Fluxblog 492: the earliest days of alternative music
Plus new songs by Geordie Greep, Broadcast, The Fiery Furnaces, and Kassie Krut
This week’s playlist is EARLIEST ALTERNATIVE 1965-1971, a collection of music by visionaries, iconoclasts, pioneers, and precursors of what would become alternative rock. It includes songs by The Velvet Underground, Can, Yoko Ono, Silver Apples, Pink Floyd, Scott Walker, Nico, Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, David Bowie, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, The Shaggs, Sun Ra, Syd Barrett, The Stooges, Funkadelic, Van Dyke Parks, Brigitte Fontaine, Karen Dalton, King Crimson, and many more.
This is part of my ongoing project to trace the alternative rock lineage from this point on through punk/post-punk, college rock, indie rock, alt-rock, and many niches and sub-genres along the way up to the present. (You can find all of those on my Spotify and Apple pages.)
[Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube]
As If I’m Attractive
Geordie Greep “Holy, Holy”
Congratulations to former Black Midi member Geordie Greep for writing the most Steely Dan-ish lyrics I’ve ever heard outside of anything Walter Becker and Donald Fagen actually made themselves. The Dan-ness carries over to the vocal melody and cadence, but the arrangement mixes in some aggro-prog flavor along with the suave Latin percussion to keep it firmly in Greep’s established lane. The lyrical conceit is brilliant – the first half of the song you’re hearing some freak narrate an encounter with a woman at a bar, making himself out to be some kind of international big shot Lothario, and the second half you’re listening to him set up that meeting in detail with a sex worker. He’s not interested in sex at all, he just needs people in that bar to see him as important and sexy. Greep’s grand but twitchy voice is uniquely suited to this concept, grandiose enough to sell the over-the-top pomposity but anxious and desperate enough to make you first notice that something’s off about this character and then make the leap into full-on comedy in the second half. He sounds so sweaty and skeevy and hilariously pathetic. It’s like when a character actor creates the perfect role for themselves.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
Broadcast “Please Call to Book”
“Please Call to Book” is a song that Trish Keenan wrote and recorded on her own as part of some fan contest built around fans sending in lyric ideas on postcards circa 2006, and it was found by her collaborator James Cargill after she passed away in 2011. I don’t recall this contest happening or if any songs from it were officially released, but it’s amazing to me that she’d keep something as good as this on the shelf. It’s a very simple acoustic ballad but I actually hear a lot of Paul McCartney in Keenan’s melody here, so it comes across like a spooky yet sweet cross between English folk and early Beatles. As with most of the material on the two recent Broadcast demo compilations, the recording highlights how extraordinary Keenan was a musician on her own, and while it’s a blessing to get to hear some “new” Broadcast songs, it just makes losing her so young hurt a little more.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
Ice For The Moonshine And Chichsaneg
The Fiery Furnaces “Quay Cur” (Stuck In My Head version)
I love Matthew Friedberger’s endless delight in reinterpreting his songs. It seems like for him it’s mostly a formal game, but I think it’s also kind of a flex in showing off the strength and versatility of his melodies and musical motifs. The new Fiery Furnaces album Stuck In My Head is essentially a live-in-studio recording of the band’s 2021 reunion tour show in which everything was arranged for an array of keyboards, bass guitar, drums, and only Eleanor Friedberger on vocals. The Furnaces’ music generally focused more on keyboard than guitar, but the set includes a few very guitar-centric songs like “Chris Michaels” and “Don’t Dance Her Down” reworked for keyboards without losing their shape or energy. The more keyboard-based songs go through more tonal shifts, or in the case of “Quay Cur,” get boiled down to their essence. The “Quay Cur” on Blueberry Boat is a maximalist epic, this version is truncated and pared down, with the parts where Matthew would sing replaced with chaotic instrumental sections. The song still feels huge and dramatic, but far more direct and blunt. I particularly like the shift towards a groovier sound on the Inuit section, and the way they bring in a keyboard motif from “Lost At Sea” at the end, which on the record segues into another part of “Lost At Sea” anchoring the verses of “Tropical Iceland.” The mash-up works perfectly on a musical level, but it’s also a clever little joke – the character in “Quay Cur” is indeed lost at sea.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
There’s A Runner In Me
Kassie Krut “Reckless”
My friend Molly passed this along to me, telling me “this feels Matthew-core.” And she’s right, this is exactly the kind of song I’ve been looking out for on this site for over 20 years. Let’s go down the checklist – catchy but abrasive, big heavy beats, random bits of noise, a playful but aloof vocal by some ultra-cool girl, the kind of dance music that’s actually better for walking. The lyrics split the difference between a musical theater “I want” song and the timeless “let me tell you how cool I am” type of song. One of the main hooks is just spelling out the name of their band, which makes them part of a tradition that also includes T. Rex and Pixies. It’s cool stuff. I like hearing cool songs like this. Molly is right.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS
• I highly recommend getting a copy of the debut issue of ANTICS, a new print-only music magazine headed by my friends Tatiana Tenreyro and Beverly Bryan, and edited by Michael Tedder and Suzy Exposito. It’s a really well made magazine featuring a lot of talented up-and-coming music writers that embraces the advantages of print over online magazines – photography that pops on nice paper, distinct design choices, in-depth articles and reviews focused on new and established artists who wouldn’t move the needle in terms of internet traffic but deserve the attention – Charly Bliss, Hinds, Why Bonnie, Body Meat, Fantasy of a Broken Heart, Cursive, The Babies, and cover star This Is Lorelai. Buy it!
• Suzy Exposito is busy! In addition to editing Antics, she also wrote a very interesting profile of Kesha for Elle focused on the singer’s newfound freedom and self-released music.
• Stephen Malkmus and the other guys in The Hard Quartet recommended some random cool stuff on Perfectly Imperfect.
• If you’re gonna return to Twitter after being away for who knows how long, do it like Father John Misty:
