am i really the only person who doesn't care about reunions/reunitings/new music by old bands, like, at all? is there something wrong with me?

those canterbury bands seem to keep putting out well-received records even though they have no original members -- soft machine, gong...

partly I think this is because these bands were never huge to begin with, and so they have the luxury of not needing to meet commercial expectations and can rotate in passionate and talented musicians on a regular basis.

I think you get better musicians in bands like that too because it's not like say joining Yes where you know what the repitoire is gonna be and will have to be dealing with a bunch of stubborn vets, Gong never had any 'hits' really but they do have a specific vibe and you can find dudes to capture that vibe

i think i bought the first two frank black albums out of love for the pixies? didn't play them much. he's probably made 20 records since then. i have no idea.

i just played last splash for the first time in decades a month or two ago and i was surprised by how good it sounded to me. though i'm more of a pod person. i didn't hear anything after last splash. and never heard that amps album.

i listened to Belly too! sounded good. i was a huge throwing muses fan. i feel guilty if i think about how much 21st century kristen hersh music i haven't listened to.

Breeders All Nerve and Throwing Muses Sun Racket are both terrific 21st century albums. Worth the time.

Aside, still hoping for another new Loop release.

Yeah. Loved Breeders "All Nerve" - I don't think I saw my purchase of it as a particularly nostalgic one but maybe it was?

As a diehard Pod lover (and indifferent to Last Splash) I think Breeders’ Title TK is their best and All Nerve is superb.

idk how you guys can't believe that the pixies reunion was "influential."

also maybe one for the controp thread but i prefer nubreeders to og breeders/mk2.

(side question: what is the case with them anyway? the biggest hit came shortly after the og lineup was no more)

you know which reunion wasn't great? jafferson airplane. i put it down to the drummer. they used that john mellencamp guy. i know xhuxk likes that guy but he is a clobberer. they didn't need a clobberer. kenny aronoff.

*jefferson*

That reunion gave us this tho:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0gnnVcOLNc

Jet aircraft!

Also, as I shared on the "Planes" thread a while back:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbKB8GEp-L8

Pixies were the huge $$$$ reunion that a lot of these bands looked at, yes. But I have to think they were following Mission of Burma who reunited a couple years before they did. I was so happy to catch Burma, it didn't feel like they were doing it just for money because how much would there even have been? They went on to put out a couple very decent "reunion albums"- but they truly felt like a going concern.

I think another vector in the equation is: how much of a commercial enterprise were these bands to begin with? I mean you see some of these post-rock bands that were pretty much only playing basements in their heyday now selling like, tote bags? No new music, but lots of merch and an Amex pre-sale.

I mean for me it's Slowdive having the clearest glowup. I saw them on all three American tours in the first run and the final time was at Cal State Fullerton in their smallish student pub, maybe fifty to a hundred people there for the show at most? And in these reunion years I always see them playing to the low thousands on their own and possibly more at festivals. I don't begrudge them any second of it because it was a last fucking laugh against a whole crew of people -- here and in the UK -- who resolutely mocked and derided their approach just for existing, when as a good friend of mine argued back in 2000 or so, in the end correctly, that they would likely be the more influential-as-such shoegaze band in the end because they had a more accessible way in for people than MBV did turned out to be utterly correct. And if TikTok helped and cemented it, I have no problem with that either, and both reunion albums have been lovely.

I really want to like those albums

I think a band making an album after being continuously together for 25 years together and a band that was together for 10 years then broke up and then reuniting 15 years later and making an album again both have roughly the same success rate. In both cases the albums are generally not that good, but there are plenty of exceptions.

andre heavily implied that the outkast reunion was because they (or at least one of them) needed the money and he really hated doing it

I guess we'll see about acts that had their heyday in the 2000s/2010s. Aside from the White Stripes I don't think there's many in that crop for whom reunions would even be a big deal. The Knife

daft punk? that's it though, no one at a certain level of success really breaks up anymore, they just gradually get worse and replace half their members until no one really cares anymore. bands like bloc party or franz ferdinand probably could be doing successful reunion tours around now if they'd broken up like a decade ago instead of continuing to limp on.

a wrens reunion would probably be reasonably successful though not enough for most of them to take time off from their day jobs and it's not going to happen.

another reunion that'll never happen (given the failed attempt 20 years ago) but would be pretty huge is cocteau twins.

Apparently 75% of the Sex Pistols are reuniting in August, but it's for a benefit show, not a full tour, so maybe permissible?

There’s something rotten going on with this Sex Pistols reunion — and for once, it’s not Johnny. The punk progenitors have two new performances on the books without lead singer Johnny Rotten, who’s practically synonymous with the band. Now that’s anarchy in the U.K.! In his place is English punk singer Frank Carter on a break from his band the Rattlesnakes. The rest of the lineup, at least, is original: drummer Paul Cook, guitarist Steve Jones, and bassist Glen Matlock. The shows are fundraisers for London’s historic 400-cap venue Bush Hall, which was Cook’s childhood go-to, and will take place August 13 and 14. The band — billed as Frank Carter and Sex Pistols — plans to run through the Pistols’ sole album, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols.

I guess I’m mainly a Souvlaki mega fan. I like the other stuff just fine, love some of the Pygmalion demos that were canned. But Souvlaki is so haunting and phantasmal. The reunion albums just sound like a band. Even just for a day sounded like an ocean disguising itself as a band

I saw the Sex Pistols at the Phoenix Festival in 1996, I had just turned 17, they were fine.

do people still go see belle and sebastian in 2024? i mean do they sell out big places. i know they tour. i have no idea about them or their touring history or when they even last put an album out. but i know they played dates here recently.

i love Souvlaki to death. i have always listened to the u.s. version with the extra? different? tracks on it. since whenever that came out. i do like the first album a lot. never listened to the third. listened to some of the reunion stuff on Youtube but never went back to it. i can totally believe that they are awesome live at this late date.

Belle & Sebastian appeared on the Simpsons this season.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9ZU0fGoQ00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmhrky7ZJTA

There is something to the fact that the same show has had Michael Jackson and Belle and Sebastian appear on it.

homer simpson, smiling politely.

it won't happen, but a Spacemen 3 reunion would be amazing.

Agree but im also hopeful for sonic boom’s second career as sunglasses model

do people still go see belle and sebastian in 2024? i mean do they sell out big places. i know they tour. i have no idea about them or their touring history or when they even last put an album out. but i know they played dates here recently.

Belle and Sebastian have gone through some lineup changes over the years, but they've never broken up AFAIK. That said, while they've continued to put out albums every few years, I feel like nobody except the die-hards really cares much about anything they've released in the past decade. Based on recent setlists, they haven't *entirely* surrendered to becoming a nostalgia act, but they only play two songs from their most recent album, and the majority of the set is made up of tunes from 1996-2006.

(I thought about seeing them in Kalamazoo a few weeks ago with friends who live there, and the main reason I didn't is that the show was on a Monday.)

do people still go see belle and sebastian in 2024? i mean do they sell out big places. i know they tour. i have no idea about them or their touring history or when they even last put an album out. but i know they played dates here recently.

― scott seward

They're in the "never stopped" category. I go see them every time they come through town (and listen to each new album a few times), and probably will continue to do so until they stop, out of habit and loyalty and not having to make the effort to get into some upstart synth duo. But it's diminishing returns for sure.

I mean, the Pixies also were that rare band that influenced an entire movement and then broke up before they could properly capitalize on it and subsequently became way more famous in death than in practice. Like they broke up without ever having a Gold record or a charting single and came back as a band who had songs in like Fight Club and Gilmore Girls and the OC.

the one time I saw Pixies (2007) it was the first time they ever toured Australia and the vibe was actually pretty incredible - lots of pent-up Gen X love offered up from the crowd, the band seemed slightly taken aback by the response

(that show also had an absolutely fantastic opening salvo - In Heaven / Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf) / Bone Machine - just masterfully withholding the money shot until the third song but really bringing it when it was time to bring it)

after that I never felt the need to see them again - but I would also never begrudge their need to pay the mortgage and people seem pretty happy to keep showing up

another consideration - sometimes it is only a particular collection of people that can make a particular sound - and there is something joyous about watching them do it & celebrating it, even if they are doing it at a diminished level - I am very glad to have seen a version of Pixies with Kim Deal in it - and I think this somewhat explains the excitement around the recent Jane's Addiction shows, it is just how much better it sounds when Eric Avery is back in the band, and the versions that had a ringer were always a bit compromised

I regret not shelling out for VH with DLR, but generally i don't care

i never actually saw pixies in their heyday despite being a big fan but i do remember people seeing them and not being impressed? telling me they were stiff or just going through the motions. but i don't have a great memory and this is the very definition of anecdotal.

I saw them in Boston after Doolittle came out and they rocked out, much more exciting than the first reunion in 2004.

maybe i just heard from people back then who saw bum nights. everyone has bum nights.

i do really wish i had seen galaxie 500. they totally played in philly when i lived there but i was just becoming a fan in 1989 and there was a small window to see them. would i see them now....??? okay i think i would. they are all still upright. i saw D&N at a summer bbq last year and they looked fab.

emsworth was that the Sydney show? if so I was there too! I remember being amazed that Kim could smile so brightly and continuously for so long. And although they absolutely nailed everything - every note, every scream, every solo, every fill - it was somehow bizarre how exact the reproductions were. In a way very Pixies-ish.

I saw galaxie 500 open for Cocteau Twins, two bands that will absolutely never reunite. I’d certainly see either of they did. I can’t see either doing it for the money.

I saw the Pixies on one of the more recent tours, just pre-COVID, and really enjoyed it. Very conscious of it not being THE Pixies, but that's a good catalog and they played a ton of songs.

Not sure if the My Chemical Romance reunion is still active, but I would see them for sure.

bands like bloc party or franz ferdinand probably could be doing successful reunion tours around now

it’s almost time for the FFS ten year reunion!

emsworth was that the Sydney show? if so I was there too! I remember being amazed that Kim could smile so brightly and continuously for so long.

we may have all had the same conversation before but I saw them the night after the Luna Park show and STILL regret leaving the storming homo-packed party at the Pet Shop Boys stage to catch all of the low-energy Pixies set to a no-energy hillful of 34-year-old parents waiting to get back to the babysitters

Kim was BEAMING throughout though, a joy just to watch her, and it underscored how proper it was for her to tag out of the reunion once it wasn’t making her happy anymore.

I saw B&S just… six weeks ago? I acknowledged to myself that Stuart/Stevie might be the strongest co-frontmen in the legacy act circuit. Great show!

saw first big star reunion tour in nyc at tramps and arthur lee/love post prison gig (actually 2nd) at the knitting factory in la and both felt special since both guys had been away/ran away from their legacy and sure it was partial cash in but a lot of very good vibes from the audience seemed to really inspire great performances. did not go to any further gigs from those reunions because i knew it couldn't be topped.

Not sure if the My Chemical Romance reunion is still active, but I would see them for sure

MCR is doing a full front to back Black Parade set at When We Were Young '24, so they're probably carrying on.

i guess reed/cale songs for drella fits here too, saw that at st. ann's and it was great. thinking bout it, 60s guys revered by gen x who came back in the 90s in a big event style was my thing, anything outside of that hasn't had any appeal to me

emsworth was that the Sydney show?

yeah! definitely a lot of that good energy was coming from Kim. re exact reproductions, I guess that is kind of what I was expecting? like those songs are pretty precisely constructed, with not a lot of room for variation night-to-night I wouldn't have thought. but I am not a man who has ever knowingly heard a Pixies live recording! so no idea how this might or might not have differed from their OG era.

we may have all had the same conversation before
story of my goddamn life