Tortoise: Classic or Dud

Never understood Zeppelin, or the Stones, or anything with that up- front blues/rock feel. Well, I understand it now, and can enjoy it, but it's not a formative influence like it is with most people.

am i a dickhead

sam prekop, have my babies!

brokeback! i luv yr noodley bass nonsense.

er, and all the other ones.

anyway, thrill jockey do have the lonesome organist who is well good.

oh, im gonna fight my corner a bit re tortoise. many people here nad everywhere think they are very boring....well, many people here (maybe the same) luv missy elliott and her '....so addictive'. well i am listening to it now (1 pound from russia....) and i think THAT is pretty boring.

er i dont know what that proves, but im just a bit bored myself, of snide hipster posturing......i guess everyone likes having a common

Have you tried black-metal? It's a lot more amusing than Tortoise, and there's no blues at all!

tortoise albums = inconsistent;
tortoise singles = great (the duophonic "gamera", the first two singles, the tortoise vs. autechre remixes, the jim o'rourke remixes).

the japanese digest compendium that blends the original tracks with rhythm resolutions and clusters remixes is the high point for me, "djed" is incredibly dense in sound.

anything done with bundy k. brown i've found to enjoy.

TNT lost me (although the nobukazu takemura remix is incredible), haven't heard anything since. i think that jeff parker is a good guitarist in theory, but his stylistic methods (volume pedal and overt jazzisms) were off-putting and eventually turned me off to the band.

Parker is a member of the AACM, you know.

gygax! whaddaya think of Pullman?

A nobly doomed effort.

*raspberry*

you know, I never heard pullman but I really liked that Directions In Music thing with doug scharin. haha, wasn't chris brokaw also in that band? drums or guitar?

and Ned, why don't you go flounce off?

everything afterwards, while still often enjoyable, just seems like smooth-jazz noodling in comparison.

No, but Ken "Don't Call Me Bundy" Brown was.

and the audience wasn't much better. standing their stroking their chins and furrowing their brows. i was trying to fucking dance, dammit!

near the end of college, listening to lots of "college rock" (pavement et al.), i discovered tortoise, and it really blew the door open for discovering non-rock bands that are amazing and influential. while not necesarilly introducing me to lots of styles, they made me really interested in new territories -- dub, kraut rock, prog, electronic, minimalist composers like steve reich and terry riley, ennio morricone, glitch [through label mates oval], more out forms of jazz.

i think after a while the whole post rock scene became very same-y, especially from the second generation of post-rock bands, who's influences were tortoise, rather than all of the aforementioned styles tortoise borrowed from.

i once met the band, while they were Tom Ze's back up band, and they were complete assholes

and Standards was a big steaming pile of dog doo

I saw them at the NYC show, and it was no good either. I've seen them a bunch live, tho, and that was the first time they were truly sucky. And I've danced during those other shows, too (and unlike Out Hud, they did not command me to!).

i once met the band, while they were Tom Ze's back up band, and they were complete assholes

hehehehe, well I can see that. Was that when Ze played Park West? I was at that show. Anyway, McEntire's kinda shy, which makes him seem aloof (I don't think he played with Ze). Herndon is kinda bratty sometimes. But Doug, Bitney and Jeff are some of the nicest guys I've known, ever. ESP. Doug. That man is totally a saint. Unpretentious, down-to-earth, willing and able to chat about anything/everything in a really cool way. If most "hatas" got to meet Doug and just talk with him for five mintues, their icy hearts would melt. Or not. I say that tho 'cause a lot of the hating has little to do with the music, and much to do with a (mis)perception of their personalities.

and Standards was a big steaming pile of dog doo

No disagreement here, bro-dy. Don't know why I own this.

Shan't.

Oh jeez ... what AECO tune did they butcher?

"Theme de Yo Yo", sans vocals, natch. It was ARGGGH-ifying.

Natch.

anyone listened to this lately? i think it's aged much better than the tortoise stuff.

the drone dissolving into the concrete then the emergence of the acoustic passages and finally the abstract jungle beats into reverse synth bleeding.

Rockist: 'The Bar' is available on the three disc version of Perfect Lives, but it's a slightly different recording. That is an exceptional piece. He should get a whole thread, I'm an Ashley fanatic.

I didn't know the Ashley piece was based on someone else's poem.

and the only thing the tortoise piece has in common with the ashley piece is the namedrop. still no need to listen to tortoise.

But I bought some later Ashley that didn't hook me in, so I've kind of backed off from his work. (I can't think of the title right now, but it was a large-scale opera type thing.) Also, "The Bar" is really my favorite part of that Perfect Lives work.

I guess one of us should start an Ashley thread. You know more than I do, but if you start one some time, I'll chime in, maybe think of something new to say (maybe not).

didn't mean to be anti-Tortoise above, they certainly were better than many things in the 90's.

frustrating to realize only the rough tape survived. think of what they could have done with a more detailed mixdown.

xp great post, pomenitul, and I think you are right in identifying the generational difference. I'm a little older than you, and sounds like I'm a little bit younger than eddhurt, but your experience mirrors mine. As I stated upthread, Tortoise was absolutely crucial to my checking out music that I might have otherwise taken years to find, and for that I am grateful. I also still think they're a great band, no qualifiers; I saw them three years ago on the Catastrophist tour and they were excellent

Ry Cooder is a bad-ass guitarist, and his later records, like Chavez Ravine, are great. Very humane efforts.

this thread is a complete clusterchinstroke

There is definitely a generational thing about Tortoise and the comment about reissues in the 90s is otm. Tortoise sounded alien and fascinating to me as a 19 yer old in 1995-96. They were transparent about their influences and that’s what led me to hearing Can, Reich, Morrisone,Lee Perry and electric Miles. Sure I might have heard all that in due course but Tortoise was my gateway and I’ve never held it against them.

I mentioned upthreas my thoughts about Jeff Parker joining the band midway through TNT. They became “less adventurous” but they also became less slavish to their influences. Standards is when they finally just started to sound like Tortoise.

If you told me this Joe Chambers track was a primary influence on TNT, I would not be at all surprised

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEWEC5lv_Co

i'll have to check that album out, i love New World from 1976. it even has semi-tortoise-y mallet percussion action on "chung king"

"chung dynasty" i mean, god wtf brimstead

now you've got me thinking about stan freberg

New Jeff Parker record is just insanely good, like nearly perfect.

I guess I'm intrigued, because I've never really liked his playing. Which album is the new one?

The New Breed, it's great

Wait, that's not the new one, is it? Is it Suite for Max Brown?

oops yeah brain fart that's the new one

There's a new Chicago Underground Quartet album out too.

right on the new one is brain fart got it

(sorry)

mini West Coast tour at the end of March

http://www.trts.com/

Link to buy new reissue is broken, link to their merch is broken. The 'marketing' behind this band is being run by idiots. Do they not want money for their merch and albums?

Whoa, calm down, it'll be okay.

fyi - you can also buy the reissue on bandcamp - https://tortoise.bandcamp.com/album/rhythms-resolutions-clusters

Seems like a totally fair comment to me tbqh. Bands should keep their websites up to date, especially when it concerns product.

yeah, it's definitely annoying, but "run by idiots" seemed a little much.

just wait until the better business bureau finds out about these broken links, they'll have a thing or two to say to these nincompoops

When I think of tortoise I can only think of how I have the vinyl of TNT and wonder if I can get money for it

They’re quietly gearing up to release new music, and this is part of that. (Tour and reissue, not links that briefly don’t work.)