What's up with US Maple?

my take:

Acre Thrills is the best starting point IMO
Sang Phat Editor & Talker are probably the most "US Maple" albums of their discography, Talker is particular is them taking their sort of bizarre weird quiet disjointed approach to its extremes
Long Hair in Three Stages is great, but def feels "early", they haven't quite shed the late 80s touch&go type stuff, but i think it's awesome
Purple On Time - they changed drummers and came back with a more straightforward "rock" (using straightforward and rock only in relation to their earlier stuff), it felt like a betrayal to me at the time but now i love it and right now it's probably my favorite and i wish they would have continued as a band

Yes to Acre Thrills. Start there for sure.

Mark Shippy stuck a guitar pick to my sweaty forehead while they were playing. Rad night.

haha awesome.

they were something live! man...

Really sad that I never saw this band live. Somehow they just never came near me at the right time. I can only imagine what it was like for people in the audience who didn't know what was coming.

didn't they open for pavement at some point? i can't even.

there's also something about the way he speaks in interviews that makes me think it's partly mental illness that's at play. I almost wonder if he avoids reading because of how strongly it affects him.

― michael bolton's reckless daughter (Hurting 2), Thursday, October 18, 2012 3:53 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol if so...wow....i only saw them on skin graft tours w/likeminded bands and labelmates mostly

hahaha! that's xposted from neil young thread!

goodnatured lols!

haha C&P errors very much in character i guess

i actually saw US Maple twice! but i never quite "got" them. think i should give it another go.

didn't they open for pavement at some point? i can't even.

they did, and it was very VERY funny

one of the only times I've seen a band in a huge venue (the Fillmore) aggressively antagonize the audience, who were booing and throwing shit

yeah i saw them alienate crowds that were waaay more into weirder/noisier shit than pavement.....i've given maple a whole lot of thought and i think the thing with them was the dichotomy of playing this sort of obscure/skewed music that never really let you get your footing juxataposed with a live persona that was kind of in your face and flashy, almost rockstar like in a way that you'd think they were playing this really anthemic stuff....

yeah that was what was so funny - guitarist was windmilling and jump-kicking all over the place like he was playing "Baba O'Riley" but the actual music couldn't have been further away from that

i read an interview with Al Johnson once in Skyscraper and he said his ideal model for live performance was a Judas Priest concert he went to as a young kid w/an older sibling or some older kid, he recalled being really scared by the whole thing, all the weird heshers and leather and stuff...he said he felt like rock concerts should be like that

people should devote more time talking about how good a frontman al johnson is

The thing that was most astounding about their live performance was how faithfully they replicated the off-kilter arrangements from the albums. Even the stuff that sounded pretty much improvised.

Yeah, I interviewed Al once, and not only was he a really nice guy, he affirmed that the stuff was all pretty much composed and arranged. Storm & Stress was another one of those sorts of bands.

(Obv. Storm & Stress dude went on to Battles)

Ohhh, I didn't know that. I dug S&S.

man i kinda forgot about storm & stress, i had one CD by them that was amazing....

i remember one time i saw maple Al had this captain and tenille type hat on and a yellow shirt that said "banned in boston"

i had a storm and stress lp that was either clear or the sleeve was clear or something. the packaging was amazing.

"improvised-sounding" rock is such a 90s thing i wish hadn't gone away.

jesus lizard dudes got into free jazz and shit got real

strongo - check out hasps (new band, 2/3rd of nu-skin graft band gay beast)

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

I thanked Al after a show and he gave me a long creepy hug and whispered in my ear "ohreallythankyoumanIwasn'tsurehowitwent" and so on until I was blushing, it was awesome.

m@tt that is pretty awesome.

do you know coptic light? they only put out one lp and might be too jammy for you but it's pretty tight.

no! but i googled and this is pretty raging!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1ABA0aWouQ

yeah i would seriously recommend seeking that lp out. it's definitely "post-don cab" but they go much further out.

This is all record collector-y, but I liked the thematic thing that Maple did with their artwork. Still kind of want to get the metal jacket version of the first album, though I don't really do things like that anymore. The lyric sheet for Talker (high school theme) printed on 3-hole-punch paper like a corrected homework assignment was really cute. It's kind of amazing how much thought went into the presentation and music that then often got dismissed as random noise and grunting.

I got to see them live once, and it was fun to see them duplicate the album stuff (and the stage moves were great) but I don't know that they were better live than on album, based on that one show. Their records sound really great. I think I first heard Sang Phat, and didn't like it. Was drawn in by Talker and Acre, which go well together. The "Stuck" video makes me wish they'd made more videos...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOr_L5BebS0

agreed, i believe the day-glo camo on the cover was about the idea of making vietnam "glamourous", that's why they were in GI gear on the postcard that was inserted into the album cover...have that framed actually

there's footage on youtube that i think was supposed to be for some US Maple documentary film that i don't think got finished or released

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKfNIN-1g3I&feature=relmfu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKfNIN-1g3I

I think they're still working on that, they just don't have they money to complete the editing, etc. Maybe they should do a Kickstarter or something.

i had a storm and stress lp that was either clear or the sleeve was clear or something. the packaging was amazing.

That's their second one, I got a CD of it after reading a review in a Sunday newspaper (if you can believe that). Probably the first really 'avant' thing I got into via alt rock and I still hum the first track in my head from time to time. I like it much more than the first, which is less tight, more meandering.

I wish I'd seen them, but at least there's youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTr9fuz9jgk

Pretty much been on a U.S. Maple bender since getting on board with the thread revival. Really wish there was more guitar playing like this in the world (I am older now and can appreciate that they don't get very loud, or go for real histrionics, just totally unique and engaging parts). Makes me want to be in a two guitar band.

That part in "Ma, Digital" where the guitars decide to go into a unison riff and actually "rock" is so great, though really it is all great. Love Al on that song.

Also, wanna say that the Coptic Light song posted above is great! Wish I had given that record more time when it came out, it came to the radio station I was DJing at but for some reason I just didn't connect with it. Gonna track that down for sure.

Oddly enough, both Coptic Light and Storm & Stress have the same drummer, Kevin Shea, who is really talented. Plays in Talibam! and a bunch of other stuff now.

was never huge into this band at the time but had acre thrills and talker, both of which i was intrigued by. i think i'd be more into them now. there's a bunch of good live footage on youtube.

i bought talker, 69 love songs, and dongs of sevotion on the same trip to chapel hill, without really knowing anything about any of them

For those who aren't that familiar with U.S. Maple, another fun fact is that Al Johnson, the singer, has one of the cameos in the movie "Hi Fidelity". He plays the super nerdy guy who comes in looking to buy the Captain Beefheart record:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOwjVVSNOtY

I can only imagine how "Talker" sounded when included in a batch with "69 Love Songs" and "Dongs of Sevotion".

Sang Phat was my first introduction to the band-- a grad student from Knoxville-- and I didn't like it. Later that week another friend told me to get Talker and that did it.

I hadn't seen "Hi Fidelity" but that clip is funny

"i've given maple a whole lot of thought and i think the thing with them was the dichotomy of playing this sort of obscure/skewed music that never really let you get your footing juxataposed with a live persona that was kind of in your face and flashy, almost rockstar like in a way that you'd think they were playing this really anthemic stuff....

― i dox in yellow gox dox socks (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, October 18, 2012 5:33 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink"

I think this is a real key component of this band, they were playing strange/weird music but acted like they were playing Jesus Lizard cock-rock and it managed to piss off noise heads and rock dudes in equal measure. They legit made people mad in a way other more explicitly confrontational bands never did.

I always loved that their shows, were just that, shows, you got it and loved it or you didn't and hated it but they didn't seem to care at all and weren't going to give you any hand-holds one way or other.

Conceptually, I can't think of a more important band in shaping my own approach to music. Number one with a bullet.

this is my fave live clip so far, there's some real attitude going on here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LfdQQ0rbr8&feature=related

I always called them Cubist rock.

Also, just pat oursevles on the back, upper mississippi sh@kedown and I spent so much time in early twenties listening and seeing this band and people were constantly like "ugh US Maple is awful!" but we were always: one day this band is going to be seen as so ahead of their time and influential.

xpost (never thought the U.S. Maple thread would be moving too quickly for me to keep up with!)

Yeah, that's a pretty solid description.

ugh this totally makes me want to start a new band

That kind of transgressive approach you're describing, chr1s, in my experience, it doesn't do well in hometowns but it exports well

Yeah, I have been playing guitar a lot and for the first time in a long time feel like a band could be a good idea.

Wish I had known dudes that were into U.S. Maple earlier than I did. I got into them right as things were winding down for them.

My enjoyment of stuff like US Maple has actually made it really hard for me to learn guitar. I'm trying to learn fundamentals, but in the back of my mind I'm always like " ... or I could just play it like this."

I think it was a review of Acre Thrills in SPIN, of all things, that initially piqued my curiosity (and subsequently opened the door to the wonderland that is Skin Graft).

i think that audiences that were into US underground rock then were really accepting of noise or dissonance and fucked up vocals and confrontation as long as it ROCKED in a fairly conventional manner....Maple denied you the right to rock out or pump your fist, which is why i think they could really irritate ppl

Wow loving this

Also another interesting document on the same channel: something called "The Miracle of Recreation", Part 1 and Part 2.

Whoa seems they are playing with most of Melt Banana on that Peel Session? Wild pairing.

i'm thinking this might have been the same skin graft tour i saw w/maple and melt banana on its UK leg?

fucking great

Peel seems...maybe not too into it? haha

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

sick

Amazing ty

Super cool. A bunch of behind the scenes studio stuff I just stumbled upon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loni6SVagbw

Al sometimes had an almost Charlie Chaplin aspect to his movements

I kinda sometimes always kind of thought of US Maple as an ingenious parody of the Jesus Lizard.

they had very good hair