Reviews by socksonfire

I have a friend who's a working musician. He's my age and seemingly has a never-ending number of projects, bands, side projects and side bands going at any given time. One of those is a Grateful Dead cover band. He's not a huge Deadhead or anything, but he spent months with Dead music going in endless loops in his earphones as he tried to learn how to play a whole bunch of their songs. The whole endeavour sounded like the seventh circle of hell to me.

That said, I've been to a handful of gigs and turned out i really enjoy them, this cover band. They always attract a bunch of legit Deadheads, now senior citizens, but still perfectly willing to hug each other and wear tie-die. The running joke amongst us attendees who are "friends of the band" is that we'd rather see this cover band live than see the Grateful Dead live.

I really was dreading this album. Like I mean REALLY dreading it. But turns out I was dreading too much. It was fun vibe. One of the better live albums we've been assigned so far.

After a brief sick spell and some travel I found myself a week behind on consuming generated albums and thought I'd blitz a few during work today starting with this one. Ween did this dreamy pop stuff better two decades earlier, and if I was the Deerhunter drummer on this album I'd throw myself in the river.
But I didn't mind it.

I saw The Killers live once and had a good time. The ultimate posers I suppose. Most of this album missed but I was down with a couple tracks.

The gnarly bass lines saved this one from two star mediocrity, elevating it to glorious three star mediocrity.

I’ve been on a little Rush kick the past couple weeks, and what delightful kick it has been. So to cap it with this drop was a literal rush. I can’t think of many bands as technically locked-in as Rush, and all three musicians are next level. When they use it to do something this creative it’s hard to miss.

One of their masterpiece albums, the loping bass, the creative guitar riffs, and the absolutely insane drumlines. All-timer.

Dave Grohl seems a good sort. Nice enough, like a big ol' puppy dog. I have absolutely no hatred of Foo Fighters and wish them the best. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with basic, earnest, slightly bland music percolating away in the deep, deep background as I otherwise live my life.

For me The Band has been deeply connected to my dad ever since he let me stay up late and watch The Last Waltz beside him when I was about 10 yrs old. He didn't like much rock or pop music- more of a jazz/classical guy- but he was fond of The Band. I love that little slice of childhood memory, and I've appreciated this album over the years through that lens of dad-sentiment.

Now that I'm older spinning Big Pink, I gotta say, these songs have aged like the finest wine. Standing stronger in their own right, this album was filling up my heart today, as I ruminated on the cycle of my life so far. Might be a good time to let my kids sit up late and watch The Last Waltz with me. I’ll probably fast-forward the Clapton part.

1969? I can not get over how early this came out. Starting with that Ramblin' Rose falsetto is outstanding. No notes. Live albums are odd ducks. the idea of "capturing the energy of a live gig" is appealing, but that type of energy can never really be captured without a bunch of sweaty humans jostling each other. This music is incredible though.

Nothing screams “movie made by a white boomer” like Gimme Shelter. This album covers a lot of ground in a short amount of time. Mick Jagger is not a favourite singer, but these songs still sound pretty damn good

Albums like this are hard to talk about. It’s basically a one-of-one; something no one would ever be daft enough to even want to try to replicate (with the possible exception of its own sequel 20-years later), regardless how much money it made. Woe to the hapless fool who tries to karaoke one of these songs. It’s impossible to have a bat in the house without a healthy dollop of batshit all over the furniture. Undeniable that it quite remarkably executed... but underneath it all, is this album actually any good?

Trying to clear my mind of a lifetime of baggage, I had to conclude that yeah, it’s actually kind of good.

We here at dick.hole.fire love the "big-swing-flop-only-to-be-reassessed-a-masterpiece-after-the band-is-no-more" storyline. Sometimes its sad, like when an artist pours out their entire soul onto vinyl and is driven mad after that soul is rejected by a glib and hurtful world. Sometimes it's joyful, like this one, where the band seems to truly not give a fuck about the reception, they just want to do whatever they want in life simply because doin' whatever you want is awesome.
I think this album will take some time and digestion to fully rate, but today it receives an early glimpse of the sunshine of my favour.

The actual klaxons were a highlight. This album sits very much in bucket with Muse. I get the appeal and also get why someone might despise it. My reaction is general boredom, lightly seasoned with a couple high points and vague desire to try and like it more.

Wildly variable range of quality on this one. Averages to 2.5.

If Plato was making the idealized 70's rock band, this would be it. Even the plane crash that ended their ride has a bleak perfection within the archetype. That tragic event happened when i was 3, so the number of die-hard Lynyrd Skynyrd fans I've come across has been admittedly few. They shared one common trait thought: total degenerate dirtbags, the lot.

One little-discussed phenomenon that occasionally occurs during this process is that which occurs when one reads one's project partner's review before listening and rating an album. It is clearly obvious that I am enjoying TV on the Radio significantly more than my project partner so far. That said, his derision perhaps affected my listen of this album. i enjoyed it a lot, but that little seed sprouted. Am I enjoying it too much?
The faintness of the derision proved a more effective watering-can to my doubt than a downright hate-rating.

Don’t worry. Nebraska is still great.

Im not sure if this is racist or not. I was a fond Cat Stevens enjoyer, and when he chose to go by Yusuf I greeted the news with indifference. Then awhile later when I started seeing albums by Sufjan Stevens I immediately thought it was the exact same guy because the names were equally meaningless to me.

Oh weird, Cat Stevens is making albums about American cities? Oh weird, Cat Stevens’ dad was named Lowell? Oh weird, Carrie Lowell was an actor in Licence to Kill?

I was disabused of that false belief 5 days ago with my official introduction to this fine, but non-life-changing, album.

Still, in my defense, Sufjan Stevens isn’t completely NOT Cat Stevens.

My project partner recently prompted an unsolicited memory of KLF/Timelords that seemed wonderous to me at the time, and that became a seed for me to greatly favour this album. The fact that KLF has burned so many bridges that I couldn’t even find a Canadian streaming source outside of YouTube only adds to the legend.

All this circumstantial favour clashes with the fact that in 1991 there was no type of music I despised more than this type, and it still really bugs me. In the end it’s star-wise landing in the middle, but this is no “perfectly-fine” kind of three. This is a conflicted “I truly don’t know where to put it” kind of a 3.

Fishbone made it onto a lot of my mix tapes in around ‘90-‘94. Almost represented in some way shape or form on every mixtape I produced! Then they dropped to an approximately zero-recurrence since then. So listening to this album was very nice and sentimental. And these songs still bop hard.

I think Paul Simon is generally top tier, but not quite in full stride on this album.