Wednesday, June 07, 2006

The Shoegaziest

Somewhat (well, completely) inspired by the Mars Needs Guitars group post here about shoegazer music, we thought we'd throw up a couple of our favorites for the kids to gnaw on. What with the latest releases from current indie luminaries Asobi Seksu and Dirty On Purpose (well, the DOP record is officially out at the end of the month) among others, it does seem like there is a resurgence of the form, and we want to do our duty to ensure the youth of today know what the old school set did back in the late '80 and early '90s.

First up is "Today" from Ride's Today Forever EP, the existence of which completely escaped us until a couple years back. The short-player was released in between the acclaimed Oxford, England quartet's two landmark sets, Nowhere and Going Blank Again. If you surf over to YouTube you can find a video for "Today," but it is filled with some bad emoting, so we won't link to it ourselves. But here is the song, and it's perfect for the endless rainy weeks we're having.

Ride -- "Today" -- Today Forever [buy it!]

Second: We were please to see MP3hugger's contribution to the MNG post, a very fine Drop Nineteens cut from the landmark record Delaware. Our love for Drop Nineteens is pretty well-documented, so we'll hold off on any gushing. But suffice it to say that hearing the band's "Kick The Tragedy" on the local college radio while still in high school led to a lot of other great things, including pretty much our entire college radio career. As such, we prefer the tune below to MP3hugger's choice, while recognizing there isn't really a wrong choice to be made when it comes to choosing tunes off Delaware.

Drop Nineteens -- "Kick The Tragedy" -- Delaware [buy it!]

2 Comments:

  • At 6:19 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Hi, I was reading that shoegaze article (a pretty good article for that matter) on MNG and somehow found my way over here. Although I doubt anyone in DoP would admit to being "luminaries", and some might even debate whether or not we're "shoegaze", I must admit that I enjoy being mentioned in the same breath as such greats as Ride and the Drop Nineteens. Thanks so much for the kind words.

    P.S. - Speaking of old school, our album title was derived from a lyric in the (1996) Rollerskate Skinny album Horsedrawn Wishes.

    All the best.

     
  • At 1:46 PM, Blogger Unknown said…

    My pleasure. And your comment, the shoegaze part, not the luminaries part, sort of points to an interesting area of inquiry: whether a band is more what it perceives itself to be or more what it is perceived to be by the public. That is put sort of clumsily, but maybe you know what I mean. But you know how The Edge always says U2 is just "a really loud Folk band"? Does he think anybody believes that? I am not married to tagging your band shoegaze, but it is kind of interesting to think about the effects of that "naming." Not to get all liberal arts on everybody.

     

Post a Comment

<< Home