Classic or Dud: Smog

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colin- I'd like to hear some more smog. what would you like in exchange?

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 9 December 2003 18:08 (twenty-two years ago)

that is if you're ok with exchanging stuff with me.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 9 December 2003 18:08 (twenty-two years ago)

excellent, of course - what was that the Feldman thing you mentioned before (i think because of something i mentioned in a thread to do with extremely unlikely things to find on peer2peer) -can you remember?

― jed (jed_e_3), Tuesday, 9 December 2003 18:12 (twenty-two years ago)

I have several things by him now: would you like to hear 'for bunita marcus' (I have a version which is not available).

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 9 December 2003 18:14 (twenty-two years ago)

also: 'for christian wolff' (that's 3 cds).

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 9 December 2003 18:15 (twenty-two years ago)

go for it jed. anyway, i don't think posting cheese from france is a particularly good idea, especially as the cheese i want is as whiffy as you can imagine.

― stirmonster, Tuesday, 9 December 2003 18:15 (twenty-two years ago)

hmmmmmmm, some delicious Mont d'Or right in time for the Xmas season...

― Baaderist (Fabfunk), Tuesday, 9 December 2003 18:16 (twenty-two years ago)

oh - that kind of cheese!!

Julio i'll mail you tonight re. Feldman (if your sign on is yr real e mail, if not mail me at the one i posted above^)

cheers

― jed (jed_e_3), Tuesday, 9 December 2003 18:19 (twenty-two years ago)

emailing me at this addy is fine.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 9 December 2003 18:20 (twenty-two years ago)

i wouldnt have any use for a cd of mp3s sadly...id have nowhere to play it.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Tuesday, 9 December 2003 21:52 (twenty-two years ago)

I enjoyed the new Smog alb better than anything he's released since 'Knock Knock': a line from the first track - "It's Ali vs. Clay" - has stuck in my mind more than any other lyric I've heard this year. In fact, that whole song is Callaghan at his best. It didn't seem an esp. corny indie fuck rec to me - any alb w/ Ken Champion playing pedal steel always sounds pretty lush to my ears.

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Tuesday, 9 December 2003 21:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Now I wish I actually had a copy of Supper.

― hstencil, Tuesday, 9 December 2003 22:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Am!st let me know if you get something sorted with ggx! or stir, if not i will be happy to send stuff over.

― jed (jed_e_3), Tuesday, 9 December 2003 22:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Julo, i have mailed you.

― jed (jed_e_3), Tuesday, 9 December 2003 22:46 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah supper has some gems on it. i was predisposed not to like it because i was disappointed with rain on lens.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 10 December 2003 10:37 (twenty-two years ago)

seven months pass...

why did i never follow through with this? i feel like a chump.

i read those excerpts from the godawful amg reviews and now i'm not feeling as bad about amg having gone down the toilet.

also "the orange glow of a stranger's living room" is nice.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 19 July 2004 06:40 (twenty-one years ago)

you ARE a chump. i made them for Julio instead. what are you after?

― jed_ (jed), Monday, 19 July 2004 09:35 (twenty-one years ago)

two months pass...

"there's a hunger in my hands / i try to rub it into your body"

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 02:27 (twenty-one years ago)

jed, are you still around?

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 02:28 (twenty-one years ago)

(crickets)

― amateur!!st, Tuesday, 21 September 2004 15:21 (twenty-one years ago)

I like Smog. I still haven't found my copy of Supper.

― n/a (Nick A.), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 15:34 (twenty-one years ago)

haha he promised me one too amst and I only live down the road!!! : /

colin is still around though. keep saying smog he shd pop up.

― cºzen (Cozen), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 16:53 (twenty-one years ago)

i'm around now am!st. mail me :)

with every mile, another piece of me peels off and whips "down the road."

This is a good time for both of you as it happens.

― jed_ (jed), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 21:02 (twenty-one years ago)

"Cold Blooded Old Times" is one of the saddest songs I have ever heard in my life. Like, heartbreaking sad.

― Taxi Dancing in the Soft Prison (Ben Boyer), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 21:11 (twenty-one years ago)

A guy at Benway Records in Venice jumped in when he saw me buying Julius Caesar and told a story of how Bill C was crashing "in a closet or something" at his friend's pad in San Fran and one night ol' Bill came home and said: "I bought this acid, who wants to take some with me" and everybody said "Whoa... no way Bill, you're too strange already...we couldn't handle you on psychedelics!"

I like that story.

― Thea (Thea), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 23:12 (twenty-one years ago)

I still love Julius Caesar the best. Kim Osterwalder posted a message on my board a few years ago about the cello parts she played on the album:

I remember one time I worked with him, but not the other. He brought his 4 track to my house in san francisco. The windows were open you could hear the traffic outside on the recording. He sort went through the song with me a few times as a "rehersal", and after the second time he said that he had what he needed! So he got something completely different from me than if I had known that track was being used on the record. I hope it turned out good. I know I was out of tune, but Bill didn't care about that! I've gotten a lot of compliments on that record over the years, too! People really like Bill. . .

― Jeff-PTTL (Jeff), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 23:16 (twenty-one years ago)

She "doesn't remember" the other time she worked with him...hmm. Maybe it was her apartment.

― Thea (Thea), Tuesday, 21 September 2004 23:21 (twenty-one years ago)

will email you, jed. or is it colin?

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 22 September 2004 03:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Classic for these, at least: "Dress Sexy at My Funeral," "I Am Star Wars," "All Your Women Things"...

― Pete Scholtes, Wednesday, 22 September 2004 06:59 (twenty-one years ago)

four months pass...

dear bill,

please bring out a new album.

thanks

― jed_ (jed), Sunday, 13 February 2005 04:35 (twenty-one years ago)

I listened to Red Apple Falls a week or so ago. I was wondering if a lot of people from my generation (I'm 37) missed out on that album. I was into Smog early on, but lost interest around Julius Ceasar. I only heard Red Apple Falls because someone made me a tape of it. I think it's one of the great albums of the late '90s!

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Sunday, 13 February 2005 05:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Question: I have only the barest knowledge of Smog, or (Smog) or however, but "Held" (from Knock Knock, I think, came across it on a Domino sampler) is fantastic...has he done anything else along those lines, or is it fairly atypical? I'm not so much into the freak-folk lo-fi thing he seems to get pigeonholed as, but that thump-thump-shuffle Tom Waitsy rhythm in "Held" absolutely kills me.

― Telephonething, Sunday, 13 February 2005 05:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Download "Dress Sexy At My Funeral" and "Somewhere in the Night" for starters

I like him - lyrically, especially, he's inspired / inspiring

― Roger Fidelity (Roger Fidelity), Sunday, 13 February 2005 05:29 (twenty-one years ago)

try "bloodflow" from Dongs of Sevotion too. yeah its fairly atypical - glam rock!

― jed_ (jed), Sunday, 13 February 2005 05:30 (twenty-one years ago)

and "song" from rain on lens.

― jed_ (jed), Sunday, 13 February 2005 05:32 (twenty-one years ago)

and "short drive" from the same album, actually that's probably the closest to "held"

― jed_ (jed), Sunday, 13 February 2005 05:38 (twenty-one years ago)

classic. through and through

― zach faver, Sunday, 13 February 2005 05:42 (twenty-one years ago)

six months pass...

I just picked up Rain on Lens at the show. I don't know if I like the whole album, but "Song" is one of his best.

― Hurting (Hurting), Sunday, 14 August 2005 20:32 (twenty years ago)

I have to say, I am also completely a "nu-smog" guy. Why would anybody want to take that voice and muddy it up in lo-fi?

― Hurting (Hurting), Sunday, 14 August 2005 21:12 (twenty years ago)

That song about Grant McLennan is fantastic.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Sunday, 14 August 2005 21:17 (twenty years ago)

what kind of stuff is he playing live nowadays?

― acidmouth (acidmouth), Sunday, 14 August 2005 21:20 (twenty years ago)

He did a few tracks from the new album, which I don't know too well. I'm pretty sure the opener was "Say Valley Maker." He did Dress Sexy at My Funeral later in the set, and he did Cold Blooded Old Times as an encore, ending it with a super noise jam in which the other band, Feathers, joined him on stage. There were a fair number of songs I didn't recognize, but I don't know his last couple of albums very well.

― Hurting (Hurting), Sunday, 14 August 2005 21:22 (twenty years ago)

i think the only pre-knock knock tune he played when i saw him was "Bathysphere".

― jed_ (jed), Sunday, 14 August 2005 21:24 (twenty years ago)

might have to give the last album a bit of a listen before i see him then.

― acidmouth (acidmouth), Sunday, 14 August 2005 21:24 (twenty years ago)

That song about Grant McLennan is fantastic.

-- Alfred Soto (sotoal...), August 14th, 2005 8:17 AM. (later)

smog not smudge!

― jimmy glass (electricsound), Sunday, 14 August 2005 22:26 (twenty years ago)

Both dirty things.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Sunday, 14 August 2005 22:39 (twenty years ago)

Smug

― amon (eman), Sunday, 14 August 2005 22:43 (twenty years ago)

He is a bit smug, but I have nothing against smugness in itself.

― Hurting (Hurting), Sunday, 14 August 2005 22:46 (twenty years ago)

one year passes...

I'm seeing this guy in a week in a small café.

Is he any good live?

― Stephen Bush (Stephen B.), Sunday, 27 August 2006 08:10 (nineteen years ago)

he can be! sometimes he does velvet underground-esque dirge workouts which are hit and miss.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Sunday, 27 August 2006 16:18 (nineteen years ago)

Skipping 91 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

i dunno, there's a coherent long-term evolution in his stylistic approach

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Wednesday, 7 August 2013 20:40 (twelve years ago)

three years pass...

I like him, but it's all suspicious, like he's avoiding making errors of taste, consciously, a lot

tryina maaake gooooood

― j., Wednesday, 15 February 2017 23:01 (nine years ago)

one year passes...

nice to have everything on Spotify now, have been exploring some of my less-explored corners of the back catalog. Currently really enjoying Kicking a Couple Around

― Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive), Monday, 3 September 2018 18:00 (seven years ago)

six years pass...

has he ever talked about the multiple (like 3-4 songs?) references to "O Superman" across his oeuvre?

― imperial frfr (Steve Shasta), Saturday, 12 April 2025 17:22 (one year ago)

I can think of:
let's move to the country

maybe?
bathysphere
the morning paper

what are the others? does this track with your list of songs?

― fpsa, Saturday, 12 April 2025 19:27 (one year ago)

a lot of his stuff does have a New Music/Minimalism bend/flavor – maybe Orourke's influence – which ties to O Superman for sure

Like, to me, this Win Mertens track sounds similar to some of the arrangements on Red Apple Falls or Knock Knock as well (and I know Jim likes this, he played on his NTS show or somewhere else)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4d9xMuEJVg

― fpsa, Saturday, 12 April 2025 19:32 (one year ago)

Yes, all of your examples plus

Say Valley Maker - about half way through "because there is no love..." he adopts the same vocal shift that LA does in "O Superman" when sings "cuz when love is gone..."

― imperial frfr (Steve Shasta), Saturday, 12 April 2025 20:27 (one year ago)

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