Although They Might Be Giants only achieved mainstream success with their 1990 album ‘Flood’ with songs like ‘Birdhouse In Your Soul’ and ‘Particle Man’, they have actually been around since the mid-80s and continue to make records today. ‘Don’t Let’s Start’ is from their first self-titled record as a two-piece, comprised of John Flansburgh and John Linnell.
I like this video a lot, I think it really shows the strange and goofy sense of humor and approach to music that has made this duo a cult legend. In more recent years they have hit commercial success again making children’s music.
Jay Reatard has been an underground figure for ten years or so playing with bands like The Reatards and the Lost Sounds and most recently he has gained a good deal of mainstream success with his solo efforts. Going back to his earliest roots when he had recorded songs alone to escape from his home life, his solo records feature him playing every instrument and singing. When he plays live, of course, he has a backing band as can be seen here.
This video where they play ‘Oh It’s Such A Shame’ from his debut LP ‘Blood Visions’ captures the intensity of their live show. Jay Retard has become infamous for punching, kicking and spitting on his audience members during his shows. I guess it’s common knowledge that he was raised in some shitty circumstances and not surprising that he has some socialization issues, but he still puts on a great show.
Midnight Juggernauts are a Melbourn, Australia-based indie rock/electronic band. After a series of EPs they put out their debut album ‘Dystopia’ on Siberian Records in 2007. It’s a great album start-to-finish, my favorite tracks were ‘Nine Lives’, ‘Ending of an Era’ and ‘Road to Recovery’ The band features Vincent Vendetta, Andy Juggernaut and Daniel Stricker; they often draw comparisons to David Bowie and Kraftwerk.
A friend sent me this video for MGMT’s song ‘Time To Pretend’ and both the video and the song have really been growing on me. MGMT, consisting of Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden just released an album on Columbia called ‘Oracular Spectacular.’
If you pay close attention to the video, you’ll notice a reference to Alejandro Jodorowsky’s psychedelic opus, The Holy Mountain, about halfway through. The video itself is pretty psychedelic itself, they seem to have deliberately used some crappy editing to finish the effect. I really like the backing bass/synth in this song, I just wish there were live drums instead of the drum track. The lyrics are obviously meant to be ironic, poking fun at the typical idea of rock star success.
The Trons are an all-robot band from New Zealand; this isn’t just some video expirement, they record original songs and play live gigs, in fact, recently they played the Hamilton’s Ignition Fringe Festival. They are comprised of various junk parts and you can even read an interview with the Trons here.
I dig their sound, it’s kind of a mellow surf rock, reminds me a little bit of early Van Morrison (in fact the beginning of this song really reminds me of the classic Van Morrison and Them tune, ‘Gloria’.) Hopefully the Trons will one day be taken on tour through the states cause I would definitely like to see them.
British Sea Power are an English indie rock band whose sound has been compared to that of Joy Division, the Cure and the Pixies. The mix a lot of very melodic, sappy sounds with a little bit of dissonance. This song is from their latest album entitled ‘Do You Like Rock Music?’ Ironic title as this song is not very rockin’, but it’s a catchy song and the puppet-heavy video is cool to watch.
Crystal Castles (Ethan Kath and Alice Glass) are an electronic indie band from Toronto that utilize a lot of retro sounds; this genre is often referred to as ‘chiptunes.’ Crimewave is from their 2008 self-titled album and is actually a remix of a song by HEALTH.
The group was actually formed as an accident, when Alice Glass recorded some vocals over an instrumental track by Ethan Kath as a test, which eventually ended up in the hands of record label executives who offered them a deal.
Recently there has been some controversy surrounding them, as apparently Ethan has been accused of lifting sounds from other electronic artists. It’s hard for me to really care about this though, because the entire genre of electronic music is founded on people stealing the sounds of others.
Dredg are the modern masters of cathartic, atmospheric rock. Their debut concept album, ‘Leitmotif’ has grown on me over the years and I would consider it to be one of my top ten albums. ‘Same Ol’ Road’ is from their follow-up, ‘El Cielo’ which is another great release, although a little mellower than the first. I wouldn’t bother with their third studio album, ‘Catch Without Arms’ as they have gone in more of a pop direction and the music is far less interesting. They are from San Jose and thankfully they sometimes play shows around here where they feature their older catalog.
The music video matches the creativity of the music; I really like this stop-motion animation. I have to add that Dredg is a difficult band to consume in snippets, if you like this song I recommend listening to the album start-to-finish.
When I introduced Canadian band Black Mountain to my co-worker Jake, his first response was ‘holy blackpinksabbathfloyd batman!’ That about sums it up, Black Mountain does a really good job of rehashing classic rock sounds. Not to say that they don’t have a unique sound, but the influence from bands like Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Leaf Hound and Led Zeppelin are very prominent.
The band is on Jagjaguwar records and this song is from their first self-titled album. The song title ‘Druganaut’ is most likely a reference to the classic Sleep song ‘Dragonaut’ (click back a few pages to see the video for Dragonaut!) I think their newer album, In The Future, is even better. I can’t wait for them to make a video for Stormy High, Angels or Tyrant.
Battles are sort of a math-rock supergroup with ex-members of Helmet, Don Caballero and Lynx. They don’t sound as rockin’ or as technically as you might expect at first, favoring subtlety and wacky sounds, but their songs build up in a really interesting way. You’ll notice this song, Atlas, get really interesting towards the end. The video is an interesting concept as well, shot on what looks like some kind of floating sound stage, it looks like the band is playing inside of a rotating cube. The album, Mirrored, is full of quirky songs like this, I was listening to it recently while walking through Golden Gate park and it felt appropriate.
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