THE MELVINS. "I'm crawling! On my belly crawling!" Oh the Melvins. The wonderful dirge-like heavyness. The tortured screams from King Buzzo. The magnificently twisted lyrics. The Melvins are heavier than your momma's pussy lips. They rule all.
TRISTEZA. dreamy melodic atmospheric post-rock at it's finest. When I first heard this band I was struck by how fucking chill they are. Their name meands "sadness" but the music hits all different emotions. All Instrumental Fantasticity! Let Tristeza transport your mind into post-rock paradise.
YO YO MA. Yo Yo Ma is one bad motherfucker and there's no denying it. I used to play the cello a long time ago, so I loves me a good cellist. Yo Yo Ma has been one of my favorites for so long. He can play anything in the repertoire and do it masterfully. Check out some of his performances here.
YO YO MA
TCHAIKOVSKY - Roccoco Variations
*****
BACH - Prelude, Cello Suite No. 1
*****
ENNIO MORRICONE - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: Ecstasy if Gold
***** DVORAK - Silent Woods
*****
DVORAK - Slavonic Dance No. 2 in E Minor
***** PAGANINI - Caprice 24
*****
BEETHOVEN - Triple Concerto (with Itzhak Perlman and Daniel Barenboim) Mvmt. 1, Pt. 1
FAITH NO MORE. Man when I first heard Faith No More and their album The Real Thing back in high school it was so fuckin' great. I saw that first video, From Out Of Nowhere, and I was like "Who the fuck are these guys?" That album was a weird mix of styles and genres and yet it rocked so hard. The dudes in the band were all weird, weird dudes. The drummer was a natty dread. The keyboardist was an openly gay surfer-type. The guitarist looked like a Motorhead fanatic. The bassist could have been in Mudhoney and ended up playing in the very very sick Brujeria. Then, you had Mike Patton, the singer, who did not look in any way like any other frontmen out there at the time. No fake blonde hair. No fancy woman's clothes, and he sang crazy! Plus they did the best cover of Sabath's WAR PIGS! They had several singers before Mike Patton, including Chuck Mosely and, for a short time, Courtney Love.
XIU XIU. I love this band. I first heard about them on the Sonic Youth forum and went out and got one of their albums. They truly are some original music making motherfuckers, slightly scary, always noisy, yet melodic, and beautiful, just plain beautiful. They sure got the zeitgeist of today. ha ha! Zeitgeist! I love creepy bands.
DEERHOOF. This is one freaky act. Their music changes from album to album and gets ever more interesting. From skree and skronk to squalls of beautiful noise to nonsense sing song lyrics, these fuckers bring it. I love their weirdness. It is great to see newer bands bringing the WEIRD. Too many shit-ass bands try to look weird but they bring sonic normalcy. I prefer bands that look normal and bring sonic weirdness.
SISTERS OF MERCY I first heard the Sisters of Mercy at U of H, hanging with fellow weirdos. They played me Vision Thing and Floodland and I grew to really dig their odd atmospheric yet rockin' goth sound. These fuckers had style. They also had a very distinctive lead singer. Too bad I cannot find the video for Vision Thing.
THE METROSCHIFTER. I know this band mainly through their 7" singles, of which there are plenty. They do not have too many videos and for all I know they are broken up now. That happens in the underground! If you can find it, get their EP Strawberries. Good stuff.
INTERPOL. Sure this band had style. Sure they dressed in impecable black suits. Sure they made the young girls cream and scream and get wet in places they never got wet before, but they also rocked their asses off. Interpol took their influences and wove them into a great sound. It helped that they wrote some goddamn awesome songs too.
