Mountain Xpress Forums

Christmas Jam

2008-12-12T16:31:17-05:00

Anybody going?

Who loves bitpop and Nintendocore?

2009-11-12T00:29:11-05:00

Bitpop is making new music out of the old Nintendo-era 8-bit sounds. It’s video game music by game geeks, for game geeks. And I kinda like it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qsWFFuYZYI[/youtube]

Nindendocore is terrible. It’s where an otherwise awful metalcore band decides to have beeps and boops in the background, presumably so that at least one part of the track is at least somewhat recognizable as music. Here’s all you’ll ever need to know about it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yQBjFoN8AQ[/youtube]

What say you?

I CHALLENGE YOU ALL TO A NEW WAVE YOUTUBE VIDEO BATTLE

2009-10-08T22:40:33-05:00

Only New Wave bands apply in this thread.

For starters, here’s Polyrock!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EgvNzWqcRo[/youtube]

Favorite Guitar Solo?

2009-10-07T23:29:31-05:00

Come on guitar nerds, let’s hear ‘em.

Diss Thread: Overrated Musicians And Bands

2009-09-10T11:39:21-05:00

On another thread, I talked about listening to as much as I could handle in a single sitting of the Rolling Stone Magazine’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. To my great annoyance, of the 61 songs I listened to, six were Beatles songs (sevel if you count Lennon’s “Imagine”). More annoyingly, five of the top 20 songs were Beatles tracks.

I like the Beatles, don’t get me wrong. They were a good band that popularized and explored a lot of new musical ideas in a pop format, and they deserve plenty of recognition for it. If they get their own $250 Special Edition of Rock Band, I’m not going to gripe about it.

But as good as the Beatles were, they don’t merit a quarter of the top 20 list, and certainly not 23 songs total out of 500. (That’s just shy of being one out of every 20 songs.) They were good musicians, and they certainly merit attention as a non-musical cultural phenomenon, but I can’t see this list as anything other than evidence that the band is profoundly overrated.

Why? Well, it’s often forgotten that the Beatles didn’t actually invent a lot of their sound, and in fact borrowed heavily from the ideas of other musicians, most notably Elvis, Buddy Holly, Frank Zappa (“Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” should be called the unofficial sequel to “Freak Out”), Brian Wilson (you can hear it all over “Abbey Road”), Harry Nilsson and Chuck Berry ... just to name a few. They were great popularizers of sound, but I’d argue that their actual self-generated innovations were limited. (Except for the sitar in rock music—what rock band today doesn’t have at least one sitar sideman?)

For instance, which album is more interesting and innovative: “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (which sounds an awful lot like “Freak Out,” which had been out for two years at that point), Love’s “Forever Changes” (NME’s #6 album of all time) or the Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds”? All three were released within a year of each other, and all three were groundbreaking. Yet it’s the Beatles—the band with the least innovative album of the three—that are generally credited with with being the “great” band of the era.

And while a lot of the Beatles’ songs are “classic,” part of the reason for this is that they’ve had the full force of the music industry pushing their songs directly down the throat of pop culture for 45 years straight. Not because they’re “great,” but because they’re marketable. Why does the band that lifted and repackaged the ideas of other performers get credit for being the “great” band? That’s like saying Starbucks is a “great” cafe because they popularized espresso drinks, or that McDonald’s is a place to get a “great” hamburger.

Again, I like the Beatles, I just don’t think they’re the bestest band ever. They recorded some wonderful songs, but they didn’t save rock ‘n’ roll.

So, using this experience as a springboard, I thought I’d start a thread discussing overrated bands in general.

Some suggestions for bands to discuss: The Rolling Stones, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Janice Joplin, Beastie Boys, Eminem, Michael Jackson.

I CHALLENGE YOU TO AN AWESOME COUNTRY MUSIC SONG YOU TUBE BATTLE (NO BLUEGRASS PLZ)

2009-11-04T14:50:41-05:00

Any bluegrass will be laughed at and the user called a douche nozzle.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eijOUtT0TcE[/youtube]

Two of Asheville’s Finest Bands are about to EXPLODE at The Hookah Bar

2009-11-13T20:11:40-05:00

And I just wanted to write about how exciting I think it is going to be.

For starters it’s Now You See Them, including Shane, Dulci, and Jason who are friends of mine and who are known not only for their delightful presence in the streets but also for their sheer TALENT at putting on a great show. It’s super happy, well-performed acoustic rock, some covers usually, and a cool take on instrumentation with melodica, ukelele, djembe, and guitars….

and then

The Hookah Bar is going to rock out with RBTS WIN, which has Brien formerly of Secret Lives and Javi from Kings of Prussia locking up on some amazing electro rock with cool harmonies and a mesmerizingly intense live show.

Let’s Rage
JeRM

Asheville FM-The Thread

2009-10-08T21:14:18-05:00

What cha doin on a thursday night?

Me, I’m cooking meat, drinking beer and whisky, and listening to Asheville FM.

Right now it’s primordial soup. She just played Slint’s “Good Morning Captain”. Haven’t heard that in a while. Now she’s talking about absynth. A little loose with the language, ladies. Bring it together. MMMmmm, delicious beverages.

new drunks, bardo pond? mazzy star? nice.

And up next is a certain Foul Mouth Jerk’s “THE ON SMASH BROADCAST that i’m looking forward to from 10-12. No idea what the hell it’ gonna be, but i’ll be drunk and satiated.

Johnny Lemu is a asheville fm deejay, yes?

http://www.ashevillefm.org/home

Rap thread

2009-01-23T22:14:02-05:00

you gotta check the lyric

NWS?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ0nF41nCyk[/youtube]

What kinds of music do you like ironically?

2009-11-06T15:51:46-05:00

Me: Outlaw country. I was introduced to the genre by hipsters who also liked it ironically, and it stuck. I’m glad it did—it was a window into other kinds of country, folk and alt-country for me—but I can’t honestly say I’m a fan of most outlaw country unless there’s a kind of nod to liking it for non-musical reasons.

What about you?