I saw these guys a little while ago, and boy, do they get it. These guys would never listen to Genesis or do anything in the prog rock vein... No, this is hard-core Goth rock. This is my dream band. 80's goth influences, updated! The best I can describe them is if Siouxsie, The Cure, and Napalm Death started a band with one of the members from Stomp and one of the members from the Blue Man group. Throw in a little Ronnie Milsap for balance, and viola!

Though I wouldn't call them 80s revival per se, the Goth influence is very 80's. I loved the Gothic era from 1980-1985. Both historically and culturally significant... Gothic architecture from this period is particularly striking and angular. SGM take this dark angularity, and incorporate this into their sound with performance art and showpersonship. And not one bit of 70's prog excessiveness anywhere! This is a very economical unit. While they are extemely minimalistic, every note is calculated and crafted. They are not about fast runs of notes, polyrhythms, counterpoint, or bizzare time signatures and key transpositions. None of that musical diarreah. They have taste...

The "this is too simplistic" argument I hear about these guys is just off base. What do you want? Hurdy Gurdy solos and fruity Bach keyboard arpeggios? After the excesses of the 70's, the 80's gave people a respite from pompous musos who thought satin blouses were really cool garb.



I HATE FUCKING NERDS!

SGM and Arsnova are where music should be right now. 80's influence with major innovations, and none of the cheesy excesses of the 70's. All of the 80's Goth makeup and darkness. No rainbows, unicorns, B3's, Mellotrons, Bach or lame fugues... These guys were doing this before the 80's were cool. And instead of wearing suits like the rest of the 80's revival hipsters, they look more like the Sisters of Mercy or Siouxsie.

If I were to peruse Nil's record collection, I would imagine I would find a lot of Sisters of Mercy, Immaculate Conception, Marilyn Manson... You know, good stuff. You wouldn't find a Genesis album at all... Like I could see him poppin' his fingers to "Misunderstanding"? Come on... Someone told me they remind her of Genesis... I couldn't stop laughing! LOL!

Wayne Hussey, move over... Here comes SGM to fill our souls with the darkness. They feel my pain as I traverse the abyss of the Woodfield mall. Oh Orange Julius, you grate at my soul like the very hellhounds of Arkham!

Oh, and not crap. Seriously... Not crap!

yut wrote: you grate at my soul like the very hellhounds of Arkham!

I was thinking of starting an H.p. Lovecraft thread. This is a sign from
Cthulu! Ai ! Shub Niggurath Fttaggn! Azathoth be praised!

I'm down with an H.P. Lovecraft thread... But let's not discuss that AWFUL band Shub Niggurath. Awful prog-rock crappiness from France. I hate prog rock and France too. The French think they can tell us what to do?!? Then we have to defend their asses against WMD's, and they free-ride on the security.

People criticize the U.S. for spending 5 times as much on defense as anyone else. We have to do this because French ferries are such pussies, they can't even get with the pogrom and contain Hussein! Hussein is mentioned in the Bible code. He's like Hitler. Thank goodness we stopped him. People complain that we went into Iraq on false pretenses. Fuck that. The BIBLE CODE says he is the next dictator. He is mentioned in the book of Revelations. Yes, all French are heathens, but I'm really surprised at how many Americans don't follow the scripture.

H.P. Lovecraft, yeah... Just no mention of Shub Niggurath, the band, please. They're too much like a cross between Yes and UK to deserve any discussion on this board.

Capiche?

zero trick pony.

i refer not to the subject of this thread, but rather to whoever is behind the malarky that is "yut".

where is the option to vote "ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz....." with regard to you as a human being, yut?

the level of your cleverness is rivaled only by the inverse of what you believe it to be.

more as a challenge to myself (and i will strive to rise to the occasion), i double fucking dare you to get me to ever address you again, yut.

bye bye.

sorry but it seems you never listen to shub niggurath . nothing to do with yes nor UK ( or maybe played backward ?? ) . so with that you lost credibility about what you said on frenchies among other things ..

good luck

I was being sarcastic, but I realize now that it's hard to be sarcastic online. So now I will put all sarcastic statements in italics.

Shub Niggurath are one of the better "dark" progressive rock bands ever. Le Morte Vont Vite (sorry, spelled wrong, too lazy to dig out the CD) is amazing. I've never heard a trombone used so sinisterly!

Oh... and I'm here because I saw Sleepytime recently. I hadn't seen them in almost 2 years, because their shows started to be all the same, and that got boring after a while... Oh my! They were so excellent! Everything was new, except maybe 2 songs from Natural History and "Sleep is Wrong" (totally re-arranged) from the first one.

I always liked these guys, but my opinion of them has really increased greatly. In the 2 years since I have last seen them, they have just got so much better.

Not many goth kids there, but in a city like Chicago, you won't see that. I hear when they play small towns, though, it's tons of goth teenagers. Not their fault, though I think it would be cool if they did a Genesis cover, so people would at least get an idea that progressive rock (and even Genesis) has more to do with their sound than "popular" goth (like Sisters of Mercy).

Well, they do that This Heat song. But you can't even get a This Heat album (very easily) anymore.

Then again, if they did a Genesis cover, most people wouldn't even know, unless they played "Misunderstanding" or something.

Anyway, ramblings aside, SGM are incredible! They've worked very hard over the years, and it shows. Not only are they amazing musicians and composers, but the visual impact of their shows is staggering.

I apologize if my initial post on this thread disses SGM in any way. It's not their fault that they have clueless goth fans. They do nothing to encourage this. Their "shaving hair in a weird way" thing is more Peter Gabriel than Peter Murphy.

And, for all the prog influence, they are extremely original. They're unlike IQ or bands like that. I do enjoy IQ quite a lot, but they're not the most original band. I mean, for a prog band, SGM are so un-prog-like, people think they're goth! If it wasn't for them playing at NEARfest, I wouldn't be clued in... OK, the Art Bears similarities are there, and somewhat appearant.

toomanyhelicopters wrote:zero trick pony.

i refer not to the subject of this thread, but rather to whoever is behind the malarky that is "yut".

where is the option to vote "ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz....." with regard to you as a human being, yut?

the level of your cleverness is rivaled only by the inverse of what you believe it to be.

more as a challenge to myself (and i will strive to rise to the occasion), i double fucking dare you to get me to ever address you again, yut.

bye bye.

Thanks! I was just hoping to discover your feelings about me.

Look, I don't know who you are, or what lame indie band you play in. I don't care what you think. You're not here to be a referee or anything like that. So why don't you put on your favorite Jawbreaker album and sod off.

I know, you're a big human being with great taste in everything! You're so big, you need to point out what a small human being I am. You have a future in American politics, with your very clever punditry. You could get a job on either the left or right side of AM talk radio.

toomanyhelicopters wrote: i double fucking dare you to get me to ever address you again, yut.

Oh boy! Another self-important local rock star on the EAR forum!

I hope so much that we can chat some more. This is why I come here... To gather the many pearls of local rock star wisdom from toomanyhelicopters. Yes, I will make it my life's work to solicit feedback from toomanyhelicopters, who is the greatest local rock star ever!

I'm on the fence for SGM...

You like Anekdoten? these guys seemed like a cross between them and Neubauten.

...But a little more contrived.

I don't listen to SGM albums much... I own both of them, but for some reason, recorded, they make me ill...

Their recordings are done by themselves, and they're not bad, but they need to take it easy with the compression. Natural History is so kentucky-fried with program compression, I just can't listen to it.

But seeing them live is amazing. I remember seeing them once a few years ago, and they gave me the creeps and I wanted to puke... But in a good way.

This latest show I saw was simply genius. I'll buy their next album, but I'm hoping for some better mastering this time.

Their level of talent is simply amazing. Even more amazing is that they have become so much better in the years since I have seen them.

I like Anekdoten, and I find their cellist/keyboard player to be quite attractive too... though I don't tend to pine for the female rock/movie stars...