Absolutely. So long as he's there with Tim and Laetitia, it is Stereolab and I will always happily support them and see them.
If it's Tim, Laetitia, Andy Ramsay and your gran' on the Grodeck Whipperjenny, it's Stereolab.
― henry s, Monday, 26 September 2022 17:04 (one year ago) link
Thanks Sleeve! All help appreciated!
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 26 September 2022 17:11 (one year ago) link
Anyone who wants these can email me at geraldmcbb (at) hotmail (d0t) com
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Monday, 26 September 2022 18:59 (one year ago) link
Anyone want to buy two tickets for the 9:30 Club show in DC Saturday?
― Lord Pickles (Boring, Maryland), Wednesday, 5 October 2022 00:47 (one year ago) link
Would like them to round out the expanded editions with a Chemical Chords/Not Music 2-disc set, mainly because I never bought them in the first place
― Jaime Pressly and America (f. hazel), Wednesday, 5 October 2022 04:26 (one year ago) link
Posted this on the wrong thread ... but saw them at Roadrunner in Boston last night, which is a terrific venue. Enjoyable but the absolutely terrible sound (their live sound person's fault as the opener had great sound and a very similar lineup) made the experience a lot less pleasant than it should've been. Current band is pretty tight tho and the song selection was very good.
Defer to Gerald McBoing-Boing for his review as he was also there and much closer to the stage.
― Naive Teen Idol, Wednesday, 5 October 2022 17:28 (one year ago) link
The show in Minneapolis had absolutely atrocious sound as well which I considered posting in this thread like 5 times but figured there would be no one to commiserate.
― zacata, Wednesday, 5 October 2022 19:43 (one year ago) link
OK gang
what in the holy hell is going on with side 4 of the Dots and Loops 3LP reissue (tracks 8, 9, and 10 on the original CD)?
what is labeled as "Parsec"... is not, and it's 4:35 instead of 5:34 long
then the version of "Ticker-Tape Of The Unconscious" is a full minute shorter, and "Contronature" is maybe 20 seconds shorter
what the heck is going on here, and what is in place of "Parsec"? nothing about this on the Discogs page, which has had helpful breakdowns on some differences w/previous reissues
― sleeve, Thursday, 6 October 2022 00:14 (one year ago) link
I'm going to have to go back and listen but they messed around with track lengths throughout the deluxe edition, mostly adding bits of new material here and there
― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Thursday, 6 October 2022 01:12 (one year ago) link
yeah but it's a totally different song!! I am so confused, any insight is most appreciated
― sleeve, Thursday, 6 October 2022 01:16 (one year ago) link
I bought that deluxe ed digitally from Bleep and the track listing is1 Brakhage 5:312 Miss Modular 4:293 The Flower Called Nowhere 5:154 Diagonals 5:155 Prisoner of Mars 4:226 Rainbo Conversation 4:467 Refractions in the Plastic Pulse 17:328 Parsec 5:359 Ticker-Tape of the Unconscious 4:4610 Contronatura 9:04(plus 11 more tracks)so exactly the same at the original release, more or less - the vinyl must differ?
― assert (matttkkkk), Thursday, 6 October 2022 01:39 (one year ago) link
― Naive Teen Idol, Thursday, 6 October 2022 02:09 (one year ago) link
Sounds like something technical went way off the rails. If it's a digital board, could it be that they had levels saved from soundcheck that failed to load correctly?
Everything sounded completely normal and clear at the show I went to.
― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Thursday, 6 October 2022 02:40 (one year ago) link
I didn't notice any sound issues standing up front in Boston. Frankly, I was just closing my eyes and losing myself in the music. Observations:
Tim & Laetitia stood as far apart as possible. I forget if that's any different than the old days.
The bassist fellow took over Mary's backing vocals and did very well!
The drumming was OK but not as powerful as the material needed.
Favorite tracks were "UHF", "Mountain", a way too short "Jenny O" and the amazing encore surprise of "Simple Headphone Mind".
Not a great deal of stage presence, L's simple dance moves were really endearing though.
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Thursday, 6 October 2022 13:15 (one year ago) link
The couple of times I saw Stereolab pre-break Tim stood in the middle of the band surrounded by everyone else basically. So yeah, different from those times for sure.
― grandavis, Thursday, 6 October 2022 13:54 (one year ago) link
I saw the Minneapolis show too and also found the sound unpleasant but wondered if it were somehow mixed for earplugs (which I forgot to bring; the music sounded better when I yawned, though). I appreciate hearing that it wasn’t just me.
― eatandoph (Neue Jesse Schule), Thursday, 6 October 2022 14:15 (one year ago) link
Huh. Sound was perfectly fine in SF and the mixer there, who I gather was the tour mixer, is an acquaintance of a musician friend, Sarah Hennies, who was thrilled to note she was doing that job. Strange!
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 6 October 2022 14:54 (one year ago) link
Yes, that's who it was in Boston. Sounds from her CV like she is super experienced musician/composer. Maybe they're dependent on whatever board the venue provides, I dunno. But hopefully they clean it up as the tour goes on. Not everyone wants to press themselves up against the stage like Gerald McBoing Boing!
― Naive Teen Idol, Thursday, 6 October 2022 17:20 (one year ago) link
So I listened to side 4 of the dots & loops expanded edition and the first song was definitely Parsec. Don't really know about track length changes though.
― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Friday, 7 October 2022 01:03 (one year ago) link
wtf
let me post what I have
― sleeve, Friday, 7 October 2022 15:14 (one year ago) link
here is the first minute or so of what begins my side 4 and purports to be "Parsec"
https://soundcloud.com/sleeve-the-dj/untitled?si=69f892dfeea846be90505ebb60bc5c54
― sleeve, Friday, 7 October 2022 18:11 (one year ago) link
oops that got removed, Moodles I will ILXmail you
― sleeve, Friday, 7 October 2022 18:22 (one year ago) link
So, decided to do a little Stereolab review project...but not about Stereolab specifically:
https://theshfl.com/guide/the-stereolab-halo
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 21 November 2022 16:24 (one year ago) link
awesome
― dan selzer, Monday, 21 November 2022 17:44 (one year ago) link
I haven’t had a chance to really dig in, but great concept - there’s so much to mine just outside of the official Stereolab canon.
― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Monday, 21 November 2022 17:47 (one year ago) link
Really is and I surprised even myself -- a ton of things I had no idea existed.
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 21 November 2022 17:48 (one year ago) link
Lots of great albums on that list
― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Monday, 21 November 2022 18:29 (one year ago) link
Looks great. Richard Harrison played bass with the 'lab though, not drums/percussion.
― Position Position, Monday, 21 November 2022 18:33 (one year ago) link
Hm, must have misread something! Will correct.
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 21 November 2022 19:06 (one year ago) link
also it seems to mention 2002 in the first para? surely that's 2022?
― sleeve, Monday, 21 November 2022 19:52 (one year ago) link
i love copyediting
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, 21 November 2022 19:58 (one year ago) link
Great piece Ned, lots of stuff I hadn't known about at all. Curious to check out that Ghost Power, had no idea!
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, 21 November 2022 19:59 (one year ago) link
Wow, nice article! I have about half of those, but it has inspired me to dig deeper - thank you!!One minor thing (this is extremely nit-picky) - I thought Laetitia's singing debut with McCarthy was earlier than *Banking...*Just did a little Googling, and this page says the *Get a Knife Between Your Teeth* EP is from April 1990 (on which Laetitia is credited), but this page says *Banking...* came out in August 1990.
― ernestp, Monday, 21 November 2022 20:11 (one year ago) link
IIRC the recent reissue boxset credit her with being on the At War EP. from 1989 and even the earlier Should the Bible Be Banned EP but it feels like an error.
Either way, by Enraged, they were starting to experiment more and showing the seeds of Stereolab. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb2ENkP7t4M
― everything, Tuesday, 22 November 2022 00:07 (one year ago) link
I will keep that in mind re McCarthy -- I've kept updating poor Caleb at Shfl all my glitches today so maybe down the road! But thanks all for the corrections, and of course the kind words.
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 22 November 2022 00:16 (one year ago) link
Any idea what they're ending with on their current tour, assuming they're playing the same-ish set? "Contact"?
― djh, Monday, 28 November 2022 18:54 (one year ago) link
Super-Electric when I saw them in Sept. Encored with Simple Headphone Mind and French Disko iirc.
― everything, Monday, 28 November 2022 20:31 (one year ago) link
Ta, everything.
It's a bit of a blur but I think they ended their main set with Super Electric and then played three songs as an encore. Tim looked really into Super Electric and the last song of the encore. Refractions in the Plastic Pulse was particularly good.
― djh, Monday, 28 November 2022 20:45 (one year ago) link
^ Not sure how that happened. Sorry.
― djh, Monday, 28 November 2022 20:46 (one year ago) link
Apparently the last song of the encore was Excursions into oh-ah-oh.
― everything, Monday, 28 November 2022 20:56 (one year ago) link
scored used copies of the reissues of ETK and D&L at the local shop. someone must've bought them new and returned them right away, cuz I noticed they were missing from the shelf lol
crazy how good Dots & Loops is. obviously this is no secret to anyone on ilxor.com but for some reason it never clicked with me back in the day.
dig those demos on Side F too. reminds me of the discussion we were having on the Police thread re: "songwriting". for example "Les Yper Sound" is cute in demo form but everything I love about that track is in the production. though I must say a stripped back Stereolab still sounds really good!
― frogbs, Friday, 2 December 2022 19:53 (one year ago) link
the demos have been a big revelation & my favorite thing about the reissues. a whole new way to enjoy stereolab
― waste of compute (One Eye Open), Friday, 2 December 2022 21:04 (one year ago) link
Yeah, for a band whose sound is as texturally deep as Stereolab, the demos are amazing in how they retain the pure essence of the song.
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Friday, 2 December 2022 21:38 (one year ago) link
Would be cool to have a comp of just the demos. I prefer the early rougher sound of Transmissions and Bachelor Pad, and feel like something was lost as their albums got more polished. That may be why I tend to go to Electrelane or some other band when I’m craving a VU inspired drone rock fix.
― o. nate, Saturday, 3 December 2022 23:26 (one year ago) link
Sorry, Transient not Transmissions. Don’t know where that came from.
― o. nate, Saturday, 3 December 2022 23:29 (one year ago) link
Dots and Loops isn’t necessarily my favorite, but it fits into my middle-aged life better than the others. It’s the one I’m most likely to reach for.
― Cow_Art, Sunday, 4 December 2022 03:36 (one year ago) link
I can't bring myself to sell my original CD copy of Simple Headphone Mind in the shiny metallic sleeve even though it's also on the latest Switched On compilation.
― ilxor, Sunday, 4 December 2022 03:49 (one year ago) link
Sell it? That's the kind of thing I'd want to be buried with.
― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Sunday, 4 December 2022 04:07 (one year ago) link
Weird - convinced that Stereolab had announced their retirement last night but can't see anything about it (Likely scenarios: 1 - dreamt this, 2 - read something while drunk).
― djh, Sunday, 11 December 2022 16:55 (one year ago) link