mars volta?

really sad, they were great until around 09 or so, but i think they could've made another great record and kept touring until they dropped. i wrote about the first time i saw them: http://www.splicetoday.com/music/the-mars-volta-r-i-p/

http://www.llss.tv/bosnianrainbows.html

Interesting piece here: Cedric on why he stopped smoking pot.

answer: "i became a scientologist"

dunno if its upthread but there's a podcast from the last year where cedric talks about the last ATDI usa tour. one of their friends in el paso had terminal cancer and was about to die, so he gave the band and their crew his "death stash" - trunks full of heavy duty opiates. sorta strange considering they still performed like they were made of 100% crack cocaine

this explains a LOT. i was checking out some of their later albums and i couldn't believe how godawful they sounded. who listens to that mess?

the actual last atdi tour was a dumb reunion where they played coachella and sucked real bad and omar barely moved bcuz his mom just died and cedric was a new scientologist so he was being weird.

i saw them in 2003 or something, cedric's hair was super crazy, it was post-afro when he just let it grow and he was just this shrieking ball of hair onstage, it was very beautiful

maybe kind of like this but in my memory it was much longer

http://clubpix.kingsnake.com/data/8248MarsVolta_0254-med.JPG

https://www.brooklynvegan.com/the-mars-volta-announces-18-lp-box-set-unreleased-material-included/

full disclosure: I wrote the liner notes for this.

Can you explain how they got 18 LPs out of it? They only had six studio albums, five of which would be double LP length, then there's the EP, then an album of outtakes...that only adds up to 13 pieces of vinyl to me.

I've not seen a finished copy yet so I'm not sure, but Deloused was 2LP, Frances The Mute was 3LP (last LP 1-sided with etching on flip side), Amputechture was 2LP, Bedlam was 2LP, Octahedron was 2LP and Noctourniquet was 2LP, so that's 13 LPs, plus one disk for the EP, plus two for Landscape Tantrums, the unreleased first take of Deloused, plus a disk each for Plague and Eunuch, so I think that's how they get to 18LP.

Frances The Mute was 3LP (last LP 1-sided with etching on flip side)

This is interesting to me, because it sounds like they may have added the song "Frances the Mute" to the album proper. Not "spend $500 on a vinyl box set when I don't even own a turntable" interesting, but interesting nonetheless. Congrats on the liner note gig, too, btw. I'd like to write more liner notes myself.

Thanks - I've been doing more and more sleevenotes during lockdown, and they're a lot of fun. The artists actually want to get the stories behind their work on the record, and enjoy the fact they have final word on what reaches the page (and I'm fine with that, tbh), though there isn't a single one of them that hasn't bulldozed through every deadline in sight as the artists prevaricate over the placement of every punctuation mark (and I'm fine with that too, tbh, as I appreciate that level of exactitude).

would buy a TMV book if you fancy expanding it

watch this space...

I'm surprised there's never been a TMV book. There's absolutely a story there, and Cedric and Omar are great interview subjects (I've talked to them together once, and interviewed Omar solo once after that).

Oh, it's definitely coming [he said, obliquely!]

!

👀👀👀👀👀👀

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvsHmMsoTp4

classic

I've been on a TMV kick lately after years of not listening to them. I feel like it's the only music that can overcome the craziness at my workplace these days.

amputechture is their best album y/y?

I saw them live once in 2005 behind ... I don't know the name of the album, but I do remember that they absolutely killed it. Jon Theodore was on drums.

i wish i had ever seen them live

as much as i love theodore i think thomas pridgen was their best drummer, which, they’re both monsters

amputechture is their best album y/y?

― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Tuesday, 9 November 2021 21:09 (seventeen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

cmon you know this to be untrue

a better question is whether it's their second best album, which I'd say it is

i saw them live a bunch (even with og bassist eva! she plays with cher now) they were super dope at first and pretty ok until JT left and they kind of lost the plot. pridgen never sounded right. the first one is the best, amp is next, the rest is whatever.

There's kind of a slow and subtle decline in quality across the first three albums. The debut is amazing, the follow-up is great (especially once you tack the title song back on), Amputechture is good but they're clearly trying to shake people off. The next two albums I find pretty hard to like, but Noctourniquet is surprisingly strong. I saw them in 2005 also, and they were amazing. I've talked about that show on ILM plenty of times - legendary salsa pianist Larry Harlow (who died this year) came out for a while.

i saw them open for system of a down. they played 2 songs in 45 minutes and i think i fell asleep.

would definitely give them another chance now though

I never saw Mars Volta, but I saw ATDI open for The Get-Up Kids in front of maybe 100 people in the middle of an interior courtyard in a student union and they were fan-fucking-tastic.

I've got the first track from Frances the Mute in my iTunes, and after each listen, I feel like I've heard a triple album from them, I'm sated.

I became a fan around Octahedron (bought the CD) or maybe Bedlam in Goliath idk. The former had slightly more concise songs IIRC which I appreciated.

Really been feeling the epic half-hour suite off Frances recently, their concentration span and ability to build an idea, detour from it and then return at the perfect moment is truly impressive.

I'm a big fan of Bedlam

new single

New song is only about 5 minutes long but the video is 11 minutes and worth watching all the way through.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYAR6bpf85Q

oooh this is all very promising, love what they do with the video

Tour dates in the fall, too:

Sept. 23 – Dallas, TX @ The Factory
Sept. 25 – Atlanta, GA @ The Tabernacle
Sept. 27 – Philadelphia, PA @ Opera House
Sept. 29 – New York, NY @ Terminal 5
Oct. 1 – Boston, MA @ MGM Music Hall
Oct. 3 – Washington, DC @ The Anthem
Oct. 5 – Toronto, CA @ Massey Hall
Oct. 6 – Detroit, MI @ The Royal Oak
Oct. 8 – Chicago, IL @ Aragon Ballroom
Oct. 11 – Denver, CO @ Mission Ballroom
Oct. 14 – Seattle, WA @ Moore Theatre
Oct. 18 – San Francisco, CA @ The Warfield
Oct. 21 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Palladium

Did not repeat not see video or tour coming, thanks!

From The Mars Volta - "De-Loused in the Comatorium" - C/D?

they added the pre-release version of comatorium to their bandcamp: https://themarsvoltaofficial.bandcamp.com/album/landscape-tantrums-unfinished-original-recordings-of-de-loused-in-the-comatorium

i listened to this version about 1000 times on a burned CDR before the album came out

total classic btw

― diamonddave85 (diamonddave85), Sunday, March 27, 2022 1:45 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

jon theodore is a fucking beast, his drumming on this still blows me away as much as it did when i first heard it

― diamonddave85 (diamonddave85), Sunday, March 27, 2022 1:49 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Did not know about the original versions now on their bandcamp, thanks!
Good old alb, though takes some getting used to, worth it.
Included with some other outliers in a Voice round-up I did back in Nov. ov '03:
Mars Volta. Whose big bananaspots slip electrically elsewhere: through stabs
of light (purple bursts of trans WhoZepYesRush-
QueenQueensJaneRageSystemRedHotFugaziSantanaAtTheDrive-InEmoScreamo trajectory),
which nevertheless tend
to bounce off crystalline towers of voice, on account of "Joycean wordplay" in
the midst of Revelation. It's a challenge, but appropriately so. For inst.
(one of their easier pieces), song-title "Cicatriz esp" can refer to headshrink
and/or vaccination mark: Either way, you're in goood hands, Mr.
De-loused at the Comatarium blackhole-visionary guy. Whose defiantly
creative/self-destructive internal cosmography (runs) rings through
ricochet-maze/shields of gloved ones Mars Volta's implosively arty art. Once, before
artist-junkie-De-Loused dedicatee Julio Venagas woke up and finally succeeded in killing
himself, he and MVs/ex- At The Drive-Ins Cedric and Omar were friends, and it shows. Awww. It's true!

― dow, Sunday, March 27, 2022 3:08 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Very fun album. Cedric is a good instagram follow for old wrestling clips, though his recent Will Smith take was lame

― hrep (H.P), Tuesday, March 29, 2022 12:46 AM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Also, from my Pazz & Jop comments on 2011 picks:
Thought I had more about Omar Rodriguez Lopez and Telesterion, but it's sharp-edged, fluid analog musk, more astute than noodley, any purple more blended than The Mars Volta's reigning peacock screams. Latin rock with jazzy tendencies, rec to fans of early Santana, Rock En Espanol, whatever just went out of print on Shadoks. A personal Best-Of; you can stream it on Spotify, and a ton of his other albums here:
https://orlprojects.bandcamp.com/

(Zechs Marquise, Omar's younger brothers' band, also has a 2011 album. Getting Paid. It's uneven, but worth checking out here: http://zechsmarquise.bandcamp.com )

― dow, Monday, April 4, 2022

i like both the video and song a lot

That's cool, obv the second half of the video is much better than the first. I wish they had included a bit of background info for people though. Presumably filmed in Cuba?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juego_de_man%C3%AD

Thanks again to Omar for my gateway to Frusciante Beyond RHCP (had to correct that from "Beyoncé," as conditioning kicks in again):
https://orlprojects.bandcamp.com/album/omar-rodr-guez-l-pez-john-frusciante

The video, I think, was filmed in Puerto Rico, but I could be wrong. The song is wonderful, and yet not the best thing off the new LP by far.

idk if she was being facetious but my partner asked me if i was listening to mon laferte when i had this on

This song! WOW

EN MI CENTURITA EN MI CENTURITA EN MI CENTURITA EN MI CENTURITA

(baila si quieres más)

I see they have entered their ELO phase. Not hating it!

Another one. Gorgeous and politically engaged. This is fantastic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7MuV_qNsa8

Has there been any official album announcement yet? Stevie's post clearly implies one is in the can and "out there", but I haven't seen anything.

Apparently there was since-deleted product listing over at France’s Amazon. According to the listing, the self-titled album will arrive on September 16th, with this track list:

01 – “Blacklight Shine”
02 – “Graveyard Love”
03 – “Shore Story”
04 – “Black Condolences”
05 – “Vigil”
06 – “Que Dios Te Maldiga Mi Corazon”
07 – “Cerulea”
08 – “Flash Burns From Flashbacks”
09 – “Palm Full Of Crux”
10 – “No Case Gain”
11 – “Tourmaline”
12 – “Equus 3”
13 – “Collapsible Shoulders”
14 – “The Requisition”

my favourite album of 2022. Vigil is a stunning song.

Huge fan of the first three Mars Volta albums. The new one makes a strong EP. Still have some great memories from the De-Loused and Frances tours back in the day.

havent listent to this group since bedlam but this new one is great, and very different, like a more rockin dirty projectors idk

So an acoustic version of the new album came out today and...nobody gives a shit?

Oh, I didn't know it was out - it's excellent, though.

Lots of albums come out and people don't give a shit about most of them. I'll check it out though

Lots of albums come out and people don't give a shit about most of them.

True, but there were no reviews posted on any of the major music sites. Brief news items back in March when the album was announced, but this week, nothing. Seemed surprising to me.

it’s an acoustic version of a record that already came out

sometimes these get covered and sometimes they don’t idk, i’m not particularly interested

Thanks for the head's up on this. I really liked the album and had no idea they'd released an acoustic version. Listening now and it sounds exactly like you'd expect, but it's also really nice to hear the songs in this context.

Whoever's doing PR on this is sleeping on the job. I guess it got lost in the shuffle of Record Store Day. Incidentally, I just learned there was also a Mars Volta RSD release (not this).

I forgot this was coming out, but tbh it's not exactly near the top of my "must check out" list and I even say that as someone who has everything else they've put out.

Ok so the new album. There's moments of greatness for sure, but my main gripes are:

Too much Cedric. The dude never stops singing the whole goddamn things. There barely any breathing space. No air. It's just a guy singing at me nonstop.

Not enough Omar. There are like no guitars on the thing. I like guitars and stuff.

Won't be returning to it very often. Last song might be my fav tho.

ok i take it back, i had no idea this acoustic version of the s/t would be jazz volta!!! it’s gorgeous

huh, well Brad's endorsement certainly has my more curious than anything else I've read about it so far...

It's great. Omar took spare takes of Cedric's vocals to Puerto Rico after finishing the s/t album, ten reorchestrated them for acoustic instruments, setting them to specific Latin rhythms. It's subtly ambitious - Omar's roots in tradition Latin music have been at the heart of all TMV's stuff, and have only become more explicit in recent years, and this album is a triumph in that particular mission. He told me he sees it as being a quietly political album, too. They're some of my favourite TMV songs, and these versions are excellent.

great, the same album in completely different arrangements is gonna be in my top five of the year two years in a row

De-Loused in the Comatorium turns 20 tomorrow. I wrote about it for Stereogum.