The marriage of pop melodies and loud electric guitars is hardly new, but it is continually renewed; Husker Do did it in the mid-80s by making the noise rawer and the hooks catchier, and My Bloody Valentine did it more recently by distorting the guitars into a candied sonic morass. Bailter Space, a migratory trio […]
Author Archives: Bill Meyer
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Scattershot ballet: The Ex + Tom Cora
Rock and rollers have distinguished themselves from the pack since the music was born by adopting trademark stage moves: Elvis Presley’s swivel, Chuck Berry’s duck walk, James Brown’s impossible splits, and more recently, Michael Jackson’s crotch grabs. Veteran Dutch punkers the Ex, though less well known, have some pretty distinctive moves of their own. During […]
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MOTO
With all the attention currently being lavished on Chicago’s music scene, it’ll be a tragedy if the town’s veterans get overlooked in the frantic search for the next Liz Phair or Smashing Pumpkins. Paul Caporino’s two-person band MOTO (for Masters of the Obvious) has played here sporadically since he became a Chicago resident in 1989, […]
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Guided by Voices
The low-tech recording revolution began in the early 80s, when Daniel Johnston first started releasing homemade tapes of songs that chronicled his struggles with dead-end jobs and mental illness. Now bands all around the world bypass the conventional strategies of recording in studios and releasing their music through record companies. Since 1986 Guided by Voices […]
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Scrawl
What sets Scrawl apart is its reductionist approach. The guitar trio builds its songs around a few carefully rendered details rather than a lot of big flashy gestures; even when guitarist Marcy Mays hits air-guitar-worthy metallic chords, Scrawl is mercifully free of egotistical showboating.
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Mekons
The Mekons’ first single, “Never Been in a Riot,” was the birth of postpunk self-awareness: its sarcastic lyrics skewered the Clash’s simpleminded anthem “White Riot” even as its chaotically lurching music outrocked them. The Mekons have sustained a balance between skepticism and exhilaration ever since, while exploring an extraordinarily wide range of musical styles, including […]
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Groove uber alles
It doesn’t take a genius to notice all the echoes of the 70s in the 90s. Queen and Led Zeppelin have never been more popular, and Neil Young has scored his biggest successes in years by recording two albums that sound exactly like ones he recorded 20 years ago. New bands are also getting in […]
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Yo La Tengo
One of Yo La Tengo’s most likable traits is their unapologetic fandom. The Hoboken, New Jersey-bosed trio plays music–from tender folktinged ballads to hooky indie-pop to droning noisefests–informed by an encyclopedic knowledge of rock and roll’s diversity. Their songs frequently have antecedents in the record collections of Ira Kaplan (the group’s guitar player), Georgia Hubley […]
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Chris Knox
Chris Knox is the grand old man of New Zealand’s independent music scene. In the late 70s, he sang in Toy Love, the kiwi counterpart of the Sex Pistols, and as half of the Tall Dwarfs (since 1982) he has pioneered a low-tech recording aesthetic that still distinguishes the antipodean underground. He also engineered the […]
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Straitjacket Fits
For years, in a self-promoting form of cultural exchange, the New Zealand government has paid the way for the nation’s athletes to show their stuff on the world’s playing fields. This year the country is getting in on the groundswell of interest in kiwi music as well, by partially funding the Noisyland vs. North America […]
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Negative charge: sparks fly from rebuilt Television
Television never fit in too comfortably with its fellows in the 70s New York punk scene. The Ramones, Talking Heads, and Blondie had a common ethic of simplicity, economy, irony, while Television’s taste was more elastic and mysterious. Their peers covered bubble-gum hits and beach music. Television played Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” What […]