Silkworm: C/D?

i guess i have to reevaluate their later work. really liked bottomless pit, though.

yeah! bottomless pit is great. i hope they put out some more stuff.

Fuck, now I'm stuck at work and badly want to dig out their recs and play'em

Again, I really loved the Congress EP. Anybody else feel like Bottomless Pit have melodically for fleshed out songs than Silkworm? I love both.

I need to check out Bottomless Pit, just haven't gotten around to it yet.

agreed that bottomless pit continues to improve, i like both but yeah "Red Pen" off congress is so amazing..

listened to Blueblood, Lifestyle, and Italian Platinum last night.

goddamn what a band.

michael was such a great drummer ;_;

i think his death is the saddest rock death ever to me. so unfair.

also...cohen is such a weird/awesome lyricist:

There are kike jokes and then the street mimes
In times like these no one seems to mind
But just you wait ‘til the pendulum swings
Toward the inevitable decline

Crossed-eye talk and a halting walk
Blind Willie is down the block
He will never see again

Right after the thread action last night I was going to the gym and I put every Silkworm album I own on my ipod to listen to on shuffle, it was great.

THE GREAT SILKWORM LOVEFEST OF 2010

thank you bookmark function

xp otm--i think recognizing how incredible cohen's lyrics are was a major turning point for me and silkworm

rocking "empty elevator shaft" right now, a favorite & the one I would cover if I could find that passing chord in the second half of the verse

― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.), Thursday, March 4, 2010 12:09 AM (15 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

j0hn...

i was thinking of this last night and if i may humbly suggest...maybe you could try "Roots" off lifestyle...i could kinda hear that in your steez.

so many killer choruses too

"Was it YOU-OOOOO-OOOoooOOooOOoO-OOOO? You were WOOOOORLD PROOF!"

you guys ever see the video of them doing LR72 with no drummer after dahlquist was killed? chilling, really sad.

i was thinking of this last night and if i may humbly suggest...maybe you could try "Roots" off lifestyle...i could kinda hear that in your steez.

OMG yes! Particularly my favoritest lyrical bit on the whole album:

There's a Puerto Rican in this bar, she's thinking about San Juan
If I could, you know, I'd wave a wand and send her home
But first, you know, I'd send myself back where the river flows
But I can't even see that road, "When" is a secret, and that means nobody knows

For as awesome as the drumming and guitar work is, sometimes it seems people forget just how funny, clever, and genuinely affecting their lyrics could be.

isn't andy cohen a lawyer now or something? am i crazy?

yes he is

i think he was a lawyer for a lot of the time skwm was a band?

that was my impression

he would lawyer onstage between songs iirc

jewish lawyers in rock

when i saw these dudes open for Bikini Kill, he wore a big gold Star of David on his chest--the show was a Friday night, as i recall

http://www.jrp-graphics.com/jb/covers/LawyersInLove.jpg

I'm really trying to put a finger on why I love Silkworm so much, and the nearest I can get is this:

I really grew up on my Dad's records...the Stones, CCR, Neil Young, etc. There's a certain part of me that – although I have grown to love all sorts of music - weird post punk, hip hop, electronic stuff, noisier rock, punk, metal, world music, jazz, etc etc - there's a certain part of me, way down in the lizard brain, that loves classic rock in a way that that stuff can never touch..

just thinking of stuff like "Everybody Knows This is Nowhere" or "Lodi" by CCR or "Rocks Off" by the Stones...like music that basically gives you that "Four beers deep" feeling J0hn mentioned upthread, where you feel a something in your chest and you just want to rip your heart out cuz it's so anthemic and real and makes life seem so awesome and rocking

But at the same time, you can't just be stuck in those songs because there aren't any more of them being made, and any band that tries to be *actual* classic rock is going to fail. Those days are gone and it just seems fake and it won't even sound like those records sound.

So I guess for me Silkworm was a band that gave me those feelings of real "bro" classic rock, but at the same time they acknowledged and used influences from all the other stuff that changed how i viewed rock music - fugazi and mission of burma and sonic youth and the minutemen and gang of four etc – they were a part of that world two, the whole lineage of the "this band could be your life" era

they were able to combine the strange angles and skronk and sorta impenetrable lyrics and sometimes odd sounding chord changes and rhythmic hiccups in a way that still felt as anthemic and huge and heartfelt and full of everything as all the old music did.....but they weren't pretending to be like "hey we're a throwback to the old days" either like kings of leon or dudes that have a whole "let's bring OLD TIME ROCK BACK" jive.

basically they were exactly what i need out of rock, or at least a big part of it.

also a lot of the stuff i just posted might not make total sense when you read it, but i makes sense when i feel it.

(this also figures into why i think Lifter Puller was a great band and Hold Steady is only a good band)

great post

I was about to ask where Lifter Puller/Hold Steady fit into this! That's a really nice summary of a personal aesthetic, M@tt.

yeah, nice post M@tt. Funny, though -- there are a *lot* of bands who try to invoke that classic rock feeling and fail miserably. Like, uh, any band I've been in. It's a weird fine line to tread, and Silkworm do a great job of it. I don't really like the Hold Steady at all, but it seems like I should.

Great post M@tt. Thanks for sharing that.

listening to Lifestyle rn

re: bottomless pit. a different (but not totally different) animal, and man, I love love love it.

I got deep into that congress ep last year as well. "red pen" is epic.

listening to bottomless pit hammer of the god atm

"dogtag" is such a brilliant, oblique and not cheesy tribute to a fallen friend.

interesting thing abt bottomless pit to me is that cohen seems to be doing his thing, as ever, while tim midgett is really kinda pushing the sound forward with the four-piece lineup.

i've really needed silkworm this week, it's been a helluva week.

how do you guys feel about the crust brothers record?

actually never owned that that but always meant to, is it good? i heard it a bit a looong time ago but don't remember

it's just the live thing right? i love their version of

GOIN TO ACAPULLLLCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

yeah, it's just a live show. has a pretty good vibe, they're just having fun cruising through these songs. wish there was a bit more variety (as opposed to mostly basement tapes tunes) cause i really love the version of tuesdays gone.

And all men knew it
Then God came to take you.
So I said to myself
I would bring that glass of beer.
Thus we used to do
For everyone to see.
So I brought along this beer to give you, to drink.

that dude needs to finish that documentary!

the lyrics for LR72 are pretty remarkable

love that song. such a weird song in a way but it really gets me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEW3hsNVF9M

Joel R.L. Phelps mini-collection posted over here (they're all out of print and all pretty great)

Bummed I missed the thread revival!

wow, thanks, on it.

bottomless pit playing at schuba's in chicago on april 19th, opening for monotonix, which seems like an unlikely pairing but whatever. thinking about making it down for this, if any chicago people wanna meet up for a minifap.

the great indie mag Puncture published a Joel R.L. Phelps profile back in the day that I remember being really heartbreaking. All about him working with disabled kids or something and then playing shows at night and no one really paying much attention.

http://www.joelrlphelps.com/

huge fan of phelps's solo work

Weird, I was just thinking about Silkworm today! I have no idea why exactly. I never owned a record by them but saw them play in Providence once and they completely blew me away.

start at the beginning, in the west.

oh, i love yr display name!

i love you, jed_

thanks x o