22 posts tagged “rock”
Following in the footsteps of Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo, Green Day has covered the Simpsons theme for the Simpsons movie. Unlike those two previous versions, which rendered the theme almost unrecognizable with feedback and psychedelic guitar effects, Green Day's rocks really hard.
Yes, it's a bit of a Pixies rip-off, but still, this song rocks like nobody's business.
Audio: Share your favorite track from a live album.
Submitted by -Lisa.
Of course, I couldn't properly answer this QotD without some choice live cuts by the greatest live band of all time, the mighty mighty Guided By Voices (my previous answer was just for practice.) First off, here are the first four or five songs of their farewell show 12/31/04, including "Over the Neptune/Gear Mesh Fox", "Watch Me Jumpstart" and "Fair Touching,"
Then some choice cuts from their earlier live album "Jellyfish Reflector" which I just picked up at Amoeba about a month ago. For some reason I hadn't really hard that much about it, which is surprising, because it's actually quite awesome.
Audio: Share your favorite track from a live album.
Submitted by -Lisa.
How about this classic, the last song on Rush "Exit.. Stage Left"? It doesn't get any more progotastic than this.
How about this? Name your Guided By Voices desert island discs. If you were stranded on a desert island and could only have five GBV albums to listen to, which ones would they be?
Here's mine, in order of release:
1. Propeller
2. Bee Thousand
3. Isolation Drills
4. Universal Truths and Cycles
5. Earthquake Glue
It was really hard leaving Do the Collapse off the list. Not to mention Half Smiles. But such is the nature of a desert island list.
of Fillmore posters, from the show Saturday night. Which rocked, by the way. Sorry, did I say "rocked"? I meant ROCKED.
Rollling Stone magazine has posted a preview of the forthcoming Yo La Tengo (scheduled for release September 12th) album "I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass" which sounds like it could be another epic masterpiece like I Can Feel the Heart Beating As One or And Then Nothing Turned Inside-Out.
Beginning with the snarling, ten-minute guitar jam "Pass the Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodkind," the indie vets veer through Vince Guaraldi-influenced R&B ("Mr. Tough"), country-pop confections ("Sometimes I Don't Get You"), uptempo crunch ("I Should've Known Better") and the more familiar ambient sounds of their recent albums ("I Feel Like Going Home"). On "Mr. Tough," infectious brass is followed by bassist James McNew's winning falsetto, imploring, "Don't you think we've suffered enough?/Meet me on the dance floor." And "Black Flowers" pairs horns and strings -- along with bells and gorgeous harmonies from drummer-vocalist Georgia Hubley.
Ten minute guitar jam? Like that. Guitar theatrics were noticeably absent from 2003's "Summer Sun" and that was by design. They left several songs off of the album because they didn't fit the album's feel, a gutsy move that, after much going back and forth, I've decided I agree with. The omitted songs ended up the companion EP "Today Is the Day" which included the rock version of the mellow, wistful track from "Summer Sun" proving that it takes a very speical band to produce two equally valid, but utterly different versions of the same song.
The advance single from the album, "Beanbag Chair," is already available in the form of a free download, which has ended up on Vox, thanks to Harold.
Saw Pearl Jam last night, who rocked. They performed the "Mamasan" trilogy in its enterity, but in reverse order. (Footsteps->Once->Alive.) Below is a video of PJ doing Footsteps, which some of you may notice, sounds a lot like the Temple of the Dog song "Times of Trouble." However, it's not a case of copyright infingement, but an interesting case of rock and roll paralel evolution-Eddie Vedder and Chris Cornell both received the piece of music from Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard and Mike McCready had written, and each wrote their own vocal lines and lyrics to it. Because "Times of Trouble" came out first, in early summer 1991, "Footsteps" was relegated to a b-side status, but has has in recent years a song Pearl Jam bust out every so often-it always gets a rapturous response.
By dint of great effort (and Audio Hijack Pro, a program I highly
recommend) I ripped my "The Electrifying Conclusion" DVD to mp3 (via
aiff in an attempt to maximize audio quality.) I'm not sure why this
show wasn't also released on CD. it's awesome, and needs to be heard by
all fans of GBV, indie rock, live music, drunkeness, and the ROCK in general. In the words of Robert Pollard, "Watch me jumptstart as the old skin is peeled."
My DVD rip of the concert contains seven parts, each between 20 and 35 minutes long. I'll post one each day between now and next Sunday. Here is part I of the main set, featuring the following songs:
1. Over The Neptune/Mesh Gear Fox
2. Watch Me Jumpstart
3. Pimple Zoo
4. Everybody Thinks I'm A Raincloud (When I'm Not Looking)
5. Fair Touching
6. Things I Will Keep
If you enjoy listening to this, I recommend picking up the DVD. it's an amazingly good value-four hours of live music for only twenty-two bucks at Amazon (and I bet you could probably get it even cheaper used.)
