What the hell is it with all the new indie bands
 

having either whistling parts or soprano oooh ooohh ooooh oooooh parts?

whistling and ooh oooh oohh : this decade of music :: chorus : the eighties


oh and by indie I mean "indie"

i just stay away from it all, its mostly all shit.

that "pretty music" bullshit is a backlash to the preponderance of emo in the past decade, as well as the emnergence of caustic noise

I was watching Austin City Limits on PBS last night, and every other freaking Arcade Fire song had ooooh oooh oooh. Then I decided to listen to the new Animal Collective because I one time heard an Animal Collective song that I liked, and again ooooh ooooh oooooh.

Then I was listening to TV on the Radio. Whistling and oooh ooohs. Although I like TV on the Radio, it is eye opening.

Oh and the other day when I was in TJ Maxx (I was dragged there, I would never go there of my own accord) there was this song by some "indie" band that I can't remember that is getting really popular now with echoey whistling.

One thing with all the "pretty indie" is that I can always think of something else I'd rather listen to. Most of the time I'd rather just listen to GBV, The Halo Benders, the Flaming Lips, Pavement, or even Beck.

TV on the radio can whistle and oooh oooh at will as long as the songwriting is great. The lameness of whistles and ooh oohs in many "indie" bands is that there's nothing more behind that, "songwritingwise", like indie was just a mood and whistles and oooh ooohs were mood setters. Kinda hippie collective "cute+naif" mood lameness. No offense intended for "true" hippies or wathever. Hope this makes sense.

It makes about 78% sense. I think I get what you're saying.

I'm 78% glad you got my point.

Many "indie" bands are seeking the same type of critical acclaim that made Animal Collective's Sung Tongs a darling, thus they try and reproduce some of the same vocal stylings, adding their own particular twist.

Feel free to disagree all you want, but Brooklyn is the musical hotbed of the world right now, and artists looking for material are jumping on that bandwagon.

Before that, Athens, GA bands were the standard-bearer with the Elephant 6 scene. And many, many "indie" and "psych-folk" bands are also still farming that same territory. In fact, Elephant 6 pretty much popularized the whole notion of the "collective" line-up. And do please note that I'm not stating that the Elephant 6 bands were the first to form rotating "collectives." That is not my point at all. What I'm writing, and it's very much the case, is that Elephant 6 bands popularized the notion of the collective; and without question, they did. On a side note, I suppose I should have never played or talked so passionately about Pet Sounds with many of the key figures.

I feel Stereolab from London should also be mentioned because even today they are an oft-aped band as well. Not that they were completely all that original themselves really. Their electronic bleeps were molded into compositions via a largely Krautrock-inspired sensibility.

And before that, of course, the place was Seattle, WA with the grunge/Sub Pop scene. As anyone not living under a rock knows, many, many, many bands got on that particular gravy train.

It's amusing that "indie" is synonymous with "unoriginal" just about as often as pop music is.

baltimore has it's own insane music scene going on too

There are loads of places with either large "scenes" or notable ones. And typically, most are college towns. Look at Austin. They've enjoyed the largest "scene" of any city on the planet for a long time now and have produced very little to show for it. ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead is the only band to really even emerge from there in quite some time.


Now Athens did not invent "the indie music scene." That was more the NYC No Wave scene. They broke non-mainstream music among the club faithful. Thus it all began as a "they told two friends, and those two told two friends, and so on, and so on..." type of thing. Sonic Youth grew out of this scene (mostly after the fact) as many know.


Athens bands did, however, invent "college rock" though and get small record labels to back non-mainstream music in notable ways by demonstrating that it could be profitable with the somewhat popular successes of bands like The B-52's, Pylon and R.E.M., among others. The key catalyst was R.E.M.'s performance of the yet-unnamed "So. Central Rain" on NBC's "Late Night with David Letterman" back in 1983. And as the post above alludes, Athens bands still exert quite the influence on "indie" music today with the legacy of Elephant 6.

Although you wouldn't know it by the dreck that's posted at this board about them, of course John Lennon and Yoko Ono were the first pop culture figures who introduced mass audiences to experimental music.

And it was Charles Mingus who was well-versed in classical music and all jazz styles, including the emerging avant-free style, that first really turned music on its ear with his protest of the Newport Jazz Fest and his staging of an alternate "Newport Rebel" festival with the relatively unknown music of Ornette Coleman as the focus. Mingus also was the first to really glean the improvisational innovation from Lennie Tristano/Marsh/Konitz/Bauer/Ind on Crosscurrent (aka Intuition) in 1949.
Mingus introduced the world to the "concept album" with his Pithecanthropus Erectus in 1956 which is over a decade before The Beatles, The Kinks and The Beach Boys, and later The Who and Pink Floyd, who unleashed the experiment of the "concept album" or "art album" onto mass consciousness.

[quote=atari 2600]... Look at Austin. They've enjoyed the largest "scene" of any city on the planet for a long time now and have produced very little to show for it. ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead is the only band to really even emerge from there in quite some time.

?!?!?!?! what the fuck are you talking about? i think you should share what ever it is yr puffing on there lil buddy. what about american analog set, explosions in the sky, ghostland observatory, meat puppets and a million more. i do believe it's called the "underground music" capital fo the world.

...using vocal melodies doesn't someone make you unoriginal. It just means you like using/making fucking vocal melodies and harmonies. So what?

And atari... thanks for the wiki-history lesson, man...

That R.E.M. performance on Letterman is so awesome.

Meat Puppets are from the Phoenix area. And no, I don't have to wiki for that. I remember reading one article on them before some of you were even born.


Don't get on my case, avant-flea.

And if that seems harsh, then you might want to reexamine your groundless, harsh attack on my writing, neophyte.


I've posted this info about a dozen times over the years. And it's pleasing to finally find a page on the net where an intelligent someone backs it up:

http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:iwZ19TRtTfoJ:www.lennietristano.com /biography.htm+crosscurrent+tristano+1948&hl=en&ct= clnk&cd=1&gl=usAnd

Until relatively recently, it had seldom been acknowledged that Tristano had been the first to perform and record a type of music that came to be called "free jazz." In 1949 -- almost a decade before the making of Ornette Coleman's first records -- Tristano's group (which included Lee Konitz, Warne Marsh, and Billy Bauer) cut the first recorded example of freely improvised
(ed. also Peter Ind)
music in the history of jazz. The two cuts, "Intuition" and "Digression," were created spontaneously, without any pre-ordained reference to time, tonality, or melody. The resultant work was an outgrowth of Tristano's preoccupation with feeling and spontaneity in the creation of music. It influenced, among others, Charles Mingus, whose earliest records sound eerily similar to those of Tristano in terms of style and compositional technique.

Go ahead and transpose this material to the recent "free jazz" thread where the obvious is stated over and over again. Maybe you might learn something new.

and maybe you might learn a new method of sucking on bag of dead baby dicks :)

On the contrary, it's applied knowledge that I routinely and without question demonstrate. And my applied knowledge is supplemented with direct, empirical knowledge from when I lived in Athens for eleven years between 1989 and 2000.
And anyone other than a simpleton should know the difference between insight and regurgitated information, so your barb is not well-received. Please note that your post classifies yourself as either (a) someone with no ideas at all, (b) a misinformed person with no sense of history, (c) a jealous person who is insecure in their ignorance, (d) an attacker proposing a petty character-assassination argument due to past incidents with myself, or (e) all of the above.
Personally, I'm going with '(e).'

julian: why don't you just listen to music you like instead of bitching about the music you don't like?

The problem is not with my lack of knowledge, more with the fact that nothing you have said is really even relevant. Yr talking about jazz and concept albums and Stereolab, etc, (all of which are wonderful things, of course, however...) none of which have anything really to do with the topic at hand, and more of a way of you spewing all yr music know-it-allisms on us just to prove you know what yr talking about. It's pretty useless, man.

Nice try at redeeming yourself, but there is a very common thread of non-mainstream (i.e. independently-minded) musical artistry throughout all the references.

I'm sad you cannot understand.

Stereolab was a lesser mention. You should be able to infer as much from how I wrote about them. Your lack of reading comprehension is not a valid point with which to hold me liable.

Stereolab were not wholly original as I pointed out, but they had a highly original sound and enjoyed a degree of commercial success. (Sonic Youth are right there along with them as an influence on "indie" music today, but due to their longevity and use of alternate tunings.) Thus, they still exert overt influence on many of the "indie" artists of today, just in a lesser way than the Elephant 6 bands ('90s Athens scene) and Sup Pop bands ('90s Seattle scene) of yesteryear do.

here here kind k-krak. it was about indie bands and you can't stop vomiting out lennie tristano's name.

didn't there use to be a 14 year old kid on this board that always got into arguments w/ his holier than thou retoric and "music know-it-allisms"? that's who atari reminds me of.

althought some of it's good, it seems to be the new mtv trend

If I'm fourteen, then how did I know Meat Puppets are from Phoenix and not Austin (as you tried to correct me), and how did I learn this from a magazine article on them most probably written before your ass was even born?

Sure, they've played Austin a bunch of times, but Meat Puppets are not from that indigenous scene, buckaroo, as you tried to correct me.

If I'm fourteen, then how did I live throughout my twenties in Athens from 1989-2000?

Again, I'll make the same point as I did with k-krack. Your lack of reading comprehension is not a valid point with which to hold me liable.

lol, i didn't say you were 14... just that you act like one.

ps-yeah the puppets are from phoenix... but their considered part of the austin scene... at least from what i understand.

Yeah, you implied it to instill doubt in the reader and as a tool of character assassination because you have no ideas of your own.

lol, according to you no one has any ideas of their own... cept you of course oh great one.

Athens, GA bands are the standard-bearer for much of the modern "indie" of today with the Elephant 6 scene in the nineties. Many, many "psych-folk" bands are still farming that same territory. And in fact, Elephant 6 pretty much popularized the whole notion of the "collective" line-up. And do please note that I'm not stating that the Elephant 6 bands were the first to form rotating "collectives." That is not my point at all. What I'm writing, and it's very much the case, is that Elephant 6 bands popularized the notion of the collective; and without question, they did.

I liked a lot of this "indie" and "psych-folk" shit better (not a whole lot better, but still a wee bit better) the first time around, when it was called "Elephant 6."

And there you have the explantation for why many "indie" bands use repetitive, quasi-melodic vocals and back-up vocals that Julian originally wrote about in his initial topic post concerning noticing the trend. And the immediate progenitor is Sung Tongs by Animal Collective, in my opinion.

And as to my statement about Brooklyn being the current hotbed, feel free also to debate this point, as I wrote before, because it is merely an opinion.

The rest of what I wrote previously is a short synopsis of the history of independently-minded art within music, and simply isn't as debatable. I maintain a hope that some enjoyed reading the posts. Simply because it's new knowledge to some readers that have taken issue, doesn't invalidate those portions one bit.

I just don't understand how these arguments become so extensive, but I'll continue to read them with little regret.
Here's to you, fellas..

It happens like this:

(a) I make a post.
(b) I get unjustifiably attacked, usually with a very flimsy character assassination/marginalization argument.
(c) I defend myself accordingly.
(d) This process is then nauseatingly repeated as I get sucked further and further down to the level of the nincompoops...and all because I am trying to communicate with them on whatever level I believe they might understand.

None of this is due to any character issues that I have. I am merely posting. My only fault, therefore, is that I bother to post at all. This shit doesn't happen to others, because others do not demonstrate novel applied knowledge with basis in fact. Thus, my posts are regarded as a challenge to those who are intellectually insecure that, in the best case, merely regurgitate knowledge and state the obvious, or, in the worse case, cite just plain bad information and/or completely faulty argument(s).

Again, I'll make the same point as I did with avantgarde1 and k-krack. Your lack of reading comprehension is not a valid point with which to hold me liable. It's obvious that you did not read the thread from the beginning with any sort of understanding. Haha, you're too busy trying on lingerie perhaps.

you know, i never really cared where a band was from as long as they sounded good. that's what mainstream rap is for. and stop saying elephant 6, it's getting really annoying.

oh that's right... yr all knowing and everyone else is blithering idiot... what ever helps you sleep at night little buddy. and no i didnt' read yr first post all the way through... i usually find yr posts entirely too long.

By the way, there's no reason to start a personal attack on me. I wasn't implying that anyone's arguement was unneccesary. I thoroughly enjoy reading them! In fact, I ought to join in some time.

I'm wearing a lacey black g-string with a matching bra, lined with silk (one of those multi-purpose type with detachable straps, you know?).

that's alot more interesting than what atari douche600 has to say.

Not really bitching. . . just noticing a trend in a certain demographic of bands.

If I only listened to music I liked, how would I ever discover new music?

I liked a lot of this "indie" and "psych-folk" shit better (not a whole lot better, but still a wee bit better) the first time around, when it was called "Elephant 6."

That's all I ever should have written.

After all, if one writes too many words at once, it merely serves to confuse and/or inspire intellectual jealousy among readers here.

And I know this, so why do I even bother?
I'm not too much of a masochist.

I believe that I just have an ill-founded faith in humanity. I sadly overestimate the capacity for people to understand and be receptive to knowledge, and, unfortunately, it's a tragic flaw.

If there's a second wave of attackers, note that I will not be replying to them.

one thing is discovering, another is to listen to stuff you don't like for long chunks of time.

Quote:
Originally Posted by SpectralJulianIsNotDead
Not really bitching. . . just noticing a trend in a certain demographic of bands.

If I only listened to music I liked, how would I ever discover new music?



I have noticed the same trend and thus I posted in the topic.

Quote:
Originally Posted by SpectralJulianIsNotDead
having either whistling parts or soprano oooh ooohh ooooh oooooh parts?

whistling and ooh oooh oohh : this decade of music :: chorus : the eighties


oh and by indie I mean "indie"

I would never recognize the above topic post as being "bitchy." I would think it rather perhaps as "insightful but informal" and lacking in some articulation of thought, but not "bitchy."

Then again, it's possible that Everyneurotic has noticed a whole other trend, haha...one that I'm unaware of because I've been off the board the last few days.

It's also likely that some reading do not know what in the fuck I am referring to at all.

I really should have read a bit more of Julian's recent posts before making this post.

Yeah, I'm sorry, this post of mine sucks. In this case, I have thoroughly wasted your time.

sounds like atari should start an emo band. :(

Ignore it.