bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Favorite new record? Favorite old record? Got a band? Post it here.
User avatar
X-Ray Spex
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 1250
Joined: Thu Jun 05, 2014 7:18 am

Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by X-Ray Spex » Wed Mar 09, 2022 12:44 am

epizootics wrote:
Tue Mar 08, 2022 9:44 pm
X-Ray Spex wrote:
Tue Mar 01, 2022 4:46 pm
Gonna need more info on the Black Midi run in, that sounds hilarious.
Ha, sorry, I missed that. Nothing too exciting about this one unfortunately - just one of those gigs you go to that get you thinking that you can't really point out any flaws in the music you're hearing but you can't get rid of that nagging feeling that you'd rather be at home reading a book. I call that the 'Music Students Band' syndrome. The keys player in my band knew their tour manager and we got introduced. I asked the band if their parents were "very rich", just to see if they had a sense of humour (and because everybody knows that most young, hip London-based bands these days have to have some form of financial support). They all went "NOT AT ALL! HOW DARE YOU!" and I knew I'd struck right. Not that it matters all that much. That was just me being an asshole trying to put them on the spot.

In my Manchester days I ran into a lot of local figures. Many of those encounters made me not want to listen to their music any more. Mark E. Smith was one of them. Apart from being the rude c**t he's made out to be, he liked to use his status as a local legend to pick up much younger girls. He even asked me and my friends to talk to his wife one the phone to cover up for him one night at a local pub. The girl he was with couldn't have been more than nineteen years old.

Same with Peter Hook. No young girls involved - just not a very nice guy at all. I was friends with Ian Curtis's daughter back then and everything she told me about how he handled her father's death didn't make him sound too great. And he tried not to pay us for the three nights we opened for him at massive gigs. After the third show, we raided his dressing room and left with most of his food and booze.

Fortunately, you sometimes run into people whose music you love and find out they are actually nice people. Kirin J. Callinan is a hoot. Tropical Fuck Storm are genuinely smart and fun to hang out with. Housewives have a great sense of humour and make the boring hours between the soundchek & the actual gig a lot less boring. Johnny Winter let me inside his trailer after a gig when I was 17 (and I didn't understand most of what he said in his Texas drawl).

Sorry. Much too much name dropping going on here. :-[
Doesn't surprise me at all about the Mark E Smith stuff, always thought the Fall were total shithouse anyway. Peter Hook always came across as arrogant in interviews so no shocker there either, did you guys end up getting paid in the end of what was the story? What band are / were you in that got to meet all these people?
''It's not what you play, it's what you play'' - Troy Van Leeuwen

User avatar
epizootics
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 719
Joined: Wed Jun 28, 2017 10:29 pm
Location: Lyon, France

Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by epizootics » Wed Mar 09, 2022 1:11 am

X-Ray Spex wrote:
Wed Mar 09, 2022 12:44 am
epizootics wrote:
Tue Mar 08, 2022 9:44 pm
X-Ray Spex wrote:
Tue Mar 01, 2022 4:46 pm
Gonna need more info on the Black Midi run in, that sounds hilarious.
Ha, sorry, I missed that. Nothing too exciting about this one unfortunately - just one of those gigs you go to that get you thinking that you can't really point out any flaws in the music you're hearing but you can't get rid of that nagging feeling that you'd rather be at home reading a book. I call that the 'Music Students Band' syndrome. The keys player in my band knew their tour manager and we got introduced. I asked the band if their parents were "very rich", just to see if they had a sense of humour (and because everybody knows that most young, hip London-based bands these days have to have some form of financial support). They all went "NOT AT ALL! HOW DARE YOU!" and I knew I'd struck right. Not that it matters all that much. That was just me being an asshole trying to put them on the spot.

In my Manchester days I ran into a lot of local figures. Many of those encounters made me not want to listen to their music any more. Mark E. Smith was one of them. Apart from being the rude c**t he's made out to be, he liked to use his status as a local legend to pick up much younger girls. He even asked me and my friends to talk to his wife one the phone to cover up for him one night at a local pub. The girl he was with couldn't have been more than nineteen years old.

Same with Peter Hook. No young girls involved - just not a very nice guy at all. I was friends with Ian Curtis's daughter back then and everything she told me about how he handled her father's death didn't make him sound too great. And he tried not to pay us for the three nights we opened for him at massive gigs. After the third show, we raided his dressing room and left with most of his food and booze.

Fortunately, you sometimes run into people whose music you love and find out they are actually nice people. Kirin J. Callinan is a hoot. Tropical Fuck Storm are genuinely smart and fun to hang out with. Housewives have a great sense of humour and make the boring hours between the soundchek & the actual gig a lot less boring. Johnny Winter let me inside his trailer after a gig when I was 17 (and I didn't understand most of what he said in his Texas drawl).

Sorry. Much too much name dropping going on here. :-[
Doesn't surprise me at all about the Mark E Smith stuff, always thought the Fall were total shithouse anyway. Peter Hook always came across as arrogant in interviews so no shocker there either, did you guys end up getting paid in the end of what was the story? What band are / were you in that got to meet all these people?
To be fair, I would have preferred not to like the Fall once I'd met him (which happened a few times). I also knew the guy who wrote Renegade, his autobiography (sic). He didn't have to make anything up. If anything, he had to tone it down. The drummer in my current band also opened for the Fall back in the 90s, somewhere in Germany. Same story...

None of the bands I was in ever got that big, but looking back I am surprised by how many 'good' gigs we got. The Peter Hook stuff happened with Modern Blonde, an obscure but prolific MCR band fronted by a good friend of mine. They needed a guitarist and I said I'd do it. They knew Hooky's son, who played in his father's band. That's how we got those gigs. We played Koko in London, Manchester Cathedral and the Opera House in Buxton with them. At the Buxton gig, the venue didn't even know we'd be playing - they hadn't been told. We had this arrangement with The Light where they'd pay us directly. I honestly can't remember if we got paid or not in the end, but ransacking that dressing room was cathartic.

My main band back then was called Naked (on Drugs). We did get a bit of a buzz going at some point (BBC, NME, The Guardian, etc.), mostly thanks to the small but feisty label we were on. This meant getting decent opening slots for bands/artists like Blood Red Shoes, Clinic, Lydia Lunch (who offered us to be her backing band on an album...for a fee, ie. paying to play on her record! We declined.), etc. We went on to play this massive French festival in Brittany, after which the French press hated us because we'd "clashed with the hedonistic vibes of the fest that year". We recorded an album and the band disintegrated shortly after that. Classic band story!

Upon moving back to Lyon, France, I started another band called Sharon Tate Modern. I'd given up trying to make a living out of music by then and the band is virtually unknown but we still ended up opening for Fontaines DC and Kate Tempest in London. My other project here was called On Hiatus and we somehow managed to get on the same bill as bands like Housewives, Ice Age, Eric Cheneaux, etc. I guess this stuff has more to do with being at the right place at the right time and who you know than any intrinsic musical value :)

Sorry for going off topic, let's get back to bands dodgy political views!

User avatar
UlricvonCatalyst
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 7193
Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2009 4:05 am
Location: Glasgow, Scotland

Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by UlricvonCatalyst » Wed Mar 09, 2022 2:00 am

Not really fulfilling the brief here as I know nothing about them as people, but musically speaking I had a whirlwind romance with They Might Be Giants many years back and bought up their whole back catalogue.

Eventually I came to hate their horrid nasal voices and 'aren't we clever?' lyrics, and would now run to turn off the radio if I heard one of their songs playing.

User avatar
marqueemoon
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 7346
Joined: Mon Jun 20, 2016 9:37 pm
Location: Seattle

Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by marqueemoon » Wed Mar 09, 2022 6:42 am

UlricvonCatalyst wrote:
Wed Mar 09, 2022 2:00 am
Not really fulfilling the brief here as I know nothing about them as people, but musically speaking I had a whirlwind romance with They Might Be Giants many years back and bought up their whole back catalogue.

Eventually I came to hate their horrid nasal voices and 'aren't we clever?' lyrics, and would now run to turn off the radio if I heard one of their songs playing.
My son has recently discovered TMBG. I can relate to all of this.

On one hand I’m glad he’s found some music that speaks to him, but good god it’s annoying.

User avatar
s_mcsleazy
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 18424
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2011 7:30 am
Location: glasgow

Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by s_mcsleazy » Wed Mar 09, 2022 7:58 am

i dunno, as someone who had nerdy interests as a teenager, i get they might be giants and even still listen to them from time to time..... but i always feel they're one of those bands where people love or hate them and i get the hate.
offset guitars resident bass player.
'Are you trying to seduce me Mrs Robinson? Or do you just want me to solder a couple of resistors into your Muff?'

User avatar
bluemonday
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 181
Joined: Fri Mar 11, 2022 8:14 pm
Location: California, USA

Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by bluemonday » Fri Mar 11, 2022 11:48 pm

Since we're going way back, I have to say R.E.M. I was a pretty big fan back then but now I can hardly listen to them. In fact I try not to (with some exceptions). I can't say why for sure. Even the IRS years which I mostly prefer. I hear it now and I don't know why I was so enamored. It really sounds way more '80s than I thought. Not Byrds inspired electric folk. Hasn't aged well for me. I actually just heard Radio Free Europe playing in the store yesterday. I thought it was kind of sad--wimpy and anemic sounding, and again, that '80s hyper-activity that suddenly sounded so dated. I don't want to be ranting on my first posts, but it really had me thinking I'd invested so much in a band it turns out I was so wrong about in retrospect.

User avatar
mediocreplayer
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 1331
Joined: Mon Feb 21, 2011 12:59 am

Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by mediocreplayer » Sat Mar 12, 2022 5:14 am

Jack White has a couple of new albums coming out, so he would be my current choice. The White Stripes were mostly good but his solo material is uninteresting and trying too hard. His solo show after the first solo record is probably the worst concert I have been to -- nothing was wrong, it just was boring and lifeless.

I love Low and will see them in a few weeks, but this experiment with B.J.Burton has gotten old and needs to stop.
epizootics wrote:
Wed Mar 09, 2022 1:11 am
Sorry for going off topic, let's get back to bands dodgy political views!
I actually quite enjoyed that digression! Thank you for these stories. I have read both of Peter Hook's books and even he cannot make himself not look like an asshole in the New Order book. I do think he has huge charisma though, and he comes across as rather eloquent on most current-day clips of him on Youtube.

User avatar
mr bungle
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 179
Joined: Sat Feb 28, 2009 7:34 pm
Location: Aotearoa / New Zealand

Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by mr bungle » Thu Mar 17, 2022 2:07 am

shoule79 wrote:
Fri Mar 04, 2022 8:59 pm
Regarding Radiohead, I think most of the die hard fans are too invested to look at a lot of their catalogue objectively. It’s like of like Weezer fans who praise anything they’ve done post 2000. At some level I think they know it’s not good, but don’t want to admit it. It’s like conspiracy theorists, they are convinced that there is something more to the music that only they see.

I personally love the Bends and OK Computer, and really like Pablo and Kid A. The quality really started to drop after that. I wasn’t over the moon about Radiohead when those albums came out, because I was already listening to bands that were in the same vein. But they were still really good albums and I think they aged well. I think Thom Yorke really started to like the smell of his own farts and didn’t have anyone to tell him otherwise.
In Rainbows is potentially their best album. Just love that along with Kid A and OK. The Bends was great in its day, but might as well be Stereophonics or Manic Street Preachers when you look back from their subsequent work.

Foo Fighters have always been Nickelback with street cred.

The National vocalist never gets out of second gear and it drives me crazy. There is just never any release.

Matt Bellamy, in my mind, has mastered the art of appropriating every riff and lick and inverting them enough to avoid the attention of lawyers. Some choice bass lines down the years and supposedly a vibrant live show but Bellamy is an imposter.

Fugazi could have smiled more. Or at all.

User avatar
Stephen_42
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 1504
Joined: Wed May 02, 2018 2:32 am

Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by Stephen_42 » Thu Mar 17, 2022 12:00 pm

Speaking of Muse, they've apparently got a new album called "Will of the People" and released a new song today. I don't think it's very good musically, and the political themes in it are hardly subtle, to say the least.

User avatar
s_mcsleazy
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 18424
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2011 7:30 am
Location: glasgow

Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by s_mcsleazy » Thu Mar 17, 2022 12:46 pm

all this muse talk reminded me of this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-FW6eiFdEk
offset guitars resident bass player.
'Are you trying to seduce me Mrs Robinson? Or do you just want me to solder a couple of resistors into your Muff?'

User avatar
Veitchy
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 1525
Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2011 7:12 am
Location: Robe, South Australia

Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by Veitchy » Thu Mar 17, 2022 3:54 pm

s_mcsleazy wrote:
Thu Mar 17, 2022 12:46 pm
all this muse talk reminded me of this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-FW6eiFdEk
I had my hopes up when I clicked and I was not disappointed.

User avatar
mr bungle
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 179
Joined: Sat Feb 28, 2009 7:34 pm
Location: Aotearoa / New Zealand

Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by mr bungle » Fri Mar 18, 2022 9:43 pm

:D

User avatar
s_mcsleazy
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 18424
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2011 7:30 am
Location: glasgow

Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by s_mcsleazy » Sun Mar 20, 2022 1:45 pm

well, i found out i've got to add an artist who i got super into on the list

sewerslvt. basically, they're one of those artists where the music kinda hits super hard for me but also felt her aesthetic was super interesting. i'll admit, i never wanted to know too much about her as an artist. about all i knew was she was trans (possibly) and went by the name "jvne" then one of my friends said "hey, so that artist you like..... they were pretty racist and also quite problematic" so i looked into it and.... yeah. basically. before she transitioned, she went by a different name online and was deep into a lot of that 4chan edgelord humour and everything that goes with it. including making a gorillaz mashup album that's title was the n word. granted, this was apparently years ago. there was also something about her going by the online name jvnko which is related to a torture victim they were obsessed with.

NOW. i do want to say that they've said before they don't like a lot of that 4chan edgelord humour and have been trying to distance themselves from their past, saying they were young and just around a lot of horrible people and things trying to make those people happy, which i do feel to a degree. it also must be said that the backlash against her did effect her mental health really badly (she basically had to get therapy about it) and she's trying to be better, which i also feel.
offset guitars resident bass player.
'Are you trying to seduce me Mrs Robinson? Or do you just want me to solder a couple of resistors into your Muff?'

User avatar
Jonesie
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 4047
Joined: Sat Aug 09, 2008 7:00 am
Location: Massachusetts

Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by Jonesie » Mon Mar 21, 2022 8:54 am

mr bungle wrote:
Thu Mar 17, 2022 2:07 am
The National vocalist never gets out of second gear and it drives me crazy. There is just never any release.
I'd recommend checking out live versions of their older stuff. Mr. November and Abel both have a lot of release live. Even some of the High Violet / Trouble Will Find Me stuff gets screamy at times live.

User avatar
marqueemoon
PAT. # 2.972.923
PAT. # 2.972.923
Posts: 7346
Joined: Mon Jun 20, 2016 9:37 pm
Location: Seattle

Re: bands/artists you have conflicting feelings about?

Post by marqueemoon » Mon Mar 28, 2022 11:19 am

Nada Surf - They’ve made some really great music and much more that’s only ok. Also, white man with dreadlocks.

Post Reply