Old Mercury Rev or new?

xpost: stephen - I liked "Vermillion" too (not quite as much as you, tho). I'd also pluck "In a Funny Way," "Nite and Fog," "Spiders & Flies" & "Tides of the Moon" from the detritus for a Rev compilation or something. There are probably a handful of other defensible tracks as well, but it's difficult to focus on the qualities of those albums when they're so overwhelmed by all that sweeping grotesquery.

The most depressing part of the whole thing is that the band are totally squandering their secret weapon: Grasshopper's devastating guitar freakouts. Remember those? They always seemed to climax gorgeously at just the right part of the song, usually by mangling some leitmotif with feedback and sending it skyrocketing. That's the kind of grandiosity I'd like to see from them, not JD crooning about twinkly stars amid tympani drums and harps. Combine the two approaches, sure, but relieve Grasshopper of cello duty and give the man his guitar back. I'm no rockist or anything -- just being sensible.

i'd agree with all that ^^

& sometimes it's sensible to be rockist :)

09 A Squirrel and I (Holding On... and Then Letting Go)

hahaha

I hear they're still an amazing live band, and I'm sure a lot of their recent material sounds better dirtied up a bit. I haven't seen them since 1998, but I'll check em out at ATP this September (pauses to daydream about MBV). As long as they rock the fuck out of "Chasing a Bee" (which I hear they still do) and maybe "Frittering" (less likely, but still possible), I will be more than happy.

I'll check em out at ATP this September

oh! you're going too, huh?

shhh, don't ge too excited. You'll scare Kevin away.

Yeah, some friends in NYC got tix and one is mine. I couldn't afford to spring for the accomodations at the time, tho, so I'm just kind of hoping something works out. I'll probably be sleeping in a car, but fuck it. The roster of bands at that show reads like a bulleted list of some geek fantasy my teenage self would have dreamt up in 1997 (so as to include Mogwai, otherwise 1994 or so). I still won't believe it until I'm personally witnessing the opening blast of "Only Shallow." The rest of the bands are just the icing on the cake.

I couldn't afford to spring for the accomodations at the time, tho, so I'm just kind of hoping something works out.

yeah same here ^^

i have no idea what i'm gonna do; a lot of the cheap(er) hotels in monticello are booked already, so who knows? i may call a weekend or two before and see if anyplace has had cancellations/has new openings.

also, i'll have the girlfriend with me so sleeping in a car is pretty much out of the question.

I think an underrated tune from Secret migration is "First time Mother's Joy". Lovely harmonies.

Sometimes "Frittering" is the only song you can hear when it's 3AM and you're feeling a bit melancholy, and the praise upthread for it is correct. The way the voice trails off at the end of most of the lines is the human equivalent of a wounded or lonely animal howling at the moon.

Frittering kills me every time.

Just listened to this earlier tonight. Stunning.

What do we call that old-timey style of singing the female backing vocalists usually emulate on their songs? Best epitomized on "Endlessly." It sounds pre-WWII and from out of the early cartoon soundtracks.

mellotronny

What happened? I used to have Yerself is Steam AND Boces, but they're gone! Oh no.

What do we call that old-timey style of singing the female backing vocalists usually emulate on their songs? Best epitomized on "Endlessly." It sounds pre-WWII and from out of the early cartoon soundtracks.

Sounds like a musical saw or theremin, to me.
I don't have a copy of yerself is steam anymore and that makes me sad cuz sometimes I need to hear "Frittering" and "Coney Island Cyclones."

o shit yeah they had a musical saw when i saw them on the DS tour

this looks pretty sweet: http://www.nyctaper.com/?p=3059
the recording, not the beard.

even if their recent music hasn't grabbed me, i've always enjoyed them live.

I'm a Rev-head from wayback when they were still entangled with the Flaming Lips, and for me there's no contest here. Search: Yerself Is Steam, Boces, See You on the Other Side [VERY under-rated IMO], Carwash Hair, Deserter's Songs. Destroy: everything after that! I was flat-out appalled at the tepid loungey whine of All Is Dream, and what I've heard from more recent releases hasn't really motivated me to rejoin the fold.

yeah i dunno -- I need to give Secret Migration another chance. I didn't really come to a conclusion on it. Couple of friends said it was their bes since Deserter's, but that might not be saying much. Honestly, though, these guys need a serious reissue campaign of the early stuff -- I think they'd have a resurgence if younger kids heard stuff like Yerself, Boces and See You On The Other Side.

Reissues would be fantastic! IMHO, Secret Migration radiates lame MoR-ness, but another listen is always a good thing.

haha, i realized I meant Snowflake Midnight, not Secret Migration ... Secret Migration I did come to a conclusion on -- sucks!

The Secret Migration has, like... two good tracks?

yeah maybe. a lot of it is soooo bad though. I liked All Is Dream, though I haven't listened to it in forever.

I thought All is Dream was the one with two good tracks (mainly the first one)

I want to listen to Chasing a Bee right now.

I liked all is dream but didnt care much for what came after.

I really like All Is Dream, hate Secret Migration, and Snowflake Midnight grew on me.

dunno about this live recording, strings sound really out of tune

ooh too bad. haven't listened yet, but the description sounded good.

Mercury Rev's first two albums are two of the greatest psychedelic rock albums I know. See You On The Other Side was OK. Deserter's Songs was OK. That's as far as I'll go. What they're doing now is bottom of the barrel stuff.

well, yes. but I think you're being generous to Deserter's Songs

Why? It's probably better than The Soft Bulletin and at least comparable to it. I'm wondering if people would rip it so much if it didn't come from Mercury Rev. The major downfall of post-David Baker Mercury Rev is Jonathan Donahue's falsetto voice. He didn't seem to sing like that on the first three records. It's grating.

no their downfall was being schmaltzy and boring

Really kicking myself for having lost all the early live MR I'd managed to collect when the hard drive they were on crashed. Wish somebody'd reseed them to Dime.

Always liked that David Baker era, possibly plus the lp afterward. The solo lp as Shady was pretty cool too.

can someone suggest the best OLD rev youtube stuff to watch - i never managed to see them in their prime

The solo lp as Shady was pretty cool too.

Huh! Never knew that existed. It's on Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/7jWizxSOaZZ7uDGCd5Wn6H

Looking that up, also found David Baker has a new band. Also on Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/artist/1QBoxeY3NcUIZ3lNw3Tl4l

Yeah, the Shady album is pretty good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe1x-oApWt4

First MR I heard was Deserters Songs, which I love, but I dig the Baker-era to a degree. Too much of the time his approach strikes me as third-rate David Thomas, but the noise makes up for it.

All Is Dream is decent, but after that, whew, a serious plummet.

I think David Baker's influence on the band is overstated. Yes, their best albums were the first two. But all he did was contribute vocals.

I find the 'early Rev good, post-SYOTOS Rev the WORST SHITTY SHIT EVER' mentality kind of hysterically over the top

If anything I find AID a slight improvement over DS - it takes a few more risks. Early Rev is total genius, let alone 'good'!

I'm currently playing Yerself - Boces - SYOTOS and am very happy. "Frittering", jesus.

Still love DS, however.

"Yerself" doesn't do much for me production-wise-- I'm not a fan of Fridmann in general and that record is especially sonically squashed. Vocals and guitar annoy me, they pop out in this frustratingly intrusive way. I dunno, I've heard rehearsal space recordings from psych bands that sound pound-for-pound deeper and more interesting that this record. I don't think I've ever switched off a record in frustration more often.

I've listened to "Boces" a bunch and I like it!

i've been listening to yerself and boces a lot lately, and they sound as amazing as ever. syotos never did much for me, weirdly. i should probably try again. i liked deserter's songs okay enough at the time, but all is dream was so bad it actually kinda made me hate deserter's almost instantly when i went back to listen to it. ("wait...this is just as corny and pompous and twee...") "schmaltzy and boring" is otm. it's like shitty self-serious indie rock being smothered in 100,000 pounds of icky saccharine incidental movie music from the 40s. i wouldn't check out the newer ones on a bet.

their live shows around the deserters period were incredible

what do they even do now? didn't grasshopper and donahue do some harmony rockets shows semi-recently, i.e. maybe they've moved beyond the i-want-to-be-willie-nelson-in-space stuff?

say what you will about the flaming lips but they never did fully lose their love of noise (it's kinda hard to imagine mercury rev recording a collaboration with lightning bolt at this point), and i'd probably take dippy self-aggrandizement and obnoxious omg wtf lol antics as a way to stay in the spotlight over the rev's slow petering out into "worthy of a two-and-a-half-star review in rolling stone" release pattern/ongoing rep-tarnishing.

what do they even do now?