o look, there's a new one!
http://flyingnun.bandcamp.com/album/untimely-meditations
― Johnny Fever, Thursday, 19 January 2012 18:46 (twelve years ago) link
it is not so great
― keythhtyek, Friday, 20 January 2012 03:13 (twelve years ago) link
Hasn't that been the case for a while?
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Friday, 20 January 2012 04:24 (twelve years ago) link
yeah, the last 3, so dud. he seems only capable of the crooner mode now and thinks he has something interesting to say but he doesn't. bring back durer's hair and the dog skin coats!
― keythhtyek, Friday, 20 January 2012 05:05 (twelve years ago) link
I'd say Downes later output is more impenetrable and needs repeat listens. It then becomes very rewarding. It has for me. I reckon the lyrics on Untimely Meditations are brilliant. They read great on the page. Last Will and Testament is an incredible bit of work. I think he's got a lot of interesting things to say. Seems to me he has very little concern for being popular or even caring if people like what he does but I think his work will stick around a long time after he's shuffled off. I know of no other music that does what UM does, so it'll be difficult to come to grips with for many. Much better to be challenged by new work than sitting around romanticising your youth. BTW I hear that when Ryan Adams played Dunedin recently he did Whatever You Run Into and ranted about how the Verlaines are "cool as fuck"
― fortyyearslearning, Saturday, 31 March 2012 05:46 (twelve years ago) link
See a Ryan Adams endorsement does nothing for me.
― keythhtyek, Saturday, 31 March 2012 12:15 (twelve years ago) link
well argued
― fortyyearslearning, Saturday, 31 March 2012 22:45 (twelve years ago) link
I'm a fan up through the Downes' solo album. What are the outstanding tracks off of Potboiler, Corporate Moronic and Untimely Meditations?
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Saturday, 31 March 2012 22:50 (twelve years ago) link
I think these are really good. One from each.
It's easier to harden a broken heart, paratai drive, a call from decades past.
― fortyyearslearning, Saturday, 31 March 2012 23:03 (twelve years ago) link
the thing is even on post-Way Out Where Verlaines, which generally don't seem to really snap like classic Verlaines records did or to have the focus (which probably isn't focus, but: the album hangs together well) of the really really great Hammers and Anvils, melodically Downes is still way the hell ahead of, like, anybody imo. Total master. "Hanging By Strands" from Over the Moon? Christ what a track, that coda, it's huge. I haven't made a list of Top 10 Bands since high school but if I did it's hard to imagine the Verlaines not being on it, every time I revisit them I like them more.
― tempestuous alaskan nites! (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Saturday, 31 March 2012 23:12 (twelve years ago) link
i listened to lady and the lizard last night. really loud. love the harmonic interplay between guitar and bass.
― fortyyearslearning, Saturday, 31 March 2012 23:29 (twelve years ago) link
there's a brilliant slice of music at 6.05 in last will...
― fortyyearslearning, Saturday, 31 March 2012 23:36 (twelve years ago) link
even on pot boiler - a track like "don't leave" has a lot of patented Downes moves that're just great. but the performances are uninspired, and the recording doesn't really serve the song, which is something an interested & engaged songwriter would notice. their older stuff was "lo fi" or whatever but the aesthetic gelled with the performances and with their moment. whereas on "don't leave" - record this song in a more interesting way, the outro especially, say, and tell people it's an outtake from the old days & they'd believe it.
― tempestuous alaskan nites! (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, 1 April 2012 08:54 (twelve years ago) link
i liked it better when graeme was more interested in the politics of the personal versus politics in general. he comes off as a cranky old dude without the gifts of his youth that would obscure his lameness. has anyone seen him live recently? is he capable of the spleen busting wails of the past any more? last time i saw them was in 96 around the release of 'over the moon' and they were amazing, his hat was ridiculous, but the recent three records are all dreary and blah. it's probably all still well orchestrated and composed but it just doesn't hit me the same. the bats made one of their best albums ever last year, sure they were never at the verlaines level but robert scott is still the robert scott i remember, forever boyish, graeme sounds broken down.
― keythhtyek, Monday, 2 April 2012 00:19 (twelve years ago) link
Here's the broken old bastard himself about 4 months ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vyyad_u7W7A
― fortyyearslearning, Monday, 2 April 2012 03:33 (twelve years ago) link
Sharing that
― Trip Maker, Monday, 2 April 2012 03:51 (twelve years ago) link
Don't Leave kinda sounds to me like what it is - a song about someone that did themselves in.
― fortyyearslearning, Tuesday, 3 April 2012 21:57 (twelve years ago) link
Thanks, 40years, I listened to these tracks and I think you nailed it. Now my compilation has proper representation from his recent albums!
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Wednesday, 4 April 2012 15:52 (twelve years ago) link
it's absolutely true that recent verlaines albums aren't like the 80's stuff. but take lou reed's ectasy and compare it with the velvets. totally different. in fact take berlin and compare it to velvets.... people hated that record and it's now considered a classic. he didn't want to be pigeonholed. on the liner notes for metal machine music he said "my week is your year" which is one of the best lines ever. in other words 'if you don't like it, i don't care". i respect him for that. he wanted to keep moving forward.
― fortyyearslearning, Sunday, 8 April 2012 04:23 (twelve years ago) link
I got really sick of them, I feel bad about that. They were creative and original at a time when, you know, American bands were kind of stagnant, but by Ready to Fly I was sick of them.
― โตเกียวเหมียวเหมียว aka Bulgarian Tourist Chamber (Mount Cleaners), Tuesday, 10 April 2012 15:18 (twelve years ago) link
you were probably sick of yourself, and everybody else.
― fortyyearslearning, Tuesday, 17 April 2012 22:25 (twelve years ago) link
From what I can tell, these videos have not been posted. For me, they're both bittersweet (passing of time etc) and also a reminder of how great they were:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vyyad_u7W7A&feature=related
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8bZN_FBrUc&feature=relmfu
And for posterity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eeuy8PD0bFM&feature=related
― paulhw, Monday, 30 April 2012 01:19 (twelve years ago) link
man that "in session" version of joed out sounds AMAZING. so much better than the original.
guitar tone is so great and it's allowed to breathe and ~reverberate~ properly.
his voice is in fine form, too. solid.
― dell (del), Thursday, 3 May 2012 22:45 (twelve years ago) link
wait the verlaines released an album in feb 2012? "dark riff" sounds pretty good but maybe i'm being influenced by the titlekinda sounds like ian curtis singing ?!
― these albatrosses have no fear of man (La Lechera), Wednesday, 17 October 2012 03:41 (eleven years ago) link
Yes, the new(ish) album is actually rather great! Which is something of a relief, because the last one (Corporate Moronic) was sort of awful and so I had feared that he had totally lost "it". But it appears he does, in fact, still have at least a bit of "it."
― doctor, doctor, give me the news (askance johnson), Wednesday, 17 October 2012 19:10 (eleven years ago) link
Wow @ the new album being called Dunedin Spleen. I'm excited.
― geoffreyess, Thursday, 11 April 2019 03:51 (five years ago) link
Didn't vote but impossible to choose between the 2 winners so glad I didn't.
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Thursday, 11 April 2019 05:50 (five years ago) link
new album
https://verlainesband.bandcamp.com/
― fortyyearslearning, Thursday, 30 May 2019 09:16 (four years ago) link
Not to mention, old album. Or rather, collection:
https://verlainesband.bandcamp.com/album/juvenilia
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 10 July 2019 00:52 (four years ago) link
Ah from 1987...I remember liking that comp
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 10 July 2019 15:51 (four years ago) link
i always thought that was an album! did not know it was a comp
― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Wednesday, 10 July 2019 21:21 (four years ago) link
Wishing Graeme all the best.
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/%E2%80%98it-what-it-%E2%80%99-downes-philosophical-about-diagnosis
― Grantman, Saturday, 5 December 2020 09:14 (three years ago) link
:(
― Evan, Saturday, 5 December 2020 18:23 (three years ago) link
Some positive news:https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/downes-keen-be-back
― Grantman, Monday, 31 May 2021 09:44 (two years ago) link
Good to hear!
Anyone heard "Dunedin Spleen"?
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Monday, 31 May 2021 13:59 (two years ago) link
The poll results have inspired me to listen to Bird-Dog for the first time. It's the only LP up there I never got around to in the 90s! Boy is my face red, etc.
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Tuesday, 1 June 2021 12:16 (two years ago) link