pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

JSBX are super underrated now

I would sooner listen to Cake than anyone in Whiney's list aside from a couple of Wyclef songs and some Prodigy.

I came up with one: Underworld. Underworld are no longer cool. The rot set in when they released the live album (which is good!). Nothing after that has been great, and that Barbara album suuuuucked.

JSBX and Boss Hog had a mini media tour a couple of years ago, doing the rounds at places like KEXP and it was really cool to see them (the bands and Jon+Christina) still together and doing well.

JSBX are super underrated now

All the stuff collected on the Year One compilation (which was originally spread across the self-titled, Crypt Style, and A Reverse Willie Horton) is fantastic. The next couple of albums were really good, too, but they kinda fizzled after Orange.

When will we get a Better Than Ezra reevaluation

I know a pair of Toad The Wet Sprocket superfans, they've flown across the country to see them several times.

mid to late 90s was pretty abysmal for rock music and i have no issue writing off the whole scene at this point.

xpost- ttws fans are definitely committed for the long haul. it's weirdly endearing.

the Toadies have a very small and very committed cult fanbase

JSBX live was so much fun

Seeing JSBX live was among my favorite concert experiences of the 90s

Now I Got Worry tour

Russel Simins is an absolute monster on the drums

I saw Pussy Galore on their last tour in 1989, and then saw JSBX in maybe 1992, either just before or just after Extra Width came out. Both shows were great, but I think I'd probably have to give the edge to PG. Plus, Dial M for Motherfucker is one of the greatest albums of the 80s, so... now there's a record I'd like to see some Gen Z writer grapple with.

Bauer and Simins with Tom Waits (doing "Make It Rain") was the best Letterman performance I've seen.

I have no idea how to even frame a response to that. What do you mean by "cool", and cool to whom? I mean, the bands from the 90s that I still listen to today are, like, Fushitsusha and Unsane and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Monster Magnet. Are any of those bands "cool"? Were they ever?

JSBX had a little baby re-appreciation when they did that album for Mom + Pop in 2015

what once-cool bands from the late-90s do you think are not cool today?

Belle and Sebastian
Modest Mouse
GSYBE
Elephant Six bands

Yeah, the non NMH E6 bands is a good one

Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings) at 4:16 23 Jan 22

Now I Got Worry tour

I saw them on that tour, just destroyed the club

(i know ned has always been immune)

Always.

get deep enough into the weeds of 3eb legal stuff and you will become aware of xeb, a sort-of-tribute band made up of ex-3eb band members, and they sound just terrible

Fucking fuck, you mean a later Bay Area generation has its own version of Creedence Clearwater Revisited? Christ on a bike.

I saw Creedence Clearwater Revisited during halftime of a Vikings game

Interesting alternate opening for "Werewolves of London" there.

I saw Creedence Clearwater Revisited during halftime of a Vikings game

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

don't look back
you can never look back

Halftime with a bad moon rising
Stu Cook and the Minnesota Vikings

When will we get a Better Than Ezra reevaluation

― Chappies banging dustbin lids together (President Keyes), Sunday, January 23, 2022 3:59 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

About 10 years ago, I worked with a woman who was a Better Than Ezra superfan, with deep knowledge of their entire catalog. IIRC, she thought "Good" was fine and all, but held up an album from like 2005 as an unappreciated masterpiece.

that's weird but to me very similar to manic street preachers fans in the 2000s

i.e. the true meaning of la tristessa

i identify as a manics fan in the 2000s

I know a guy who told me his favorite band of all time is Dada

and his hair was perfect

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/8104-lateralus/

not entirely sure what whiney's point about tool no longer being cool was supposed to be about

I know a guy who told me his favorite band of all time is Dada

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, January 23, 2022 7:54 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i had an acquaintance in college who was an eve 6 superfan. i know a girl who liked nada surf enough that she very likely cheated on her longtime partner with the nada surf guy. but this is something else.

he said I'm going to my favorite band and I asked and he said...took me a second to register Dada and then I said "oh yeah Dizz Knee Land" and he was like "Well they have a lot better sings than that" like he was a little offended

cheating with the nada surf guy is pretty wild though

they listened to Blonde on Blonde on a portable stereo

In response to upthread, fuck that tastemaker bullshit, Moby's Play and Everything Is Wrong are great albums, along with at least a dozen other tracks. He may be an obnoxious creep but he did some great shit.

then I said "oh yeah Dizz Knee Land" and he was like "Well they have a lot better sings than that" like he was a little offended

As if they’re R.E.M. and you said “Shiny Happy People,” ha ha

The only thing I remember about Better Than Ezra is when I see anything about the town in Michigan name Owosso I hear "and it's good, living in OWOSSO" in my head.

lol

My favorite thing about them is that they inspired this hilariously stupid joke:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zjr9hh9ZIM

Seeing JSBX live was among my favorite concert experiences of the 90s

I saw them playing to next-to-nobody at a festival in 2015 and it was crazy crazy good

what once-cool bands from the late-90s do you think are not cool today?

Elephant Six bands

I never thought anyone ever thought E6 was cool but maybe I was the perfectly-wrong age... people older than me liked Beulah (did they?) and people younger than me liked the cabaret era pre-Fauna of Montreal

also no I saw JSBX in 2010 not 2015

I would say a lot of folks thought Neutral Milk Hotel and Olivia Tremor Control were cool. And there was def a cult for Apples in Stereo.

In fact I'm now getting serious flashbacks to every issue of Big Takeover in the late 90s.

I think My Morning Jacket's cover of "Rocket Man" made it to every mix CD ever made in my extended social circle ca. 2000. I don't think Elton John covers recorded in empty silos are cool any more

I saw JSBX in 2003 with the Black Keys opening and vividly remember thinking about the Black Keys "christ that was bad and lame, I'm sure that's the last I'll ever hear of them."

nmh reunion show still one of the best i've ever seen

I think I completely unplugged from most rock-pop music from 1998 to 2003 or so, I haven't listened to virtually any of these bands except accidentally

TBF i was couch surfing through a good chunk of that time and didn't own a computer or much more than a discman so there were reasons

So the phrase “It’s been awhile” means nothing to you?