Best Song On Palace Brothers - There Is No-One What Will Take Care of You?

I remember reading somewhere that Drag City hated this record, but Neil and Jennifer persuaded them to release it.

i hope i still own a copy of this.

how well known was this record back in the day?

― Algerian Goalkeeper, Sunday, April 10, 2011 6:27 PM (2 hours ago)

it was well represented in the zines... weirdo out-folk backed by slint. maybe a couple Matewan references.

This blew my undergraduate mind

"I Tried..." which I first heard on a compilation somewhere iirc, which made me buy this odd and beautiful album.

i cant remember how i first heard of palce brothers. Think it was a friend who liked them or something.

I was heavily into alt.country at the time & a friend who was living in NC suggested I give this a try. I'd not yet heard of Slint. I confess that this album wasn't really what I was looking for; I'd wanted something more like Neil Young tbh, or at least something not quite so morbid. I probably ought to go back & give it another shot, though morbid's not really my thing. I voted for the first song, the one that stuck with me the most.

I remember buying this as an advertised "Slint side-project"... lol

Yeah, me too! Thank god it turned out better than the King Kong albums I bought for the same reason.

Anyway: Riding

1. O Lord Are You in Need?
2. The Cellar Song
3. Riding
4. Idle Hands Are the Devil's Playthings

i can't really separate "idle hands" from the thrill of hearing them for the first time, and how ancient and strange it sounded to me then. and it's a great song.

O Lord are you in need

I had never heard of Slint when I got this. I think my brother told me about it. By the time Hope and Viva Las Blues came out I was pretty well sold.

yeah i hadn't heard slint either. They were just a band i'd seen mentioned but never actually heard.

After Twin Infinitives and Perfect Sound Forever lots of people were paying attention to what else Drag City had up their sleeves... let me see where it came chronologically...

I still haven't heard Slint lol

DC001	Royal Trux	Hero Zero / Love Is... (7")	1989
DC002	Pavement	Demolition Plot J-7 (7", EP)	1990
DC003	Royal Trux	Twin Infinitives (Album) ◄ (2 versions)	1990
DC004	Pavement	Perfect Sound Forever (10", EP)	1990
DC005	Royal Trux	Royal Trux (CD, Album)	1993
DC006	Smog	Floating EP (7", EP)	1991
DC008	Various	I Hear The Devil Calling Me (7")	1991
DC009	Pavement	Summer Babe (7", EP)	1991
DC010	Royal Trux	Untitled (LP)	1992
DC011	Mantis (2)	Who Wants To Be A Camel? (7")	1992
DC012	Burnout	Lounge (7")	1991
DC013	Smog	Forgotten Foundation (Album) ◄ (2 versions)	1992
DC014	Pavement	Westing (By Musket And Sextant) (LP, Comp)	1993
DC015	Vocokesh	Still Standing In The Same Garden (12", S/Sided, Single, Etch)	1992
DC018	Silver Jews	Dime Map Of The Reef (7")	1992
DC19CD	Big Flame	Rigour 1983-1986 (CD, Comp)	1996
DC020	Various	Hey Drag City (2xLP)	1994
DC020CD	Various	Hey Drag City (CD)	1994
DC021	Royal Trux	Red Tiger (7")	1992
DC024	Various	Making Losers Happy (Xpressway NZ Singles 1988-91) (CD, Comp)	1992
DC025	Palace Brothers*	Ohio River Boat Song / Drinking Woman (7")	1992
DC026	Various	X Way Vision (VHS, NTSC)	1992
DC027	Mantis	Druler (7", Sin)	 
DC028	Silver Jews	The Arizona Record (12", EP)	1993
DC029	Burnout	Multiple Attackers (12")	1993
DC30	Nig-Heist	Nig-Heist (Vinyl, RE, LP )	1998
DC31	Smog	Julius Caesar (LP, Album)	1993
DC032	Royal Trux	Cats And Dogs ◄ (2 versions)	1993
DC33	King Kong (3)	Funny Farm ◄ (2 versions)	1993
DC34	Palace Brothers*	There Is No-One What Will Take Care Of You (Album) ◄ (2 versions)	1993

Have to rep for the title track. It always sounded so bleak and delicious even though I could only pick out half the lyrics...

I discovered Palace when the second album showed up at the campus station and then found that we had the first one on vinyl. Next I heard "Come In" on CBC's Brave New Waves and totally fell in love with that song (which is probably still my favourite Palace moment). Around Arise Therefore I pretty much lost interest - the scary backwoods magic was gone.

Bonnie "Prince" Billy vs Palace Brothers/Songs/Music vs Will Oldham

kinda has to be 'riding'

Riding! Didn't even have to think about it.

looks like another runaway winner

I love my sister Lisa most of all

forgot about "Merida," love that one too.

listened to the album last night. otherworldly back poarch gothic.

back porch gothic

also really love that song on the 'hey drag city' comp, "for the mekons, et al"

executive branch in a nation of one,
exercise our power...
to veto, veto, veto...
be the man of the hour

One of my all-time favourite albums. Going for Riding, but really, all of it. In terms of how well known it was, it was the album following on from the reasonably successful 'Ohio River Boat Song' single wasn't it? At least that's why I picked it up.

By 'reasonably successful' I mean 'reasonably' according to no metric anyone would actually consider successful of course.

Did the critics rate it at the time?

The Bonnie 'Prince' Billy/Palace et al/Will Oldham ALBUM POLL

Did the critics rate it at the time?

Can't really remember. I think so, yes. The Slint aspect helped it have a higher profile than it might have done otherwise I think.

I didn't really read nme or mm back then every week so i cant recall how much coverage Slint got. For some reason I knew more about Rodan (another band i took years to hear after reading about them)

did slint get much coverage from NME/MM?

I found a single paragraph buried deep within a 1991 Spin with Prince on the cover, it calls the 2nd album "Spider/and" lol.

Spiderland got a bit of attention in the uk music press when it came out cos Steve Albini wrote a rave review of it in the Melody Maker.

"“Since about 1980, America has been host to an ever-increasing parasitic infestation of rock bands of ever-dwindling originality. It seems there is no one left on the continent with an aspiration to play guitar that hasn’t formed a band and released a record. And that record sounds a little bit like Dinosaur Jr.

Trust me on this; all but maybe three of those records are pure bullshit.

My primary association with rock music is that I am a fan of it, though listening to the aforementioned nearly killed that. In its best state, rock music invigorates me, changes my mood, triggers introspection or envelopes me with sheer sound. Spiderland does all those things, simultaneously and in turns, more than any records I can think of in five years.

Spiderland is, unfortunately, Slint’s swansong, the band having succumbed to the internal pressures which eventually punctuate all bands’ biographies. It’s an amazing record though, and no one still capable of being moved by rock music should miss it. In 10 years it will be a landmark and you’ll have to scramble to buy a copy then. Beat the rush.

Slint formed in 1986 as an outlet and pastime for four friends from Louisville, Kentucky. Their music was strange, wholly their own, sparse and tight. What immediately set them apart was their economy and precision. Slint was that rare band willing to play just one or two notes at a time and sometimes nothing at all. Their only other recording, 1989’s Tweez hints at their genius, but only a couple of the tracks have anything like the staying power of Spiderland.

Spiderland is a majestic album, sublime and strange, made more brilliant by its simplicity and quiet grace. Songs evolve and expand from simple statements that are inverted and truncated in a manner that seems spontaneous, but is so precise and emphatic that it must be intuitive or orchestrated or both.

Straining to find a band to compare them with, I can only think of two, and Slint doesn’t sound anything like either of them. Structurally and in tone, they recall Television circa Marquee Moon and Crazy Horse, whose simplicity they echo and whose style they most certainly do not.

To whom would Pere Ubu or Chrome have been compared in 1972? Forgive me, I am equally clueless.

Slint’s music has always been primarily instrumental, and Spiderland isn’t a radical departure, but the few vocals are among the most pungent of any album around. When I first heard Brian McMahan whisper the pathetic words to “Washer”, I was embarrased for him. When I listened to the song again, the content eluded me and I was staggered by the sophistication and subtle beauty of the phrasing. The third time, the story made me sad nearly to tears. Genius.

Spiderland is flawless. The dry, unembellished recording is so revealing it sometimes feels like eavesdropping. The crystalline guitar of Brian McMahan and the glassy, fluid guitar of David Pajo seem to hover in space directly past the listener’s nose. The incredibly precise-yet-instinctive drumming has the same range and wallop it would in your living room.

Only two other bands have meant as much to me as Slint in the past few years and only one of them, The Jesus Lizard, have made a record this good. We are in a time of midgets: dance music, three varieties of simple-minded hard rock genre crap, soulless-crooning, infantile slogan-studded rap and ball-less balladeering. My instincts tell me the dry spell will continue for a while - possibly until the bands Slint will inspire reach maturity. Until then, play this record and kick yourself if you never got to see them live. In ten years, you’ll lie like the cocksucker you are and say you did anyway.

Ten fucking stars.”

—Steve Albini.

Albini doesn't like dino jr then?

i remember everett true in mm giving single of the week to "ohio river boat song" when it was first released

didn't think everett true liked that kind of thing

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Riding, though the Lost Blues version is better

Loved the first few Palace singles & albums at the time and have grown to despise the sound of Will Oldham's voice pathologically, the way some people JUST CAN'T LISTEN to Tom Waits or (and I can't personally even fathom this, but) Dylan. Every record felt less like he was tapping into some deep mysterious well and more like he was half-assing his way along. Might have been me & the times, though. Viva Last Blues for me was like his Loaded and everything else was postlogue.

Loved "Horses", "Ohio River Boat Song" and "For the Mekons Et Al" immoderately. "Riding" was it for me from this record, altho also loved "Drunk at the Pulpit" (have always been a sucker for a novelty hit)

Ach, forgot about "O Paul" which I should have voted for. It was going to close off my mixtape of "Paul" songs tenderly (I had an excellent friend named Paul)... but I could only find a smattering of others so that C-60 never got filled.

Listening to this album now for the first time in a long time... I still vote "Riding" but I totally forgot about "Long Before."

Oh man, Long Before is amazing.

yeah

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Damn it I hate that my record player is packed away right now.

only 1 song didn't get a vote proves its a strong record, runaway winner but

Best Song On Palace Brothers - Palace Brothers (AKA Days In The Wake)

long before is a great tune, too. voted riding, but i really do think long before is top 3 from the rekkerd for me, along with idle hands.

this one Best Song On Palace Brothers - Palace Brothers (AKA Days In The Wake)

Man, it's the only song that didn't get any votes!! What dies that mean, it's unanimously everyone's second favorite?

definitely

Released 25 years ago today.