His objection seems to be the fact that SKWM are not an obvious re-tread of Sonic Youth's 80s catalogue and The Fall.
It's okay to eat fruit from a different tree every now and then.
Band: Silkworm
133burun wrote:I think you could say that any band that engages the listener in such a way. If a band has that something that keeps you coming back, despite maybe being a little "meh" on them in the beginning, then I'd say that indicates some superior talent lurking.
I wouldn’t necessaryly equate “Complexity” with superiority/superior talent.
Bear in mind that different people will experience It in different ways.
Bands that you can automatically "get"?
I don’t "automatically get" the same bands that you do and vice versa.
Also, there are many original and unique bands that sound simple.
Band: Silkworm
134burun wrote:In my secret heart of hearts, I want Andy Cohen to write a song about me and my three jobs + freelance, and my ability to keep my sense of humor about the whole thing...
Ahh. I see. Your appreciation of this band's music is all but a ploy so that one of its members might someday write a song called "Ode to Jode".
An alternate title could be, "Jodie, So Many Jobs, Why She No Explodie?". The front cover would feature an aging Italian man in a pizza parlor, with his arms up in the air and a cartoon-incredulous facial expression. The back cover would have the same man, seconds later, covered in pizza dough.
*cough*
Anyway, Silkworm...
Band: Silkworm
135Ekkssvvppllott wrote:"Jodie, So Many Jobs, Why She No Explodie?".
Ahahah.
'Slave Wage' usually gets played on my way in to the office. It fits!
run joe run wrote:Kerble your enthusiasm.
Band: Silkworm
136tommydski wrote:'Slave Wage' usually gets played on my way in to the office. It fits!
I'd like to compile an extensive playist of "Take This Job and Shove It"-type songs. Sucks being owned by your job, but whaddaya gonna do?
Band: Silkworm
137Ekkssvvppllott wrote:tommydski wrote:'Slave Wage' usually gets played on my way in to the office. It fits!
I'd like to compile an extensive playist of "Take This Job and Shove It"-type songs. Sucks being owned by your job, but whaddaya gonna do?
keep working
Band: Silkworm
138hey The Classical, I have a theory about why Silkworm is hard for a lot of people to get into, folks who probably should get into them.
There's a dichotomy, what would seem like a spectrum with one extreme being "pop" and the other being "indie". The way I'm using these terms is not about how popular or independent the band is, it's more about the sound, the character, the polish of the music, stuff like that.
It's kinda like in Karate Kid, where Mr Miyagi is telling Daniel about getting crushed like a grape if he karate "guess so". If you're a pop band, you're gonna have your fans, probably lots of them cause this country is somehow designed to produce people who like pop music. If you're an indie band, you're all good, because there are the staunchly-indie people that are gonna dig your stuff, maybe some are gonna like it because they like "indie" and you "are indie" and they think it's "cool", but there are a good many people who just plain like music that doesn't sound like pop music.
But that grey area in between, it's kinda like no man's land. The pop people are mostly gonna pass because you sound too weird, and the indie people are gonna pass because you're too poppy. I realize this is an oversimplification, and a generalization, but I also think it's a real thing.
Yes, there are the exceptions, like Pavement is the first one that comes to mind, where they're clearly an indie band and they definitely have a pop character to a lot of what they do, too. So why does Pavement sell a jillion records and play shows to a jillion people and Silkworm not? I'm honestly gonna say it's just some damn dumb luck.
You guys, the STNNNG guyses, you don't have to worry about this because you're really, really not a pop band that I've noticed. And your Alicia Keys and your Dave Matthews and whoever else, they're gonna have a billion fans because no matter how far out they go, it's actually not very far out at all, they're keeping mostly in line with time-honored traditions that work, like prechoruses and key change turnarounds and never having a 12 minute instrumental with six guitar solos and whatnot.
But for all the folks in the middle there, it's a tougher deal to find the audience. There most certainly are people who like "pop" and like "indie" and like that middle ground between, but I think those people are not the easiest to find. Especially if you're doing the right and righteous thing (not meant as a negative there) and you're just playing the music you love and offering it up to whoever comes along...
That's the half-baked theory I came up with like 10 years ago when I was wrestling with the fact that I was in a band that I was always pushing to be more "indie" and more "metal" and half the guys in the band leaned more toward "power pop". I think we had about 5 fans total after playing 30 shows in a couple years. Maybe we just sucked.
FWIW, I still think about this same dichotomy all the time with my current band, where I'm always looking for it to be more "indie" and more "metal" cause those are still the sounds that hug my soul, and I got a drummer playing a disco beat and a bassist that only wants to play in C Major and G Major.
At the end of the day, I think there's more to respect about a band that sticks to their guns and makes the music that they as human beings are meant to make, and they play to six people, rather than saying "okay, let's just be a pop band" or "let's just be an indie band" for the sake of being more accessible to those two fanbases which can be pretty mutually exclusive.
When my sister first fell in love with Silkworm and played a couple of their albums for me, I really, really didn't like it. Then so many years later, on a lark I went ahead and bought Firewater used cause I came across it at some record store. I started to get it then, and really fell in love with that album. And then after meeting Tim through the poker playing, I gained an appreciation for him as a person, and after I met Michael he was just fun as hell, which is not a feeling I usually get when walking up to a guy after he plays a show and I'm harassing him with my idiotic conversation... I thought Andy seemed like he was mean or something, cause he never seemed to smile. But later I met him too, and for frick if he wasn't a really cool, great guy as well. And that really changed things even more, to actually talk with these guys and put a face to the name and a personality to the face and whatnot. At that point, I'd be hard-pressed to not like their music. Cause no way in hell were Silkworm an example of Great Guys, Bad Band, they're at the very least Great Guys, Decent Band and more like Great Guys, Great Band.
Anyway, I'm gonna shut the hell up now.
NOT CRAP.
There's a dichotomy, what would seem like a spectrum with one extreme being "pop" and the other being "indie". The way I'm using these terms is not about how popular or independent the band is, it's more about the sound, the character, the polish of the music, stuff like that.
It's kinda like in Karate Kid, where Mr Miyagi is telling Daniel about getting crushed like a grape if he karate "guess so". If you're a pop band, you're gonna have your fans, probably lots of them cause this country is somehow designed to produce people who like pop music. If you're an indie band, you're all good, because there are the staunchly-indie people that are gonna dig your stuff, maybe some are gonna like it because they like "indie" and you "are indie" and they think it's "cool", but there are a good many people who just plain like music that doesn't sound like pop music.
But that grey area in between, it's kinda like no man's land. The pop people are mostly gonna pass because you sound too weird, and the indie people are gonna pass because you're too poppy. I realize this is an oversimplification, and a generalization, but I also think it's a real thing.
Yes, there are the exceptions, like Pavement is the first one that comes to mind, where they're clearly an indie band and they definitely have a pop character to a lot of what they do, too. So why does Pavement sell a jillion records and play shows to a jillion people and Silkworm not? I'm honestly gonna say it's just some damn dumb luck.
You guys, the STNNNG guyses, you don't have to worry about this because you're really, really not a pop band that I've noticed. And your Alicia Keys and your Dave Matthews and whoever else, they're gonna have a billion fans because no matter how far out they go, it's actually not very far out at all, they're keeping mostly in line with time-honored traditions that work, like prechoruses and key change turnarounds and never having a 12 minute instrumental with six guitar solos and whatnot.
But for all the folks in the middle there, it's a tougher deal to find the audience. There most certainly are people who like "pop" and like "indie" and like that middle ground between, but I think those people are not the easiest to find. Especially if you're doing the right and righteous thing (not meant as a negative there) and you're just playing the music you love and offering it up to whoever comes along...
That's the half-baked theory I came up with like 10 years ago when I was wrestling with the fact that I was in a band that I was always pushing to be more "indie" and more "metal" and half the guys in the band leaned more toward "power pop". I think we had about 5 fans total after playing 30 shows in a couple years. Maybe we just sucked.
FWIW, I still think about this same dichotomy all the time with my current band, where I'm always looking for it to be more "indie" and more "metal" cause those are still the sounds that hug my soul, and I got a drummer playing a disco beat and a bassist that only wants to play in C Major and G Major.
At the end of the day, I think there's more to respect about a band that sticks to their guns and makes the music that they as human beings are meant to make, and they play to six people, rather than saying "okay, let's just be a pop band" or "let's just be an indie band" for the sake of being more accessible to those two fanbases which can be pretty mutually exclusive.
When my sister first fell in love with Silkworm and played a couple of their albums for me, I really, really didn't like it. Then so many years later, on a lark I went ahead and bought Firewater used cause I came across it at some record store. I started to get it then, and really fell in love with that album. And then after meeting Tim through the poker playing, I gained an appreciation for him as a person, and after I met Michael he was just fun as hell, which is not a feeling I usually get when walking up to a guy after he plays a show and I'm harassing him with my idiotic conversation... I thought Andy seemed like he was mean or something, cause he never seemed to smile. But later I met him too, and for frick if he wasn't a really cool, great guy as well. And that really changed things even more, to actually talk with these guys and put a face to the name and a personality to the face and whatnot. At that point, I'd be hard-pressed to not like their music. Cause no way in hell were Silkworm an example of Great Guys, Bad Band, they're at the very least Great Guys, Decent Band and more like Great Guys, Great Band.
Anyway, I'm gonna shut the hell up now.
NOT CRAP.
"The bastards have landed"
www.myspace.com/thechromerobes - now has a couple songs from the new album
www.myspace.com/thechromerobes - now has a couple songs from the new album
Band: Silkworm
139Like everyone else, it took a bit before I got into this band.
I once read a Mclusky interview where Falkous was going on about how to really get into the Fall, you kind of had to have a moment with them. Like you had to have the right amount to drink at the right party and just the right fall song would have to come on at just the right time. In a way, I feel the same about Silkworm. I don't wanna imply that there's a specific time or place to enjoy them, but I remember exactly when the band just kind of clicked for me. Because of some shitbag roommates, I was getting evicted from a very nice house I was paying very little for. I had spent the morning cleaning up with the landlord, and after he left, I decided to turn on some music while I was finishing up. Stuck in a burnt copy of <i>Firewater</i>, just kinda stopped and listened to the first three tracks or so and decided I loved the band. I had only given them cursory listens before, and while I didn't not like them, I just wasn't completely into it.
They're one of those bands that make you feel like you've somehow improved once you start listening to them. I can think about some of their great moments, like that crazy solo on "Miracle Mile," the harmonies on "I Hope U (Don't Survive)," and I can think about their albums and songs as a whole and really believe that I've some how benefited from hearing them.
The longer my posts get, the more I tend to ramble, so I'll stop here, but anyways, not crap, all day long.
I once read a Mclusky interview where Falkous was going on about how to really get into the Fall, you kind of had to have a moment with them. Like you had to have the right amount to drink at the right party and just the right fall song would have to come on at just the right time. In a way, I feel the same about Silkworm. I don't wanna imply that there's a specific time or place to enjoy them, but I remember exactly when the band just kind of clicked for me. Because of some shitbag roommates, I was getting evicted from a very nice house I was paying very little for. I had spent the morning cleaning up with the landlord, and after he left, I decided to turn on some music while I was finishing up. Stuck in a burnt copy of <i>Firewater</i>, just kinda stopped and listened to the first three tracks or so and decided I loved the band. I had only given them cursory listens before, and while I didn't not like them, I just wasn't completely into it.
They're one of those bands that make you feel like you've somehow improved once you start listening to them. I can think about some of their great moments, like that crazy solo on "Miracle Mile," the harmonies on "I Hope U (Don't Survive)," and I can think about their albums and songs as a whole and really believe that I've some how benefited from hearing them.
The longer my posts get, the more I tend to ramble, so I'll stop here, but anyways, not crap, all day long.
llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
Band: Silkworm
140NerblyBear wrote:
Your fault. Shit's like "Beautiful, Bizarre Guitar Chords 101" or something. Also included in the course are Pavement, Sonic Youth and Polvo.
Silkworm's like a footnote on page 49 of the textbook.
Or . . . Silkworm is a long chapter in the smaller book that the kids tuck away within that textbook and read during class after realizing that their professor is full of shit and doesn't have any original ideas.