Sun City Girls: classic or dud?

I actually really liked this review.

meh... tried too hard, made a few incorrect presumptions, fell short. if only he had a legit copy with the liner notes, he could have spared himself some errata.

Yeah, good effort though.

the crimson's review is good but i LOLed at this:

"Come Maddalena"—whose spaghetti western flare call to mind the more adventurous work of Ennio Morricone

haha ouch

and THAT, my friends, is why we have facebook.

lmao

underrated: the uncle jim 'solo' record from a few years back.

^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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the human race is just a self-sufficient rock quarry, guys.

http://shoot-the-hostage.blogspot.com/2009/09/ever-heard-of-cigarettes-smoke.html

would you like to watch a movie that's an hour and ten minutes, fellas? or a film that's an hour and fifteen minutes, guys!

wonderful album

cannot be overstated, suddenly (and of course maybe) my favorite SCG LP.

also, since i don't know where else to mention it, the new messenger girls trio LP, excelsior salon trio, makes a v nice companion piece. lovely drifty guitar work from sir RB, with improv tones and drones from sun city girls and local music therapist (?) david knott. likes.

wow, never heard of that one... thanks.

in other "I am a dumbass" news, I was listening to this record yesterday and realized that what I thought was "El Solo" is in fact "Holy Ground". Please substitute that in my comments above - i.e. it sounds like something off of the 3rd Alvarius B album, although I wouldn't go so far as Shasta's "sore thumb" comment.

"holy ground" nestles slyly between psychedelic quotation marks, and i can see how that might rankle, but damn i love it. especially where puffy "oooh-ooohs" swell over sternly intonated & foaming sex gibberish. a breath of life amidst, well, yeah. so sweet.

guess i oughtta cue up some alvarius B...

cannot be overstated, suddenly (and of course maybe) my favorite SCG LP.

can't really go there ... beautiful as it is, doesn't surpass 'Torch' to my ears

hell , even 'Djinn Funnel', which was a jaw-dropping, late-period masterpiece

('Djinn' being, not a "song" album, but an "improv" album -- but as far as their improvs go, it was astounding ... better than even 'Dawn of the Devi', which is high praise...)

can't really go there ... beautiful as it is, doesn't surpass 'Torch' to my ears

yeah, i know. i'm prone to unconsidered overstatement in the heat of the moment. but there's a beauty and emotional intensity to funeral mariachi that just kills me and which seems (at the moment) to have little equal in music of any sort. hits me deep like calling out of context, in a way that i can't explain or deny. like to make me weep, i mean.

Yeah this is a really SCG good record, but like the new Swans record I get the feeling a lot of the "it's their best praise" is just people being happy that there is a new record.

Djinn Funnel is fucking amazing, that's all I can say this early. Dawn Of The Devi is more... overwhelming or something.

haven't heard anyone say the new swans is their best ever, that's clearly some late-to-the-party mentalism

but I've been listening to scg since horse cock phepner came out and though I haven't heard everything they've ever done (has anyone?), funeral mariachi is def top 3 material

contenderizer otm in that sun city girls are always intellectually stimulating and musically challenging but the new one is both of those plus emotionally engaging, it's a triple threat that's hard to discount

^real talk

at the very least, if future newbies are looking for an entry point into scg's weird and wonderful world I'll be pointing them in funeral mariachi's general direction

I'd be happy to get this as my... third?... SCG album, but not because I haven't looked a good bit -- most everything they've put out is waaaaayy out of print and tough to find, frustratingly.

"haven't heard anyone say the new swans is their best ever"

Okay I've definitely heard best since CofG on ILX.

Sun City Girls are nothing if not extremely frustrating.
They are also completely rewarding. If you are patient, anyway.
One of a kind, just a monumental contribution, imo.

haha, that was me! but that doesn't mean their best ever, though I guess parsing that depends on your opinion of their post COG work...

xp

good review of Funeral Mariachi at Blogstitude (also, it is now out on CD)

http://blastitude.blogspot.com/2010/10/top-40-2-through-40-to-follow.html

you guys were not kidding around! mine came today. halfway through and i just miss charles gocher so damn much right now. this is great.

btw coley's review upthread is totally in keeping with the spirit of sun city girls and I don't see a damn thing wrong with it

"ya know, one of the things that really interests me about this (awesome) record is that in a lot of ways it's the final "fuck you" from a band that made a career out of fucking with their audiences. for years we've had to live with willfully inconsistent releases, whimsical and inconsistent reissues, cavalier treatment of the back catalogue, confrontational live shows, etc. etc. etc.

now, once it's all over, they put out this record - one of their most beautiful and cohesive - and it's like they just wanted to say "see, we could have done this all along, but we didn't want to."

― sleeve, den 6 oktober 2010 07:05 (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink"

this is very otm and awesome btw

you guys were not kidding around! mine came today. halfway through and i just miss charles gocher so damn much right now. this is great.

― sonderangerbot, Tuesday, October 26, 2010 10:09 AM (1 hour ago)

btw coley's review upthread is totally in keeping with the spirit of sun city girls and I don't see a damn thing wrong with it

― mr. mandelbrot flythrough vertigo, esq. (Edward III), Tuesday, October 26, 2010 10:22 AM (50 minutes ago)

these kinds of people OTM

I just realized that "Vine Street Piano" was also on the Mister Lonely ost a few years ago. I much prefer the FM version

classic

Just ended side one of a tape for a friend with This is my name and Vine St. Piano.

i was avoiding this release bc i am a total sun city girl new jack but i'm listening to it now, & some moments have been real

can't think of a better SCG record for beginners. seriously.

somehow missed that a second singles comp came out until a week or two ago. talky scg is the baddest;it even has an uncle jim appearance!

vine street piano is probably my favorite track on FM. so many great guitar sounds in one song.

"can't think of a better SCG record for beginners. seriously."

Torch is better. That's about it though.

Space Prophet Dogon is gateway, anyone who hears that song usually gets hypnotized.

"can't think of a better SCG record for beginners. seriously."

Torch is better. That's about it though.

I'd direct a beginner to FM before torch tbh

tho if they came back for more I'd send them to torch

If nothing else, you may be able to find Funeral Mariachi for sale at a reasonable price.

fm actually my second scg album, the first one i heard was "330003 crossdressers from beyond..." a cool record imo

I've really gotten into the SCGs over the last few weeks; Torch and Grotto are my joint favourites at the moment (though that keeps changing). Does anybody know if there's a recording of that final concert in Berlin anywhere?

330,003 crossdressers can vie with those two if you don't have it already.

Yeah, I have that and it's great; I guess I'd rank Crossdressers and Bright Surroundings just below the other two. The spoken-word stuff I don't like as much (only in small doses).

I know the Pelican 92 cassette is from their tour with TFUL282, but are there any recordings of a whole SCG/TF gig? I know it's a long shot...

The Seattle off ramp show of that tour was my intro to both bands. I've actually never heard that cassette...