no one knows what they're fighting for

Let me whisper in your ear

Bob Dylan on the Beatles in his Chronicles

The radio was on from beyond a wall and the sound was coming through in static. The Beatles were singing, “Do You Want to Know a Secret.” They were so easy to accept, so solid. I remembered when they first came out. They offered intimacy and companionship like no other group. Their songs would create an empire. It seemed like a long time ago. “Do You Want to Know a Secret.” A perfect ’50s sappy love ballad and nobody but them could do it. Somehow there was nothing wussy about it.

(Dylan, Bob. Chronicles: Volume One. Simon & Schuster, 2004. p. 204.)

Butthole Surfers - Perfect Pencil

In fact, the absurdist, scatological part was a major aspect of the band’s aesthetic, especially (Gibby) Haynes’s, as a 1986 interview in Brave Ear fanzine so clearly revealed:

Gibby: Remember the perfect pencil?
Paul: One time he took a shit in the ladies room and he wanted someone to go look at it. He tells me someone drew a pencil in the toilet and I had to check it out.
Gibby: I told him it had to be seen to be believed. A perfectly drawn pencil in the toilet. I mean, how do you get someone to look in the toilet? You got to tell them there is a drawing of a perfect pencil on the bottom.

… Brown Reason to Live EP was released on Alternative Tentacles. The note listed no musicians, and all the band’s bio contained were enigmatic jokes like “As their sound developed, so did their ability to judge between right and wrong.”

(Azerrad, Michael. Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991. Little Brown and Company, 2001. p. 279.)

Sonic Youth - Major Label Indies

Within four years of existence, Sonic Youth emerged as an indie archetype, perhaps the indie archetype, the yardstick by which independence and hipness (the equation is in no small part due to them) were measured. They made records that were not only artistically respected but popular; they helpfully provided at least the illusion that rock still had some fresh tricks up it sleeve. Sonic Youth was more an inspiration than an influence, which may be why, despite their renown, so few of the bands who have cited them as mentors and heroes have directly copied their sound. And despite their statues as indie royalty, the band’s stature was actually enhanced, not diminished, by signing to a major label. Famously, the band retained their artistic control, but in retrospect, that wasn’t much of an issue since there was no pressure on them to sell records anyway. The real coup was the unspoken understanding that they were so cool that their chief function was as a magnet band, an act that would serve mostly to attract other, more successful bands. This move paid off beyond anyone’s wildest dreams when Sonic Youth brought a hot young band called Nirvana to Geffen/DGC Records.

(Azerrad, Michael. Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991. Little Brown and Company, 2001. p. 233.)

Let It Be

While there are strong elements of metal, hardcore, and arena rock, it’s tempered and given some sort of classic resonance by undeniable strains of honky-tonk country and Chicago blues. The arrangements are sophisticated, a quantum leap past anything they’d ever done before - the songs have several distinct sections and dramatic synamic shifts, and instruments like piano, lap steel, twelve-string guitar, and mandolin are all over the record. They considered titles like “Get a Soft On” and “Kind of Sewer” before settling on Let It Be. Copping the Beatles album title was the height of cheekiness, but it was also a poke at Beatles freak Jesperson (their manager). That mixture of self-deprecation and bravado - tacitly acknowledging they’d never be like the Fab Four and yet daring to cop their album title - was pure Replacements.

(Azerrad, Michael. Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991. Little Brown and Company, 2001. p. 222.)

We are the Custard Pie Appreciation Consortium

Ray Davies: The Village Green is where I set my imaginary world, almost existed long before I came along. (Looking to a duck) Wondering what that duck is thinking about. And the album itself, in this series of dreamscapes of imaginary England. I say England, people all over the world have their own version of the Village Green. It is to do with innocence, lost youth and I guess permanence, about life all continue to go on regardless. Fashions come and go, politicians come and go, thank goodness, the village green is something that’s beyond things in the world… We were considered to be very unhip when Village Green came out and very unrock’n’roll at the time. It still is really, it is about ideas, better thing to do, to provoke thought and ideas. When you buy these old anthologies of songs, they have an indication of how folk songs should be played. And there is one, I’ll always remember, quote “to be played intimately is if among friends.” And that is the best way of describing Village Green, something only your friends will understand. And the success of the record proved how few friends I have.

from BBC 1 Imagine: Ray Davies - Imaginary Man

Fifteen Good Songs of 2010

In no particular order.

The Drugs Don’t Work

… in the meantime, the band also released their second single from Urban Hymns. Ashcroft listened to the Top 40 at home on a tiny transistor radio as the Drugs Don’t Work became their first number 1. After all the years of hard work, it was vindication of the Verve’s vision and ongoing enthusiasm.

Richard Ashcroft: … Yeah the first number 1, obviously that was outrageous. Obviously there is many arguments about what the charts mean. The charts are anything to me per se, but if you’re gonna write piece of music that affects people like that and, I know, like I said before there is truth in that music. Then, to me it is like Marley being in number 1 or it’s like the Dylan record being in number 1, it is good for music I think.

from BBC 6 Documentary: Essential Albums of the 90s, The Verve - Urban Hymns