Posts tagged Logan
I Own Some Records
Just a few.
Ideas for Gimmicky Bands From Over The Years
So as a dude who listens to a lot of music, and generally surrounds myself with people that listen to a lot of music, most conversations I have revolve around music in some way. Of course the idea of starting bands also always comes up with friends. I don’t know if my friends and I are the only people that do this, but we always come up with insane band ideas and gimmicks, 99.9999% of which never come to fruition. I’ve been thinking of compiling a list of them forever. I’m doing it. Right now.
I’ll try to keep them in order of how they were thought up (as best as I can) so you can see how my thought process has “matured.” Enjoy. Also, if you want to start one of these bands with me, feel free to contact me. Don’t, however, steal my ideas. Keep in mind my lack of abilities in songwriting and most instrument playing is why most of these groups never came to be.
-Doorknob And The Safeties - Never meant to be an actual band, just a hypothetical concept to weed out posers. Like we were going to make fake merch (shirts, stickers, patches, buttons), put the name on flyers, and spread the word about them to see if anyone would say they were a fan of the band.
-Nordic Track - Okay, follow my logic here. Cavemen don’t believe in christ or any of that bullshit. The cavemen from the Flintstones ran around in cars, and the sound of their feet is like double bass kick drums. If they ran on a track in Norway, iconic “home” of black metal, it would be a Nordic Track. So Nordic Track was to be a blasphemous, caveman black metal band.
-Aggro Crag - This came about from a day of watching old school Nickelodeon shows. All the titles and songs were going to be about the golden days of that network. Musically I think it was supposed to be some kind of true screamo (skramz) like Anton Bordman, so just bass/drums/vocals.
-xAutobahnx - Posi, straight edge, youth crew style covers of Kraftwerk songs. No other explanations needed; but just try and imagine a huge pile on of “WE ARE THE ROBOTS!!” or “WE’RE FAHR’N FAHR’N FAHR’N AUF DER AUTOBAHN!” and not get chills.
-An unnamed band where I would record babies screaming and children throwing tantrums and put it to metal or grind or hardcore. I thought about doing this before Caninus or Hatebeak ever existed by the way.
-Vermicious Knids - I don’t think we ever got past the idea of the name. But the name is awesome.
-Tipsy McSwagger’s Olde Tyme Hardcore Pile On Band - Tipsy McSwagger is a Simpsons reference, and Old Tyme Hardcore is a Slapshot song. The idea for this band was to just do covers of “hit” hardcore songs; basically a band to just hype up a crowd. Possible additional gimmicks is the band either dresses up as various hardcore stereotypes or they dress like people from the 1800’s.
-Logan Maiden - My Anton Maiden tribute band. You know Anton Maiden, the Swedish guy who can’t sing that sings along to Iron Maiden midi tracks. I would cover his songs.
-An unnamed band that would do cover songs only in the style of the B-52’s.
-Syn-Tax - The idea behind the band was that we were going to be a high school garage band that never broke up and/or never improved in talent. The name is supposed to be Sin-Tax like, “everyone needs to pay their SIN TAX” but changing the “i” to “y’ makes you more edgy; but no one in the band would realize that syntax is an actual word. Basically we would do awful, half-assed covers of Nirvana, Led Zeppelin, Sublime, and any other typical songs by bands that your high school band covered. I’m pretty sure I invented a super long mythology around this band too, but I sadly have forgotten it.
-Jack Tunney - pro-wrestling themed power violence and/or power electronics. I will revive this project once I have a DAW again. Vocals will be handled by sampling pro-wrestling promos.
-Ausdauer - Kind of the opposite of xAutobahnx, Ausdauer (German for perseverance) was going to be krautrock renditions of Hatebreed songs.
-Windham Earle - a Twin Peaks themed power violence band.
-G.R.N. - Basically this would be a band doing all kinds of various goregrind/noisecore stereotypes; like The Gerogerigegege meets Gore Beyond Necropsy or something.
-Cidertown -First of all, the name is another Simpsons reference, I’ll let you, the reader, try and figure it out. Anyway, I’m not sure what the plan for this band is/was initially, but somewhere along the line my buddy and myself decided that we had to cover “The Stroke” by Billy Squier. That eventually lead to the idea that we would only cover “The Stroke” and play it in different styles and arrangements.
-Walter Kovacs - a Watchmen themed power violence band.
I can’t think of any more. If I do I’ll add it later. Not that anyone cares.
-Log.
2013 has been awesome so far, and I think it’s only going to get better.
I forgot I ordered this. Krispy Kreme.
The Pitchshifters - self titled (Meeuw Muzak 2007)
Here is an interesting little record I happened upon recently, it’s a self titled 7” from The Pitchshifters. Not to be confused with Pitchshifter (which I did, that’s how I ended up owning this record, thinking it was them I picked up the 7” because I’ve never heard them before) it’s a nifty little electronic/synth pop instrumental platter. I couldn’t figure out if it should be played at 33 or 45, though both speeds sound like they work, though 45 sounded cooler. The 7” is two untitled little ditties with a minimal analog synth melody and archaic drum machine beat. They are both fun catchy tunes, that are over as soon as they begin. There is no info or contact listed anywhere in the sleeve and I couldn’t find any info on these guys throughout the vast internet, but I believe they are Japanese, and their only other releases are two CDrs (according to discogs) that I’ll never get copies of. I would love to by the way, because this record is fun and waaay to short.
I’m taking a break from phase one (working recent stuff into the complete collection) of my LP reorganizing to post this. Let me get back to that.
-Log
PS I’ve still never heard Pitchshifter.
Rainbow Of Death - self titled (Torture Garden Picture Company 2007)
I love 10 inches (the record format silly goose). I don’t know why, maybe its because they aren’t as common as 7 inches or 12 inches, most likely that is exactly why, but I always have to buy up any or all of them that I see when they are available (well to be fair i buy up every record in my sight when applicable).
Rainbow Of Death is an alter-ego of Monarch, all members are the same (apparently) but they are two completely different beasts. Monarch is a monolithic sludge/doom band, with dirge like songs (the shortest track of theirs on my itunes is 11 minutes). Rainbow Of Death is a near opposite in the punk spectrum, playing short and fast as fuck power violence/pop punk songs. The 13 tracks on this 10” total just under 10 minutes. This record is killer. Female vocals ranging from screams to pop punk singing…they definitely set this band apart from the average power violence band. The first 12 songs fly by in a whirlwind of blastbeats and fun “slower” parts. The last track feels like crawling through a pool of peanut butter at 3.5 minutes compared to the rest of the EP. Its a pop punk song with all the lyrics in Japanese. All the instrumentation is tight as a drum, I’m guessing from all their work in Monarch where timing is the key to their sound.
One quick note on the packaging…there is a crudely draw picture of a cute bird with a word bubble that has music notes crossed out on the dust sleeve. I fucking love it. Thats all.
Over the next few weeks I’m going to be reorganizing my collection in a big way. Expect pictures of the process because I love before and after kinda crap.
Bye.
-Logan
Totem Pole Of Losers - “Jesus I Am Loving You” b/w “My Compromise” Amarillo Records 1993
Todays record is the single “Jesus I Am Loving You” a (in my eyes at least) horribly obscure and neglected jewel of a platter. It’s the one release the band had (if discogs is to be believed) and I now declare to the non-existent gods out there, its one of my top ten all time favorite records ever…I’m so serious that I’ve at one time considered getting the cover art tattooed on me (and still am seriously considering it).
This is a project of a few crazy cats I’ve never heard of otherwise (Stephen Hanson writes the b side and plays keyboards, Lizzy Kate Gray sings the a side, Brandan Kearney and Gary Strasburg strum the guitar on the b side) and Greg Turkington, who is better known nowadays as comedian Neil Hamburger.
The a side is the reason I love this so much, a truly strange and catchy as fuck track. Its a basic verse/chorus set up, and the chorus sounds like a psalm or hymn or whatever you call those boring as fuck songs they sing in church “Jesus I am loving you/every moment of the day” with an organ and soft drum beat, but as the verse kicks in its like a trip into a demented mind (not unlike my own) probably why I enjoy this so much. The organ changes to a fucked synth sound and the drums are crashing hits from hell, while the singer explores how much she loves Jesus “I am loving you when my husband makes loves to me/when i feed the dogs, or when I pray/I’m loving you when my children were hit by a car/There’s a reason you took them away”
Pure and unfiltered genius. I can listen to this track over and over and never get sick of it.
The b side is a nice little number, no where near as amazing as the a side, but its a mix of Residents and Sisters of Mercy singing about writing a commercial for ice cream cones.
The cover is a whole other story. I stare into the eyes of the man on the cover and can’t help but break down with laughter. It makes absolutely no sense at all. On the back he’s holding a plate of eggs! Why?! Eggs aren’t mentioned once anywhere else on the 7”. It’s so off the wall, it’s genius. This is something Tim & Eric would do nowadays, but this record is 18 years old.
I have nothing else to say about it. Definitely gonna get it tattooed on me now…my mind is made up.
Hello. My name is Logan. I own some records. Well, as of today I have 4967 records across all the major formats (Vinyl, CDs, Tapes) to be exact. I think I’ll use this blog to listen to and review some of those records. I’ll be grabbing random stuff out of my collection, be it old or new, incredibly obscure or super popular, something I’ve been obsessing over for days or something I haven’t listened to in years. All genres will be explored, as I enjoy all the meats of the worlds musical stew. I think this will be an interesting exercise for my ears and brain. I’m sure no one else will care, but whatever, to quote the cartoon character that I had to deal with way to often at my last shitty retail job, Happy Bunny, “It’s All About Me!”.
PS: I observe the right to post non-review stuff too, just a heads up. Now, onto the fun.
For my first review I have decided to listen to a CD in the interest of ease of setting up this page, as my turntable is in a completely different room. Expect most reviews to be vinyl. Anyway, I’m listening to Japanese Torture Comedy Hour - “Voltage Monster” on Desolation House Records. This is a beast of a disk, packaged in a sweet twofold digipack, the entire thing has that sweet high gloss clear ink on it. JTCH (on this album) is members of Pig Destroyer and Agoraphobic Nosebleed playing crazy noise. It sounds like sheets of scrap metal being thrown down stairwells and ancient synthesizers programmed to playback a loop through a distortion pedal. Absolutely killer stuff. The song titles (well some of them) are Pig Destroyer album titles. I don’t really know the significance of that, maybe they are manipulating sounds from those albums, maybe they couldn’t think of track names, either way my ears like it. Though most other people probably won’t. This album is a decided progression from earlier works like “50,000 JTCH Fans Can’t Be Wrong”, it seems like there is definitely more thought going into the production of sounds and even almost a hint of structure in these tracks. I’ve been on noise kick the last few days, It just gets me into a great headspace, allowing me to not think about things that annoy the crap out of me and just stare at the wall.
A good way of approaching noise is look at it like an abstract painting. In an abstract painting a lot of things are happening at once, almost like the artist had an emotional explosion on the canvas completely devoid of theory (thats how I look at it at least). Noise can be viewed from the same standpoint, a complete emotional release for the artist with many different aspects of that experience to be picked and prodded through. Each sound can be looked at as a brushstroke or color of paint. Without a proper introduction most people will hear a noise album, say, “What the fuck is this?” and turn it off never to give it another shot. The point of noise isn’t to enjoy it like you would normal music, the point is to go along with the artist for their journey. I’ll leave the theorizing alone I just read what I wrote so far and already feel completely pretentious.
Anyway…hooray for first of (hopefully) many blog posts.
