bands I'm really enjoying these days

A not too factually accurate shortlist of my favourite bands (I've got lots more)

in response to a friend's recent blog entry at www.followthekoala.blogspot.com and also because I went to see Sebadoh last Saturday I thought I'd make a short list of bands that rock my software all day long:

The Arcade Fire! I went to see these guys play at the Agrodome a couple of years ago and it was one of the most amazing concerts I've ever seen. you can check out their web page at
http://www.arcadefire.com/flash.html

Sebadoh: I've seen them twice now. They are easily one of my all time favourite groups and Lou Barlow has had a marked influence on my own music. Their early stuff is better but despite being given to the occasionally over-sentimental indie-rock ballad (or album) they managed to develop some of their best qualities as late as their second to last album. They recently re-united with their original line-up and re-released one of their best and hasrdest to find CD's; III they have a website at http://www.sebadoh.com/

Resplendant: I wrote to the dude who used to record with Resplendant and told him that his albums (all available for free on the website www.resplendent.com) was one of the reasons I got back into playing and recording. He wrote me back thanking me, I guess he had given up in frustration and my e-mail was well timed encouragement. The later projects he did are also available to download for free on the same site. They do a good cover of a Rites of Spring song.

Guided By Voices: I have two of their albums on my computer and another mix CD that my friend Jill gave me a year or two ago. I don't know why but every album I've heard by them seems more like they just record clips of their songs and hope you'll catch them live for the whole thing. despite this I can'tr stop listening. http://gbv.com/

Joan of Arc: These guys are one of the very best bands to ever come out of Chicago, they've gone from being a vaguely-electronic manifestation of the early Emo group Cap N Jazz to being an ever shifting collective of musicians who aren't afraid of taking music to places it might never get to again in a hundred years, combining free-jazz, punk, electronic sounds and complex guitar with sometimes cynical always poetic lyrics and distinctive vocals I want them to come to Vancouver and play multiple shows so I can see them twice in a row.
http://www.joanfrc.com/bands.html

Eric's Trip: if you've known me a long time you still havn't known me longer than I've known about this group. I've also seen them twice (Once at Another Roadside Attraction festival in High River Alberta and again when they played their reunion tour at Richards on Richards) They were darlings of the Halifax Pop Explosion which occurred in the late nineties producing groups like Sloan, Jail, and The Hardship Post and bringing industry attention to Canada's untapped maritimes punk scene. They were originally on Murder Records and later moved to Sub Pop before breaking into pieces the two best being Elevator and The Wooden Stars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric's_Trip
http://ogami.subpop.com/bands/ericstrip/et.html
http://www.juliedoiron.com/html/about.html
http://www.elevator.ca/main.htm

Stan Rogers: This man is a Canadian hero. there isn't another band or musician who can make me choke up like this man's songs can. Along with Nick Drake and a hand full of other musicians this man embodies modern folk music. He died too soon.
http://www.stanrogers.net/

Nick Drake: Nick Drake was obscurre and under appreciated in his lifetime, he had bi-polar mood disorder and died as a result of an accidental overdose of his medication his almum Pink Moon and the recently released home recordings that he made near the end of his life fill me with awe. http://www.nickdrake.com/index.html

Johnny Cash: I don't need to say any more about the man in black, let his music speak for him. God rest his soul. http://www.johnnycash.com/

Current 93: I can't talk about my favourite groups without a curious tilt of the head towards Current 93. Current 93 started as a group formed by front man David Tibet and one or two others, Tibet was friends with Gennisis P. Orridge and the Psyckik TV crowd. At the time the band was named Tibet was heavily influenced by Crowley and was a Thelemite. His music which was a combination between traditional sounding european folk music and really creepy sounding instrumental pieces evolved with Tibet's religious development taking the band from thelemic inspired rock through esoteric Buddhism into Gnostic Christianity and then firmly into actual Christianity . About four years ago (about the time I un-lapsed my Catholicism) David Tibet released his last CD with Current 93 and announced that he was changing his name, dropping "tibet" and disowning the earlier half his back catalogue of recordings claiming that the CD's from Thunder Perfect Mind to the final one were the ones which most clearly reflected his religious and mystical outlook. One of his CD's uses an illumination by Saint Hildegaard of Bingen as it's cover and Thunder Perfect Mind is one of my favourite CD's though I have a hard time sitting down to listen to a lot of his stuff all at once and individual CD's of his are hard to find and expensive, better to rip them from the web I doubt he'd mind. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_93


Husker Du: I don't think placing them last in this list is right but the short list is getting pretty long. Husker Du released two of the best rock records ever made one after the other New Day Rising and Zen Arcade, their early stuff is fairly generic 80's hardcore and their albums that came after began the slow descent into the mainstream but those two albums are pieces of sheer beauty mixing a raw intensity with a guitar sound I've spent twelve years trying to emulate and never quite getting it (they use pedals I have an accoustic). The lead Singer Bob Mould went on to make some good stuff with the group Sugar.
http://world.std.com/~thirdave/hd.html

The Fall: My mom bought me a CD called The Complete A-Sides one year for Christmas, they are kind of like a hard rock Scottish version of the B52's only a lot better than that description makes out. http://www.thefall.info/fallsite/index.php

Joy Division and New Order are really awsome and I'm not going to elaborate on that statement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_Division

The Winks are a group from Vancouver who've moveed to Montreal. I went to highschool with the two founding members and one of them, Todd, helped me to record my own CD. they are a chello and mandolin duet with sometimes drums and sometimes a lot of other stuff, I don't know who's in the Montreal incarnation of their group but their music is awsome and I miss them. www.thewinks.net

negativland have the distinction of being sued both by U2 and Casey Casem over the same song they have been really prolific for a joke band and have been part of the debate over intellectual property rights since before the internet was a consumer object. don't buy their CD's if you can get them for free on the internet I know they love file sharing and if you were to talk with any of them they'd probably tell you to rip their stuff instead of buying it. of course if you're going to spend the cash the CD's ABC's of Anarchy, Dispepsi, and the Leter U and the Numeral 2 are all good ones to look for http://www.negativland.com/

ok that's the list. I hope you find some good stuff here, maybe comment with groups you think I should listen to, since I stopped listening to radio in grade 7 and can't afford to buy a lot of music these days I'm always looking for good bands to expand my horizons with.