I know very little about Andrew Bird. I actually thought he was a jazz musician, confusing him with, um, another Andrew. (Andrew Hill, apparently, which seems ridiculous.) Anyway, eventually I did figure out he was an “indie rock” musician but knew nothing else. Nothing about his principal instrument, nothing about the Squirrel Nut Zippers, nothing.
Tag: Chamber Rock
Tindersticks [II] (1995)
I’m not sure exactly what it is, but Tindersticks hit me in a place where I am just incapable of disliking them. It’s like Staples et al. just stumbled upon the formula for music I like, and for convincing me that it’s totally okay to release three double LPs to start your career. (If another …
He Has Left Us Alone but Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corner of Our Rooms… (2000) by A Silver Mt. Zion
Less ambitious and grand Godspeed You! Black Emperor, with a slowcore song stuffed in the middle of it, basically.
Tindersticks (1993)
Throughout the history of pop rock I think it’s safe to say that debut albums have usually been not as good as albums by experienced bands. Don’t mistake the hype – there are certainly numerous debut albums which have been over-hyped over the years but, I think, on balance, most bands and artists do not …
This Is Hardcore (1998) by Pulp
I think one of the things that distinguishes Pulp from their supposed contemporaries in Britpop is simply their experience – they’ve been making music so much longer than most of the other bands they’re lumped in with, they just know how to do things better. At least, that’s my theory as to why I like …
Black Inscription (2018) by Rabbit Rabbit
One of the things I love about this band is that I never know what their next record is going to sound like. They normally release one track a month but I always wait until the full album comes out, making the whole thing more of a surprise.
Rabbit Rabbit Radio, Vol. 3 – Year of the Wooden Horse (2015) by Rabbit Rabbit
The third edition of Rabbit Rabbit Radio is different in conception than the first two. This time out, Kihlstedt and Bossi asked twelve guitarists to submit riffs to them, and then they’d build the songs. The results are significantly different than the first two outings. If Volume 2 was “Rabbit Rabbit Goes Pop” then this …
Scratch My Back (2010) by Peter Gabriel
When I was young, I had a problem with interpretive music; for my idealistic self it suggested a lack of creativity, a lack of artistic will, or something like that. (I definitely had a bit of an obsession with the idea of The Artist as a True Individual or some shit.) Over the years my …