Quick! Should I see Vivian Girls tonight?

I'm still enjoying their cover of the Wipers' "Telepathic Love" more than any of their own songs. Sort of how I used to feel about Yo La Tengo and "Somebody's Baby." They need a hit single.

They need to stop using the same lame reverb effect on every fucking song live and stop emulating reductively simple bands.

I'm kinda with n/a on this band. But one thing I will say, looking back to times when I consumed lots of C-86y indie racket along these lines, is that sometimes acts like this can seem better the more of them they are, for some reason. (Small-differences comparison helps clarify what's unique about any given one, maybe?) And when listening to Vivian Girls next to something like Cause Co-Motion, I wind up liking them both better. VG have dead-girl harmonies that really suit them, sometimes.

Kevin Keller -- In the tank for Vivian Girls

So far, at least, Cause Co have many more good songs, though they've been doled out parsimoniously, single by single. Maybe the new 7" comp cd will remind people of their charm? People at Cause Co shows are made to twitch and jerk; people at Viv Girls shows seem a little more caught up in their own appreciation of the new it band--perhaps they're too cool to spazz out?

this band is dogshit for faggoty loser writers to jizz over

pro-tip giving them a good review wont get u any titty

ts: being a faggoty loser writer vs. projecting onto one.

This band isn't even really that good, but whatever, they're fine.

Kenley with reverb

lol!

kudos

listening to vivian girls & cause comotion for the first time one after another, like both but CCM's songs are wayyyy better

also as hypey bands go, VG crap all over the tedious blackblack

http://maura.tumblr.com/post/62659763/hey-vivian-girls-how-about-you-stfu-with-your-omg-the

ya that video is O_O

you guys might like Tiger Trap

they sound like 15 year olds who still get picked on for being weird.

actually scratch what i said above, this band are as dull as blackblack

I do like Tiger Trap

http://www.uncensoredinterview.com/vlogs/10128-Vivian-Girls-Fish-Out-of-Water-Sometimes

like like like like these chix are like morons

oh already posted. still fuck this noise

i met some dude in the portaloo queue at an outside gig the other day in a vivian girls t-shirt. my initial assumption was that it was for the long-gone and obscure aussie band of the same name (it wasn't). dude nearly wet himself with excitement when i explained the aislers set to him

they're pretty young. I did sound for them once - they were nice - but so much of their appeal (besides being young and cute) is the reverb on the vocals.

Oh, they're good. Where Do You Run To has an epic build-up in the chorus. Admittedly, the vocal reverb helps.

man i was tbombin in dis thread

i always liked to call her kickball cansy

cuz of her deceptively large cans

it never caught on

― ಥ﹏ಥ (cankles), Wednesday, October 15, 2008 2:46 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark

too bad about this

why do most bands who use stupid amounts of reverb never bother writing decent songs

rhetorical question

Haven't heard 'em yet, but basically they got me at "stupid amounts of reverb".

I think some of their songs are much more, umm, sophisticated than they get credit for. This is admittedly a really relative use of the word "sophisticated," but ... something like "Wild Eyes" is not just a carelessly simple song, you know? It moves well, and there are some interesting variations to the harmonies, and ... I like that the Black Tambourine-style reverb treatments can make them sound a bit sinister, at times.

this band is fine but i don't really get what makes them better than the 4,000 other bands that sound exactly like this playing everywhere all the time

― metametadata (n/a), Wednesday, October 15, 2008 2:50 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i still think this ... they seem like a fun local band that you would go see every few weeks because you're friends with them but it's weird to me that they're a band that's covered regularly in national publications

Something like "Wild Eyes" is not just a carelessly simple song, you know?

Yeah, and it was their first single, and they should have just stopped there. you know? the album is atrocious imho.

Yeah, I'm curious to hear what they do with their next album, because it definitely seems like they weren't anticipating a ton of attention around the first one -- it seems like something they were probably just expecting to sell at shows.

I've probably said before that I find the level of attention a bit weird, for them and a few similar bands, all of a sort I'm more used to seeing stay in some kind of indie fuzz-pop ghetto -- I get the feeling these days that there are more and more people out there for whom this sort of thing doesn't sound like what some fun local band or old cult favorite has always been doing ... where the whole thing sounds new (or important?) enough to them that they can get really enthusiastic about it. (Which, if you're young and everyone's listening to Arcade Fire or Death Cab or something, might make sense.)

i had that feeling when tapes n' tapes blew up, they were literally like the last band from mpls i would have thought would get huge

(not a diss, just it was weird, the band i was in played with them the day the pitchfork review came out and it wasn't like it was super packed or anything)..

I get the feeling these days that there are more and more people out there for whom this sort of thing doesn't sound like what some fun local band or old cult favorite has always been doing ... where the whole thing sounds new (or important?) enough to them that they can get really enthusiastic about it.

― nabisco, Wednesday, March 4, 2009 5:56 PM (27 minutes ago)

This is pretty otm, but it doesn't explain why the Vivian Girls have such a strong nationwide following w/ hardcore indiepop fans who do realize that the music is more-or-less old hat. If you lurk on the indiepop list & read the year-end poll, you'll see people gushing over them with very little backlash. This is (presumably) a crowd who followed Black Tambourine 20 years ago and Slumber Party 10 years ago, so you'd expect a little less excitement from those parts.

The easy answer, I guess, is that twee lifestylists are happy to gush over any new act that reminds them of the Golden Age of Indiepop, and they're slow to turn their noses up at any music that comes out of their own fuzz-pop ghetto, regardless of its (un)originality. If the concerts are fun and the crowds are friendly, then it's easy to be a little forgiving and noncritical about the music as long as its reasonably fun and intimate (I'll give the VG's that much credit, at least...)

(or not)

interesting you mention slumber party - i think they suffer from similar problems to the VGs in that their sound is more important to their appeal than their songs (although i think their songs, particularly on their debut, are 100x better than VG). they were probably never huge because they're older and for some reason anything matthew smith is involved in gets ignored by everybody

If the concerts are fun and the crowds are friendly
If the concerts are fun and the crowds are friendly
If the concerts are fun and the crowds are friendly
If the concerts are fun and the crowds are friendly
BIG IF.

I mean, I hate to say Nabisco OTM, but the first LP was originally released on a super tiny local label and sold out within days, and was later made widely available via (major) indie In The Red. And I don't know much about the recording of the LP, but it seems (to me) like they just wanted to record an LP quickly because that first single (wild eyes/my baby wants me dead) was such a 'hit.' Now, whether that's true or not I don't know, but either way the LP doesn't have anything nearly as well-written or even as catchy as the those first two songs.

(Which, if you're young and everyone's listening to Arcade Fire or Death Cab or something, might make sense.)

^^ strawman.

interesting you mention slumber party - i think they suffer from similar problems to the VGs in that their sound is more important to their appeal than their songs (although i think their songs, particularly on their debut, are 100x better than VG). they were probably never huge because they're older and for some reason anything matthew smith is involved in gets ignored by everybody

Do you mean older in the sense that the average age of the members is higher, or older in the sense that murky, low-key indiepop bands were less likely to break out into the indie mainstream at the turn of the century than they are in 2009? I agree with the latter (& will have to give it more thought), but I have no idea how much the first part is true or how relevant that would be in terms of fame.

"their sound is more important to their appeal" is basically spot-on w/r/t Slumber Party. There are always people like me who tend to fall head over heels for reverb-drenched janglepop with woozy, Kendra Smith-ish vocals. But of course if they weren't capable of writing one good song, then they'd only be a very passing obsession for me. As it is, I've only been listening to them for maybe a year, but it seems like they were never really the Next Big Thing even when they were at the peak of their popularity.

i kinda jokingly meant the former wrt 'older' but the latter as you state it does seem more accurate. there were opportunities there (particuarly with the poptones connection) that never went anywhere and their buzz was minimal at best. psychy stuff still seems very limited in 'coolness' these days unless there's a garage edge to it

or a punk edge. It's funny how the girl-group-pop-meets-punk formula is still help as a bit of a novelty or at least a quirky, gimmicky selling point in reviews (unscientific googling here). To be fair, I guess it's vaguely useful to describe the Vivian Girls as a cross between The Ramones and The Shangri-Las when you're dealing with a wide audience that doesn't necessarily know JAMC or Black Tambourine. The garage pop label might leave readers scratching their heads regardless of how accurate it is, and coming straight out and labelling them "pop-punk" would prompt unwanted parallels to Green Day and their mainstream ilk. Eh, if the description helps hip them to the kidz, then why not?

fuck, I hit the submit button too early by accident; meant to post this fwiw:

or a punk edge. It's funny how the girl-group-pop-meets-punk formula is still held up as a bit of a novelty or at least a quirky, gimmicky selling point in reviews (unscientific googling here). To be fair, I guess it's vaguely useful to describe the Vivian Girls as a cross between The Ramones and The Shangri-Las when you're dealing with a wide audience that doesn't necessarily know JAMC or Black Tambourine. Coming straight out and labelling them "pop-punk" would prompt parallels to Green Day and their mainstream ilk, and that doesn't conjure up as much mystique as positing a *strange* *new* *exciting* mash-up of '66 pop and '77 punk. Eh, if the description helps hip them to the kidz, then who cares (except me) if it's a little stale?

the garage label does get invoked a lot by the press in VG reviews, so ignore the garage bit in that last post, at any rate

Straw men are usually for attacking, Ian! But my point there was just that in terms of overall trends, certain sorts of shambly/modest indiepop haven't been hugely visible over the past several years -- what's been more popular has been more ambitious and often shinier -- so it makes sense to me the bands along these lines might grab some people's attention.

Also, unregistered, I would totally not expect the Indie Pop List to be "less excited" about things that sound a lot like old indie pop, not in the least. The dynamic of that audience is not really like that.

I'm convinced that the VGs are Tiger Trap or Go Sailor time-warped 10 years ahead into WebTwoPointOhLand -- thanks to those good-for-nothing villains at the Legion Of Doom.

OMG SUPERFRIENDS, GET US OUT OF THIS 'BLOGOSPHERE'!

fair enough xp. I guess I don't understand the audience well enough to be able to make those kind of sweeping statements without coming across as a little clueless. Whether I'd like to understand it is another question entirely :P

It's a little depressing that there's such a high demand in that scene to recapture the spirit of 1994, but it's no worse, to be fair, than the even larger audiences who turn to Kings of Leon and the White Stripes as the second coming of the classic rock era greats. Sometimes a revival manages to be more ambitious/exciting/explosive than the original movement that inspires it; the fact that this is a very rare occurrence isn't necessarily reason enough to discredit retro-fetishism entirely.

(throw in a few more entirelys there if you want)

This is pretty otm, but it doesn't explain why the Vivian Girls have such a strong nationwide following w/ hardcore indiepop fans who do realize that the music is more-or-less old hat. If you lurk on the indiepop list & read the year-end poll, you'll see people gushing over them with very little backlash. This is (presumably) a crowd who followed Black Tambourine 20 years ago and Slumber Party 10 years ago, so you'd expect a little less excitement from those parts.

The easy answer, I guess, is that twee lifestylists are happy to gush over any new act that reminds them of the Golden Age of Indiepop, and they're slow to turn their noses up at any music that comes out of their own fuzz-pop ghetto, regardless of its (un)originality. If the concerts are fun and the crowds are friendly, then it's easy to be a little forgiving and noncritical about the music as long as its reasonably fun and intimate (I'll give the VG's that much credit, at least...)

For me, the answer is that I like a handful of Vivian Girl's songs. A lot. And look, I like innovation and experiment in art, but I can also appreciate stuff that has a comfortable feel and/or grooves and/or has great hooks and/or compelling songwriting and/or wonderful technique or some other admirable quality (so long as it isn't a steady diet of total pastiche).

My case against them basically boils down to "they're nothing new, and I don't get much enjoyment out of their songwriting, groove, texture, hooks." I'm not trying to indict all music that doesn't break a lot of new ground (if that's the way you interpreted the quoted post), and fwiw I'm pretty sure I like Slumber Party for all the same reasons you like the Vivian Girls. If I happen to dislike a particular band, I tend to dwell on points like unoriginality, even if they're no more or less innovative than x artist that I'm absolutely in love with.

No worries. Nothing wrong with your feeling at all (obv.).

Actually, your post got me to wondering what -- these days -- is innovative/groundbreaking in rock, anyway? I mean, would the F---k Buttons (pretty/abrasive), Radiohead (rock/electronics (circa Kid-A)), Animal Collective (as eMusic just described them: psychedelic '60s pop + Jamaican dub + Grateful Dead bootlegs + Terry Riley +mesmeric German techno), M.I.A., The Advisory Circle qualify? I dunno. I feel like are easily dismissed, maybe because they have an audience/buzz. If not them, that's fine, but then who? I'd say maybe The Books, The Bug, Burial and some other stuff, but that's not really rock (neither is M.I.A., but I feel like she could qualify).

I dunno...I was thrilled by the Vivian Girls when they first came out, and I'm one of those people who raved over Slumber Party* and Black Tambourine, and the Aislers Set too. Months later, I find myself only listening to that one Vivian Girls song - you know, the one by the ex-member - whereas I can still turn on Psychedelicate or my old Pam Berry 7" singles and enjoy them as music (as opposed to "sound").

To push this post further off topic: Slumber Party put out a great CD, Musik, in 2006 that got completely lost in the shuffle. Completely different lineup and a 180 away from the JMC-distorto old sound.

Never heard the bands you mentioned (except Black Tambourine, who I just discovered). But I'm heading to eMusic with those names now, to check 'em out.

(Sorry for incoherence; posting and parenting are hard to do at the same time. Must go now and turn on Mighty B).