Static Party: Arch Villains

[Scrod Prickknee]

What's funny is that I haven't heard (though I've heard of) 90% of the bands listed here. I'm just cool that way, I guess.

feedtime were gods to me at one point, and I still think that the records (beyond the comeback "Billy" album, which was OK) stand up well....though not as all-consuming as I once thought.

[Scrod Prickknee]

"Shovel" is still my favorite, but I'm not sure if that's because it's the first one I bought. You can't accurately describe their sound in "sound bite" form, though I still say they were perhaps the heaviest non-metal band of the era....though that only explains a (very) small bit of their appeal.

[Scrod Prickknee]

They were big X (Aus., of course) fans, and I know that was an influence...that's the closest I know of.

[peterson]

It's either behind the mini-fridge or maybe behind the cat porter.  But goddamn, that portable heater ain't shit.  More pills next time!

[denkinger]

Scrod, you are turning into Johan Kugelberg, the guy who opines that the Stooges are not so great after all...its just too many spins. I haven't sat down and listened to a Stooges record all the way through in years, but in all honesty they still have to be one of my favorite bands ever.

Right now I am wearing out a Mary Hopkin record that is only two Welsh hairs removed from fucking Joan Baez, but since I didn't OD on her via 70s am radio I'm immune.

feedtime's bass-heavy attack is simply not suited for every mood. That is why Allah created (insert obscurely self-promotional Taiwanese 70s psych band here) for us to listen to.

[erickelric]

I guess you could make a case for Venom P. Stinger being feedtime-esque, but that's atleast half geography. feedtime were the Australian Killdozer basically.

Jawbreaker are overrated, but I will always love Unwound (cept for that last record).

[Scrod Prickknee]

Scrod, you are turning into Johan Kugelberg, the guy who opines that the Stooges are not so great after all...its just too many spins.

No way! "Funhouse" has been my favorite record for decades. I still think feedtime were great (and I'm still hoping for that unreleased stuff Rich Dropkick was supposed to be waiting on), but I'd place some other shit ahead of them now.

[SSR]

I'd put Feedtime as my 4th fave Aussie band after
The Saints
Birthday Party
X

Jawbreaker & Unwound are crap of which nothing good ever came from.

[mayberry]

1. Go-Betweens - Lee Remick b/w Karen 7" (Able Label 001)
2. Razar - Task Force b/w Stamp Out Disco (Able Label 002)
3. Numbers - 77 Sunset Strip b/w Magic Castle /Rules Of Love (Able Label 003)
4. feedtime

...or something like that.  Actually, of course, there are just too many great Australian bands in particular to choose from.  I'd just say that the Able Label mix is really nutty when you look at the strengths and differences of each of the releases above.  It's kinda hard to make the comparision and connect the dots between hearing "Lee Remick" back to back with "Stamp Out Disco"...but it's there...and there is an interesting story behind it.  Wish somebody would tell it with an Able Label compilation.       

I think feedtime had something going on there that was having to do with operating in a place and time that just didn't click with where they were at and what was going on around them.  They sound like a band that played for a small audience of close friends in a town that was as far off the map as Minneapolis, MN.  The choice of their covers, the structure of their songs, the fact that the guitarist and bassist had never been in a band before makes me appreciate them so much.  I mean, if you don't like their sound, you should still be able to hear X, Beach Boys, Ramones, The Stones, The Stooges, The Animals, Lee Hazelwood & Nancy Sinatra, The Easybeats, and Slade somewhere in there. 

I like the idea of a band doing covers for an entire album and spitting it out in an honest way, trying to do the right thing to these songs while still making them sound like the way they hear them themselves, while playing them the only way they can, want to, or want them to be heard, and that that comes through with everything they did.  That if you just sit down and listen you might just start hearing that what's underlining an immediate sound is really people playing something deeply uncomplicated and actually familiar.  That if all you hear is this gruff voice or heavy bass, you should also listen closer because what's underneath all that is really the common stuff that makes up rock 'n' roll.  And, really, feedtime come closer to it, in their weird and well intentioned way, then most.  I mean, that's what I hear when I put that shit on.  And it's just fucking fun, fun, fun. 

Just like all those Dave Edmunds records.  Or what all those Able Label bands had in common even if the fans of one couldn't stand the sound of the other.  Hey, they all appeal to me.   If I'm throwing a party they're getting an invite.  And it's comforting to know that feedtime is gonna crash it every time. 

[Signed, Eric Cecil]

Well said.  When I go on Scientists/Birthday Party/X/Feedtime jags, the girlfriend harrumphs and passes off comments about "music with repetitive basslines and songs about hating people."  But, duh, that's just the surface.  If you only hear gruff vocals and throbbing basslines in something like Feedtime, that, in my book, is tantamount to dismissing a punk band as "a buncha assholes who can't play their instruments."  Or a rap group as "some black guys talking over pre-recorded music."  Same shit.  What makes a band like Flipper great to me is that 1) there's no one like them at all (including bands trying to sound like them today), 2) they were accidentally a good band, 3) their take on music is so nonsensical and unique that it's somehow endearing, 4) their songs wobble outside of almost every trapping of the textbook pop song formula, yet they are still, somehow, very catchy (non-hook becomes a hook).  I love when bands are able to do this.  Aside from a few glaring exceptions, it irritates me when newer bands try to rip off shit like the Electric Eels or Flipper or Fang or etc. because these bands were magical glaring exceptions to begin with and you couldn't recreate their kind of ridiculous lunacy no matter how hard you tried.  In fact, trying automatically makes you look like a jackass.  The point is that there was no point to begin with.  Sounding like the Electric Eels in '75 is far different from the same thing in '06.  Just like the Heartbreakers in '77 is different from etc.  Obvious, I know, but a lot of people seem to miss the point.