" kinda way. but at the same time, the same thing happened with shoegaze. i think one of us just needs to brave 4chan's /MU/ board to talk about that scene so people start talking it up and someone makes em a meme like what they did with shoegaze.
“Hey guys, remember when Frank Turner was cool?”

Man, I miss those days. So many cool/terrible bands. I still listen to The Steal & Jairus a lot.
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Re: Is it just me, or are things getting stupid with the shoegaze pedals?

Post by s_mcsleazy » Mon Sep 12, 2022 4:47 am

sal paradise wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 4:37 am

“Hey guys, remember when Frank Turner was cool?”

honestly, i'd just be happy if we got some of their unreleased songs that they used to play at sound check.
2 unreleased million dead songs
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Re: Is it just me, or are things getting stupid with the shoegaze pedals?

Post by sal paradise » Mon Sep 12, 2022 5:03 am

s_mcsleazy wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 4:47 am
sal paradise wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 4:37 am

“Hey guys, remember when Frank Turner was cool?”

honestly, i'd just be happy if we got some of their unreleased songs that they used to play at sound check.
2 unreleased million dead songs
Ooh, not come across these before. And LA2 :-* Cheers!
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Re: Is it just me, or are things getting stupid with the shoegaze pedals?

Post by Larry Mal » Mon Sep 12, 2022 5:14 am

That was cool and new to me.
Back in those days, everyone knew that if you were talking about Destiny's Child, you were talking about Beyonce, LaTavia, LeToya, and Larry.

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Re: Is it just me, or are things getting stupid with the shoegaze pedals?

Post by panoramic » Mon Sep 12, 2022 5:19 am

blacktiger wrote:
Fri Sep 09, 2022 2:55 pm
While I’m yelling at clouds, when the eff did ambient/shoegaze/drone become popular enough that companies are releasing an endless stream of expensive pedals aimed directly at that demographic? That’s a serious question. I feel like Rip Van Winkle; I slept for 20 years (or more) and woke up in a different world. When I was in college, I would joke about entering the school’s talent competition and playing 15 or 20 minutes of solo feedback/noise/drone guitar to a dumbfounded and, eventually, hostile crowd. Some dude could probably get a standing ovation these days for lugging a pedalboard on stage and “exploring sound” for 10 minutes. I’m not gonna lie, it’s a bit disorienting and disconcerting. Kind of feels like when punk “broke” in the US in the early ‘90s. It’s really weird when the stuff people used to think you were a weirdo for enjoying suddenly becomes mainstream. A few years ago, one of my wife’s co-workers, who is about 10 or 15 years younger than us, was like “your husband was into punk and skateboarding in the 80s? That’s cool” and I was like “it sure didn’t feel cool when grown-ass men were physically threatening me when I was like 10 or 11 for wearing a Sex Pistols pin, or a few years later when people drove by my friends and I skating and yelled ‘SKATEFAGS!’ at us.” For the record, I DID walk to school uphill both ways while carrying an armful of punk records and a skateboard with a backpack full of delay and reverb pedals.
I feel SEEN here dude. I definitely spent my youth singing/making noise in SY sounding black flag ripping off bands and being chased by jock kids calling me skatef*g all the live long day and while I feel like a lot of today is a vast departure from our youth on that level (PRAISE JAH) i see they are re-enacting our musical vibe pretty heavily, then again we were also re-enacting a musical vibe. It's all a snake eating it's own tail.
I digress...back to the question at hand, why do these companies pump out these shoegaze centric pedals? where do these ambient sound maker machines go to? WORSHIP GUITARISTS and I have no fucking idea why, but they buy up all of this shit. I have 18 pedals and feel like I am an asshole for having that many, I routinely see people with like hundreds of pedals in the groups i am in/haunt on facebook. Almost all of those people are worship guitarists or cover band guys.
Last edited by panoramic on Mon Sep 12, 2022 5:22 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Is it just me, or are things getting stupid with the shoegaze pedals?

Post by UlricvonCatalyst » Mon Sep 12, 2022 5:21 am

I think it's neither fair nor accurate to label the likes of Blur or, especially, Pulp as 'Britpop' as both preceded that A&R onslaught of signing all things Camden on the back of :k Cool Britannia :k .

Can't say I agree that Elastica were a highlight of the era either; always found them pretty unpalatable.

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Re: Is it just me, or are things getting stupid with the shoegaze pedals?

Post by panoramic » Mon Sep 12, 2022 5:24 am

UlricvonCatalyst wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 5:21 am
I think it's neither fair nor accurate to label the likes of Blur or, especially, Pulp as 'Britpop' as both preceded that A&R onslaught of signing all things Camden on the back of :k Cool Britannia :k .

Can't say I agree that Elastica were a highlight of the era either; always found them pretty unpalatable.
I just listened to their "big" album with my GF the other day in a comedic fashion as we were on a 90's kick and that record is actually pretty good aside of the Wire theft. I hated them when they were on the radio but now, I don't mind them and they are a shit ton better than the garbage out today.
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Re: Is it just me, or are things getting stupid with the shoegaze pedals?

Post by UlricvonCatalyst » Mon Sep 12, 2022 5:34 am

panoramic wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 5:24 am
UlricvonCatalyst wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 5:21 am
I think it's neither fair nor accurate to label the likes of Blur or, especially, Pulp as 'Britpop' as both preceded that A&R onslaught of signing all things Camden on the back of :k Cool Britannia :k .

Can't say I agree that Elastica were a highlight of the era either; always found them pretty unpalatable.
I just listened to their "big" album with my GF the other day in a comedic fashion as we were on a 90's kick and that record is actually pretty good aside of the Wire theft. I hated them when they were on the radio but now, I don't mind them and they are a shit ton better than the garbage out today.
Gonna have to take your word for that. ;)

I'm probably just bitter because my band who did that Three Girl Rhumba thing a few years earlier than them didn't make it as big.

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