[Keeping It Gimple]

Originally Posted by guest

oh yeah shit belong, they were a good one. also the cleveland scene so bee mask and everyone else on that axis.

ben frost & fuck buttons are in a completely different lineage, more along the lines of 'populist noise' for lack of a better term, employing accessible signifiers like melody/rhythm to very conventional means. while all those other groups you've listed definitely conform to what we're talking about here those two are completely different; their music is high fidelity, free from the murk which defined everything else we're talking about and similarly lacking in any identifiable esotericism. also their music has been released on very prominent record labels and as such no DIY element. also ben frost is australian and also ben frost is a fucking cunt. his music's shit as well. tried to be nice but couldn't hold it together, sincerely sorry but I hate ben frost so much.

and as much as pan sonic employ noise as a compositional tool they were also operating within a completely different context, more readily aligning with the european avant-garde electronic styles (for example mego, touch, type, raster-noton), musics which skewed towards a more sterile, academic place as opposed to the proclivity of 21st century noise artists (particularly in the US) to engage in completely uninhibited improvisation which owes more to DIY rock and kosmische than GRM or modernist comp.

someone tried to sell me on fuck buttons once cos they knew i liked "noise stuff" and i just thought that they hadnt caught up with my ears yet and forgot about them. the song sound outdated and boring. can sort of see how they might be interesting if you dont listen to noise and can only handle little bursts of it in pretty trad pop rock structures. now i google and they have stuff on youtube called "tarot sport" from 09 and it starts with emeralds sparkly crystal stuff like they read the hypno-pop issue of the wire from around that time and jumped on another bandwagon haha

they arent what we're looking for - neither static nor murk - its mainstream and hi fi like you said.

and 16 BITCH PILE UP - hell yes how could we forget them?

another mention for times new viking - a band which i actually listened to at the time and who did this amazing teen spirit cover - but this stuff is really lo fi isnt it? its lo fi noise pop and its in a different world.

i mean we could split off into an entirely 'nother thing and talk about eat skull and the siltbreeze axis - and thats really tempting because those bands kicked ass but i think we got to just stick to noise/murk stuff thats borderline formless - yet again i wanted to include pocahaunted and hospitals - but pocahaunted were definitely the olsen twins of blissed out drone and didnt go into full on raga pop until their last album. and hairdryer peace performs its own total mutiliation on its little shreds of rock song structure.

hard to know where to draw the line sometimes but got to draw it somewhere.

i mean, i dont want to give tribute to some rich dude with a delay pedal who very self consciously tried to be noise because it was cool. its about the people who were actually a part of this and actually cared about what they were doing.

[SYRFox]

does anyone remember Death Unit? bit tough to find information regarding the act on the Internet now, I remember there was a video of one of their live sets on youtube a few years ago which was really impressive. Carlos Giffoni + Chris Corsano + Mouthus' Brian Sullivan + Hair Police's Trevor Tremaine. I was pretty certain there was also a member of Double Leopards in the band but seems like I was wrong. Also did something with Prurient apparently: http://www.discogs.com/artist/509111-Death-Unit

edit: just realised Infinite Death was recorded and mixed at Echo Canyon!

[TheDom]

Five albums I can think of that are of note:

Double Leopards - Halve Maen
Yellow Swans - Bring The Neon War Home
Hair Police - Blow Out Your Blood
Magik Markes - I Trust My Guitar, Etc
Skaters - Dark Rye Bread

Perhaps it would be a good idea to highlight certain albums instead of forcing a reader to delve into the huge discographies that most of these artists have? My knowledge of things outside of the American noise scene is pretty lacking. The albums I mentioned seem to me pretty important for that period and albums a lot of people referred to when those bands got brought up. I didn't mention Wolf Eyes because I never delved into them too much. Their was such a difference of opinion on what the great records by them were, and I didn't feel like wading through a monstrous discography to find what I liked. That being said, Wolf Eyes seemed to be the starting point for most of that time period and the Sub Pop signing was definitely significant.

[h8kurdt]

Bloody hell, 16 Bitch Pile Up. There's a blast from the past. Saw one gig and then probably like everyone else never heard of them again.

[Keeping It Gimple]

thedom - yeah i think we want to write about the band as a whole but focus on specific releases - so obviously halve maen is gonna be in there.

with stuff like this, sheer volume of output was always threatening to exceed peoples patience, so we DEFINITELY want to pick out the absolute best of each artist rather than overload people.

lets not restart the magik markers controversy! if cooley were here he'd have something to say...

dark rye bread is one of my fav albums ever. skaters fucking ruled.

[Keeping It Gimple]

Originally Posted by SYRFox

does anyone remember Death Unit? bit tough to find information regarding the act on the Internet now, I remember there was a video of one of their live sets on youtube a few years ago which was really impressive. Carlos Giffoni + Chris Corsano + Mouthus' Brian Sullivan + Hair Police's Trevor Tremaine. I was pretty certain there was also a member of Double Leopards in the band but seems like I was wrong. Also did something with Prurient apparently: http://www.discogs.com/artist/509111-Death-Unit

edit: just realised Infinite Death was recorded and mixed at Echo Canyon!

important records have the cd and some mp3s which i cant get to play http://www.importantrecords.com/imprec/imprec118

and brainwashed said it was "the sound of an irreverent collective throwing grenades into Sonic Youth's tour van."

[TheDom]

Originally Posted by Keeping It Gimple

thedom - yeah i think we want to write about the band as a whole but focus on specific releases - so obviously halve maen is gonna be in there.

with stuff like this, sheer volume of output was always threatening to exceed peoples patience, so we DEFINITELY want to pick out the absolute best of each artist rather than overload people.

lets not restart the magik markers controversy! if cooley were here he'd have something to say...

dark rye bread is one of my fav albums ever. skaters fucking ruled.

I'm very excited for this blog! I actually haven't listened to this stuff in years and it will be great to look back on that period. Reminds me of the old board where you could come find a great, new band every day.

I remember that whole Magik Markers thing. He came around eventually and wrote some very positive things about them. They weren't my favorite but one of the "bigger" bands of that time.

Halve Maen is still the ultimate.

[Keeping It Gimple]

back in the day...

Originally Posted by ripfrey

ill tell you all a story about elisa ambrogio.
One day, i was riding my bike down the street (rivermont yo) and this person in a gigantic caddy escalade comes up behind me and starts fucking laying on the horn. I swerve onto the sidewalk and stop and give the mofo the finger. This huge ass escalade fucking screeches to a hault straight up in the middle of traffic and pulls onto the sidewalk in front of me. I'm like WTF and pretty scared and stuff. So out of the car comes fucking elisa ambrogio and leah and pete and they are all wearing baseball uniforms!!! ELisa starts screaaming and going nuts and coming at me with the fucking bat she is holding. Im like wtf and i throw my bike down in front of her and take off. SHe crashes into it and falls on her face. She gets up and screams "i trust that you trust my baseball bat, ect!!!" aznd starts chasing me down the road. Then i see Savage clone coming down the road in his 64 impala and hes got this retarded ass look on his face, he swerves off the road and smashes elisa up against a brick wall . /He fucked up driving cause HAyden was giving him a BJ. And elisa is screaming stuff about making fun of her cat and stuff and her band is likie "???" and im like "ddeeeaaammm" and the two "deans of cristics" are like "moan" .. then a plane craashes in the street cause theres huskers on the plane and snakes on the plane fuckin shit up.

[Keeping It Gimple]

what are we gonna say about magik markers? just include that quote?

once you get up to boss its a whole different thing. taste is a guy playing some noise guitar turned down in the mix on top of what is basically a blues rock song

i like that song but they have turned into something else entirely

want to hear road pussy again. but i never decided if i liked this band and to be honest i probably dont unless someone can convince me with decent links

[TheDom]

Ripfrey! Holy shit I forgot all about that guy

Never got to hear Boss.

Like I said they never were my favorite but this video is pretty great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WInKHEhRrvM

[Keeping It Gimple]

damn you convinced me

we got to say something about mm for that video alone.

heres dan st. jaques from landed setting himself on fire

[Toilet & Bowels]

Originally Posted by SYRFox

does anyone remember Death Unit? bit tough to find information regarding the act on the Internet now, I remember there was a video of one of their live sets on youtube a few years ago which was really impressive. Carlos Giffoni + Chris Corsano + Mouthus' Brian Sullivan + Hair Police's Trevor Tremaine. I was pretty certain there was also a member of Double Leopards in the band but seems like I was wrong. Also did something with Prurient apparently: http://www.discogs.com/artist/509111-Death-Unit

edit: just realised Infinite Death was recorded and mixed at Echo Canyon!

I have this LP http://www.discogs.com/Death-Unit-On...release/673366

[Toilet & Bowels]

Anyway, the original post mentions lost classics but reading the suggestions it seems like a list of big names rather than anything else. I'd be up for a blog that really searches the darkened corners of that scene though.

[Keeping It Gimple]

yeah tb -

finding that stuff is what i want to do but it will take a lot of time and searching, particularly since so many of the vital blogs of the era are gone.

[Toilet & Bowels]

Didn't every review from Volcanic Tongue recently get archived somewhere? If you can access that it would be as good a place to start as any.

[SYRFox]

Another great album - Wzt Hearts had the lamest name, but their album "Threads Rope Spell Making Your Bones" was great

[Toilet & Bowels]

No disrespect to the dead but Scissor Shock were completely fucking awful.

[SYRFox]

Originally Posted by Toilet & Bowels

No disrespect to the dead but Scissor Shock were completely fucking awful.

haven't listened to many of Scissor Shock's records, and wasn't that much into them sonically speaking when I did (though I think I was perhaps too young back then, meaning I didn't have the same perspective on music as I do a few years later), but there was a sense of total freedom emanating from his music and throughout his music and works, the idea that you can pretty much do anything regardless of what you have, with your own will being the only limit, which I think was really interesting - and, come to think of it, one of the vital elements of that American noise scene the blog will document. so I would not definitely not dismiss it as completely awful.
that's my view on it anyway, and what I found in his music - might be completely wrong regarding what he wanted to do.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by guest

oh yeah shit belong, they were a good one. also the cleveland scene so bee mask and everyone else on that axis.

ben frost & fuck buttons are in a completely different lineage, more along the lines of 'populist noise' for lack of a better term, employing accessible signifiers like melody/rhythm to very conventional means. while all those other groups you've listed definitely conform to what we're talking about here those two are completely different; their music is high fidelity, free from the murk which defined everything else we're talking about and similarly lacking in any identifiable esotericism. also their music has been released on very prominent record labels and as such no DIY element. also ben frost is australian and also ben frost is a fucking cunt. his music's shit as well. tried to be nice but couldn't hold it together, sincerely sorry but I hate ben frost so much.

and as much as pan sonic employ noise as a compositional tool they were also operating within a completely different context, more readily aligning with the european avant-garde electronic styles (for example mego, touch, type, raster-noton), musics which skewed towards a more sterile, academic place as opposed to the proclivity of 21st century noise artists (particularly in the US) to engage in completely uninhibited improvisation which owes more to DIY rock and kosmische than GRM or modernist comp.

Yeah I get what you're saying. Fuck Buttons especially are more of a post-industrial noise-ROCK band, with fully formed songs and very little improvisation. Too much control and deliberation to be true noise. But Ben Frost really isn't so big on melody. It's the maximalist approach to music making that sets him apart from the group's we're talking about, making him more of a composer.

And yeah both artists are extremely hi-fi, and that's pretty much all that needs o be said.

My apologies. I knew it was a stretch to bring those artists into the discussion but despite what anybody else might think, I fucking love the shot out of both of them. In fact A U R O R A was my #2 album of 2014. But if they don't fit they don't fit.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by TheDom

Ripfrey! Holy shit I forgot all about that guy

Never got to hear Boss.

Like I said they never were my favorite but this video is pretty great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WInKHEhRrvM

ripfrey was hilarious. he's probably a lawyer now.

boss is a good record. i've been listening to it again recently-- it sounds great, although elisa's vocals lack a bit of depth for that kind of singing. but it's a radical departure from what that band used to be-- completely something else. sort of like when '77 punks learned to actually play their instruments and started to emulate their elders-- boss is a "rock" album.