Music For Robots

The tiny tumblr version of music for robots with less mp3 content and more crap.

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Back in the late ‘90s, Sub Pop was searching for identity. From the ‘60s space lounge of Combustible Edison, to the chicken scratch math rock of Heroic Doses, to whatever the Murder City Devils are (grunge-a-billy?). While they throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, the label decided to experiment with country. They started with the Blue Rags out of North Carolina, who play a kind of mountain swing / hot jazz that’s recorded fast and loose, and pretty far from the traditional Seattle sound. 

Then they dropped Crooked Finger’s Atchafalayan Death Waltz 7″, which is a dark alt/country ballad. Then came Supersucker’s “Must’ve Been High,” which is a Johnny Cash inspired romp through surf, country, and rockabilly. It’s a real 180 from the punk hedonism of the “Sacrilegious Sounds Of...” Super suckers also cut a 7″ with Steve Earle to make it official, but that was more on the alt country side of the spectrum. 

Sub Pop also put out a 7″ of Danielle Howle’s “High School Dance.” A troubadour from South Carolina, she wasn’t quite country, but she definitely wasn’t grunge either. 

They released Scud Mountain Boys’ “The Early Year” which is more or less a country album, even including a cover of Wichita Lineman and a lot of sleepy ballads (the best of which is “Glacier Bay”). The sound was country, but the vocals were more like indie rock, so we’re almost there, not but quite. 

And all of this is a long way to say that Mike Ireland was the first pure country artist on Sub Pop. Jonathan Poneman had heard his band, The Starkweather’s, and wanted all-in. But the singer of the band cheated with Mike’s wife, which was even more cruel considering that the Starkweathers had actually formed at Mike’s wedding. So the band broke up but Poneman still wanted to be in the Mike Ireland business. So Mike formed a new band from the ashes and record a slow, considered, Countrypolitan record -- “Learning to Live” -- about the devastating dissolution of his marriage. 

Already out of step with modern Nashville country, the record would’ve been a hard sell at any label, let alone a label famous for launching Nirvana and Soundgarden. The rules of country radio are hard and fast and it’s not something easily trifled with. Mike did get on the Saturday night stage of the Grand Ol’ Opry, which was amazing, but a shy, reticent artist who was never all that interested in the packaging and merchandising of his music, he never really had a hit. 

These days, with the likes of Sturgiill Simpson and Chris Stapleton making big names for themselves, I think Mike would’ve had a real shot at success. So maybe it’s time to revisit his discography and remember that Sub Pop was way ahead of the curve. 

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Sometimes, like when you find a self-titled, six track album from 1971 by a band called Weed, you can judge a book by its cover. Put it on and get some work done. 

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Remember when major motion pictures looked like they were shot in your backyard? 

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I missed it earlier this year when Bobby Emmons passed away. You likely never heard of him but you’ve absolutely heard his work. He played the organ on Son of a Preacher Man, Elvis’ Suspicious Minds and Sweet Caroline. A classic unsung Nashville sideman. 

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Easy listening favorites. 

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Is there anyone else more in love with their own melancholy than 20 year old boys? 

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Modern music keeps surprising me with callbacks to previous genres that I had either forgotten about and/or never thought would be inspiration in a million years. But this track from The Garden, which is being talked about as “punk” in the press, owes just as much to Roni Size/Reprazent’s “Brown Paper Bag” and the drum ‘n bass work on the late ‘90s as it does to any punk records. 

[hydeordie]

It’s a fine line between trying too hard and not trying hard enough. We’ll be debating for years on which side of that line this piece lies on.

[perpetua]

This is kinda controversial.

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What’s most surprising to me about this list of best songs by 203 famous rock bands is how few quibbles I have. I was worried with picks like the first track off the first Foo Fighters album that he was trolling, but despite some digs at low-hanging fruit like the Killers and Bon Jovi, Matthew’s list is true. 

You could argue about which Lemonheads song is the best, but at least its something off It’s A Shame About Ray. I would personally disagree about the Sleater Kinney, the Flaming Lips and the Walkman (I know the Rat is the obvious choice, but come on, so is God Only Knows!) but I can see why he made his choices and they make sense in the long run. You could even talk me into Monkey Man as the best Stones song but only because it’s Monday morning and not Saturday night at the bar. Same goes for Wilco. 

More importantly, he did heroes work sifting through the complex, no-real-hit-single discographies of Pavement, Modest Mouse, Spoon, Smashing Pumpkins, etc and found the right choice. The Sunny Day Real Estate pick is totally spot on. The Counting Crows pick is perfect. 

But dude, you are dead wrong about The Band. Chest Fever? Ridiculous. 

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The Daft Punk origin story, according to CMJ Magazine, March 2001. 

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Remember that time in 2001 when Swearing at Motorists sounded exactly like where The National would end up after they were done mucking about in the Americana weeds trying to find their sound? 

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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Back in 1978, a guy named Michael Jackson wrote a song called Blame it on the Boogie. His publishers pitched the track to another guy named Michael Jackson, who, along with his four brothers, released it as a single. So there were two Michael Jacksons singing Blame it on the Boogie on the radio at the same time. Obviously this happened in England where the relationship with singles charts has always been much stronger than here. And you have to remember that in the late ‘70s the Jacksons were pretty long in the tooth, having been a band of teenagers for more than a decade already. 

Anyway, the other Michael Jackson’s son made a documentary about it for Channel 4 a couple years ago and it’s totally worth your time. 

[clickholeofficial]

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Here’s a nine-minute live version of “About Today” from 2006 that gives you a pretty good idea of what it was like back them. 

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As legend has it, CYHSY packed the house as the opening act and it would clear before the night’s nominal headliner, a struggling Brooklyn act trying to push their overlooked third album. Perhaps Clap Your Hands Say Yeah might have weathered this inauspicious beginning had they opened for, say, French Kicks or Longwave. Instead, this was the National, who had yet to reap the rewards of Alligator’s slow burn success.

http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/811-blog-rock-revisited-musing-the-clap-your-hands-say-yeah-10th-anniversary-tour/

Ian Cohen’s bittersweet pitchfork piece about Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and by extension, Blog Rock in general, is perhaps the most accurate depiction of the music blog era I’ve read. I think we finally have enough critical distance to see the scene for how it really was. 

And the legend he refers to is true. I worked the merch table for part of the west coast leg of that Alligator tour, which included a two-night stand at the Troubadour with the National and CYHSY (Birdmonster held the opening spot in San Francisco earlier in the week!) and the room was packed for CHYSY and barely half-full after they were done. And that’s a total shame because this was pretty much the last time you could see the National in a small room and they were just incredible. Those that did stay were treated to an absolutely gorgeous version of “About Today” which the band’s set closer at the time. All these emotional indie kids came looking for the Cherry Tree EP afterwards, and who could blame them?