The lost late eighties college rock interzone

That stuff, along with RHCP and Primus, was so damn popular with the hip kids at my schools that when grunge hit it didn't feel like any real change.

yeah, "intelligent hard rock" is a pretty good label; & its interface with college rock was significant, though the scenes were different. like Rush was the patron god-band of the IHR crowd, & Rush was not an indie thing at the time.

if IHR emerged from the interzone it was through the more "intelligent" side of grunge, i.e. Sunny Day Real Estate; which points right to emo so I guess that empire never ended. but Living Colour was coming from a different place than SDRE, b/c not as self-obsessed. Faith No More is def a good touchstone for Living Colour though.

I don't see it as being that big a leap between Living Colour and someone like Soundgarden. What did get lost in, err, college rock metal though was the shredding.

i love those early instrumental love tractor records! and i only heard them three years ago or so. had no idea. i always assumed that they were bland jangle stuff. meanwhile those albums are like american durutti column records or something. i'm glad i heard them. so many bands took any edges off in their quest for beer money.

this is seriously one of my favorite songs of the 80's

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibnPPT_sVD4

This was the point (well, maybe 1987 rather than 1986) at which it became an exception for me to find a current rock band (of any sort) I liked, something that's continued into the present. In the first half of the 80s, that was no problem for me.

I heard this song during the intermission of an all ages hardcore show (or something like that) at JC Dobbs (for the other Philadelphiaish posters). I liked it a lot at the time, but find it mostly meh now (particularly thanks to the vocals):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq-YCriyEMo

They Might Be Giants (although they kept on truckin' along and made some $$$ doing tunes for TV etc.)

I often wonder how rich they are now because of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

ilxor yeti mike made me buy a game theory album via his old chemical imbalance zine and i did not care for it at all.

I kind of remember trying to like that jangly sound, but I could never really get into it, overall.

scott, I ended up buying the Game Theory album and I think I liked it for about a year, but on repeated listens it just sort of crumbled and there was less and less to like about it.

This is really more on the post-punk side of things, but I remember a friend buying this album mostly on the basis of the title, and all of us being disappointed by what it ended up sounding like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NubuRy4xRk

i know what you were listening to back then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8Dv4gTPbow

i promise i won't post ruin and scram videos.

I'm reminded of all the bands in Athens, GA: Inside Out that aren't REM, the B-52's or Pylon.

What about the Ocean Blue? Would they be considered part of this "scene"?

I happen to really like them.

The semi-affiliated band Riverside seems to fit as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-v4na9cpXg

My pal Aaron, with whom I've been in a band, who sold me a 1973 Rickenbacker bass for $500, and who generally has impeccable taste . . . his favorite bands are Game Theory and Loud Family, both of which I've given a chance, but man.

I hated Pink Slip Daddy.

The intro to "Erica's World" is easily the best part.

I hated Pink Slip Daddy.

I can see why.

Game Theory always seemed like a band I might like in, erm, theory, as I like fey voices and smartypants chord change pop, but I could never warm to them either. Their mention got me thinking about Hex, though (Donnette Thayer and Steve Kilbey.) Listening to a few cuts on youtube. I think I still own their records.

no mention of Let's Active? for shame

this thread's gonna make me dig out my old 'IRS' The Cutting Edge' videotape (complete w/ the classic Austin episode - Zeitgeist, Doctor's Mob, Glass Eye, the debut of Daniel Johnston).

You know, I tried to get into Let's Active, because Mitch Easter's name is on a bunch of records I like. I picked up Cypress and thought it was pleasant, but it kind of lost my interest after the fourth or fifth listen.

Can you recommend something else?

I Just Bought a Let's Active Record. Will I hate it?

i loved the first lets active ep and then the album. actually the first two or three albums are fine with me. i kinda hate what don dixon did to indie rock though! he is one of the culprits i think of later lamer sounding college rock. mitch i will always defend.

Can you recommend something else?

The Windbreakers. They were a jangle band from Mississippi of all places, and their songwriting was as good as anybody from that era. Their music holds up remarkably well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bi9eXl5aW8

i know what you were listening to back then. [pink slip daddy]

i wasn't a pink slip daddy fan, but i kind of liked "take me back to woodstock", their sup pop singles club entry. dumb but fun retro rock shit of the sort that would have found a happy home on sympathy for the record industry. it inspired me to buy the EP that "LSD" appeared on. 10" clear pink wax in a gatefold, with a double grooved B-side that played in reverse (from spindle to rim). every bell and whistle imaginable, but no fucking songs. boo.

juluka: lost in the interzone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpu6dYfZWpY

let's active

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvuetnVoxIs

i definitely think people like chris stamey and tommy keene could have gotten some better breaks and worked with people who really made them sound like a million bucks. instead of don dixon. just listen to that first matthew sweet album for a good idea of how to make someone uninteresting. although that might have been the record company too. i'm no expert. i guess scritti politti fans might have enjoyed it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN0kbm_s1hc

man i love that original lets active lineup sooooooooo much. me and my friends were all about those first two records. we were big oh ok fans too.

love that video so much too cuz at the time it was like we had our own homegrown terry hall + 2/3 bananarama.

the nomads (as the "screaming diz busters")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HTUqZN1ER8

i love how australian "every word means no" sounds too. could totally be on my beloved starstruck soundtrack.

otm! i'd never thought of that. could be the (early) hoodoo gurus.

who aren't that great, btw. i'd long had fond memories of their interzone-lost mars needs guitars lp, so i picked up a career comp a while back. pretty dull, overall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRHvTrfpiTI

^ could be guadalcanal diary, wheels within wheels

I'll still totally rep for Stoneage Romeos, but yeah they really fell off for me after that.

thing is there are tons of aussie garage rockers who did it better. but early on i think the gurus were okay.

their song "what's my scene" is a pretty good template for what people wanted to sound like circa 1987-88. plus, it sounded remarkably similar to the saints album that came out the same year.

thing is there are tons of aussie garage rockers who did it better:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7q6IwMXJK0M

1985

and i really like some of the saints album! famously on TVT records. "just like fire would" and "what's my scene" were on college radio a ton.

aussies doing it better in 1986:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gir7bw1MwEY

post-birdman interzone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXW-n0OY1xY

hey guys remember the died pretty

This is really more on the post-punk side of things, but I remember a friend buying this album mostly on the basis of the title, and all of us being disappointed by what it ended up sounding like:

― _Rudipherous_, Thursday, June 28, 2012 12:12 PM (2 hours ago)

aw man I loved 9353 sooo much

9353 Appreciation Thread

an acquired taste to be sure tho

hey guys remember CHRISTMAS

inexplicably one of my favorite videos of all time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_xq8HsHDdA

hey guys remember the died pretty

no! i remember that their free dirt got a lot of positive press, but i never found a copy during the window of my active interest, and the follow-ups were always compared unfavorably to it, so they remained a mystery to me. just listened to a few tracks - not bad, similar to the gurus in the combination of jangle and garage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QesuVI-diqE

Never really got into that stripe of oz band, but I do have a huge soft spot for the Saints' Just Like Fire Would

Anyhow, it was the Rembrandts who ensured that jangly college rock could never again return.

hey guys remember CHRISTMAS

weird, i was talking about them on the CVB vs. Go4 thread yesterday. the christmas song i'd like to post, "everything you know is wrong", doesn't seem to be on youtube >:[

Never saw that Christmas video before - hilarious!