Big Thief - Two Hands

That Colbert performance is good (the drummer = a Brett Gelman character)

theres def bands driven by media hype but this isnt one of them...media is at best keeping up w/ the irl buzz and at worst slightly behind

first album still the best imo

I forgot to mention there was a jammy segue in the live show that made me think of Jandek!

i'm not super into this band (haven't been all along) BUT that is a very good song and that video up there is a great performance that really lets you see how each member of that band has a sort of weird, wild-eyed, slightly unsettling quality that you can't take your eyes off of. (Lenker the least so, but she is the focal point, so...)

they're like a band full of the guy in the corner of the bus station that is making a harmless scene and you're keeping an eye on him without looking his way. i mean this in a very complimentary way, of course.

The band's look in that clip reminds me of the end of The Apple, when BIM shows up at the park w/Mr. Boogalow, sporting a "new style"... don't even think about @'ing me

the difference between "not liking something" and "something not being good" and I argue this band is not good. People love what they love. I'm just making a critical statement and a social observation. Obv. fallacy of "objectivity," but she could make a possibly persuasive or significant case, just prob not on Twitter---where so many people (incl. me at times) think they're masters of the mic-drop maxim, and the more insistent they are, the more loaded the lines, the less likely it is to worke.
However! When she says that it's mostly guys telling her she's wrong, that is more significant: a friend quoted his w!fe as saying, when asked (not bothering to volunteer an opinion on a then-celebrated singer-songwriter, I forget who) that she was okay, though very "womany"--projecting this ingratiating, sympathy-seeking image, brave and thoughtful, confiding her experiences, brave and tendah---well, and also the early rock critic Ellen Willis, while professionally and personally immersed in the Janis Joplin experience, especially live, came to wonder, as she stood near guys also immersed, if the theatricality, the sonic baptizm, which could be pretty strenuous for all concerned, especially when Joplin was still with Big Brother, if all this Story of the Pain and Glory of Womanhood, waw not somehow making it too easy for guys, with another far-out rock spectacle, throw yer popcorn in the air (well, the breakthrough album was Cheap Thrills--wonder how Joplin, no dummy would have dealt with this if she had lived longer, like well into the 70s wave of feminism)
But I can only say, I've got a simple male mind, and I like what I like.

you can't apply either of those descriptions to this band, they're not courting the gaze of the male counterculture

not that janis was or whoever that singer-songwriter is is

It reminds me of my suspicion of male critics or fans who praise a female performer's sexuality as a sign of her independence

xpost

theres def bands driven by media hype but this isnt one of them...media is at best keeping up w/ the irl buzz and at worst slightly behind

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Friday, October 18, 2019 12:37 AM (thirteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

deej on point here, if anything the critical hysteria that PFM has worked up around bands has historically tended to fall flat if the band in question wasn't of interest to people beyond the initial hype wave. there are so many justly or unjustly forgotten acts who caught a BNM merit badge with an OTT, rhapsodic review and subsequently vanished. primarily bc people weren't interested in what they had to offer, despite this small group of critics writing for an influential website who championed them. And Big Thief i guess kind of "arrived" due to a similar early notice from PF and other similar sites w/Masterpiece, but they stuck around (maybe even quietly so, with little hype), and the reason this one is catching more notice is because people have finally caught up and of course "Not" is massive.

and also the early rock critic Ellen Willis, while professionally and personally immersed in the Janis Joplin experience, especially live, came to wonder, as she stood near guys also immersed, if the theatricality, the sonic baptizm, which could be pretty strenuous for all concerned, especially when Joplin was still with Big Brother, if all this Story of the Pain and Glory of Womanhood, waw not somehow making it too easy for guys, with another far-out rock spectacle, throw yer popcorn in the air

I lost the thread here -- "somehow making it too easy for guys" to what?

Making it too easy for guys to enjoy the show and not be challenged by what she was making of the struggles of women and Woman.
I think "womany" had to do with seeming to seek sympathy from whomever, not just guys. However Joplin thought about courting her mass audience, which she sure worked for, she was, for Willis and everybody back then (incl. me), somebody who was saying what otherwise wasn't being heard by so many, no matter what or how much they thought of it---when Willis wrote "Lessons of Chicago," about '68 Democratic Convention chaos. she was described in the notes on contributors to that isse of New American Review as "a member of Women's Liberation, a feminist organization"--es-o-ter-ic, man---also check that eyewitness account on xgau's site, of Jefferson Airplane concert where Slick tried to let it blurt and got razzed by the largely male audience, visibly patronized by her otherwise all-male band---those were different tymes (in some ways)

And I'm not saying I was or am more sensitive than those bros over there etc., but she did make me think about a lot of stuff I didn't particularly want to think about or deal with.

woo ok i'm out of my depth here

IDG what any of that has to do with this band whatsoever xp

FWIW, I took “Mostly men telling me I’m wrong” to be a general social media move, rather than a claim that d00ds were responding to a female-fronted band in a particular way (tho who knows)

Yeah see that's the prob with tweets.

has she written a piece about this?

no, and that's sort of the frustrating thing, I would be fine with her writing a reasoned takedown of Big Thief that I didn't agree with, at least relatively more fine than with just a shitty tweet with no explanation. I just kind of expect better from a music critic at a major publication. But then that is sort of the problem with Twitter -- for all I know it was just some drunk tweet that she made after having an argument with someone.

Yeah, and it didn't start with Twitter---some of those little shit % run Real Life Ten/Consumer Guide lines came way before (although some other lines got me to buy shit I admit)

shit & run, that is

Seeking sympathy is of course not a bad thing in itself---and I don't think Lenker is trying to be the
new vanguard of feminist etc. and/or a superstar, maybe any kind of star, but I'm sure *some* women a9nd maybe some guys) are like, "Oh sure, lady," like she can seem inward-turning, twee (re the early REM appeal) at times, but then, as w Stipe, she's got that band ready when she wants to step forward, so look out for the oblique strokes

One of the things that strikes me about Big Thief and maybe also about the time in which they exist is that they seem able to be feminist and queer-friendly and all that stuff in a small way, without needing to announce it to the world or put themselves in a box the way "lilith fair" type acts might have done in the 90s. And admittedly I probably am more likely to respond to them because of that, because they're not holding up a big sign that says "this is specifically for someone other than you."

Agree 100% with the sentiment above that Big Thief do not seem to be actively courting hype or backlash. At least, from my perspective as a 42yo dad who mostly keeps up with music via this board, Spotify algorithms and Wikipedia rabbit holes.

I find Big Thief’s music to be so insular and unassuming, full of depth that’s not totally apparent on first listen. Even four albums in I still get the sense they’re just building a devoted cult following—nothing that would warrant a vicious takedown, whether in article or tweet form.

the first time i heard "paul" from masterpiece i thought, well this is an extremely accomplished + assured song for some random band's debut album. and they've just continued from there. i haven't vibed with every song on every album but to suggest that the band that wrote "mythological beauty" or "not" is failing on some sort of objective level is ridiculous.

there's a moment at about 3:08 in that late show performance where the camera gets all of them singing the chorus and it's as locked in as i've ever seen a band doing a tv spot.

Okay so as well as 'Teenage Dirtbag', I realised that Forgotten Eyes really reminds me of early Radiohead b side 'How Can You Be Sure', which I can't find on YouTube but honestly.

It's amazing how much BT occasionally remind me of Radiohead without specifically sounding like them. I'm betting the guitarist is a huge Johnny Greenwood stan

their chord progressions sometimes feel very radiohead-esque too, which is quite nice since not much else out there evokes the same feeling as in rainbows

Indeed. Now if only she could sing like Thom Yorke ca. The Bends…

actually i think her voice is a fair bit reminiscent of thom's

As a side note, I seem to be utterly alone on this one, if my cursory 5 minute Google search is anything to go by.

huh dow I never thought of xgau's smug dickhead quippy one liner reviews as proto Twitter but they kind of are

Saying it’s good cuz it’s not loud and proud queer or bc it sounds like Radiohead?? Stop ruining this band lmao

i hate to beat a dead horse, but big thief have seized the heart of my partner--someone who has never listened to nor cared about indie rock in her life. needless to say she was offended by the nyt critic's tweet

they were excellent last night in chicago. cattails and not were clear highlights. it goes without saying, but SEE THIS BAND LIVE

buck also played a solo number which kinda blew me away. so much talent in this band

love a POPCAST talking dababy, memes, real rap perseverance, moshing and catching feelings at rolling loud w/ @joecoscarelli

(also incl. bonus #defend @mehpatrol footage)https://t.co/GqodFzYmHE

— Jon Caramanica (@joncaramanica) October 19, 2019

NYT not about to let you get away with liking an indie band in 2019

/troll

Last few times I've listened to this, I kept thinking - "I'll bet these guys were big fans of Wheat's '99 'Hope and Adams' record.'

yeah i mean come on, they start off the whole conversation by saying that ganz has a private twitter, which she does not.

I checked this out with a chip on my shoulder -- "how good can it be, this album I keep hearing about, I don't really listen to indie rock much, I'm not going to like this but I guess I should find out what it sounds like." fucking blown away. I listened to the one from earlier this year, too, and it was good, but this album has a very locked-in musicians-listening-to-one-another feel that just astonished me. what outstanding music.

<3

"Orange" from UFOF is the one that devastates me.

This one's recorded pretty much live in a dusty room in a desert or something, isn't it? I think that's a BIG contributing factor to the locked-in musicianliness of it.

i listened to the album twice today and guess what? i really liked it, i got over her voice or maybe better into her voice. except one song which destroys the flow and which i have to skip as it is just too much pastiche, too obvious. it's "not" which almost made me not listen to the rest of the album as i didn't like it from the beginning on and couldn't join into everybody's hooray. it definitely deserves it's name.

"Orange" from UFOF is the one that devastates me.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 22 October 2019 23:44 (yesterday) link

Have you listened to her pre-BT solo stuff at all? Because Orange reminds me of some of it.

wayne and garth in mainhatten

the album lives up to the name Two Hands because that's what i used to cover my ears

I don't understand how a listener could really like most of this album, but strongly dislike "Not."