acelebrationofweird-blog

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The big jubilee weekend is here folks. And what better way to celebrate than with 10 of the best experimental tracks ever, including… And So I Watch You From Afar, THREE TRAPPED TIGERS, Hella, Noumenon, &U&I and more…

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It's interesting how in time I've stopped thinking of this sort of sound as "lo-fi". Lots of local bands have figured out how to get a decent sound without the best equipment or recording knowledge, and at least this point it's not worse to me, just different. 

These guys, Olde Pine, are pretty cool. It's sorta derivative - the instrumental break at a minute in is particularly similar to an Algernon Cadwallader song - but I really like the main guitar riff, as well as the way the song shifts to a strummier feel towards the end. And, honestly, the guitar/drums duo continues to have a soft spot in my heart, especially when there's vocals to fill up some space. 

Plus really there's never a bad time for upbeat twinkly emo music.

(Worchester, MA)

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How Not To Enjoy Music

Judge new music as quickly as possible

Feel like your musical taste is better than anybody else's musical taste

Make assumptions based on genre

Listen to a narrow range of music

Think of some music you like as a "Guilty Pleasure"

Surround yourself with people who won't question your taste

Listen to a band once, make an opinion, and then assume that opinion is correct forever

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Standing Out

How can one band be creative, unique, groundbreaking, etc, while thousands of others sound identical to each other?

Sometimes there's a big "gimmick" that makes it obvious. Man Man uses burlesque influences and it clearly distinguishes them from the rest of the pack. Mariachi El Bronx is an even more extreme example.

That is misleading for young bands, though, because it's not about the big idea. There is no "eureka" moment. The nature of creativity is such that great musicians are always making the best and most interesting choices that they can.

An average musician might wait until the whole song is written before trying to "spice it up" - whereas the great musician puts his entire self into deciding what the second note of the riff will be. Maybe the basic blues guitar patterns offer up hundreds of riffs that will definitely work, but the great musician finds the one that is truly right for the song.

This happens at every stage of the process. The drummer could play the obvious beat, but he struggles until he figures out the one that's just right. The band picks the producer they want, rather than the one offered by the label. 

Obviously this isn't "the secret" - it's risky and dangerous and scary. But it's the only way I can make sense of how great bands like Modest Mouse or Cymbals Eat Guitars so clearly stand out from the pack, despite dozens of new indie rock albums coming out each week.

It's about micro-creativity, and with this mindset you can start to get deeper into the great music of today.

Tonight's radio show will be all about this concept - and it goes live in a few minutes.

[acelebrationofweird-blog]

MEGASHRUB - Shrubstep (Live in studio)

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You have to listen to more music.

People are able to make strong connections through music. Whenever I hear someone say "I don't like rap" or "metal just doesn't appeal to me", etc, it's like saying "I don't want to connect with those people, the people who like the music that I don't like."

We all crave those connections with other people. Why, then, do we cut ourselves off by dismissing entire genres? Are we really that limited in our preference of aesthetic in music?

No - it stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of music. Our supposed entitlement to strict musical taste is used as an excuse to isolate ourselves. It makes us less curious about what's going on around us.

We do it because it's easy. It's much easier to reaffirm our own beliefs than it is to open ourselves to something new, and in turn to allow ourselves to be changed.

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While we're talking about sloppy music... The Microphones are a band that you will not understand if you try to think before you listen. The rhythm is loose and the mix is weird, it's lo-fi in a way that isn't hip and everything is wrong.

It deconstructs everything you think is "required" for good art. We've all got the mental checklist that we go through - certain genres we don't like, the tone that instruments should or shouldn't have, what sorts of vocals are legitimate - and it's not until after we clear through that list that we actually listen to what's going on.

Throw away the checklist.

[acelebrationofweird-blog]

Playing weird music on the radio

Live now - today's theme is sloppiness, gonna be spinning weird un-school music for the next 1.75 hours.

TUNE THE FUCK IN. http://thebirn.com

[acelebrationofweird-blog]

Good Sloppy Music: Braid, Guided By Voices, The Microphones

How do some bands hang on to that unpolished sloppy vibe? It seems like one of the most basic requirements to be a "good" band is to be tight. Play your notes together. Stay in time.

Yet, Braid aren't tight. They are, but not like James Brown was tight. It's something different, some sort of more primal musicianship that shines through. I think a lot of it falls onto the steady tempo - lots of shitty bands are sloppy, but then some great ones manage to be sloppy and still stay perfectly together at one consistent tempo.

Alternately, the tempo can waver a bit - that supposed "life" in the music that a click track could ruin, the ability to push the chorus just a bit faster - but it only works if the band is extremely solid otherwise.

Either way, in most cases, it's got to be subtle. A bit of looseness here or there, not a jumbled mess.

In other words - I suspect that "good sloppy" is a very thin slice of music. It's usually what happens when a band that never went to music school practices its ass off, works out most of the kinks, but leaves a few in the mix for flavor.

(P.S. - I'll be focusing on great sloppy music for tonight's radio show)

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TONIGHT @ 10pm EST! We’ll be hosting a listening party for You Blew It’s Grow Up, Dude over at http://turntable.fm/topshelfsquad. Come hang with us and the band!

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Yeah, a lot of people know This Town Needs Guns, but even if you've heard this song before, take a second to stop and appreciate that guitar part. It's one of the most incredible guitar parts I've ever heard. It's the whole Ghosts and Vodka style with way more musical staying power - while GnV are cool for math rock / cap'n jazz nerds, this song could resonate with nearly anybody.

That's why I like math rock - nothing else in the world stacks up against this song. Where else could you get something like this? There's no other genre that could do it.

I'm nervous about their new singer, but I haven't heard anything yet. The whole band is tight enough that it could work out. Time will tell.

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Tonight's Celebration of Weird RADIO SHOW (!!!) features SHRK WK from Providence, playing live in our studio. They are super noisy and freaky, my friend just said it sounds "like a cross between Merzbow and Hella" and that pretty much sums it up.

Click that video to get an idea and if you dig, tune in tonight from 7-9pm EST - they'll be going live right at 8pm.

(to tune in, just click "BIRN 1" at the top of the page)

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Any opinion you have about a band you haven't heard in three years is probably wrong.

Our memory is weak. Whatever you heard isn't what you remember - you remember an exaggerated pastiche of the worst or best things about that band. There are SO many artists that I've bad-mouthed over the years and later realized that I had no idea what I was talking about.

Case in point: Zappa. I had Joe's Garage, I didn't like it, and that was that. Until I turned on this record a few years later, and it turns out that of course it's great - it's fucking Zappa! The orchestration is brilliant, there's some crazy polyrhythm stuff in there, and considering when this came out, it pushed musical boundaries that people didn't know existed yet.

Challenge yourself. What's a band that you hate on even though you don't really remember what they sound like? Who do you criticize on rote? Give them a listen and you may be surprised with what you hear.

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MATH ROCK IS STILL ON THE WAY UP!

And that's why asking "why math rock, why not something more people can relate to?" is a weird question - it's not about what's big now, it's about what's growing. Math Rock (& friends) reminds me of the classic rock revolution - think about bands like Pink Floyd or The Beatles, these bands were releasing their greatest work seven or eight albums into their careers.

Now consider the situation with "math rock" today. Some, like Maps & Atlases, Zach Hill in general, Adebisi Shank, have been nurtured by the labels of the future (Sargent House), and some have even more brazenly gone it alone (read: Giraffes? Giraffes!). They're all getting better and better with each release. This latest Giraffes release is hi-def, it's accessible, it's catchy, yet still so exciting - it's bound to convert new fans, not just for the band, but for the sound.

Multiply that by all of these great artists, slowly developing the sound that will become the genre-formerly-known-as-math-rock. In ten years, people will look back at the early records by Hella, Tera Melos, Don Cab, etc, and they'll wish they had been there when it was still so cool!

(Somewhere, Massachusetts)

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What, you thought that there weren't any more creative ways to do that Ramones-style punk rock three chord progression thing? That's because you aren't Squarepusher.

Squarepusher doesn't think, he just does. Weird robo-vocals plus super dry jazz drums, punk rock songwriting, feel-good aesthetic, and motown-style bass? Why not!

This is your feel good song to wait for summer with.

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The first time that I heard this record, I had NO idea how they were making those sounds. The guitars have tons of pitch-bend going on, which they use along with really freaky rhythms and non-repetitive song structures to create seemingly never-ending compositions of controlled noise.

The whole album is like this, each song is clearly different from the others, yet they stand together in this style which is so unique. It basically comes down to someone standing up for themselves and saying FUCK IT, LET'S TRY MAKING MUSIC IN THIS NEW WAY INSTEAD. At first it probably sounded awful.

I mean, most people would still think it sounds awful. That's the point, kind of.

Sometimes I get a sense that everything's been done. With only so many notes, after a while all of the indie rock stuff seems to converge towards the singularity, but then something like this reminds me that there's still whole worlds of music left unexplored.

(thanks to The Math Rock News on facebook for introducing me to this band)