Note: will leave an 12-24 hour period before the polls open, giving a “digestion period” for people to perhaps catch up on listening and for captains to promote their choices.
Last edited by Saoirse on 05/07/2013 10:53; edited 3 times in total
Hmmm… well, I guess I'll talk a bit about them Boredoms.
I'll make a quick note here that the above picture is clearly of the band when they ware much much younger - possibly taken in the 80s - and they were in an almost completely different formation. Yamataka Eye and Yoshimi P-We (pictured below) are the only lasting members to be a part of the band during their whole career.
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
The one on the left is Yoshimi P-We, who joined the band as basically a non-musician at the time (late 80s). Boredoms were in need of a drummer, and I guess Yamataka knew Yoshimi personally and asked Yoshimi to fill the role. I suppose by dumb luck Yoshimi turned out to be damn talented. Stylus Magazine has an article on the top 50 drummers ever and Yoshimi is at number 27: http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/...ummers.htm
Yoshimi has done work outside of the band. Yoshimi formed a band in the 90s with Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth called Free Kitten. In the late 90s, Yoshimi formed another band called OOIOO which has an album on my top 100 Japanese albums, and a few on my best of all-female bands. I know most BEA members are familiar with the Flaming Lips' "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots". I think Yoshimi had been touring the USA with Boredoms (or maybe it was OOIOO, I'm not sure) during the Flaming Lips' recording session, and Wayne Coyne asked Yoshimi to do some vocals and trumpet work if I'm remembering correctly. I'm pretty sure the Flaming Lips also named the album after Yoshimi P-We. One last thing I'll mention is Yoshimi's collaboration with another Japanese underground musician named Yuka Honda. The album was called "Flower with No Color" by Yoshimi and Yuka, which was sort of an ambient project with lots of nature type sounds. It is very hight on my Japanese chart and all-female band chart.
Like a lot of Japanese underground musicians, Yoshimi has been a part of countless music projects and I only named a few of them above.
Yamataka Eye is the one on the right of the picture above. Yamataka Eye has changed names a lot. Sometimes called "Yamatsuka Eye", or "Yamantaka Eye", or "eYe", EYヨ, etc and some DJ names like DJ Pica Pica Pica and MC Hellshit. I'll use the name "Yamataka Eye".
Eye's work is rather erratic and scattered. Their's really no organized timeline of stuff Eye has been a part of. I've always visualized Eye as being this really chill guy that has no real direction in life. Somebody who just loves art in music but in such a careless way, but careless in an almost admirable way. Just some kind of wanderer that makes mind-blowing work wherever they go, but really it was all for the hell of it and that's it.
One of Eye's first bands was The Hanatarash (aka Hanatarashi). It's… a rather aggressive - and I don't liked this following word much - "experimental" band. I believe they've used a bulldozer as an instrument before. The compilation album called "We Are Hardcore!!" would probably consist of their most impressive work. There are those that consider Hanatarash to be Eye's finest stuff, but I've consider Boredoms to overall be far more innovative.
Moving on to talk about Boredoms, for me they are the band that most defined the 90s. In the early part of the 90s, particularly in the albums "Soul Discharge" and "Pop Tatari", they released… rather free-spirited yet insane kind of music. It's almost like they were making fun of western music, not in a condescending way but more of a loving way, and my word, it's fun as fuck. They may be the most fun albums in the world to me right now. The mid-90s consisted of the albums "Chocolate Synthesizer" and "Super ae". They added another drummer for these I think, and this is where their stuff started to gain more structure. This is my least favorite of Boredoms albums, yet I still think it is top-notch work overall. After super ae their guitarist (Yamamoto Seiichi) left the band, feeling that the Boredoms couldn't achieve much more from there, or something of that nature. In 1999, Boredoms added 2 more drummers to the mix to make it 4 total, renamed themselves to Vooredoms (only in Japan though), and released "Vision Creation Newsun". It's an album that has always felt like some kind of sun worship to me. I think Yamataka Eye may have some beliefs that have to do with that - don't hold me to it though, I really don't know, just some vague hints. Anyway, VCN is one of my all-time favorite albums, and there's this energy to it that makes me feel so positive about life. In 2004, released "Seadrum/House of Sun" claiming them to be "old tracks". As far as I'm concerned, this is the end of Boredoms and their discography. IMO, this is their greatest achievement, and Yamataka Eye's and Yoshimi P-We's greatest achievements as artists. I sincerely hope that one day both tracks on the album will one day be recognized as monumental achievements musically.
I'd like to end there, but I just want to note that Eye is also a Japanese underground musician involved in many projects that I either don't know about, or simply didn't mention them in this post. Also, the Boredoms still do live shows and release occasional EPs. One of their more interesting shows was "77Boadrum", which is where they invited enough drummers to have 77 total and performed live (in July 7, 2007) with Yamataka in the middle doing some interesting things: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vjk01Wo-aEs . They have done similar shows the following years, like a Boadrum 88 in August 8, 2008, and so on.
BTW, I'm really fucking surprised how much I was able to talk about them. Please excuse my lack of brevity. Also I just kind of wrote this all natural as it all came to mind. I'm not sure if I'm going to re-read and re-edit.
Cool post The Poe. Seadrum/House of Sun is my choice in this matchup for sure. I didn't think it was perfect (the songs in my mind could have either developed more or ended 5 minutes before they do) but it was still solid. I need to listen to more Boredoms material now.
You should be stoked poe, it looks like you turned a lot of people on to Seadrum/House Of Sun. A total darkhorse for the BNMAT. Sweet write up to, I totally forgot I know almost nothing about Boredoms even though they are one of my favorite bands.
Ya im going with Seadrum/HOS _________________ Alt Right meme game on point
I FEEL DISCRIMINATED AGAINST AS A PERSON OF JUDGEMENT.
Love is the Greatest Revenge
Tremolo
2004 (reissued in 2005)
First of all I’d like to thank everyone who has taken the time to listen to this album, or who will take the time to do so. When I nominated it for the tournament I realized it was a long shot album that probably no one had ever heard of. I have no illusions of this album winning the tournament, but I’m hoping to raise some awareness of the album and hopefully at least some people will enjoy it.
Tremolo the band is the brainchild of Justin Dillon who previously had released albums with the Dime Store Prophets and as a solo artist. I was a fan of the Dime Store Prophets, so I followed Dillon’s career and gobbled up whatever new material he was putting out. Tremolo grew out of some jam sessions put together by Dillon and Steve Bowman of the Counting Crows with other San Francisco area musicians. They played some shows, cut a couple EPs, and landed a song on a major movie soundtrack.
Love is the Greatest Revenge is the full-length debut album by Tremolo. The tracks are united by a theme of the exploration of love and the various forms that it takes. It was originally released independently in 2004 and then reissued by Flagship Recordings in 2005. The track list that I entered into the BEA database is the original 2004 version in accordance with site rules. The version that I’ve seen more readily available online is the 2005 version. The reissue features two additional tracks (the first 2), reorders the tracks, and has some remixing done. Personally I prefer the running order of the 2004 version and I think the guitars have more punch on that mix.
Tracks on the album are solidly in the pop-rock vein and feature an equal mix of slow, mid-tempo, and fast songs. U2 is probably the biggest influence on the band’s sound but there are also sounds of the Beatles on certain tracks and more roots based rock a la Counting Crows. Probably the most similar band in sound I can think of is Switchfoot.
I realize the music isn’t the most groundbreaking or influential. But sometimes I like album that I enjoy putting on in the car and singing along like no one can hear me. I’m also one that likes listening to music that makes me think and this album makes me do that.
At the time of recording, Dillon was interested in exploring a concept known as praxis which he defined as “what happens when people extend themselves to do good and how their capacity to do good increases because of it”. To put his money where his mouth was, so to speak, he created a charity called the Love>Revenge Fund. Tremolo donated 50% of the proceeds from the sale of the album to this fund. They then allowed fans to vote online how to distribute the money to various charities.
Also as an interesting side note, during touring Dillon became aware of ongoing human slavery issues in the world. With the help of other activists he organized some benefit concerts which eventually lead to a film documentary and associated charitable organization called Call + Response (http://www.callandresponse.com/).
Sometimes when I listen to this album I think about all these things and meditate on some heavy topics. But the songs are not too preachy so it is also possible to listen to this album without thinking about any of this heavy stuff; to just rock out and sing along.
All this is why I think Love is the Greatest Revenge deserves to be among the best ever albums.
Thank you again for your time listening to this album. I hope at least a few of you vote for it.
Love is the Greatest Revenge
Tremolo
2004 (reissued in 2005)
I know this album is pretty hard to find. Here are the songs on the original version of the album in the original running order:
1. Evil Twin: This song explores the duplicity within in us all - the fact that we are all capable of good as well as evil. But it’s easier to blame it on someone else – my “evil twin”.
“No one else can play your part
Liberate all of your dreams
Speak the lines within your heart”
3. Promise Ring: A bit of a sappy song about commitment. (This is one of the songs that I think was better on the original version and this video features that mix)
5. We Are the New Black: A bit of an attempt at a hipster anthem – it’s cool to live outside of the system and we are not going to mold to conformity. But within the theme of the album it also means that loving one another should be considered cool.
“We are the music of the streets
A style that is unseen
A different way to be
Friends with enemies
A look that never ends
Love is the new trend
We are the new black”
6. I Believe (Love is Revenge): The centerpiece of the album literally and figuratively. Justin Dillon says he wrote this song after witnessing a selfless act where someone chose to turn the other cheek rather than seek revenge. It is a powerful concept to think about. Love and Revenge are two emotions at the opposite end of the spectrum that probably aren’t compared very often.
“No one prospers in this guilt economy
Love is the greatest revenge that we all need”
7. Baby Blue: A song written from the perspective of one of the human traffic slaves that Justin Dillon is an activist for. Here’s a live performance version from a US television show highlighting the issue:
“This is not my voice
This is not my choice
This is somebody's baby
They don't know my age
They don't know my name
They just call me
Baby Blue”
8. Room 139: I used to think this song was about “looking for love in all the wrong places” so to speak. Justin Dillon says it’s about visiting his “therapist”…
When the album was remixed and reissued the two bonus tracks were added as the first two tracks on the album. New Eyes for a New World and Can You Feel It Now. If you listen to the full album version that is on YouTube you will hear these first.
I loved Seadrum/House of Sun a lot, not as much as Vision Creation Newsun but I'm thinking S/HoS is gonna be a hell of a grower, so we'll see about that. Thanks, Poe, for the recommendation. It's hovering a 95/100 for now, but I'm damn sure it'll get to 100/100.
I'm listening to the Tremolo album atm, so I don't know which way I'll vote yet.
EDIT: Tremolo didn't do much for me, so Boredoms it is.
Last edited by Defago on 05/02/2013 08:50; edited 1 time in total
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