The Thermals: Culture Icons

"Hardly art, hardly starving. Hardly art, hardly garbage!"

And with that, I fell in love with The Thermals! The lyrics, from "No Culture Icons" of the band's debut LP More Parts Per Million, struck me as a direct dig at mainstream music. Not all mainstream music is bad, just because someone is on a major label, doesn't mean they aren't capable of making important music. It's just that over the last 15 years, that has been rare. Old school mainstream meant Bruce Springstein, The Who, The Police, Phil Collins...I could go on. New school mainstream is Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Fall Out Boy, selling Pepsi, Target and Burger King commercials. Do you see? New school mainstream music is all about marketing: "This song is great...now what can we sell with it?". And THAT my friends is why punk bands exist, just to keep everyone focused. Which is why when Hummer offered The Thermals $50,000 to use one of their songs in a commercial, The Thermals basically gave them the finger. Now had Honda offered them 20,000 bucks for a Hybrid commercial, perhaps they would've considered that. Cause that's another horrible thing, it's not bad enough that music has just become a marketing strategy, it's being used to sell the most unnecessary and unhealthy things! How about a Black Eyed Peas song on a life insurance commercial? Just saying....

*sigh* This is actually a post about The Thermals....lemme refocus here...:

The Thermals, yet ANOTHER gift from Portland formed in 2002. Then they took off at indie speed! You ready? Ok, so they gave their demo to Ben Gibbard who gave it to Sub Pop Records, who IMMEDIATELY signed them and had the record mixed by Chris Walla! The record, More Parts Per Million, was released in March 2003. Then they lost a guitar player, gave the guitar to lead singer Hutch Harris and became a trio and recorded and released their second record Fuckin' A, in 2004. For some reason drummers are slippery, and The Thermals were no exception, flying through drummer after drummer. Good thing bassist Kathy Foster is also a drummer and recorded ALL drums for the band's last two records. Maybe even the last three, it's confusing apparently The Thermals have an unreleased LP called We Sleep In a Holy Bed, why unreleased? I have no idea, I'll get back to you on that one! At least we have The Body, The Blood, The Machine and Now We Can See to distract us from any "lost" or unreleased goodness we may wonder about.

What's great about The Thermals is their music is actually really simple. The arrangement in the songs are so simple and yet the lyrics are so powerful and sometimes that creates some complexity in the way you respond to it. When the music is overpowered by the lyrics it makes you pay attention to the words, whether you want to or not, then you have to deal with how that makes you feel.

Now I don't talk about many punk bands because I've only just discovered punk music. I had a preconceived idea of punk music being loud, screamo with no rhythm. I'm finding this to be very untrue! So starting with The Thermals, I'll be blogging about punk bands I now love.

Silversun Pickups: Why They Make Me *Swoon*

Silversun Pickups' lastest record, Swoon is flawless!

This is a band that understands their sound, and knows what it's capable of doing and isn't trying to be anything other than what it originally intended. What they are is an indie rock band. Interesting double standard: because Brain sings in that nice soft sweet tone people like to call their music pop, completely ignoring the rock instrumentation. If Brian was a female singing over the very same music, people wouldn't question the "rock-ness" of the music.

Indie rock? Yes. Specifically new wave. When listening to Swoon I think Metric on downers. The keyboard tracks are subtle and barely raise above the guitar on most tracks, creating a peacefulness within the tracks that compliment Brian's tone. Other tracks however have distortion out the world on Brian's guitar, while his voice remains quiet, perhaps he didn't need to be heard at that moment. Nikki really shines on this record, a few songs have bass lead-ins, making it a few more than you usually get on one record.

My favorite track is "Growing Old Is Getting Old", because of the bass line. It's flawless throughout. The chorus also is hynoptic. Actually the whole record is this way. It's a side effect of the tone in which Brian sings, like Emily Haines' vocals on Metric albums. There's something about the low tone and "pretty" music that makes me light, and I can sink into those records and stay for days.

Ok Hiatus-Over! Newest Obsession: Sleater-Kinney

Sleater-Kinney is ...was one of the best rock bands in the world! Period! They were not "the best gay rock band" or "the best female rock band", they didn't belong in boxes, not even ones fans attempted to place them in. They formed in 1994, and released their debut, self-titled album, Sleater-Kinney, in 1995. They came to us sort of towards the end of the uber famous "Riot Grrrl Movement". Like most bands at that time, their influences included Sonic Youth and Bikini Kill.

The first and second discs from the band, Sleater-Kinney and Call The Doctor, respectively, are pretty punk. But once we get into the 3rd cd of the 7cd discography, things start to change, tracks on Dig Me Out have a hint of pop, and just a dash of classic rock, it was the beginning of the classic rock/punk fusion that became S-K's truly signature sound. 

The last record, The Woods, is the perfect commencment to their career. Some fans didn't "get it" and this is where we get into the "fans putting their favorite bands in a box" thing. Sleater-Kinney is categorized as a punk band. I'd have to disagree I feel like once you cover different subgenres of Rock you can call yourself a "Rock" band! If you took a day out to listen to all 7 Sleater-Kinney records you would see the careful gradual steps from Punk to Classic Rock taken by the band. Every record put out by Sleater-Kinney sounds like was supposed to be the next record put out by Sleater-Kinney. It feels natural. I doesn't feel forced, the last record didn't feel like a legendary band wanted to "see if they still had it". The last record felt like "this is it, finally". 

This of course is a bittersweet discovery for all who feel this way about the record  because it was infact, the last step. 

On August 12, 2006 Sleater-Kinney played their last show ever at the Crystal Ballroom in their hometown of Portland, OR. They are on an indefinite hiatus. Carrie's spoken on it a few times since giving very little (but some) hope for a reunion or as she'd rather call it if it happens "the end of the hiatus".

"No ON 8!!!" It's Not Going Away Anytime Soon!!!

I had to come out of hibernation in light of the election. Obama winning, GOOD! Prop 8 being passed, BAD! That pretty much sums up the key points of the election lol. Our conservative country really contradicted itself this Tuesday, hiring a liberal democrat and yet passing all these gross conservative propositions. Prop 8 wasn't the only ridiculous proposition passed, Arkansas also made it officially illegal for homosexual couples to adopt children (well any unmarried couple, still a direct stab at homosexuals). Lot's of noise has since been made by the ever so outspoken gay community in California, back to back rally/march/protests have taken place since the passing of Prop 8. One of the many celesbian supporters attending the rallies has been the also VERY outspoken Tegan Quin of Tegan & Sara (like you didn't know)

Pictured above with Liz Feldman

Cathy Debuono and Jill Bennett

Things are getting better although it may not seem like it. The thing is, we only lost this battle by 5%! That's alot closer than I thought it would be, and I'm sure alot of you might feel the same. We have a gay friendly President so, lets hope this isn't the last step towards changing our country, lets hope this is just the first.
I don't have much else to say on the matter as SO many people have summed it up for me! I'll leave with one such person, a Mr. Keith Olbermann, if I were emotional at all...he would've brought me to tears

Sick of Sarah!!!

Sick of Sarah is a pop/rock/punk-ish band based out of Minnesota (finally Mid-West represent bitch!!!). The band consists of:
Abisha Uhl: vocals & rhythm guitar Katie Murphy: guitar, vocals Jessie Farmer: guitar, vocals Brooke Svanes: drums Jamie Holm: bass, vocals

Jamie is the newest addition to the band, but you wouldn't be able to tell by the chemistry she has with the other members. Who are all hilarious by the way. If you love watching ridiculous Tegan & Sara stuff you'll love them, their "behind the scenes" stuff involves cigarettes and alcohol so...I can relate a little better! Tracks to check out, "Not Listening" and "Mr. Incredible".
This is Mr. Incredible....with pictures;-) oooo

O! One thing I forgot to mention, they're a queer band!!! I know, you knew it was coming!!!
And this is "Not Listening" LOVE THIS SONG!!!It's the theme song to Brunch With Bridget!!!

Fun times in the studio!!!:-)

BIG CHANGES FOR FALL TOUR

After a year and a half of touring The Con, Tegan & Sara have decided to finally make some serious changes to the setlist! For the legions of fans eagerly awaiting Tegan's much promised (and never carried out) performance of "Superstar", your (and my) time has come!!! What's better than Tegan performing "Superstar"??? TEGAN PERFORMING "THE FIRST"!!!!!!!!! I know, I know......I know, I've only just regained my shit....cuz I lost it!!! Sara's high ass has added a light show she can trip herself on..seriously wanna party with Sara! Other songs have been added but I'm not going to make embedding the video COMPLETELY pointless so...I won't go into that. However I will say that I hope one of the unreleased songs to be performed will include my new love "Give Chase"......
Tegan and Sara - US Fall Tour Announcement

Is it just me or do they look like holograms??? WTF???

Tegan Calls It Off, and Sara Wraps It Up!!!

Aghhhh!!!!! It's finally here the much anticipated 3rd and final video release from Tegan & Sara's fifth studio album, The Con!!! I won't lie and say I'm particularly happy with this song being the last single. You guys that have been reading know I was really hoping for "Nineteen" and I completely get the "winter ballad" thing! So I would've even rather they released "Dark Come Soon". But I'm just one person, everyone seems to LOVE this track. Including smart music supervisors on shows such as Grey's Anatomy and The Hills, who have included the song in their shows. But I love the video, such a simple concept! If it was too "big production" it would've been really stupid cause it probably wouldn't have had anything to do with the song.

And I swear to Buddah if somebody comments about my future ex-wife with all that "I wanna be good at Sara" or "I could be something Sara could be good at" or something to that effect....I'll do absolutely nothing!!! YEAH!!!