mars volta?

So I guess I like this band after all. Saw the video for "Wax Simulacra" and holy shit!!! SO good! I wish all their stuff was this melodic (and brief). What else should I search from the discography, not being the most patient, prog-friendly dude?

Goliath!

not being the most patient, prog-friendly dude?

Uh, pretty much stick with the debut EP and the "Wax Simulacra" single then. Everything else is wanky, progtastic. Honestly though, the new album is pretty good - at least as far as these guys go. The lyrics are still horrifyingly bad, but there's some pretty cool guitar work (haven't figured out yet just how much is thanks to Frusciante) and the drumming is pretty spectacular in parts.

I saw these guys last month and they kicked all kinds of ass. The songs are generally pretty long but they didn't wear me out live - which is unusual. The drummer was amazing too. It's been a while since i've been to a show where the band put on a bonafied rock show (microphone swinging, scissor kicking, that kind of stuff). My own lameness is mostly to blame for that.

I can't stand these guys -- the records (the first two, at least, haven't heard the others) and the live show, both. A friend played 'em for me and it was just torture. Live show was, yes, masturbatory. No other word for it. In a word -- absolutelyfuckingawful.

New album in June?

http://blog.thecomatorium.com/?p=64

(that's one month after their "El Grupo Nuevo Omar Rodriguez Lopez" album with Hella)

Can anyone speak up for these guys? I quite liked ATDI and I find the idea of the Mars Volta perpetually intriguing but don't think I've ever heard any of their music. But I'm in a rock mood right now and I'm always down for ludicrous prog self-indulgence. So are any of their records actually worth taking the time to hear?

De-loused is worth hearing for comedy value. It's so-bad-it's-good.

And you can get your 'ludicrous prog self-indulgence' from plenty better, I will say.

Frances The Mute is genuinely good and exciting, its opening track is the best thing they've done

Amputechture is really underrated - Tetragrammaton is absolutely fucking insane, and great, and 17 minutes long

First album is otoh *OVERrated* and you should probably avoid it, Cicatriz ESP excepted (the longest and conversely easiest-to-listen-to song)

Davek's last post is thoroughly OTM though

dolls wreck the minced meat of pupils
cast in oblong arms length
the hooks have been picking their scabs
where wolves hide in the company of men

haha ok

Show me some other good contemporary heavy rock bands. I like QOTSA, for example. And Deftones. Stuff like that

admrl, sorry if this is weird/creepy but apparently you went to UCS. Paulatim! I was 2001-2008.

Oceansize finally get a thread of their own...C/D?
Chrome Hoof
Like Jimi Hendrix Fucking Black Sabbath With King Crimson (New Bushman's Revenge Album On Rune Grammofon)
quasi - c/d s/d

^^^all released very good albums last year

Rune Gramafon!

No Davek, that's not creepy. I did go to UCS. Quite a while before you though (and for a much shorter time). I hated it, but I hope you had fun!

Sorry to hear that you hated it :( It certainly wasn't 100% joy for me..

Oh it's fine, I made a lot of great friends (still my best friends, in fact) and it was aaaages ago - I left in '96! Now I feel old

sorry - 94!!!!

bunch of mars volta threads out there

anyway i like the new album a lot so far

i think the opener is pretty bad, but the run from dyslexicon thru in absentia is pretty great! in absentia being the highlight of the album for me

probably going to pick this up tonight, i've heard really encouraging things so far. but i'm also a guy who has heard double-digits worth of ORL solo stuff.

so this gets a little goopy toward the end!

but whatever, it's 2012 and i sort of dig a mars volta record

Mars Volta = officially over. Cedric Bixler Zavala on Twitter tonight:

Thank u 2 all VOLTA fans u deserved more especially after the way u rooted for us on this album. I tried my hardest to keep it going (cont-)

But Bosnian Rainbows was what we all got instead. I can't sit here and pretend any more. I no longer am a member of Mars Volta. (cont-)

I honestly thank all of you for buying our records and coming to our shows. You guys were a blast to play in front of

We could never had done it with out you. My dream was to get us to the point were Jon Theodore and Ikey Owens came back but sadly it's over

Thank u a million times over for ever giving a fuck about our band

For the record I tried my hardest to get a full scale North American tour going for Noctourniquet but Omar did not want to.

I guess a break from mars volta means starting another band and ignoring all the support the fans gave us. I tried my hardest guys

All I can do is move forward with my music and just be happy that mars volta ever happened at all. God Damn we had a blast. Thank u again

I just feel really guilty for not even really saying the truth because a hiatus is just an insult to the fans

To all our fans all over the world thank you for giving a fuck. You all ruled! I don't think ill ever hear a fist full of dollars the same

My record will see the light of day soon and I'm excited because it sounds nothing like my previous endeavors.

And no I'm not joking about any of this, I owe it 2 u guys to all fans to be serious about this

Thank u to all past members who helped Volta along as well. we blasted through like a comet and left our mark!

If u ever see me in person and want to know why I'll tell u my story

Please just be happy that it happened at all remember all the opposition we were met with for just starting a new band back in 2001.

they're gonna play coachella weekend 2 this year

so i guess sparta 'won'

DONE!

"My dream was to get us to the point were Jon Theodore and Ikey Owens came back"

Jesus, if he knew that was the best lineup he shouldn't have kept going that long.

last track on noctourniquet is one of the best mars volta songs

but i've been listening to the first two sparta records for a week and those things are secretly incredible imo

Honestly the very first Mars Volta show I saw w/ a female bassist, Ikey & Jon is still among the best show I've seen. It was basically King Crimson jamming On The Corner in a small club blowing hardcore kids minds. I never really listened to them on record but that show was awesome.

really sad, they were great until around 09 or so, but i think they could've made another great record and kept touring until they dropped. i wrote about the first time i saw them: http://www.splicetoday.com/music/the-mars-volta-r-i-p/

http://www.llss.tv/bosnianrainbows.html

Interesting piece here: Cedric on why he stopped smoking pot.

answer: "i became a scientologist"

dunno if its upthread but there's a podcast from the last year where cedric talks about the last ATDI usa tour. one of their friends in el paso had terminal cancer and was about to die, so he gave the band and their crew his "death stash" - trunks full of heavy duty opiates. sorta strange considering they still performed like they were made of 100% crack cocaine

this explains a LOT. i was checking out some of their later albums and i couldn't believe how godawful they sounded. who listens to that mess?

the actual last atdi tour was a dumb reunion where they played coachella and sucked real bad and omar barely moved bcuz his mom just died and cedric was a new scientologist so he was being weird.

i saw them in 2003 or something, cedric's hair was super crazy, it was post-afro when he just let it grow and he was just this shrieking ball of hair onstage, it was very beautiful

maybe kind of like this but in my memory it was much longer

http://clubpix.kingsnake.com/data/8248MarsVolta_0254-med.JPG

https://www.brooklynvegan.com/the-mars-volta-announces-18-lp-box-set-unreleased-material-included/

full disclosure: I wrote the liner notes for this.

Can you explain how they got 18 LPs out of it? They only had six studio albums, five of which would be double LP length, then there's the EP, then an album of outtakes...that only adds up to 13 pieces of vinyl to me.

I've not seen a finished copy yet so I'm not sure, but Deloused was 2LP, Frances The Mute was 3LP (last LP 1-sided with etching on flip side), Amputechture was 2LP, Bedlam was 2LP, Octahedron was 2LP and Noctourniquet was 2LP, so that's 13 LPs, plus one disk for the EP, plus two for Landscape Tantrums, the unreleased first take of Deloused, plus a disk each for Plague and Eunuch, so I think that's how they get to 18LP.

Frances The Mute was 3LP (last LP 1-sided with etching on flip side)

This is interesting to me, because it sounds like they may have added the song "Frances the Mute" to the album proper. Not "spend $500 on a vinyl box set when I don't even own a turntable" interesting, but interesting nonetheless. Congrats on the liner note gig, too, btw. I'd like to write more liner notes myself.

Thanks - I've been doing more and more sleevenotes during lockdown, and they're a lot of fun. The artists actually want to get the stories behind their work on the record, and enjoy the fact they have final word on what reaches the page (and I'm fine with that, tbh), though there isn't a single one of them that hasn't bulldozed through every deadline in sight as the artists prevaricate over the placement of every punctuation mark (and I'm fine with that too, tbh, as I appreciate that level of exactitude).

would buy a TMV book if you fancy expanding it

watch this space...

I'm surprised there's never been a TMV book. There's absolutely a story there, and Cedric and Omar are great interview subjects (I've talked to them together once, and interviewed Omar solo once after that).

Oh, it's definitely coming [he said, obliquely!]

!

👀👀👀👀👀👀

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvsHmMsoTp4

classic

I've been on a TMV kick lately after years of not listening to them. I feel like it's the only music that can overcome the craziness at my workplace these days.

amputechture is their best album y/y?

I saw them live once in 2005 behind ... I don't know the name of the album, but I do remember that they absolutely killed it. Jon Theodore was on drums.

i wish i had ever seen them live

as much as i love theodore i think thomas pridgen was their best drummer, which, they’re both monsters

amputechture is their best album y/y?

― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Tuesday, 9 November 2021 21:09 (seventeen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

cmon you know this to be untrue

a better question is whether it's their second best album, which I'd say it is

i saw them live a bunch (even with og bassist eva! she plays with cher now) they were super dope at first and pretty ok until JT left and they kind of lost the plot. pridgen never sounded right. the first one is the best, amp is next, the rest is whatever.

There's kind of a slow and subtle decline in quality across the first three albums. The debut is amazing, the follow-up is great (especially once you tack the title song back on), Amputechture is good but they're clearly trying to shake people off. The next two albums I find pretty hard to like, but Noctourniquet is surprisingly strong. I saw them in 2005 also, and they were amazing. I've talked about that show on ILM plenty of times - legendary salsa pianist Larry Harlow (who died this year) came out for a while.

i saw them open for system of a down. they played 2 songs in 45 minutes and i think i fell asleep.

would definitely give them another chance now though

I never saw Mars Volta, but I saw ATDI open for The Get-Up Kids in front of maybe 100 people in the middle of an interior courtyard in a student union and they were fan-fucking-tastic.

I've got the first track from Frances the Mute in my iTunes, and after each listen, I feel like I've heard a triple album from them, I'm sated.

I became a fan around Octahedron (bought the CD) or maybe Bedlam in Goliath idk. The former had slightly more concise songs IIRC which I appreciated.

Really been feeling the epic half-hour suite off Frances recently, their concentration span and ability to build an idea, detour from it and then return at the perfect moment is truly impressive.

I'm a big fan of Bedlam

new single

New song is only about 5 minutes long but the video is 11 minutes and worth watching all the way through.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYAR6bpf85Q

oooh this is all very promising, love what they do with the video

Tour dates in the fall, too:

Sept. 23 – Dallas, TX @ The Factory
Sept. 25 – Atlanta, GA @ The Tabernacle
Sept. 27 – Philadelphia, PA @ Opera House
Sept. 29 – New York, NY @ Terminal 5
Oct. 1 – Boston, MA @ MGM Music Hall
Oct. 3 – Washington, DC @ The Anthem
Oct. 5 – Toronto, CA @ Massey Hall
Oct. 6 – Detroit, MI @ The Royal Oak
Oct. 8 – Chicago, IL @ Aragon Ballroom
Oct. 11 – Denver, CO @ Mission Ballroom
Oct. 14 – Seattle, WA @ Moore Theatre
Oct. 18 – San Francisco, CA @ The Warfield
Oct. 21 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Palladium

Did not repeat not see video or tour coming, thanks!

From The Mars Volta - "De-Loused in the Comatorium" - C/D?

they added the pre-release version of comatorium to their bandcamp: https://themarsvoltaofficial.bandcamp.com/album/landscape-tantrums-unfinished-original-recordings-of-de-loused-in-the-comatorium

i listened to this version about 1000 times on a burned CDR before the album came out

total classic btw

― diamonddave85 (diamonddave85), Sunday, March 27, 2022 1:45 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

jon theodore is a fucking beast, his drumming on this still blows me away as much as it did when i first heard it

― diamonddave85 (diamonddave85), Sunday, March 27, 2022 1:49 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Did not know about the original versions now on their bandcamp, thanks!
Good old alb, though takes some getting used to, worth it.
Included with some other outliers in a Voice round-up I did back in Nov. ov '03:
Mars Volta. Whose big bananaspots slip electrically elsewhere: through stabs
of light (purple bursts of trans WhoZepYesRush-
QueenQueensJaneRageSystemRedHotFugaziSantanaAtTheDrive-InEmoScreamo trajectory),
which nevertheless tend
to bounce off crystalline towers of voice, on account of "Joycean wordplay" in
the midst of Revelation. It's a challenge, but appropriately so. For inst.
(one of their easier pieces), song-title "Cicatriz esp" can refer to headshrink
and/or vaccination mark: Either way, you're in goood hands, Mr.
De-loused at the Comatarium blackhole-visionary guy. Whose defiantly
creative/self-destructive internal cosmography (runs) rings through
ricochet-maze/shields of gloved ones Mars Volta's implosively arty art. Once, before
artist-junkie-De-Loused dedicatee Julio Venagas woke up and finally succeeded in killing
himself, he and MVs/ex- At The Drive-Ins Cedric and Omar were friends, and it shows. Awww. It's true!

― dow, Sunday, March 27, 2022 3:08 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Very fun album. Cedric is a good instagram follow for old wrestling clips, though his recent Will Smith take was lame

― hrep (H.P), Tuesday, March 29, 2022 12:46 AM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Also, from my Pazz & Jop comments on 2011 picks:
Thought I had more about Omar Rodriguez Lopez and Telesterion, but it's sharp-edged, fluid analog musk, more astute than noodley, any purple more blended than The Mars Volta's reigning peacock screams. Latin rock with jazzy tendencies, rec to fans of early Santana, Rock En Espanol, whatever just went out of print on Shadoks. A personal Best-Of; you can stream it on Spotify, and a ton of his other albums here:
https://orlprojects.bandcamp.com/

(Zechs Marquise, Omar's younger brothers' band, also has a 2011 album. Getting Paid. It's uneven, but worth checking out here: http://zechsmarquise.bandcamp.com )

― dow, Monday, April 4, 2022

i like both the video and song a lot

That's cool, obv the second half of the video is much better than the first. I wish they had included a bit of background info for people though. Presumably filmed in Cuba?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juego_de_man%C3%AD

Thanks again to Omar for my gateway to Frusciante Beyond RHCP (had to correct that from "Beyoncé," as conditioning kicks in again):
https://orlprojects.bandcamp.com/album/omar-rodr-guez-l-pez-john-frusciante

The video, I think, was filmed in Puerto Rico, but I could be wrong. The song is wonderful, and yet not the best thing off the new LP by far.

idk if she was being facetious but my partner asked me if i was listening to mon laferte when i had this on