Alternative Music Talk

It could be argued that after John Cale left the ranks of the Velvet Underground the band was never the same – that means as good. Of course, that’s completely arbitrary, but the fact that the concept has repeatedly found its way into otherwise sensible discussions of the Velvet’s music, it would seem that there’s some credence to it.

That being said, the Velvets, even as augmented by the Yules, were a great band. Cale’s continued lionization, though, points directly towards the importance of his contributions to not just that one New York outfit, but to his work before and after his partnership with Lou Reed. Read more

For some reason this album, with its varied approaches to music doesn’t sound too scattered. And it’s not due to the cohesive idea that runs throughout the disc. And no, I won’t explain it what that is specifically. Listeners need to experience it as a whole. Just as the concept is basically easy to grasp, a number of the lyrical creations are as well. Cody ChesnuTT falls into this category, taking a rather straight-ahead look at what could have been a rather abstract creation. Not to take away from ChesnuTT, seeing as he’s probably the most generally marketable individual on here, but there are more creative offerings in numerous different styles. Obviously, the Brian Eno and Robert Wyatt, formerly of Soft Machine, collaboration stands out. Considering that Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols guests on the track as well, this could have had more teeth (yes, that is a Soft Machine reference). Read more

Mark LinkousThe Sixth of March, Two Thousand and Ten, what an awful yesterday.  Mark Linkous  took his own life. He was a singer, songwriter and experimentalist, the leader of the American alternative rock band, Sparklehorse.  Such talent, such genius,  is gone, leaving the world at a loss. That Sixth of March will now forever be a sad day.  

RIP Mark Linkous.

News Source: (http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2010/03/06/sparklehorses...)

Sparklehorse "Home Coming Queen," (Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Me8tGjsYo1A)

Sparklehorse - sunshine (lyrics), (Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnuYWr4exlA) 

Sparklehorse - Please Don't Take My Sunshine Away, (Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95tMfNGmWkI) Read more

In name checking anyone –specifically a politically charged, murdered man – grants fans and listeners entrance to a group’s general thought process. Most of the time, at least.

Harvey Milk, the person and not the band, was the first openly gay man elected to a major public office when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Of course, even the fact that he made it through the election process in one piece is somewhat shocking in hindsight. But he was soon rubbed out by a disgruntled co-worker who was having a few issues. Milk’s sexuality surely played a role in his death, but there were other contributing factors. Read more

Steve Albini’s been involved in music one way or another for too long a time to properly count. He’s played with countless bands and recorded even more. And despite the fact that he’s publically stated that he’s a hired gun in the studio, the aural aesthetic that Albini’s able to produce is on par with any great engineer in recorded music’s illustrious history.

Probably best known for his work as Big Black, Albini has moved on sonically even as he maintains a general cohesion throughout his recorded catalog. But what’s most interesting to note is the fact that his earliest recordings, in a great many ways, served as an underpinning for what would go on in Seattle during the end of the ‘80s and into the following decade. Read more

Skiffle is actually an important piece of what would lead into the Brit Beat bands. With a future Zeppelin guitarist performing here, it's easy to see how it all fits together.

It's hard to define the sludgey work that Harvey Milk worked out. It wasn't metal or hardcore.

This is just heaviness.

DC: Axess and Aces, which I was listening to yesterday or the day before, is all in one tuning, right?

JM: Right, it’s all one tuning, although, there are a handful of different instruments. It sounds as if there’s one guitar, but sometimes there’ll be a tenor guitar and an acoustic guitar – they sound very similar because of the way it was recorded. The guitars bleed together and make it sound very complicated, but its actually not.

DC: When you tour, are you restricted by what you can bring with you?

JM: Absolutely, I can only bring one guitar. The Magnolia songs are basically in standard tuning just by necessity. But if we get to point where we can each have several guitars in working order, I’d be able to introduce a lot more material into the set. Read more

So, the way that I acquired musical knowledge was just by listening to a song and if I liked it, I liked it. It didn’t matter if my friend liked it or not. There were literally hundreds of hours spent sitting around a turntable, late at night in someone’s basement, plowing through all these classic rock records to find a song that was really great instead of really stupid.

DC: You mentioned SST. Apart from Sonic Youth, I’m hard pressed to think of another popular band that uses alternate tunings.

JM: Well, My Bloody Valentine.

DC: I guarantee if you walk down the street and ask random passers by who My Bloody Valentine is, 9 outta 10 people would have no idea. At-least Sonic Youth was on the radio in 1994. But how did you get into using different tunings? Read more

JM: There’s no comparing London to Chicago. I love Chicago and I wrote so many records there. Actually most of the material I’ve written over the years was in Chicago. I don’t know what about that place made me write so much, but a part of it is that everyone there in the musical community is always working. No one ever seems to be just sitting there. All the Chicago bands are always gone because they’re touring bands.

I haven’t been here very long. I don’t really have a sense of how the local and regional musicians work. Culturally, it’s night and day. In that way it’s a very difficult adjustment. I’m burying myself in work, because that’s a good way to adjust to the change. Pretty much every time I’ve done a record, it’s been right on the cusp of a move to another city, to another state, to a different apartment. Read more