eephus wrote: Mon Dec 11, 2023 8:17 pm

gustavprom wrote: Tue Dec 05, 2023 2:04 pm Huskers but The 'Mats were great as well.

Huskers are still one of my favorites of all time - Zen Arcade, in particular, changed how I perceived music and what a band can do.
Also, Grant Hart's final solo album, The Argument, is kind of a small masterpiece, ambitious in a way that Huskers were at their mid 80s peak.

Hot Wax is extremely great, I think.

Hot Wax is fantastic. I'm stil pissed at myself for not going to see him on that tour when I had a chance. I'll have to check out The Argument, must've missed that one when it was released.

HD gets my vote. I've tried so many times to get The Replacements to click but they just sound like slightly above-par college rock to me.

mrcancelled wrote: Tue Dec 12, 2023 8:22 pm

eephus wrote: Mon Dec 11, 2023 8:17 pm

gustavprom wrote: Tue Dec 05, 2023 2:04 pm Huskers but The 'Mats were great as well.

Huskers are still one of my favorites of all time - Zen Arcade, in particular, changed how I perceived music and what a band can do.
Also, Grant Hart's final solo album, The Argument, is kind of a small masterpiece, ambitious in a way that Huskers were at their mid 80s peak.

Hot Wax is extremely great, I think.

Hot Wax is fantastic. I'm stil pissed at myself for not going to see him on that tour when I had a chance. I'll have to check out The Argument, must've missed that one when it was released.

HD gets my vote. I've tried so many times to get The Replacements to click but they just sound like slightly above-par college rock to me.

Have you checked out Sorry Ma or Stink? That was my favorite era of the band.

Krev wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2023 10:12 am

mrcancelled wrote: Tue Dec 12, 2023 8:22 pm

eephus wrote: Mon Dec 11, 2023 8:17 pm

Hot Wax is extremely great, I think.

Hot Wax is fantastic. I'm stil pissed at myself for not going to see him on that tour when I had a chance. I'll have to check out The Argument, must've missed that one when it was released.

HD gets my vote. I've tried so many times to get The Replacements to click but they just sound like slightly above-par college rock to me.

Have you checked out Sorry Ma or Stink? That was my favorite era of the band.

Sorry Ma...Stink...Hootenanny. That's a hell of a one two three punch.

kicker_of_elves wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2023 3:29 pm

Krev wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2023 10:12 am

mrcancelled wrote: Tue Dec 12, 2023 8:22 pm

Hot Wax is fantastic. I'm stil pissed at myself for not going to see him on that tour when I had a chance. I'll have to check out The Argument, must've missed that one when it was released.

HD gets my vote. I've tried so many times to get The Replacements to click but they just sound like slightly above-par college rock to me.

Have you checked out Sorry Ma or Stink? That was my favorite era of the band.

Sorry Ma...Stink...Hootenanny. That's a hell of a one two three punch.

Agree on the first two, but Hootenanny seems to have been an experiment in how much trash they could put on a record. It is hilarious, though.

Hootenanny does have "Color Me Impressed," which ranks up there with "Raised in the City."

Krev wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2023 10:12 am

mrcancelled wrote: Tue Dec 12, 2023 8:22 pm

eephus wrote: Mon Dec 11, 2023 8:17 pm

Hot Wax is extremely great, I think.

Hot Wax is fantastic. I'm stil pissed at myself for not going to see him on that tour when I had a chance. I'll have to check out The Argument, must've missed that one when it was released.

HD gets my vote. I've tried so many times to get The Replacements to click but they just sound like slightly above-par college rock to me.

Have you checked out Sorry Ma or Stink? That was my favorite era of the band.

I tend to think that if the Blink 182s of the world had used Sorry Ma as sort of a Pass Go/Do Not Pass Go standard, there would be fewer lousy punk-adjacent records out there.

Krev wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2023 7:57 pm Hootenanny does have "Color Me Impressed," which ranks up there with "Raised in the City."

I'm also a huge fan of "Take Me Down to the Hospital".

However, it also has "Hootenanny", "Mr. Whirly", and "Love Lines". As mentioned, hilarious, but not exactly good.

jfv wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2023 9:10 pm

Krev wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2023 7:57 pm Hootenanny does have "Color Me Impressed," which ranks up there with "Raised in the City."

I'm also a huge fan of "Take Me Down to the Hospital".

However, it also has "Hootenanny", "Mr. Whirly", and "Love Lines". As mentioned, hilarious, but not exactly good.

This record https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Sale: ... l%27s_1986 captures that period pretty well, I think. It's a huge mess but really good in its way.

Also, I vote for Husker Du but I only saw the Replacements post-Bob and I saw Husker Du with The Rats (precursor to Dead Moon) and NoMeansNo opening when I was 18-ish and that's just not a fair fight.

losthighway wrote: Tue Dec 12, 2023 1:24 pm Is it fair if I say that some of your very own are evidence to me of songwriting's importance?

Thank you. that is very kind.

If you play most of those songs clean and 75% faster, they sound like Blues Traveler.

Try it!

I almost wonder if being a prolific songwriter can lead one to take the compositional side of the equation for granted because it's under control, and instead look for the relatively (at least for that performer) more elusive 'feel' of chemistry, personnel, dynamics, gear etc.

I think the songs are the easy part.

You just have to indulge yourself and do it a lot. When you start, they're all bad. Then you learn to recognize the worst ones, and maybe eventually to not even write too many bad ones because you can feel them sucking the instant you start in on them.

Or else you get really into songcraft and fall in love with your own dump, which is not a good place to end up.

A song does have to come from you--all your musings and perversions and desires and whatever else--to be any good. You have to buy into it. It really is indulgent, ultimately, to write a song in the first place.

Kind of like novels. Only with novels, all you've got is the text, which is why it's so hard to write a good one.

With music, you get to hear it, and if you have the sound nailed, then your job as a "writer" gets a LOT easier.

Writing is whatever pops into your head. It's limited in that way--we only have so much capacity to think about things.

Sound is neverending. Every band I've been in has done so much shit by accident that surprises and delights me. So many ways to go. You need some material but one good riff might be enough. Two notes might be enough. One note!

There's this French band that was on tour with Sunn for a while. They're called France. They play one note/chord with one drumbeat behind it. Dude plays an electrified hurdy gurdy through a couple amps, there's a bass player playing one note (maybe octave also), and the drummer going boop-boop-dip boop-boop-dip for 45min. Great sound = great band. Every year they change the chord.

Elvis Costello is more heavily on the writing side, while King Tubby is all sound. Interesting.

That's a great comparison, and that's a big part of why I have endless time for good dub and I'm not that interested in Elvis Costello.

losthighway wrote: Tue Dec 12, 2023 1:24 pmI love this kind of debate, cause it's like "what's the more magical part?"

Is it fair if I say that some of your very own are evidence to me of songwriting's importance? I almost wonder if being a prolific songwriter can lead one to take the compositional side of the equation for granted because it's under control, and instead look for the relatively (at least for that performer) more elusive 'feel' of chemistry, personnel, dynamics, gear etc.

It's funny, it's such a fundamental aspect of it all that I never thought of it before: sound-acts vs. songwriting-acts. Everyone's a little of both (Husker and the Mats definitely have strong scores in both categories), but like Elvis Costello is more heavily on the writing side, while King Tubby is all sound. Interesting.

Some of this does feel like has to do with that most "Songwriter..." tunes are in dry cement by the time that the listener eventually gets to hear them.

While not a whole lot of bands have done it, this is the version of "Postcard Blues" that wound up on the album Souls For Sale...



Meanwhile, this is the version that(I believe...) was on an import single back when that was a thing...



That "Import..." version sort of shifts from the "Souls For Sale..." era sound back to something more like the band that the were back when they were on Merge Records.

In a few instances, it's kind of tough to decide if the "Songwriting..." or the "Sound..." is what is sitting in the driver's seat.

(That's before you even get to the solo records that come later, and how things changed from record to record...)