are "lots of jam band wankers" also big sonic youth fans?

But john zorn is also jazz. see what mean?

My general observation is that jamband fans are sort of the prog fans of the 90s-00s, i.e. they're the white music fans holding the torch for technique/musicianship. So when your filter for music is jambands, you tend to look first and foremost for this, which leads naturally into jazz and ILM and certain other beardy genres.

But they also look for two other characteristics of jambands: whimsy and authenticity. Thus Primus, and thus folk, which is sort of an offshoot of jambands anyway, and thus indie-folk. The non-jambands music jambands fans seem to like is generally what I would call "crappy indie"--Iron & Wine, the Decembrists, etc.--as well as better stuff that sounds like that, such as the Mountain Goats, as well as stuff that tends towards the whimsical like the Flaming Lips and Tenacious D. If there are any electronics used they are to be goa-trancey and not "dance" as we think of dance music.

So Sonic Youth actually hits all three of these qualifications: they're "serious musicians," they're authentic in a certain sense (old-skool NYC post-punks--I think it's no accident that SY has been embraced by the jambands community as they emerged into old age), and whimsicial, i.e. Kim.

It also helps that most modern jambands fans came of age with grunge.

The jambands scene is actually pretty interesting, even if I wouldn't want to listen to any of the music ever.

a) Sonic Youth have played jambands festivals, and

b) Lee is a big GD fan.

Seriously though, I just picked up a copy of Daydream Nation last week after not hearing in quite some time and was completely underwhelmed. The SY imitators of the 90's pretty much ruined this album for me.

SY shows range from fairly straight renditions of the studio versions, to faithful versions interspersed with long noise bits, to mainly noisy improv, to straight experimental shit. Depends on their mood.

And why are "dark, negative vibes" automatically superior to "loopy," happy vibes?

In all fairness, while SY's jamminess can sometimes annoy me, they are some of the best improvers of any genre. I'm just as bored with a lot of noise bands as I am with jambands.

this is silly to compare SY and the Dead. of course they're different. SY has psych/jam leaning but they also came up in the hardcore 80s milieu, while the Dead's psych/jam side is mixed with country/roots music. take out the common element and you're comparing a country band to a hardcore band.

Or, uh.. the opposite.

But what i always hated about the dead was that they sort of took the bite out of country music and the blues.

is this the only thousand leaves thread

lee and thurston, at least, are big grateful dead fans not sure about kim and steve. we're all really good friends, me and lee and thurston and kim and steve

!!! really did change America

only 200 people bought !!!'s albums but they all went on to start jam bands