Indie-List_V2_N33
The Indie-List Digest.
Volume 2, Issue 33
November 23, 1993
Supply your own catchy phrase/slogan of the week.
In this issue:
Unrest/stereolab, DC musings
Seam, Superconductor, 'n' Screeching Weasel
Liveage!
53rd & 3rd
Message from the Mod/Cockpit
Re: Indie list submissions
BUT FIRST:
1. NEVER, EVER, EVER SEND ANYTHING TO <bloofga@uhuru.uchicago.edu>.
The only people authorized to use that address are the folks running the
list. We're working on fixing it so that the reply-address is
automatically set to my address, but in the meantime, use some common
sense. IF YOU SEND MATERIAL TO BLOOFGA, YOU WILL BE REMOVED FROM THE
INDIE-LIST UNTIL YOU FIND A WAY TO CONVINCE ME THAT YOU HAVE LEARNED
FROM YOUR MISTAKES. Is this perfectly clear? It's a major pain in the
ass to have all this shit-mail flying around the net...and we'll get in
trouble with the fine folks at U. Chicago if this keeps up. IF YOU
DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS, YOU PROBABLY DON'T DESERVE TO BE READING THE
INDIE-LIST ANYWAY, FUCKTARD.
2. Due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the US this thursday, there will
be no Indie-List mailing until next Tuesday. (Most of us in the states
will not have school or work on Thuursday and Friday, thus depriving us
of net access.)
3. On a lighter note, I was fortunate enough to see Stereolab this past
saturday, along with one version of the William Hooker Quartet. Quite
simply, one of the most "blissed-out" experiences I've had in a long
time. (quoted phrase courtesy of Matthew Robb, former I-L contributor
and still my roommate) A good mix of old and new material, and even
though it was droney at times (I'm losing my patience with "Jenny
Ondioline"), it was just wonderful. Learning to play slow songs has
improved their set 100% over last year's show. ** 1/2
William Hooker is an amazing "jazz" drummer from NYC who hangs with the
downtown/Knitting Factory crowd to some extent. He's really not content
to stick to the "jazz" label, as his drumming goes beyond what most
consider jazz. Technically and emotionally superb. And his sidemen
tonight (we think one of the guitar players was from Borbetomagus) were
great as well. Only a 35 minute set, but 35 minutes of straight improv
isn't easy. **
And please check out Hooker's new CD (on the Knitting Factory Works
label) which features duets by Hooker with Thurston Moore and Elliott
Sharp. I heard about half of it today, and it was great. **
Skronking guitar noise with far-outer-limits drumming, and some of the
weirdest liner notes I've seen in a while (written by my friend Corey
who really wasn't that pretentious when she was here at school...).
4. Thanks to the few who responded to my question about "conversion" of
friends to the indie-rock world - I'll post a summary next time. If you
have any ideas/suggestions/etc. on how to introduce someone to our
little musical world, drop me a line. Thanks.
5. Last, but not least: LEARN WHO DOES WHAT AT THE INDIE-LIST.
There's a handy list of "officers" and what they do at the end of each
list. As a last resort, it's OK to ask me anything. But, try the
appropriate person first (hint: <cornick@delphi.com> is no longer a
valid address for Indie-List material...<lclayton@uhuru.uchicago.edu> IS
a valid address for such material).
Sean
skmurphy@phoenix.princeton.edu
:----------:
From: "Stephen B. Shapero" <socks@wam.umd.edu>
Unrest/stereolab, DC musings
:it wouldnt have been so bad if
:bridget hadnt screwed up so much. The part i really
:enjoyed was the Mark was a big asshole to the crowd and bridget was a
:doofus. something must have been bugging them. I am glad i saw them, but
:it couldnt have been a hell of a lot better. I have seen them one other
:time, about a year ago, and i thought they were much better then.
Well, being a resident of the DC suburbs for all my life, I've seen Unrest
a lot in recent 2 or 3 years. They are one of the most wildly
unpredictable bands, in both what they will play and how well they play
it. I catch them when they are not on tour fairly often, so I don't
really know what their sets are like when they are on tour. Bridget
definitely has a problem remaining sober more often than she doesn't.
When I interviewed them about a year or two ago (it's all a blur), they
were a strange bunch of folks. I couldn't get a straight answer out of
them about anything. It was like talking to people on acid. The last
good show of their I saw was at the 9:30 club was sometime towards the
start of school, I think in September. They rocked ass. I just saw them
at the Black Cat with Stereolab, and I left. I was tired and they just
weren't doing anything I hadn't seen before. Stereolab, on the other
hand, kicked ass. I loved the two cute girls. I didn't want to look at
them closely, but the keyboard player walked by in her cool kung fu shirt
and she still looked cute. The moog was cranked and the guitarist was
silly and fun. I didn't recognize any of the songs, despite being
familair with the new album and being well-versed in "Switched On". Half
the songs would start and I thought it was the first song on "Switched On"
everytime. I didn't care. It's definitely ambient music of sorts. It
put me in a good mood. Black Cat sold out, there was a line out on 14th
street for a good while. All the locals were wondering, "What are all
these white folk doin down here at this time of night?" I guess the
theater neighborhood is nearby, but those people are dignified adults, not
indie-rocker kids. I laughed at the kids who had bought tickets from
ticketmaster, they had the privilege of paying 2 or 3 dollars extra. That
sucks! Black Cat is such an awesome club.
Supposedly there is a huge indie-rock fest tonight, either at AU or GW. I
wish I knew what the deal was, but I know that Eggs, Archers, and Small
Factory are playing, amongst others. There's like 10 bands and it's 10
bucks. If anyone goes to it, pls. review it, or if I figure out where it
is, I'll go and tell you all about it.
Plug dept.: My band played last night to a positive reaction in the Tawes
building of U of MD. My friend from the radio station said: I heard
pieces of all my favorite bands. I wanted the band to be called Cost, as
in "Hello, my name is cost (nyc)," but they liked Crawl better. Kind of
ironic, like the B side of a Velocity Girl song, as Velocity Girl is a B
side name as well. Ha, I am easily entertained. Anyway. That's all the
babble for now.
Steve
:----------:
From: Joshua Lee Houk <houk@mind.ORG>
Seam, Superconductor, 'n' Screeching Weasel
Yeah, yeah - so I'm the quiet one. Y'all should just see me in person -
I'm a lot more demure (really! :).
Anyhow - short, quick reviews... have fun!
Seam - 'The Problem With Me' (Touch N Go)
Swell-sounding, but wears thin with repeated listenings. Power-pop
arena-rock, but Soo Young has a way with neurotic words... (*)
Superconductor - 'Hit Songs For Girls' (Boner/Tupelo)
Totally reaffirms my faith in loud music. The kinda sloppy (though
remarkably tight considering the number of guitarists in the band) hooky
stuff that people like me go for, when we even bother to go for things
instead of eating tater chips all day while watching 'Pride Of The
Yankees' on TNT. Recommended. (**1/2)
Screeching Weasel - 'Anthem For A New Tomorrow' (Lookout!)
The current standard of 1-2-3-4 pop-punk. Everything sounds nice, and
when Ben Weasel's not a neo-con snot-nosed whiner, quite touching at
times. Perfect for dancing. (*1/2)
More to come, but then - I always say that...
Joshua Houk
ex-moderator, current grocery-bagger
houk@mind.org
:----------:
From: "Mark S. Cornick" <CORNICK@delphi.com>
Liveage!
(Relax, Josh B, there's no All in this report... :-)
Uh, let's see, Small Factory, Archers of Loaf, Throw That Beat In The
Garbage Can, Slant 6, the Nightblooms and Technical Jed at James Madison
University, Harrisonburg.
I don't get off work until 6:00, and the show started at 6:30, so I missed
Technical Jed and the Nightblooms. Tech-Jed are from Richmond, so I can
see them any time I want. Not that I'd necessarily want to - their
recordings have improved vastly in recent times, but their live shows
still pretty much blow. The Nightblooms never really excited me, but then
again I've only ever heard three of their songs, so I'll reserve judgment
on them.
I arrived halfway thru Slant 6's set. I really liked their recent Dischord
45, more so than any other stuff Dischord's put out recently (including
the somewhat-disappointing Holy Rollers self-titled effort) but live they
just bored me. I'm not much into the "anti-live" thing (just
standing around playing yr instruments.) *.
Throw That Beat... were next, and I didn't like them very much at first
but they grew on me. Whereas before they sounded kinda like a B-52's
tribute band, now they sound kind of like a KiwiPop(tm) band (go ask Liz
which one, I dunno) The singer (Klaus?) sounded kinda like Daniel TV
Personality crossed with that guy out of the La's... a little annoying.
The crowd loved them, and they had much the same "We love USA!" attitude
as the Boredoms. By the end of their set, I didn't mind them so much. I
don't know if I'd buy any of their records, but I'll give ' em **.
Next were the Archers of Loaf, who came on after a stupid wrestling skit
featuring Ice Cream Socialist guitarist Heath "Take A Toffee Break"
Haynes. (It's something in the water. I dunno about Danville. :-) Anyway,
the Archers were fantastic, but JUST TOO GODDAMN L*O*U*D. Call me a
wuss, but I've already lost a small portion of my hearing over the years,
and I need to keep what's left. I went outside to talk to my best friend
from Hbg, and Indie-List Patron Goddess, Courtney (she invented the word
Fshee!) and could still hear 'em. (They also broke a string on their first
song.) I really like the Archers, and would give 'em *** if they';d just
turn the amps down to, say, 12. **.
Last were Small Factory, a band whom I've had this love-hate thing going
with for some time. It wasn't until their recent stuff (the Working
Holiday single, the PopNarc single, and the new LP) that I really startied
liking them a lot. Fortunately, this was the material they concentrated on
- they did play :What To Want", but I don't think there was anything older
than that. (And no "Hey Lucille", thank god.) They had been in Richmond
the night before (at Twisters, a club which I tend to avoid not because of
the alleged racism, but because their sound sucks) and were joking about
my town. I said "Hey buddy, if yr really from Richmond like you say, play
a Waking Hours cover!" They didn't, so they're still from Providence, I
guess. Well, SF have me hooked now, and they're such nice young men &
woman. So kick me for not getting into 'em sooner. ***.
Oh yeah, the Archers bassist had Schwa socks, or "Schwocks" as we call
'em. (That's Schwa from Richmond again.)
--
Mark Cornick * cornick@delphi.com * his name is Prince, and he is funky
"Low-fi wunderkinds break out of the underground."
-- the entry for Unrest's "Isabel Bishop" in the Columbia House catalogue
:----------:
From: Julian <Julian@sahiber.demon.co.uk>
53rd & 3rd info.
53rd & 3rd stopped quite some time ago - despite being 'run' by Steven
Pastel they didn't actually issue any Pastels material, though most of the
bands have contributed to a Pastels line-up at some stage.
The Pastels were signed to Glass (along with the Jazz Butcher & Spacemen
3). After Glass went bust, Dave Barker went to Fire & started Paperhouse,
to which the Pastels, Teenage Fanclub, and Eugenius were all signed (the
latter previous being the Boy Hairdressers & the Vaselines, of course).
Then Dave set up the Seminal Twang 7" label, mysterious allowed half of
Paperhouse's best bands get signed to Creation, before following them
himself to launch August - which possibly means that the next Pastels LP
will be on Creation, about 10 years on from their first. . . As for 53rd &
3rd - well, until this year Steven & co. were running their Pastelism mail
order service (by which we in the UK could get K records and the like at a
reasonable (non-profit) price), while someone else (I don't know who!) has
been running Avalanche records who re-issued Talulah Gosh 'Rock Classics'
on CD, and the Vaselines re-issue. I'm not sure why it hasn't been
re-issued on vinyl but I've heard there's loads of ghastly legal problems
with 53rd & 3rd stuff - the problems of trying to run a small label on
'real' borrowed money, I guess. Avalanche also issued the very last Shop
Assistants material, and is the name of a record shop on Edinburgh. I
shall try & find the address this weekend & if anyone wants it, mail me -
I'd guess they'd be the best to try for copies of the re-issues. (Mind you
I got Talulah Gosh 'Steaming Train' & the Shoppies 'Safety Net'for not
very much at all a couple of years ago - there's a good side to the
vilification of mid-80s indie-pop! 53rd & 3rd doesn't seem to have kept
the collectors value of early Sarah, which is odd because they were more
consistently better pop records!)
Speaking of Sarah. . . caught Delta (ex-Sea Urchins) supporting the
Tindersticks the other night - all that remains is the voice, the rest of
the band seem to be playing blues-based pub-rock, like mid-period Cult
B-sides. And one of them was in Pram, so why this???
Also recently purchased the Northern Picture Library CD on Vinyl Japan
which is, after many listens, the best thing from members of the Field
Mice since 'So Said Kay' - I was initially a bit dissapointed, thinking
they were trying a bit too hard to sound unlike their former incarnation,
but with each listen the instrumentals become more essential to the whole.
'LSD Icing' is still a total rip-off of the Orb, and therefor pointless,
but the final track is a distant cousin to Primal Scream's 'Shine Like
Stars'. I'd guess it's probably fair to say that Northern Picture Library
are to modern Primal Scream, as the Field Mice were to the 'C86' version.
. . St.Etienne without the 'pop' values.
CDs, CDs. . . I'll be banned from here :-)
Julian Lawton - julian@sahiber.demon.co.uk
----------------------------------------------
"My political inclination is to be a traitor"
- Robert Wyatt
:----------:
From: "K. Lena Bennett" <keb@u.washington.edu>
Message from the Mod/Cockpit
Well, I've already gotten about 150 replies from the survey. Don't
expect a tabulation anytime soon! My favorite part is where you all try
to guess what we are like.
Roberta Gregory took me to see Cockpit, a 6-woman band from San Francisco
that she drew a 7" cover for. They put on a lively and fun show of basic
post-ramones garage/beachparty punk, wearing beauty queen sashes and gowns
from Value Village. They also gave me lots of free stuff, including the
lyric sheet for their record and tape (which they also gave me!), so I
could see that their lyrics are quite amusing and filled with real-life
feminism. Not abstract talk of revolution -- but saying to guys they
don't like "get your hands off me or I'll punch you in the nose" and to
guys they do like, "don't forget the clitoris." Anyway, they are fun
performers, nice girls (and cute as hell) and I really enjoyed meeting
them. They told me that they'd just been down in Olympia recording a
single/EP with Calvin (sigh), so maybe it will even come out on K. But
they do have one demo tape out and one 7" EP, sorry I don't have the
address but try my direct email line and I'll let you know.
P.S. To Kelly from Cockpit, if you are reading this, the email address
you gave me didn't work, so please send email to me at the address below!
Lena keb@u.washington.edu
"Come on baby, let's see those knees/open up to that ocean breeze....
I want a man in a skirt!" -- Cockpit
:----------:
From: Germ-Free Adolescent <berg@brick.purchase.edu>
Re: Indie list submissions
Damn it! Our mail system is totally fucked.
I had written a long review of the Luna show I saw, plus some stuff about
Unrest, plus an open letter to Douglas Woulk....don't want to retype
it all, but here's the jist....
Stop harassing Mark and Bridget! I talked to them aftet their
(wonderful) Bard show, and Bridget said they were really exhuasted and
sick and their van had no heat. So cut them some slack. My show
ended with a rousing edition of "Make out Club" which all the kids
adored.
Saw Luna at CBGB's--sucky opening bands (Queen Sarah Saturday=
really bad Buffalo Tom impersoantors & Blonde Redhead=Japanese Sonic
Youth wanna-bes) but the sound was superb and we counted 21 effects
pedals on stage and Grasshopper of Mercury Rev came out for the
last few songs, which were gorgeously swirly versions of Slide and
Indian Summer (now I can die happy) and Ride INto the Sun (brilliant)
and god, it was just so good.
Hey Douglas Woulk--if you're out there, write to me!
And anybody else, esp to trade for my heavenly little zine,
William Wants A Doll, as plugged by Pete Bagge:
Arielle berg@brick.purchase.edu
<------------------------------------------------------------>
The Indie-List Digest is published every Tuesday and Friday by the
Indie-List Infotainment Junta, Unltd.
What Who Where
Editor Sean Murphy skmurphy@phoenix.princeton.edu
Moderator K. Lena Bennett keb@carson.u.washington.edu
Mailings Liz Clayton lclayton@uhuru.uchicago.edu
Archives Chris Karlof karlofc@seq.cms.uncwil.edu
FTP/Gopher /pub/music/lists/indie @ ftp.uwp.edu
Consultants: Mark Cornick and Joshua Houk
Indie-List is not copyrighted. It may be freely reproduced for any purpose.
Please cite Indie-List as your source.
<----------------------------------------------------->
please send your articles for the next issue to LENA!
<----------------------------------------------------->
please send all mailing/subscription questions to LIZ
<----------------------------------------------------->
[Submitted by: karlof chris knox (karlofc@seq.cms.uncwil.edu)
Mon, 29 Nov 1993 10:09:00 -0500 (EST)]