OFF: Misc. ranting...

[Doug Pearson]

Looks like other folks have covered Tarkovsky and Lem pretty well (I agree
that his 'Solaris' is faithful to the original novel), so I'll cover some
of the other subjects ...

On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 17:39:09 +0200, Henderson Keith
<keith.henderson at PSI.CH> wrote:

>Yesterday I saw a CD in the store called "Tribute to Evanescence" or
>something ...  But this has to be now approaching ridiculous.
>I mean, unless I'm totally out of it, Evanescence is a brand new band!
>With exactly one album.  To keep up this pace, we'll need to start having
>tributes to bands that haven't even formed yet.

Well ... there was a double-LP tribute to Shonen Knife (including major
label acts) at the time when they had three LP's out that were only
available in Japan.  And there was a tribute to the Rutles (including a
track by Shonen Knife, so there ya go), who weren't even a real band!  And
a tribute to Skip Spence's one-and-only (absolutely brilliant!)
album, 'Oar' (but, of course, by that time, it was regarded as an outsider
psychedelic classic).

>I'm pretty well out of it...eg, I've never heard Coldplay I don't think.

Think Kenny G playing techno.  Or an even-duller Portishead.  Make-out
music for *really* boring people.

>And as much as being 'out of it' would seem to be beneficial and
>perhaps a feat to be proud of managing, I'd rather at least know what
>is really going on in rock music (if anything) these days.

I wouldn't quite say, "new favorite" yet, but I was pretty blown away last
night by Electrelane, who were opening for the Ex (who were amazing, but I
already knew to expect that).  Four girls from the UK (Bristol?) playing
really driving (but still fairly polite) drone/noise rock.  The singer
switched off between spacey/melodic keyboards (slight minus for the prog-
stylee "U" configuration, but maybe that will get fans of "sappy prog" to
check them out ;^) ), guitar, and some seriously freaked-out sax
(unfortunately only for one song) that recalls Nik's most-waterfowlish
moments - a sound I love!  They were recently signed to Too Pure, and
sound like it.  Any UK listmembers familiar with them?  I'm definitely
inspired to go out and buy at least one of their albums ...

>And Green Day...were they *really* a big deal?  I thought they only hit it
>big on that one album before drifting off towards obscurity.

The album sold over 8 million copies, making it one of (if not THE,
although I think Metallica's 'Black Album' sold more) largest-selling
*rock* album of the 90s.  For whatever that's worth.

>I still have to think for a minute as to whether they were the band that
>preceded Mother Love Bone and Mudhoney (?) in the Seattle movement, but
>that was Green River.  I suppose *they* might be cited as having
>some "influence" to the onslaught of alternative/punk revival or
>whatever,

Yes, that was Green River.  Mother Love Bone, of course, got a new singer
and became Pearl Jam.  Green River were pretty cool, but there was very
apparent friction between the half that splintered into the good band, and
the half that splintered into the bad one (which was which?  which one
covered Hawkwind?).

>but Green Day?  Those guys from Portland who pretended they were English?

Berkeley!!!  924 Gilman St., to be precise.  (full disclosure: I live 2-3
miles from the Berkeley border)

Not that I'm a fan, but I gotta give 'em credit for having paid their dues
and come up from the genuine underground.  I always knew they were gonna
be huge, because when I was doing a radio show on KFJC (at least 3 years
before 'Dookie', when they were still indie), they were the number one
requested band by all the adolescent females who would call up my show
(number one request by adolescent males: Bad Religion, number two by that
category: Slayer, dude! [pronounced as one word, like "slayerdood"]).
Never underestimate the power of eye candy!  ('cause otherwise, who would
ever listen to Liz Phair or Connor Oerst?)

    -Doug
     jasret at mindspring.com