Thursday, June 17, 2010
We're back!
We will be back on the air on the WVOF web studio for two weeks starting TUESDAY JUNE 22nd. After those two weeks we will be on the FM radio on 88.5. Check us out at WVOF.org TUESDAY JUNE 22ND AT 10PM!
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Someone has been putting baking soda in my drugs
This Year has seen an explosion of fear in rock music, which wouldn't bother me too much cause I would love to see rock music die, but it is getting on my tits because its producing an alarming amount of crappy lo-fi music. There are two 'new' predominate strains of this virus going around called glo-fi and shitgaze. You can tell which one of these genre's is fairing better simply by looking at their names. Glo-fi manages to use shimmering noise to beautiful effect on pop and electronic tracks and was unofficialy named by the king of shimmer: Bradford Cox. Shitgaze on the other hand is offensively lazy and insulting to the listener. Write some Beach Boys tracks and then TURN THE VOLUME ALL THE WAY UP causing massive clipping. Don't you remember that we used to hate this sort of thing? Why were we all complaining about the 'Loudness Wars' if at the end of the decade we are just going to turn around and start praising it? And thats all there is to this shitgaze anyway, massive clipping and no attempt to use distortion for the benefit of their music.
Generally when you get a crop of intentionally lo-fi and distortion it is because music has become become too bloated on its own production. That is not what is happening here. Critical tastes and mainstream tastes have never been further apart in the rock music world. It its highly likely that you have lost all contact with Saliva and Puddle of Mud thanks to your mp3 player. More likely we have become tired of the embarassing parade of excellent music. Two Dancers, Flying Lotus, Hyperdub, The Animal Collective, Sincerely Yours, Grizzly Bear, all of them to refined and well put together for our palates. Better to listen to Nodzzz and Times New Viking decent music oversalted to oblivion. If this is the case, then it is a simply a matter of taste (bad taste) and there is nothing more to say. The other, more pathetic, reason is that lo-fi is an artistic statement. A destruction of rock n'rolls convention, where nothing is sacred not even the mass opinion that too much volume is bad fucking news. A pointless endeavor, because rock music has become universalist in its message. Why mock rock when it is already meaning less to begin with? Rock music for the sake of a message is ALWAYS bad, the music comes first, if the music isn't good who cares. If you would listen to Wavves for artistic 'ideals' like that, then it isn't really music you like, its social messages. In that case I don't care for anything you have to say on the subject of music because you are simply not a fan.
What is infuriating here is that the music underlying shitgaze isn't that bad. For that matter noise and lo-fi aren't inherently awful either, because it comes down to a matter of proportion. The Smith Westerns fall short of the shitgaze movement, but are still defintively lo-fi. But the lo-fi acsthetic doesn't do them any favors sonically except to add a nice to effect to the singers (probably) poor vocals and to give them a cool 'indie' feel . And this is the mistake with lo-fi, it has this position in the minds of music fans as being something authentic. The position arises out of hobbyist long-time dominance of GOOD ROCK MUSIC since 1979 and which is continuely getting stronger as we press into 2010. However it wasn't lo-fi production work that made Sonic Youth fucking awesome, it was their excellent music and had they had the same studio and equipment as Bon Jovi they would have made even better music. Now is a golden age for indie rock: the entire history of pop music is effectively stored for study on the internet, the mainstream is rapidly imploding causing a flood of cheap studio hardware to appear on the market, and gigbytes of excellent recording software waits for us in torrents. We should be encouraging artists to be making clear and better sounds music, rather then celebrating their mass mutilation of it.
Generally when you get a crop of intentionally lo-fi and distortion it is because music has become become too bloated on its own production. That is not what is happening here. Critical tastes and mainstream tastes have never been further apart in the rock music world. It its highly likely that you have lost all contact with Saliva and Puddle of Mud thanks to your mp3 player. More likely we have become tired of the embarassing parade of excellent music. Two Dancers, Flying Lotus, Hyperdub, The Animal Collective, Sincerely Yours, Grizzly Bear, all of them to refined and well put together for our palates. Better to listen to Nodzzz and Times New Viking decent music oversalted to oblivion. If this is the case, then it is a simply a matter of taste (bad taste) and there is nothing more to say. The other, more pathetic, reason is that lo-fi is an artistic statement. A destruction of rock n'rolls convention, where nothing is sacred not even the mass opinion that too much volume is bad fucking news. A pointless endeavor, because rock music has become universalist in its message. Why mock rock when it is already meaning less to begin with? Rock music for the sake of a message is ALWAYS bad, the music comes first, if the music isn't good who cares. If you would listen to Wavves for artistic 'ideals' like that, then it isn't really music you like, its social messages. In that case I don't care for anything you have to say on the subject of music because you are simply not a fan.
What is infuriating here is that the music underlying shitgaze isn't that bad. For that matter noise and lo-fi aren't inherently awful either, because it comes down to a matter of proportion. The Smith Westerns fall short of the shitgaze movement, but are still defintively lo-fi. But the lo-fi acsthetic doesn't do them any favors sonically except to add a nice to effect to the singers (probably) poor vocals and to give them a cool 'indie' feel . And this is the mistake with lo-fi, it has this position in the minds of music fans as being something authentic. The position arises out of hobbyist long-time dominance of GOOD ROCK MUSIC since 1979 and which is continuely getting stronger as we press into 2010. However it wasn't lo-fi production work that made Sonic Youth fucking awesome, it was their excellent music and had they had the same studio and equipment as Bon Jovi they would have made even better music. Now is a golden age for indie rock: the entire history of pop music is effectively stored for study on the internet, the mainstream is rapidly imploding causing a flood of cheap studio hardware to appear on the market, and gigbytes of excellent recording software waits for us in torrents. We should be encouraging artists to be making clear and better sounds music, rather then celebrating their mass mutilation of it.
Its important to note "this has all happened before and will happen again." In the early 2000s the Strokes' Is This It manages to be really good IN SPITE of its horseshit and rightly condemned production work. Throughout the 1990s indie rock was infected with numerous 'lo-fi' bands who produced awful music and tried to cover it up with muddy production work. The only band of note to make it through this clusterfuck being Guided By Voices and their melted tape shenanigans were more of a gimmick then anything else. And most famously the 1970s birthed the punk movement which proved if nothing else that you can't just slap some distortion on a simple pop song and make good music. This is why Lodon Calling stomps all over the Ramones and Sex Pistols. The Clash realized that when all said and done you need to get back in the studio and start making real interesting music again.
All this shitgaze and lo-fi wankery is just as pretentious and pompous as the proggy hi-fi music it supposedly attacks.
--Justin
Monday, November 30, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Tuesday
We are on twice next week! We are filling in for Apoc's show on Tuesday from 1-3pm. Weird being on during the day, I'll have my finger on the DUMP button the entire time! We'll give you a fun, energetic, though a bit watered down, show.
LISTEN UP! www.whus.org or 91.7fm.
LISTEN UP! www.whus.org or 91.7fm.
Songs from November 7th
We repeated a bunch of songs so here's the one's we haven't played on the show before...
Crown on the Ground: Sleigh Bells
Chewing Gum: Annie
Planting Seeds: Built to Spill
Big Bad Mean Mother Fucker: Girls
Powerless: Flaming Lips
Light of Love: Expressions (Don't listen to this track it sucks)
Peace Out: Technician
The Cyborg Slayers: Dethklok (This was a request by the Wings Over Storrs guy)
Shit Luck: Modest Mouse
Pullout: Death From Above 1979
Don't Stop Till You Get Enough: Michael Jackson
Crown on the Ground: Sleigh Bells
Chewing Gum: Annie
Planting Seeds: Built to Spill
Big Bad Mean Mother Fucker: Girls
Powerless: Flaming Lips
Light of Love: Expressions (Don't listen to this track it sucks)
Peace Out: Technician
The Cyborg Slayers: Dethklok (This was a request by the Wings Over Storrs guy)
Shit Luck: Modest Mouse
Pullout: Death From Above 1979
Don't Stop Till You Get Enough: Michael Jackson
Monday, November 9, 2009
Gerhardt Fuchs Died Sunday
The Drummer for some our favorite bands like !!! and LCD Sound System died Sunday after jumping out of a stalled elevator in Brooklyn. He missed the ledge and fell to the bottom of the shaft. He was 34. A link to the New York Times article is below.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/nyregion/09elevator.html
No question our thoughts and prayers go out to Jerry's friends and family and we will certainly do a bit of a tribute this coming Friday night.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/nyregion/09elevator.html
No question our thoughts and prayers go out to Jerry's friends and family and we will certainly do a bit of a tribute this coming Friday night.
A Threat to Our Way of Life!
http://http//www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-gum-theft-1109.artnov09,0,2287074.story?track=rss
This is the kind of ground breaking reporting that the Hartford Courant uses to justify its existance.
This is the kind of ground breaking reporting that the Hartford Courant uses to justify its existance.
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