Tunes

Yep, pointing the attention elsewhere, it leads to gems like this:

The complex, heavy guitar melody at the end is a beauty (and far too short!) and also echoes out through the amp through the walls at home these days :)

& John Peel, did not know that! For guitar heroics his sessions with Johnny Marr and the Smiths are pretty powerful. Nice to have them kicking around on vinyl.

Nirvana were very good at helping a lot of other bands get exposure, did quite a few covers for B-sides and then the unplugged thing covering Meat Puppets, even just name checking bands or wearing bands T-shirts like seBADoh.

IMHO this is probably one of the most underrated Nirvana songs a B-side Sappy.

Nah, didn't really like Nevermind, even in hindsight. At the time, I thought there were better bands in Sydney, and all around Australia for that matter and I found the mainstream pile on all a bit repulsive. People who were listening to Mike and the Mechanics six months earlier wearing the fashion? Only an angst-ridden twenty-year old could get as angry as I did at that particular transgression. I 'saw' them at Selinas early-90s (cant recall exact year) and left to drink beer after the Cosmic Psychos finished their set. Didn't see a minute of Nirvana - just wasn't interested.

Sometimes with distance I come to enjoy bands/albums that were under the spotlight, but not that one. Didn't mind Bleach, but really it was just another release at the time. Not a scratch on Superfuzz Bigmuff for instance.

"Oh god, how I love to hate!"

Yeah....

And speaking of Peel, I've got a Mudhoney 7" produced by him that deserves better than to sit in a damp shed.

Another 1990 reminiscence. I land in the UK for the first time, tune into Peel live, and he plays The Hellmenn!

I had packed a Hellmenn t-shirt in my travel wardrobe.

Years later, when I drunkenly accosted him in a field at Glastonbury, I conveyed this story to him, but I dunno if I successfully got across the gushing gist in my inebriated morning state. A true geezer. He died prematurely the following year.

And I can only concur with that Mudhoney- Nirvana estimation, Stunet.

Saw Mudhoney at Manning Bar, Sydney Uni, way before the Seattle thing blew wide open. Lunch time gig. Blue sky and sunshine outside.

Mark Arm gets heckled by Oz frat boys and replies in his Pacific North-west drawl: "Go out and get a fucking suntan."

Fucken latecomers.

I was a fan of Mike and his mechanics when they were all apprentices doing lube jobs down at Beaurepaires.

Now you all want them to sign your tits. Makes me sick.

Harrumph.

On the turps again Blowie.

Negative.

Take me back....

@Stunet

Oh man i would have killed to be at that gig.

Looks like a killer set list and even a shitty recording you can feel the energy.

Hey Facty I also stepped off a plane in London in late 1990, as a young teenager though. I was amazed at the change in clothes - all the big jeans! So different to Oz. But the music was just exploding, the Madchester scene was coming on, so you had the Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, Inspiral Carpets, Charlatans; then there was the whole techno scene and all the folks raving as well - all a bit before Oasis. Dad let me have complete freedom to explore the city, and I just went everywhere myself which is pretty mental to consider as a young kid. Loose times. Getting into pubs was a great achievement...

So on one side you had the undercurrent 80's US punk firing up, and on the other you had all the Manchester stuff following in the wake of the Smiths. Then the electronic stuff as well that had endured throughout the 80s. And that's all before getting back to Oz with its scene (which I was and looked way to young for haha)

looks like a bit of a change of the generational guard.
the grunge thing passed me by.
i threw myself into punk in the late 70s...it turned sour pretty quickly and by the mid/late 80s i never wanted to hear a guitar ever again.
i made an exception for the hard-ons and the space juniors. they had a sense of humour and were into fun.

Humour is oft overlooked in music. Or rather a sense of the ridiculousness of it all - life, music, the whole ball of wax.

Looking at the stuff I like and have liked, humour is a main current and vital ingredient.

Then again, I thought Big Black say, was champagne comedy.

Totally,

Doug Anthony Allstars, TISM, Flight of the Conchords, Axis of Awesome...

Peas and carrots. Who doesn't like to laugh (and sing)?

good point zen.
...i was surrounded by bands taking the piss and having fun -- tism, shower scene from pycho, psychotic turnbuckles. guess i was too young and stupid to have fun.

Speaking of the changing of the generational guard, is anyone aware of any yoof music these days which engages with lightheartedness, satire or humour?

A reflection of growing concerns or just a phase?

Seems to be largely overly earnest, over-produced pap but I'm happy to be corrected.

There always is. You just have to get off the well-beaten tracks...

Though I don't think the kids can compete with my all-time fave (if I was forced to pick one):

All hail Wisconsin's finest, the mighty KILLDOZER

Funny yet at the same time somehow disturbing :)

I think I'm just having a stab at JJJ and the apparent stranglehold they have on music for the young - every day I turn it on hoping for something different and interesting but each day I turn it off quickly.

Yeah it's gotta be out there but I'm too old to be bothered to look too hard, there's enough great music that's already out there to explore.

I'm currently having a relationship of sorts with this fella - Fela Kuti.
Band leader, multi-instrumentalist, human rights activist and all-round cool cat.

Kicks in somewhere around 3.45.

Velocity Johnno, you forgot another 1990 and thereabouts UK phenomenon that really came to the above-ground light ...the end-game of the 'harder, faster' punk/metal deal.

Grindcore! Napalm Death, Carcass, Terrorizer, and other Earache's.

I saw Extreme Noise Terror in a tiny crusty pub, and was almost literally blown away.

Two years later they were on stage at the Brit awards with KLF!

More 1990-ish jumping up and down swearing while you shake your fringe.

You can laugh now...

Grebo was funny back then.

Not 'ha, ha!'

Actually, not even 'funny, peculiar'. The difference a year or two makes...

I did like the band-name 'Gaye Bykers on Acid' though. The music, not so much.

How's this little toe-tapper. Name aint bad either.

Hahaha Zen, catchy chorus and fascinating lyrics........

Yeah, I know Westie, been humming it all arvo.

"How's this little toe-tapper. Name aint bad either."

Haha! Extreme death metal crossed with a Cat 5 cyclone that turns all the local dogs rabid......

For all their fuck society posturing is their anything more nattily conformist than death metal musicians? All black clothes, pensive looks, and scary album titles. Every damn one of them!

If you really wanted to fuck that system you'd wear a pink shirt and call your band Fluffy Dog.

I liked grunge cause it was unlike anything I’d ever heard.

Smells like teen spirit changed my life. Seriously.

Correction- It wasn’t unlike anything I’d ever heard. It was basically a continuation of the same vein that the likes of Guns and Roses had milked. The same vein as everything before it that had decided that they’d stand on the shoulders of giants and call themselves tall whilst telling the previous generations to shove the fuck over cause the game had been reborn.

It wasn’t about rebellion it was about announcing your arrival.

If it was about rebellion then we wouldn’t be nostalgic for the sweet lives we led back then.

But.....you don’t really need to analyse it beyond the primality of the rhythm and the intonations of the lyrics to feel the timeless resonance.

You don’t need to be a chimp to read their facial expressions and you don’t need to be a product of the 90’s to understand the urges behind grunge or any other period music.

stunet's pick *Neds were a proper decent live band...tbb saw them in Bne Feb 1992 LP 'God Fodder' was cool + great lyrics (single: *'Kill your Television' rocks out)

*Plasmatics were pioneers of incoherent noise.
tbb wil tee up a recording of an early uncoordinated chaos track.
Cover of 'Dream Lover' [1:40 - 4:00] Isolates each musician for the instrumental.
Soundz less chaotic & more coordinated than usual Plasmatics?

Well if we are going to talk grunge let’s start here

http://thrasherswheat.org/gog.htm

https://m.

https://m.

Stu you will recall that wetsuit colours (black) and board design went extremely conformist in the early 90's as well. Fluoro had got too outrageous, as it now has once more...

One of the gems. Funnier still was working with a guy named Greg when this one came out.

Pearl Jam with Neil Young is like double dating with your parents.

It’s the announcement that the white hot lust is dead . If it wasn’t you’d be home fucking like rabbits without even the peripheral vision to acknowledge your surroundings.

Arrival recognised. Mutual respect achieved.= The death knell of any generational movement.

And it’s all anyone ever wanted. Equal terms.

Sowin' all your wild oats
In another's luxuries
Yesterday was Tuesday
Maybe Thursday you can sleep
But school starts much too early
And this hotel wasn't free
So party till your connection call
Honey I'll return the key

It’s all one song Blowin ....

Hmmm, death metal conformist? Wow!

NSS!

Apolitical Fangoria lyrics sung in Linda Blair Exorcist tones over sped-up, double kicked Sabbath.

Oh, and emanating from deep, dark Florida!

As for Nirvana & 'grunge', I think the 'standing on the shoulders' stuff, and the imposter-ish feels associated with that knowingness, and the weird overblown fame of course (In [full] Bloom!), really did poor young Kurt's head in...so to speak.

Add drugs, a predisposition to depression, and his missus, and well, hide the weaponry!

Actually, thinking about it...Nirvana lacked a certain amount of humour?

The thing with Nirvana is that the self deprecating style was the result of a humility that all the self awareness in the world couldn’t replicate amongst those who took themselves too seriously despite the ironic levity.

ie they weren’t wankers.

Grohl taking a backseat and still turning heads.

oh man I saw them at Fishos wharf on the Spit not long after Nevermind came out.
Had such a fine girlfriend at the time, a bikini model, and we were all on microdots.

so, so good.

Hahahaha. Where's the CCTV footage?

Jeez, Blowie, too much triple-lettered FM radio. Or bad surf-vid soundtrack. Or both.

"The thing with Nirvana is that the self deprecating style was the result of a humility that all the self awareness in the world couldn’t replicate amongst those who took themselves too seriously despite the ironic levity."

??

"ie they weren’t wankers."

KKKKKKKKKKKK (it's Brazilian)

Well, THEY weren't...

That twisted sentence, but...

My missus during my later Nirvana years. She bought me Unplugged on MTV. Kurt died. I left for less domestic pastures. Great girl ....I hope she’s happy wherever she is.

Ha ha! Me too Free, same gig.

I think we may have been on the dots too. Or computer graphics. Either way, what a day.

Front view, Blowie?

I wanna rock! Yew!

That’s her !!!!!

Better than 'Nevermind'.

The song that starts at 6:00 is better than '...Teen Spirit'

And the album artwork tops it too.

"Long live Massey Ferguson."

There's a story, perhaps apocryphal, about The Hummingbirds driving between Sydney and Melbourne on tour when they heard 'Teen Spirit' on the radio and knew that their days were numbered. Jangly buzz pop was over and crunching riffs were gonna come back in.

Was good while it lasted.

andy....i'm with you, fela kuti is the MAN. what a band.

The guns pointed the wrong way for real fame.