Music

Here's links to a few of my favorite bands. I pay a lot of attention to lyrics, so I've added a song line (followed by song title) to each band link. I mostly listen to Indie Rock/Pop (indie= independant of corporate influence), but also listen to some punk music and some more folksy stuff. Lately I've become interested in some european music like the Verve, Massive Attack and Radiohead.

One of my friends in college tried to classify my music tastes, and said he thought that I liked any music that had "long chords." I think he must be right, because I like a lot of bands that have been influenced by My Bloody Valentine, and I can't think of any band that has longer chords than MBV....maybe the intro to Starsign by Teenage Fan Club has longer chords - I like that song too. :) I also like songs with political lyrics.

A great Indie Pop site is Ad's Home Page, which includes a definition of Indie Pop if you don't understand what I'm talking about. The site has links to just about every indie band I can think of. Also check out the independant Musica database.

Also, let me plug my friend John's band, Cookie Galore. You can read an article about them at Westchester Weekly, or see my review of their CD at Amazon (scroll down to the Burlington, VT review - that's me).

top

Current favorite bands of mine:

Archers of Loaf	"The underground is overcrowded." - Greatest of All Time	Wrong, Harnessed in Slums, and Web in Front are good songs to listen to as an introduction to AOL's music. I think you can get sound clips of those songs at the Alias Records website. The Web in Front website does bootleg trades. You can see the video for Scenic Pastures at the Sonicnet website.
Luna	"Soho's got the boots, Noho's got the crack, New England has the foliage but I'm not going back." -Slide	California All the Way is the best intro song to Luna. Another good Luna website is A Head Full of Wishes, which includes info about Galaxie 500 and Damon & Naomi. Moon Palace has some short, real audio sound clips of Luna songs. Children of the Velvet Underground is an interesting article that also has Luna sound clips.
Sloan	"She cursed me up and down and rolled her r's, her beautiful r's." -Underwhelmed	Sloan's sound has changed a lot with each album, so it's had to pick a song that best represents the "Sloan sound." People of the Sky, She Says What She Means, and Money City Maniacs were hits in Canada and are good songs. My favorite Sloan songs have always been Underwhelmed and I am the Cancer from their first album - I like the MBV influence in those songs. Other web sites: SloanHut, This here is Sloan.
Sleater Kinney	"I could be demure like girls who are soft for boys who are fearful of getting an earful, but I gotta rock! " -Ballad of a Ladyman	I've just discovered Sleater-Kinney. I'd always heard about them, but never heard their songs untill one of my Vermont friends introduced me to their music. Then we saw them play in Montreal and I've been hooked ever since. Other web sites: Show me your riffs (includes mp3's)
Screamfeeder	"Even your smile hides a bitter tongue." - Triple Hook	This web site has free mp3's of their songs - I recommend Triple Hook and Stopless as an intro to the band. Hi-C's was a hit for them in Australia, but the lyrics are very repetitive so I don't like it as much.

top

Some of my favorite indie bands:

top

When I was living in Sydney, I made it my mission to know the Australian indie scene. But that was back in 1995, so I am horribly outdated. Some favorite Australian bands:

top

Some of my favorite songs - I could listen to these over and over and never get tired of them:

top

Burlington, VT: Zola Turn - a really good, indie rock, all-girl band. I recommend their song Tastes Like Nothing - you can listen to a clip of it at their web site.
Most VT bands are hippy-jam bands of the Phish-style. I hate that kind of music. Then there's Cancer Conspiracy who's lead singer seems to want to be the next Robert Smith. There's a bunch of other local bands that are also not great. I'd have to say Burlington is better at bringing good bands to the local venues than at producing their own music scene. Maybe I'm being harsh, but I think Lancaster has a better music scene than Burlington (see below). UVM's radio station, WRUV, has a list of some Burlington bands.

Lancaster and Harrisburg, PA: The Lancaster region was the starting point for some well known bands, including Live, the Innocence Mission and the Ocean Blue. In fact, a few Live videos have been filmed at some of my old haunts in Lancaster (including the once-regionally famous, now closed :(, BBC Record store). The independant label, Spin-Art Records, also had its start in Lancaster, founded by an F&M alum (what do you know - I guess a few cool people have come out of there). Some of the local bands that I like (I'm a bit out of touch, since I left Lancaster in 1996) include: Cherry Twister, Suddenly!Tammy, Fat Little Demons, Lilys (well, they're sort of from Philly), and Mightyhead. The Chameleon Club has a big indie rock fest every May that brings some great, "just-about-to-break" indie bands to town. If you like rockabilly music (which I don't), then check out the Martini Brothers - they used to play shows on the roof of a record store a block from my apartment in New Cumberland, PA (suburb of Harrisburg). PA Rocks is a good website for more Pennsylvania band links, Harrisburg Online also has a list of local bands.

Washington, D.C.: I grew up in a MD suburb of DC, so I listened to some local DC bands in high school. I am way out of touch with the DC scene now, having left in 1992. Some DC bands I liked then (and still do!): Bratmobile (from Bethesda, MD/Olympia, WA), Fugazi (who doesn't like Fugazi??), Tuscadero, Velocity Girl, Jawbox. I was really into the ska scene in high school too - some people I knew were in a ska band called Blue Plate Special and my sister and I used to go every time they played at the Bethesda American Legion Hall. There was like a little high school punk scene going there since it was always all-ages. Of the DC ska bands, I like the Pietasters and the Checkered Cabs best.

top

These are some set lists from mix tapes I've made, by title of the tape and date created:

Nanjemoy - 6/2001
Child of the 80's/Tape for Rob - 1999 - tapes made for other people
Toronto - 10/1998 - Created to listen to on the road when travelling to a geology conference in Toronto. It's become my favorite mix tape - it's very mellow.
Pipi - 3/1998 - created for a friend
Capital Steps/Living on the Capital Steps - 1997 - tapes made for other people
Peep Show - 3/1996 - I've become pretty bored with certain songs on this tape, but I still play it every once in a while... It somewhat represents the type of thing I was playing on my radio show at F&M that semester (except that my radio show was 50% ska).