The N&G Listening Club V1 - Archive only

[Crenshaw Blvd]

Wow. I guess I am. I was sure it was Monday today.

Damns

 

[BoilerRhapsody]

This one is long and I didn’t have the time this week to give it one dedicated listen, but I have listened to it several times.

The accusations give the music context which is interesting, I’m not sure it would have made as much sense without that information. It is music of someone struggling with themself.

What makes it hard to deal with artists and their art once you realize that they are human like the rest of us and not worthy of shrine making is that often times their music doesn’t reflect their imperfect nature or their problems. Sometimes, like Michael Jackson, certain songs take on a context that makes them unlistenable.

I’d rather listen to music like this that is difficult emotionally and comes from a place of honesty than music with similar themes that are basically fiction.

As art, this album is on a different plane. I’m not going to be adding it to my collection and it won’t be on regular rotation, but I’m happy to have been exposed to it, glad for the conversation this week and honestly interested in the concept that some art doesn’t necessarily need to be separated... I think context makes this art better.

Strongly agree with this. I just can't see how you can get something out of listening to music like Swans, but be disappointed that at the least Gira is kind of a shitty person. He makes dark hateful music and I don't get much more out of it than that; I'm not looking to the guy who made Oxygen as an example of how to live my life. To me that song is the musical equivalent of a panic attack, and while I think in terms of emotional expression it's one of the best songs ever made, I kind of have to equally hate him for making it.

I've no doubt his accuser had a bad experience and a horrible time trying to talk about it (I'm also glad that she did), and I see no problem with choosing not to financially (or otherwise) support him for it, but I can happily accept that my consumption of his art is neither an endorsement or support of his actions.

 

[High Rant District]

As today is the last day of The Seer being the album of the week, I just want to thank whoever actually took the time to listen to this album. I hope you enjoyed it.

Despite being familiar with and owning the earliest works of Swans, I hadn’t listened to them much after their sound changed. I just gave The Seer a listen on Spotify all the way through and it’s epic, probably a masterpiece, really fantastic. Thank you for suggesting it!

This is one of those albums where as great as it is, it would be wrong to get it on vinyl IMO. I’ll be grabbing this on CD, because I want to enjoy this album as intended by the band. In order to get it onto three records, the sequence of the songs had to be changed, and two songs had to be split over multiple record sides. Getting this on vinyl would be circumventing the original intentions just to get it on my preferred format.

I watched a video once of a musician explaining that he considered a vinyl version of a CD of his, but one of the songs was 45 minutes long and wasn’t meant to be broken into parts, so he didn’t do a vinyl version. He didn't want to compromise. That resonated with me.

Anyway, great listening choice!

 

[Taevis]

Despite being familiar with and owning the earliest works of Swans, I hadn’t listened to them much after their sound changed. I just gave The Seer a listen on Spotify all the way through and it’s epic, probably a masterpiece, really fantastic. Thank you for suggesting it!

This is one of those albums where as great as it is, it would be wrong to get it on vinyl IMO. I’ll be grabbing this on CD, because I want to enjoy this album as intended by the band. In order to get it onto three records, the sequence of the songs had to be changed, and two songs had to be split over multiple record sides. Getting this on vinyl would be circumventing the original intentions just to get it on my preferred format.

I watched a video once of a musician explaining that he considered a vinyl version of a CD of his, but one of the songs was 45 minutes long and wasn’t meant to be broken into parts, so he didn’t do a vinyl version. He didn't want to compromise. That resonated with me.

Anyway, great listening choice!

Thank you so much for the kind words!

Even though I’m definitely going to get it on vinyl in the future, it bugs me a lot that some of the tracks are rearranged, especially since they seem to follow a logical progression and a narrative.

 

[debianlinux]

Reminds me of the Tom Petty - Full Moon Fever CD that has a break where Tom says we will wait while the vinyl/cassette owners flip the record/cassette to the other side.

 

[Bohnjaggs]

Reminds me of the Tom Petty - Full Moon Fever CD that has a break where Tom says we will wait while the vinyl/cassette owners flip the record/cassette to the other side.

Accompanied by barnyard noises. I always loved that.

 

[chrb98]

Yeah, for being one of my all-time favorite albums, I NEVER throw on the record. I can marginally deal with a long song being broken up across multiple sides, but the track order is ALL out of wack. It literally goes from the first song to the final song, then followed by the penultimate song, then in who fucking knows what order. I could pull the album up on iTunes, press shuffle, and still get a more logical flow than I would on vinyl. It's especially irksome considering you could absolutely make the original track listing work on 3 LPs if you're content with songs being broken up across multiple sides

Spoiler: what could've been

Side 1:
Lunacy
Mother Of The World
The Wolf

Side 2:
The Seer, pt. 1

Side 3:
The Seer, pt. 2
The Seer Returns

Side 4:
93 Ave. Blues
The Daughter Brings The Water
Song For A Warrior
Avatar

Side 5:
A Piece Of The Sky

Side 6:
The Apostate

If we go by the oft-repeated "22 minutes per side" mantra, the only slight difficulty would be Apostate clocking in at just under 23 minutes, but even then you could probably throw the first couple minutes onto side 5

 

[Dark Star Boogie]

Disclaimer: I feel weird selecting an album for this thread since I’ve been sort of inactive in here (although I do check out most of the albums), so sorry to all for seemingly ignoring this thread. I appreciate all of your recommendations.

This week’s listening selection will be—

The Bees - Octopus

Released on March 26, 2007 this album, or this band for that matter, isn’t really known by a lot of musical folks I’ve encountered in my daily life. I’ve met one person who’s known them. So hopefully this will be new and fresh for a majority of you.

Genre wise I’d classify it as psychedelic rock with that 60’s/70’s tint to it although they draw from other genres for inspiration—reggae, electronic, etc.

They’re from the UK and honestly I don’t know much about them other than that they are multi-instrumentalists. Not even sure they are a band anymore.

They have three other albums, and I would have choose Sunshine Hit Me, their first album, if it were on Spotify although I think Octopus is their best album.

Free The Bees, their second album, is much more straight forward rock, while their last album, Every Step’s A Yes, is more acoustic in tone.

Anywho, enjoy! I think this album will have at least one or two songs everyone can find extremely enjoyable.

Cheers!

 

[gaporter]

Disclaimer: I feel weird selecting an album for this thread since I’ve been sort of inactive in here (although I do check out most of the albums), so sorry to all for seemingly ignoring this thread. I appreciate all of your recommendations.

This week’s listening selection will be—

The Bees - Octopus

Released on March 26, 2007 this album, or this band for that matter, isn’t really known by a lot of musical folks I’ve encountered in my daily life. I’ve met one person who’s known them. So hopefully this will be new and fresh for a majority of you.

Genre wise I’d classify it as psychedelic rock with that 60’s/70’s tint to it although they draw from other genres for inspiration—reggae, electronic, etc.

They’re from the UK and honestly I don’t know much about them other than that they are multi-instrumentalists. Not even sure they are a band anymore.

They have three other albums, and I would have choose Sunshine Hit Me, their first album, if it were on Spotify although I think Octopus is their best album.

Free The Bees, their second album, is much more straight forward rock, while their last album, Every Step’s A Yes, is more acoustic in tone.

Anywho, enjoy! I think this album will have at least one or two songs everyone can find extremely enjoyable.

Cheers!

I've only heard of the Bees because back in the day some sites had this Gorillaz song labelled as featuring them, and I never was able to quite figure out how accurate that was

Regardless, excited to check this out

 

[mcherry]

Disclaimer: I feel weird selecting an album for this thread since I’ve been sort of inactive in here (although I do check out most of the albums), so sorry to all for seemingly ignoring this thread. I appreciate all of your recommendations.

This week’s listening selection will be—

The Bees - Octopus

Released on March 26, 2007 this album, or this band for that matter, isn’t really known by a lot of musical folks I’ve encountered in my daily life. I’ve met one person who’s known them. So hopefully this will be new and fresh for a majority of you.

Genre wise I’d classify it as psychedelic rock with that 60’s/70’s tint to it although they draw from other genres for inspiration—reggae, electronic, etc.

They’re from the UK and honestly I don’t know much about them other than that they are multi-instrumentalists. Not even sure they are a band anymore.

They have three other albums, and I would have choose Sunshine Hit Me, their first album, if it were on Spotify although I think Octopus is their best album.

Free The Bees, their second album, is much more straight forward rock, while their last album, Every Step’s A Yes, is more acoustic in tone.

Anywho, enjoy! I think this album will have at least one or two songs everyone can find extremely enjoyable.

Cheers!

The Bees are awesome. Great pick.

 

[Gavaxeman]

Disclaimer: I feel weird selecting an album for this thread since I’ve been sort of inactive in here (although I do check out most of the albums), so sorry to all for seemingly ignoring this thread. I appreciate all of your recommendations.

This week’s listening selection will be—

The Bees - Octopus

Released on March 26, 2007 this album, or this band for that matter, isn’t really known by a lot of musical folks I’ve encountered in my daily life. I’ve met one person who’s known them. So hopefully this will be new and fresh for a majority of you.

Genre wise I’d classify it as psychedelic rock with that 60’s/70’s tint to it although they draw from other genres for inspiration—reggae, electronic, etc.

They’re from the UK and honestly I don’t know much about them other than that they are multi-instrumentalists. Not even sure they are a band anymore.

They have three other albums, and I would have choose Sunshine Hit Me, their first album, if it were on Spotify although I think Octopus is their best album.

Free The Bees, their second album, is much more straight forward rock, while their last album, Every Step’s A Yes, is more acoustic in tone.

Anywho, enjoy! I think this album will have at least one or two songs everyone can find extremely enjoyable.

Cheers!

Good choice .. I’m sure the Bees have also backed up a few artists too...

 

[Bohnjaggs]

Disclaimer: I feel weird selecting an album for this thread since I’ve been sort of inactive in here (although I do check out most of the albums), so sorry to all for seemingly ignoring this thread. I appreciate all of your recommendations.

This week’s listening selection will be—

The Bees - Octopus

Released on March 26, 2007 this album, or this band for that matter, isn’t really known by a lot of musical folks I’ve encountered in my daily life. I’ve met one person who’s known them. So hopefully this will be new and fresh for a majority of you.

Genre wise I’d classify it as psychedelic rock with that 60’s/70’s tint to it although they draw from other genres for inspiration—reggae, electronic, etc.

They’re from the UK and honestly I don’t know much about them other than that they are multi-instrumentalists. Not even sure they are a band anymore.

They have three other albums, and I would have choose Sunshine Hit Me, their first album, if it were on Spotify although I think Octopus is their best album.

Free The Bees, their second album, is much more straight forward rock, while their last album, Every Step’s A Yes, is more acoustic in tone.

Anywho, enjoy! I think this album will have at least one or two songs everyone can find extremely enjoyable.

Cheers!

I've played Listening Man in the JQBX room before ... Great choice. I'm just starting work but I'll have the thread fully updated tonight.

 

[Dark Star Boogie]

I've played Listening Man in the JQBX room before ... Great choice. I'm just starting work but I'll have the thread fully updated tonight.

Thats the song that started it all for me around 2008. Never gets old to me

 

[Teeeee]

Disclaimer: I feel weird selecting an album for this thread since I’ve been sort of inactive in here (although I do check out most of the albums), so sorry to all for seemingly ignoring this thread. I appreciate all of your recommendations.

This week’s listening selection will be—

The Bees - Octopus

Released on March 26, 2007 this album, or this band for that matter, isn’t really known by a lot of musical folks I’ve encountered in my daily life. I’ve met one person who’s known them. So hopefully this will be new and fresh for a majority of you.

Genre wise I’d classify it as psychedelic rock with that 60’s/70’s tint to it although they draw from other genres for inspiration—reggae, electronic, etc.

They’re from the UK and honestly I don’t know much about them other than that they are multi-instrumentalists. Not even sure they are a band anymore.

They have three other albums, and I would have choose Sunshine Hit Me, their first album, if it were on Spotify although I think Octopus is their best album.

Free The Bees, their second album, is much more straight forward rock, while their last album, Every Step’s A Yes, is more acoustic in tone.

Anywho, enjoy! I think this album will have at least one or two songs everyone can find extremely enjoyable.

Cheers!

I've never heard of them. But I'm on the first album and this is fun! I am going to enjoy this, I can tell already.

 

[Dark Star Boogie]

I've never heard of them. But I'm on the first album and this is fun! I am going to enjoy this, I can tell already.

That’s how I feel about Nicole Atkins.

 

[Poly-Rythmo]

Disclaimer: I feel weird selecting an album for this thread since I’ve been sort of inactive in here (although I do check out most of the albums), so sorry to all for seemingly ignoring this thread. I appreciate all of your recommendations.

This week’s listening selection will be—

The Bees - Octopus

Released on March 26, 2007 this album, or this band for that matter, isn’t really known by a lot of musical folks I’ve encountered in my daily life. I’ve met one person who’s known them. So hopefully this will be new and fresh for a majority of you.

Genre wise I’d classify it as psychedelic rock with that 60’s/70’s tint to it although they draw from other genres for inspiration—reggae, electronic, etc.

They’re from the UK and honestly I don’t know much about them other than that they are multi-instrumentalists. Not even sure they are a band anymore.

They have three other albums, and I would have choose Sunshine Hit Me, their first album, if it were on Spotify although I think Octopus is their best album.

Free The Bees, their second album, is much more straight forward rock, while their last album, Every Step’s A Yes, is more acoustic in tone.

Anywho, enjoy! I think this album will have at least one or two songs everyone can find extremely enjoyable.

Cheers!

I love Sunshine Hit Me, such a great diverse album. Not sure I ever checked out Octopus much so will have to do that.

 

[Nee Lewman]

Ooh I like this. Thanks @Dark Star Boogie !! More later.

 

[Alexander]

Disclaimer: I feel weird selecting an album for this thread since I’ve been sort of inactive in here (although I do check out most of the albums), so sorry to all for seemingly ignoring this thread. I appreciate all of your recommendations.

This week’s listening selection will be—

The Bees - Octopus

Released on March 26, 2007 this album, or this band for that matter, isn’t really known by a lot of musical folks I’ve encountered in my daily life. I’ve met one person who’s known them. So hopefully this will be new and fresh for a majority of you.

Genre wise I’d classify it as psychedelic rock with that 60’s/70’s tint to it although they draw from other genres for inspiration—reggae, electronic, etc.

They’re from the UK and honestly I don’t know much about them other than that they are multi-instrumentalists. Not even sure they are a band anymore.

They have three other albums, and I would have choose Sunshine Hit Me, their first album, if it were on Spotify although I think Octopus is their best album.

Free The Bees, their second album, is much more straight forward rock, while their last album, Every Step’s A Yes, is more acoustic in tone.

Anywho, enjoy! I think this album will have at least one or two songs everyone can find extremely enjoyable.

Cheers!

 

[Matt M]

Disclaimer: I feel weird selecting an album for this thread since I’ve been sort of inactive in here (although I do check out most of the albums), so sorry to all for seemingly ignoring this thread. I appreciate all of your recommendations.

This week’s listening selection will be—

The Bees - Octopus

Released on March 26, 2007 this album, or this band for that matter, isn’t really known by a lot of musical folks I’ve encountered in my daily life. I’ve met one person who’s known them. So hopefully this will be new and fresh for a majority of you.

Genre wise I’d classify it as psychedelic rock with that 60’s/70’s tint to it although they draw from other genres for inspiration—reggae, electronic, etc.

They’re from the UK and honestly I don’t know much about them other than that they are multi-instrumentalists. Not even sure they are a band anymore.

They have three other albums, and I would have choose Sunshine Hit Me, their first album, if it were on Spotify although I think Octopus is their best album.

Free The Bees, their second album, is much more straight forward rock, while their last album, Every Step’s A Yes, is more acoustic in tone.

Anywho, enjoy! I think this album will have at least one or two songs everyone can find extremely enjoyable.

Cheers!

I love the Bees. Wash In The Rain may be the best song of all time.

 

[Thackeraye]

The Bees are great. Highly recommend checking out 77:78, the new band from a couple of the band.