hmmmm

hmmmm indeed.

i saw them with fantomas not 2 weeks ago..... it was interesting, a little monotonous. a little.......hoping the guitar player would actually play on a song for once....

but damn, their singer looks just too good to vote crap...

wow, i don't get what you're saying about the guitar. is it that he does too much "weird" stuff and you wish it was all more straightforward? i saw them last year and was blown away by everyone in the band, the guitarist was no exception. i thought he did a miraculous job of playing very effect-ed parts, really well. and when he played more normal kinda stuff, it was totally solid.

i think i understand the monotony thing, but that was the other place i thought they excelled... they are one of the only bands i've seen in the past 5+ years where i spent the entire set grinning, thinking to myself "holy shit", and never getting tired of it. very, very few bands can keep me totally enthralled for an entire set, and they were one of two that did it in '03. but i can see how if you're not blown away by it, it could be pretty tedious.

and yeah, singer, wow. where's the emoticon with googly eyes and hearts floating above it?

kind of un-essential on CD, absolutely great live

djanes1 wrote:kind of un-essential on CD, absolutely great live

Charlie is among my most essential discs. Scratch or Stitch and the live disc are right there with it. I liked them live better with the Japanese drummer. I didn't see them this time around, but I think they're still playing with the British drummer.

About as easy to vote Not Crap for MB as it was for the Boredoms or the Jesus Lizard...

the drummer when i saw them a few months back was a white dude. the old drummer was a japanese girl, right? the first time i heard of melt banana was probably 98 or so, a friend saw them open for somebody and was telling me all about their crazy drummer who would do this weird screaming like a siren, or something like that. he did a lot of drugs back then, so i dunno, maybe he had the drummer confused with the singer? but several months ago it was definitely a white male. i thought his drumming was pretty rad.

toomanyhelicopters wrote: the old drummer was a japanese girl, right?

The drummer who was with them from the beginning ( I think ) until about three years ago was a Japanese guy. The singer ( Yasuko ) and the bass player ( Rikka? ) have always been Japanese women. I think the white dude has been with or is currently with a well-known British speed metal band. He's great, don't get me wrong, but he's more metal while the earlier guy was more spastic in kind of a Weasel Walter way.

I believe at least three of their records were recorded here in Chicago with Steve Albini, "Charlie" for sure. Jim O'Rourke also had a hand in that one, I think, possible just during mixing. Exciting record, that Charlie.

I have rarely had as much laughter of joy as I did at their shows.

the white drummer was dave witte (discordance axis)

he's an amazing drummer

djanes1 wrote:kind of un-essential on CD, absolutely great live

Exactly. NOT CRAP. However, I believe the word is "inessential".