Urge Overkill: Classic or Dud

these guys never delivered on the hooks/melodies front like I wanted them too

xp dang, you got standards. saturation is about as hook & tune heavy as a power pop album could hope to be. easily holds its own w/ nevermind, phaseshifter and bandwagonesque (comparison to immediate peers).

mary tyler moore theme

didn't really give the new album much of a try, felt like they were getting back to the pre-supersonic sound, which is eh (ok shakey, if you're talking about the first two albums rather than the three - two on a major - that followed, yes they were low on hooks)

part of why i've never been able to get into BOC is how relatively glib they sound, aside from the occasional Buck Dharma love ballad or hard rock hit

"man uo just never brought the hooks on their unpopular obscure debut album"

so obscure teenage me in the middle of nowhere suburbia got a copy

"i grew up in a cool suburb"

also isn't that their third album...?

my suburb sucked lol

mine too!

iirc I got it cuz it was written up in Spin and Daniel Clowes did some of the sleeve art

and there was other stuff on Touch and Go that I liked a lot

you're talking about supersonic storybook then, not jesus urge superstar

"nash was the walrus"
"shut up, shakey"

and I saw them play (I think after Saturation came out?) - Luscious Jackson opened and UO had a big black guy in a cowboy hat playing bass for some reason and they were terrible

I saw them open for The Breeders in London and I bought a UO medallion from the mercy stand which I have since lost =(

I had Jesus Urge Superstar back in the day and the only song with a hook I could remember was the one they didn't write

it's all originals? but yeah, it's not much of a pop album. hooks are definitely there, but they're primitive, subverted, buried in noise and murk. i like the combination of ridiculous ambition and complete ineptitude, the way these magnificent ROCK OPUSES occasionally become visible through the fucked-up production and arrangement. but i've spent a LOT of time listening to it, so...

haha mercH stand

xp

but yeah Supersonic Storybook was the one I had. sorry for the confusion.

xp

(was referring to the song "Emmaline" as being the only memorable one btw)

The shadows make no sense on that Saturation cover

supersonic storybook is rad

http://tyrannyoftradition.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/deathtongue2.jpg

haha mercH stand

i thought "mercy stand" was intentional and brilliant

The shadows make no sense on that Saturation cover

it's nighttime! all the lights are on! also the sun is out.

I wish

xp

also the sun has a sticker of a sun on it http://www.emotty.com/images/emoticons/907.png

theres a brighter sun out of frame

if the UO is supposed to be the sun there's even more things wrong with those shadows

yeah "Positive Bleeding" is hook after hook after hooker, such a jam

I always thought it was the moon

"ridiculous ambition and complete ineptitude" describes my favorite indie rock over the years (e.g. JAMC)

part of why i've never been able to get into BOC is how relatively glib they sound, aside from the occasional Buck Dharma love ballad or hard rock hit

― da croupier, Tuesday, July 17, 2012 10:24 AM (13 minutes ago)

the glibness never bothered me, but then i love stuff like sparks and devo, too. also, i find BOC's commitment to geeky cult/fantasy/sci-fi stuff entirely convincing, if no less tongue in cheek than anything else they do. i think there's a sense in which music can "mean it" while being completely cartoonish and silly at the same time. "ballroom blitz", for instance. the whole thing's a punchline, but i never doubt the band's commitment to their material (or "the concept" or w/e). same goes for the best BOC and urge overkill. it doesn't matter to me that "positive bleeding" might be a goof or pastiche, because the sound and feel of it win me over so entirely.

dug out saturation a few weeks back, and found that inside the cd sleeve is an unused UO logo sticker, which i had forgotten all about.

may have to finally use it now ..

even on exit the dragon, where clearly little fun is being had, they're just trapped in this self-aware wanna-be superstar crying over cliches mode.

i think that's why i love it.

i was slagging exit the dragon pretty hard a couple weeks back, but [full disclosure] it'd been a while since i last listened to it. really shouldn't do that, as my recall is at least as hazy as my opinions are changeable.

anyway, as part of my recent nostalgia lap around the totems of wasted youth, i spent a good portion of the day listening to urge overkill and realized that it's not so complete a failure as i suggested. it's not a great album, but it's got two brilliant songs ("need some air" is every bit as good as "the mistake") and a few good ones to wash them down (notably "the break" and "somebody else's body").

the problem is that about half of its songs are underwritten, lifelessly performed and pointedly dismal. the chorus of "this is no place" practically dares you to nod and hit skip: "this is no place, this is no place that i want to be / this is nowhere, this is nowhere to be." "take me" seems always to be building towards a climactic harmony that it never finds. "monopoly" is a great idea poorly delivered. it should have been this album's "emmaline", but it just winds up a unfinished sketch.

gonna take a stab at rock & roll submarine tomorrow...

I have to think looking back in hindsight that outside the obvious (the drugs) one reason they never really got over is that they really were not quite as good live as they were on record. They really were never a complete 4 piece band, which their sound really needed to be (even though later Nash moved to guitar and they had a bassist live). I saw them once earlier as a trio and they were fun, but kind of sparse compared to the 90s Cheap Trick sound they nailed on Saturation.

I saw them twice and dug 'em ok (although the time as a trio was much more stripped down), but really the records worked in some ways better than they actually were as a live playing group.

the chorus of "this is no place" practically dares you to nod and hit skip

but that's why i love it! its so wasted and miserable...

I saw Urge Overkill live several times during the Saturation/Exit The Dragon era and they were always good.

I think one reason why they've struggled is that Saturation was an anomally for them. Nash Kato was really on a hot streak with songs like "Sister Havana" and "Positive Bleeding" and became the focal point for the band. On pretty much all of their other albums, his tunes are much goofier and take a backseat to King Roeser's more gruff and downcast songs. I'm ok with this because I really love songs like "Jaywalkin'", "The Break", "This Is No Place", "Last Night/Tomorrow", but I can see why this doesn't appeal to a lot of the folks that were drawn in by the Saturation singles.

I've always felt like Nirvana's success was some sort of cosmic mistake, and it's no surprise that bands caught up in the wake would fail to thrive. UO was a band that by all logic should have remained just-under-the-radar, and rising above that level, even for a minute, really (nearly) killed them.

I kind of like the idea of Exit The Dragon vs. Full Blown Posession (Grifters). Solid indie bands, caught up in the moment, fail to thrive with final totally-decent album. (Ok, Rock & Roll Submarine fucks up the "final" bit, but this remains essentially true).

Also, the passing of both of those bands kind of marked the end of...how you say...guys doing guy rock and roll. Hello space-age bachelor music, etc...

I can see why this doesn't appeal to a lot of the folks that were drawn in by the Saturation singles.

― Moodles, Tuesday, August 7, 2012 7:12 AM (4 hours ago)

sure, but i was drawn in by jesus urge superstar. i'd been a fan for five or six years when exit the dragon came out. though i'd had to work hard to understand jesus urge superstar, and though americruiser was disappointingly slight, they at least gave me cause to stick with them. exit the dragon marked the first (and last) time i'd really disliked an urge overkill album. part of my distaste was undoubtedly the dashing of overinflated expectations, but it's still the weakest album they ever made, imo. it'll probably never be a favorite, though i'm inclined to be more forgiving of its faults these days.

Also, the passing of both of those bands kind of marked the end of...how you say...guys doing guy rock and roll. Hello space-age bachelor music, etc...

goodbye to guyville

just starting to explore rock & roll submarine. it's a lot better than effigy led me to believe (not that it's a bad song, necessarily, but it didn't impress me on the first pass).

I have a nice buzz and Saturation is hitting the spot. What a fun rock record.

Saturation is so so excellent. Come on, "Bottle of Fur."
Nash Kato's solo album is also really good.

For whatever reason, I'd never actually googled "Artane." I also never paid close attention to the lyrics of "What is Artane..." I think I carried over the goofball cover art and some of the goofball songs on Supersonic Storybook, but that's a seriously dark song. Also maybe my favorite thing they did, though there are a lot of contenders. What's weird is that I'd read the NY Times article on (supposed) Artane abuse in Iraq, but somehow the connection didn't click. Anyway, still leaning towards Supersonic as their best, but I was wrong upthread about Exit.

I had heard a bit about the whole 'stalker' routine, but this kinda seems like something out of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia".

https://thechicagoambassador.wordpress.com/2014/12/21/20-years-later-urge-overkill-stalker-discusses-her-antics-still-wants-to-drive-the-band-crazy/

Man the new one is surprisingly fun, I love these goofballs.

I gotta check it out

Sad news:

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2023-06-14/blackie-onassis-urge-overkill-john-rowan-drummer-dies