Those are just some of the words to describe this 80’s style, indie post punk band from London. A female-foursome, nonetheless. I was honestly blown away the first time they blasted energetic and addictive raw hooks into my ears. I’m getting more goosebumps just talking about this band for the third time this year. Their debut album is entitled, “Silence Yourself.” The guitars, the bass, & those tight drums are all so clean, yet heavy. Explosively pulsating machines of focused rage! Everything is amplified by their wonderful production. A new wave of post punk; a do-it-yourself revival is coming your way!!!!
In this day and age of music, it’s not easy to find an original and valid band. These girls have done it! They made an anti-pop record. There are no “anthems” involved here. I honestly do think of other garage punk groups from the late 70′s when I listen closely. Groups like Joy Division and Siouxsie & the Banshees come to mind for sure. As lead singer of Savages, Jenny Beth’s voice compliments the instruments quite lovely. Their appearance is dark and mesmerizing. All of it is riveting, poisonous, exclusive and reckless.
This album rocks hard! It really does. This is my favorite record of the year. Why?
Well; first of all, they all actually know how to play their instruments each with a unique sound. Nothing is radio-friendly about them. Compared to their live shows, the album “Silence Yourself” is low-energy. I saw them at Metro Club in Chicago! Wow! Astonishing! I do not believe that these ladies are over-hyped. No. Not this time. They bring it!
The fusion of Jenny’s original sounding screams at the end of a perfect track, “She Will” with the wailing feedback makes me think to myself, “Damn that is genius.” Who does that anymore? I love the bravery and brilliant results of these tracks. At moments they can be be unsettling and dreamy. But still, my ears do the talking. They like what they hear. I find it difficult to avoid them. I keep playing them over and over and over again. Almost every day over this summer and for the past two months. I am nuts over them!
British chicks RULE!!! While tons of bands have all done similar things with their music as other groups have over the years, it’s the jaw-dropping and unique way that Savages recorded the sound on this album that makes the difference. This re-creates rock and roll history, for me. If it SOUNDS great then it is great!
“The Bones of What You Believe” is such a fantastic album. It tortures me to have this one only in the fourth spot on my top twenty countdown. But I love this record so much! It’s crazy awesome 80’s synthpop! What a fine tribute to the MTV new wave generation. Remember groups like Depeche Mode and Human League? You can hear the influence all over the record. So, they are two guys and a girl from Scotland. Each of them have enormous talent and musicianship. Synthesizers, samplers, guitars and gorgeous vocals coming from an awesome girl named Lauren. Did you know she has a Law Degree and was a Journalism major? Her voice is rather pretty and makes you wanna dance or go for a long drive and absorb this grand life. It’s organic because it flows through you like “tickle fits!”
Chvrches is pronounced like Churches, by the way.
The two dudes, Ian and Martin, are quite focused on their musical instruments and occasionally provide some cool masculine vocals as well. Every song gives me chills. What an addictive sound! It draws you in. It’s got this gigantic POP ENERGY that rushes through you like sugar on a sunny day. I suppose this video below will give you a nice taste. But you’re gonna want to drink a gallon of this ocean wave of pure poppy, bubble gum and highly accessible delightful hurricane buzz juice.
I prefer to escape into the world of music. I am a geek about it.
When people ask me “so what kind of music do you listen to?” Or “who’s your favorite band?”or “what’s your favorite album?” That one is not easy to answer. What do I say?
I get that question asked often and I figured I’d develop this blog entry into that subject to give you an idea and get people inside my head. For one I could say that I have eclectic interests so I appreciate rock & roll and jazz mostly. Those are the foundations. But I would say that those two are only the major things because there’s punk rock, indie rock, metal, acoustic ballads, folk, blues, there are just so many facets to listen to. Like I listen to AC-DC & Alice in Chains but I’ll listen to John Coltrane or Miles Davis or the Grateful Dead (yea I know some of you don’t like them), Pink Floyd, the talking heads, the cure, smashing pumpkins, the beastie boys, tool, led zeppelin, the Beatles, the Who, and I could think of all the concerts I’ve been to. Like I’ve recently been to a show featuring this band called Savages and I’ve blogged about them a few times. So go check it out!!!
But I listen to artists like Neko case, which she’s a country, noir kind of alternative, indie punk-ish sound and then I listen to Colin Hay who was once with MEN AT WORK and he’s got that 80’s poppy background (WHO CAN IT BE NOW?) but now he tends to do more of the acoustic melodies. Perfect story teller. So yea I love going to concerts. Not just the big arenas, the lollapaloozas, where there’s a gigantic festival and a bunch of stages and you’re like an ant among the sea of people. Not just that. Those are fine. But I like the intimate small gatherings to get in touch with the performer on stage.
So it’s about a live experience too and growing up I collected cassette tapes, particularly the blank ones I would record stuff off the radio or even burn……well not burn because at the time you would just have the CD player which in 1990 was definitely the year that I caught onto this concept. That was 23 years ago. So WAAAAAY BACK IN THE DAY, 23 years ago I started to play CDs but I didn’t have my own cd player and I didn’t have my own CDs either so I would play my dad’s CDs and I would make cassette tapes off of them. My favorite tracks. And I distinctly remember listening to a radio station called 105.9 WCKG and it always like played the classic rock music, mostly the stuff from the 1970’s in general. I mean yes the 60’s too I guess mid to late 60’s thru the late 70’s. Like a decades worth of all kinds of anthem, acid rock! You got Alabama, Boston, Yes, and like I said Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Beatles, The Doors all that stuff.
And I listened to it all but I distinctly remember on Sunday nights there was a program called the SEVENTH DAY and they would play entire albums. They would play vinyl LPS. SIDE A and SIDE B.
So I would get out my cassette tapes and every Sunday night depending on what bands they announced, I would record those particular albums. So usually it would work out that side A of a cassette tape would correspond to side 1 of an LP or well that’s not entirely true. That depends on the length of tape and everything so it was a dependent thing, so anyway I would record those things. I would listen to them. Several Pink Floyd records like The Wall, Wish You Were Here, Dark Side of the Moon and then for the Beatles I remember recording the White Album and building a model rocket with my dad this one time, hanging out in my room. Even the antenna fell off and I had to scramble to fix it, giving this one song a static interruption. LOL. And then also for the Doors, I recorded this whole “absolutely live” kind of thing. Which was like a double LP.
I remember I had like 2 tapes devoted to that Doors show. I played it in my dad’s truck one time driving up to Monroe, Wisconsin. So anyway that’s what I grew up with. I mean if you go back to the 80’s, I just remember listening to pop radio, the American top 40 from the 1980’s. It was all about the “radio.”
My parents also played the oldies stations. MAGIC 104 was their calling tag! The 50’s and 60’s bubble gum popping stuff from the hay day, the dawn of Rock and Roll. What my parents grew up with. And I actually still don’t object to that stuff. But you get burnt out and you always explore. Anyway I ventured on as I got into high school. Got into other bands. As I mentioned earlier; Smashing Pumpkins, Stone Temple Pilots and Depeche Mode. I simply got into bands like those. The early 1990’s was a special time for me in high school. I really just branched off.
So to take this all back home. This blog entry is gonna be devoted to the “types” of music that I listen to. I’ll invite you into my rock soul. I am going to share with you a playlist that makes people understand Chris Noe. Volume One is where I will naturally begin. I was making these ” tape mixes” over the summer but now I need to focus some more on my second book of poetry and prose, for one, but also musically I wish to share different aspects from various eras to help the audience get properly introduced into my head space and where it’s at.
Get into my mind. What is it about this playlist that when someone listens to it that they get to understand ME better? Will it simply be the musicians like the ones that I saw live in concert? The Rolling Stones perhaps? Eric Clapton? Joe Cocker? Is it those artists or is it really just the lyrics or a certain area in my life or do we just take the 37 year old Chris Noe right now and for somebody who just met me. Getting to know me through music. What are those songs? What are those titles? What are those albums to get YOU through the doorway and be able to scratch the surface of Chris…..that kind of mix.
I have chosen 10 MTV MUSIC VIDEOS that I grew up with to represent volume ONE:
The Music Bard 