Proggy Style

The AV Club has a wonderful feature up about ridiculous prog-rock album covers. This struck a chord with me personally, as my roommate in college owned every single one of these albums (save for the Mars Volta and Coheed and Cambria, of course. I mean, we went to a private college, pshh.). So taken with progressive rock was my friend, that he once said, sans irony, that he would "blow Robert Fripp". I wish I were lying.

A Rockist Mind F*ck

R.E.M., The National, Modest Mouse
Merriweather Post
June 11

The rock sauce will be flying.

Boognish Rising: Ween Live at Constitution Hall

G.L. and I went to DAR to see Ween last night. A very strong performance from Dean, Gene, and their friends Claude, Dave, and Glenn. More on it later.

In the meantime, I jotted down the setlist last night. Here it is:

WEEN - DAR Constitution Hall - 1/23/07 SETLIST
Exactly Where I'm At/ Pork Roll Egg and Cheese/ Spinal Menangitis/ Bananas and Blow/ Learning to Live/ Voodoo Lady/ Back to Bosom/ My Own Bare Hands/ Take Me Away/ Transdermal Celebration/ Waving My Dick in the Wind/ Nan/ Touch My Tooter/ I've Got to Put the Hammer Down/ Object/ Buckingham Green/ Your Party/ Beacon Light/ I'll Be Your Johnny on the Spot/ Zoloft/ Roses Are Free/ Spirit Walker/ The Mollusk/ Did You See Me?/ Ocean Man*/ Dr. Rock/ Shamemaker>Fiesta // Mister Richard Smoker/ Mister Won't You Please Help My Pony?/ Stroker Ace/ You Fucked Up

Also, some quality pics here.

Five Brownest Ween Tunes

G.L. and I are going to see Ween down at DAR Constitution Hall tonight. To preview, I thought I'd do a list of Ween's "brownest" musical moments. For those of you unfamiliar with the band, the band and its fans use the term "brown" typically to refer to the inherent "Ween-ness" of something, usually something lo-fi, terrible, but awesome in its terribly low fidelity. Ween fans, does that seem like an accurate definition?

Here's the list:

1. "Poop Ship Destroyer" - The most requested Ween tune by far, and the most evocative of the term "brown". The Brothers Ween pull this out to alternately punish terrible crowds (by playing long-winded versions of it) and express their gratitude to rabid ones.

2. "Awesome Sound" - This lengthy, repititive favorite from The Pod is a live staple, where sheer enthusiasm and volume make it seem like an actual song, as opposed to just maniacally fuzzed-out vocals buried under a pile of heavy riffage.

3. "Spinal Menangitis" - It almost hurts to listen to, as Dean Ween adopts a child's voice during this tune about Ween's favorite of subject matters: disease. When they play it live and that little keyboard melody comes in at the beginning, you know a wave of brown-ness is upon you.

4. "Don't Laugh (I Love You)" - This is something of a personal preference, because I think to be truly "brown", a song has to retain some elements of normalcy. So here's a quaint middle school love song that aurally recreates the experience of huffing paint-thinners (or what I imagine that might be like).

5. "Happy Colored Marbles" - Off 2003's quebec, it's got a vaguely "Spinal" feel to it, but then takes off out of nowhere with this brown-defining, trademark Deaner solo. The plunking synths are also the perfect combination of crappy, unnerving, and spacey -- this is vintage Ween.

Honorable Mentions: "Mushroom Festival in Hell", "The Golden Eel", "Papa Zit", "The Stallion Part 5", "Stroker Ace"

Those are my five. Anyone care to add to that?

What's Playing on GL's iPod?

The answer? These four songs, on infinite repeat. They're all from 2007, but since I didn't make a year end list, I thought I'd throw 'em up now.

1. The Besnard Lakes - "Devastation"

Reminds me a lot of Secret Machines, what with the heavy, propulsive beat and all the cool sound effects. I wish the rest of The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse was half as good.

2. Kevin Drew - "Backed Out On The..."

Drew got J. Mascis to play guitar on this one off of Spirit If... I love it so hard. The video is great, too.

3. Bon Iver - "Skinny Love"

Gorgeous song from Justin Vernon aka Bon Iver. Not your typical Rockist offering, but wonderful nonetheless.

4. Panda Bear - "Bros."

I really wanted to hate this album - it was so hyped I could hardly stand it. But I'll be goddamned if it isn't one of the best albums I've heard in years. This one's longish at about 12 minutes, but there's a reason it's the centerpiece of the album, Person Pitch.

Break Through Bands of 2008

Here are my predictions of bands* we will see in the upcoming year:

Wolf Great Uncle
Spatula
The Temp Agency
Asiatic Black Bear
The Boils
Fuck Balls

Any others?

*G.H., these aren't real bands. Don't pretend to have listened to them.

From the mouth of Bob Pollard

"We saw the world. We were the kings of lo-fi! We entered the world in the early 90s when people were staring at their shoes. And we brought back rock and roll."

- Robert Pollard, "Secret Star (live")

A Saturday afternoon list

Bands I've been lying about actually listening to:

Echo and the Bunnymen
The Knife
Low
Wire
Clinic
Like four or five New Zealand bands
Shellac
The Microphones
Primal Scream

Scotch_Mist

I know everyone has posted this already, but I didn't get a chance to watch it on New Year's.

My favorite line: "One day I found out that my urine was acting like a powerful foaming agent. I don't know why. I thought that I could take advantage of my ability by hosting piss-centered foam parties in the pub toilets. My landlord wasn't keen. He didn't think that people would be interested. In fact, he said that it was a disgusting idea. I said that I would rather go to a piss foam party than watch the f*cking football. But he said that I'm in a very small minority, and the big screen stays."

Conan O'Brien w/The Max Weinberg 7: "Blue Moon of Kentucky"

This one's for you GH. We're keeping Honest Abe, though.

R.E.M. Release New Album Details

Yeah, so this was already posted on Stereogum, but it caught my eye. According to NME, R.E.M.'s new album will be titled Accelerate and will be released on April Fool's Day.

I can't speak for the other Rockists, but I'm actually looking forward to this. After a few disappointing albums recently, let's hope R.E.M. gets back to what they do best: vague, almost incomprehensible lyrics with political and social commentary over solid pop rock licks.

R.E.M. - "Superman"