Kevin Shields Passes Away at 52

[Iommic Pope]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0DTBOQOdf4[/youtube]

I mean don't let me take your genre-police badge off but they were definitely lumped into that group by the music press, and I think shoegaze is a genre that's definitely beholden to that distinction -- like stoner rock, the bands all sound different but it's a convenient umbrella to stick a bunch of late 80's/early 90's English guitar bands under.

Sir, make sure you get paid in full for that.
I'm with Space.
Those dudes aren't really a piece of that puzzle, broadly speaking.
Same shit happened with Seattle in the early 90s.
Music Industry: "Fuck! The kids are loving this pop punk band, what's their name?! With the blonde skinny guy!? Whatever! Find me 100 more of them!"
Alice in Chains: "But we play sludgy cock rock, so...."
Pearl Jam: "We just play cock rock."
Soundgarden: "We answer the question the 70s never answered: what would sabbath sound like if Plant had sung for them?" (Hold your bottles and burning garbage. I know.)
Music Industry: "NO FUCKS GIVEN, PRETTY BOYS! GET IN THE VAN!"
The Melvins, Mudhoney and TAD: "We started this shit, anyone wanna sign us?....No?.....Anyone?"
VAN DRIVES OFF TO CHICAGO - GUNS AND ROSES AND SKID ROW STICKERS PEELING OFF

The world is not a fair place.

[D.o.S.]

The Melvins were on Atlantic for three records. Three great records.

Grunge, like shoegaze, are non-musical terms that cover geography and era. All those aforementioned bands are 'grunge' bands, despite/exactly because they don't sound particularly similar (i.e. 'dude band with guitar, has flannel will travel'). That's sort of my point. Swervedriver were called a shoegaze band, thus making them a shoegaze band, and if people are bitching about how they don't like shoegaze it's 'cause they're probably not listening to Swervedriver (i.e. fucking up) because, yeah, no one likes Catherine Wheel.

[Iommic Pope]

Pretty sure we were making the same point.
Wait, are you taking the oppositional? Or just reiterating?

I know those bands did eventually receive major label attention (let's not escape the fact check), but yeah I think it was certainly after the point and from what Buzzo says (fairly certain Mark Arm has said it too), they weren't exactly paid as much or "pushed" as hard.

But whatever, because we agree.

[D.o.S.]

I think we're making the same point and coming to the opposite conclusions.

[Iommic Pope]

We're still talking about PR heads marketing bands under vague banners and the listener making an assumption instead of actually listening, right?

[psychic vampire.]

Wasn't there also a weird class-ish element to the shoegaze/britpop dichotomy? I was a child at the time, so i am going off of what i read.

[D.o.S.]

We're still talking about PR heads marketing bands under vague banners and the listener making an assumption instead of actually listening, right?

Ah no it's music journalists. the PR heads come after the fact.

Wasn't there also a weird class-ish element to the shoegaze/britpop dichotomy? I was a child at the time, so i am going off of what i read.

You can read that shit into anything that involves the UK.

[popvulture]

Wasn't there also a weird class-ish element to the shoegaze/britpop dichotomy? I was a child at the time, so i am going off of what i read.

Yes, as DoS just said, there's a weird class-ish element to all of the UK.

I remember being obsessed with Britpop when I was in high school and really loving pretty much anything I could get my hands on (and just like the aforementioned grunge/shoegaze comments, all of the bands felt pretty different, just lumped into one blob). I ended up really excitedly chatting with a British exchange student my freshman year of college. I asked him if he liked Ocean Color Scene—he said yeah. Asked about Pulp—"nah, they're a bunch of upper class cunts."

I never really got that picking between Blur and Oasis was more of a life decision, maybe even something predestined, but it really was.

Anyway, to circle back, I also find it a little weird that Swervedriver and Medicine were collected into something that felt so distinctly British, but it really was probably the most logical pile to sweep them into at the time.

Also, that Beautiful Noise doc is p good.

[psychic vampire.]

Good answers, also Medicine fucking rules.

[popvulture]

Medicine fucking rules.

Hell yeah they do!

[casecandy]

Same thing happened with emo in the mid-'90s. A lot of emo bands were signed as ostensible "alternative" acts and dropped towards the end of the decade when pop became the lucrative thing again. Jimmy Eat World would be the ones who made it work. Jawbreaker, despite recording their best album for Geffen, would be the ones who did not really make it work. But Jimmy Eat World's quality has been on a downward spiral since, so. "Making it work" is relative.

[D.o.S.]

case candy racism altert: says JEW's quality declined after mainstream exposure.

[Inconuucl]

Medicine fucking rules.

Hell yeah they do!

[Inconuucl]

Medicine fucking rules.

Hell yeah they do!

[popvulture]

case candy racism altert: says JEW's quality declined after mainstream exposure.

LOL