Godspeed You Black Emperor! - Classic or Dud?

sterling clover wrote:
I think that I would be impressed to see any live band do just one long ninety-minute build-up fuck-off track.

search: Physics -- a veritable who's who of san diego indie rock circa 1992 did this live several times, attempts at minimalism ("in E") and post-branca-isms.

I saw Dirty 3 live once and hated them. Droning, boring, dreadful wank. And I love GBYE and Mogwai so go figure.

One of the few regrets I do have, as their music deserves to be experienced live (preferably in a small- to medium- sized joint).

Search: Tortoise, Disco Inferno, Trans Am, Mogwai
Destory: Godspeed You! Black Emperor (as I believe they call themselves, the fucking wankers), Sigur Ros

Search: Tortoise, Disco Inferno, Trans Am, Mogwai, Bark Psychosis
Destory: Godspeed You! Black Emperor (as I believe they call themselves, the fucking wankers), Sigur Ros

Henry Cow are more interesting to me but both of 'em have this dry sound.

(1) Beautiful.
(2) Deathly boring.
(3) Funny.

ILM backlash in effect

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x

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http://indielove.vox.com/library/post/love-indie-style.html

Hi, I'm Jess, and I'm a music lover to the core.

Not THE Jess?

Reunited.

http://www.atpfestival.com/assets/img/mailout/gsbanner.jpg

I saw them in Glasgow in October. Probably too soon to come back to the UK

There's a certain kind of band that annoys me because their angst is obviously a put-on. I'm thinking of Coil, Dead Can Dance, Low.

lol what

would rather listen to any of those bands at their very worst than godspeed at their very best (and I like godspeed)

and this thread was going so well :(

sorry, couldn't abide seeing the good names of Coil, Dead Can Dance and Low being woefully misrepresented and dragged through the mud

low is camp??? not according to any definition of camp previously employed on earth

coil, yeah, they’re gay

dead can dance, yeah, they’re not gay (???) but there’s a heavily performative aspect to their work which enhances it. that’s goth baby

godspeed aren’t camp but are incredibly self-serious and they are so not goth. i mean good for them but i wouldn’t contrast them positively or negatively with these other approaches for an instant

They play in the UK regularly. Like treefell I saw them in Glasgow last year, and they were in the very same venue two years before. They also played Bilbao on (I think) the previous European tour, by the way. Not sure on the connection there with being Canadian, as Bilbao gets a good amount of gigs in general.

There are some camp elements to Coil for sure, I think they make it work and overall it makes them better. Dead Can Dance I can sort of see how some of it comes off as camp. Low, I don't see it, but I'm less familiar with their discography than the other 2.

I’m just assuming bad phrasing but “camp” to any of those is lazy trolling

I think you can assume worse than bad phrasing. This is so dumb:

There's a certain kind of band that annoys me because their angst is obviously a put-on.

yeah, like I almost couldn't think of three worse examples of artists who don't commit to the bit, so to speak

camp is always in thee eye of the buttholder, but i'd say old Low not camp, recent fuzzed-out electro Low and that latest Alan Sparhawk album, pitchin' a tent

There's a certain kind of band that annoys me because their angst is obviously a put-on

Morrissey was right there for the taking!

one of the interesting things about Godspeed is how much they have reverberated through montreal's music ecosystem. the studio that members opened (Hotel 2 Tango), which so many records were made at; even more important, the venues (Casa del Popolo and Sala Rossa particularly), which are not just vital spaces for interesting musicians visiting Montreal, but which host endless local artists as they emerge and experiment... i also think there's been a roll-on effect on Godspeed's politics - their collectivism, their seriousness, their anti-celebrity - even if it is sometimes mocked here (and also understood as occasionally hypocritical theatrics; but everyone's human).

i think they're a really important band. their impact extends way beyond post-rock, to sometime local folk like lhasa de sela, suuns, wolf parade, unicorns, mac demarco, arcade fire, ought, leonard cohen, etc, but also outward to acts like julia jacklin, SANAM, vic chesnutt, matana roberts, mashrou leila, and on and on.

it's almost like they've been excellent musically and a model for maintaining one's integrity for like three decades!

btw anyone else feel Yanqui UXO is by far and away the worst recorded record of theirs? The abrasiveness and thinness of it always holds me back from wanting to put it on. Most of the rest of their stuff is so rich sounding and dynamic (compare Yanqui to F#A# for example)

― octobeard, Wednesday, 26 February 2025 22:14 (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

ah, it's opposite day

everything on YUXO feels like it is melting, irradiated. one of the best sounding albums maybe ever?

to an extent where i'm really not into their other stuff nearly as much cos it doesn't sound like that

BBF3 being a weird joke about Iron Maiden singers is arguably more camp than anything from DCD or Low. See also a few of the songs titles on All Lights Fucked, and the phase 1 songs just being called after their direct influences (e.g. Gorecki, John Hughes, John Barry - later also called Song For Wanda after Efrim's dog that had died) before being given more weighty names for the final release (Moya, She Dreamt She Was A Bulldozer She Dreamt She Was A Field, 09-15-00 respectively).

Not going to argue with a band that covered the theme tune of Are You Bring Served being called camp though.

I'm in the "except when Mark Almond was a guest vocalist, Coil wasn't very camp" camp.

sean otm. those montreal venues are super chill

I have no idea if the Godspeed crew were in any bands prior to their formation, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them were in short-lived punk or hardcore bands as teens

I think it's not so much about camp as it is a seriousness of intent which, if played badly, can tip over into absurdity. Of the four bands mentioned I would say that Low, Godspeed and DCD are all serious musicians who wear their seriousness well. Only Coil manage to make their seriousness look silly.

They seem to have raised the bar here

https://pitchfork.com/news/godspeed-you-black-emperor-remove-music-from-streaming-services/

no reason given and it's other streaming services too