My friend Joe turned 40 and we share an interest in similar music so I made this mix for him. 40 songs by 40 of my fav artists for his 40th.
Pissed Jeans are one of those rare incredibly special bands. Their sense of humor, the self deprecation, the subtle intelligence, the complete rocking. It’s all there. This video helps cement them as an all time favorite. The new album is their most complex to date. It’s going to take awhile for me to rank it in their catalog, but I’ll just start by saying it’s incredible.
I saw Babes In Toyland in Minneapolis at Lolla Palooza in 1993. It was awesome. They are from Minneapolis, so it was pretty epic to see a somewhat smaller band get so much love on the big stage.
The most famous of the girl grunge bands. L7 rules. Their next album Bricks Are Heavy was huge and a great excuse to play loud annoying grunge music when girls were around.
Tad was not my favorite, a little to rough for me, but this mellower song of theirs is great.
Time to get a little later in the 90s when slacker music ruled the world. Archers opening for Weezer (original blue album tour) was one of the best shows I’ve seen.
To find new music I used to record MTV’s 120 minutes every Sunday night. On Monday I would go through the show and hope to find new bands I liked. This video came on once and I immediately went to the record store to buy it. Treepeople is one of my all time favorite bands and at the top of my list for bands I wish I had seen live.
Pavement Ist rad. This band was huge. Everyone enjoyed Pavement. As a side note, they are way better live now then they were back in the day.
I wanted to pick a different Superchunk song, but the fact is this song is one of the greatest songs ever made.
Nirvana is of course the quintessential 90s band. And for good reason, they absolutely ruled. My brother paid $35 for the Hormoaning cd and we popped it in on the way up to Minneapolis to go look at new snowboards. We were so blown away by this song that we started moshing in the car. Ha. Oh to be young again.
If you make it through this song please let me know.
Okay, gotta end it with the greatest band of all time. This song was released in the 80s, but still played throughout the 90s. This band basically changed my life and turned me into who I am. They are still my favorite. I love how su
Just when I thought J Mascis couldn’t be any radder. I feel fortunate to have seen Nirvana with Kurt play School. It was amazing. Hyped that J does it justice.
Totally out of the blue completely awesome album from a small band called Ovlov (Volvo spelled backwards). A heavy 90s vibe. Lots of layers, fuzz, slack, grunge and fun! Stream it here!
A few days ago I got an email saying ‘Reply now with your name for chances to win tickets to Afghan Whigs at the Ogden Theater ..” so I did. Turns out I would win a pair. Prior to winning the tickets I had no intention of going to see them even though their first album Up In It is one of my all time favorites. I lost interest in them in the mid 90’s when they changed from a grunge band to a rock band. They had a lot of success and I respect that. I knew going into the show that I probably wouldn’t hear much of the old Afghan Whigs that I loved. And well, free tickets! Can’t beat that.
The first band was The Knew from Denver. They were decent enough, even good at times. Brian and Denise showed up and Brian immediately began talking shit about how this show was going to blow away the Dinosaur Jr show a couple weeks ago. For me I knew that this wasn’t even a possibility, but I did want to at least be impressed and surprised by the Whigs. Well, that didn’t happen. I’ll try to sugar coat how I really felt about the show. The song ‘Gentlemen’ was good. I will give them that, it rocked, they played it well. They played a lot of other songs off of Gentlemen that I recognize from late nights with Liz as she used to put this cd on a lot. That kind of stoked me out. But most songs were super mellow and the grunge of old was not there at all. They had three people playing guitars and half the time you could hear a cello over them. At on point Greg Dulli said “That’s why we have three guitars!” and it made me laugh. Which leads me to some other great Greg Dulli quotes from the night. Upon seeing someone texting in the front he said “Hey no texting up front. That’s why you aren’t getting any pussy!” The last song he ripped off the Beatles for a bit with the “She loves you yeah yeah yeah” and turned it into “Hey ladies if your man doesn’t love you come back stage after the show and I’ll love you.” Ugh, that’s some serious ego rock star crap that I don’t like to hear. But I love a band where the singer never even speaks between songs so who am I to judge.
It seems like the majority of the crowd enjoyed the show. Although Brian (a much bigger fan of them then me) did lean over and say “I eat my words” and Zach wasn’t very hyped either. I can’t say I’m glad I went even though the tickets were free. I did play some Up In It songs this morning though so it couldn’t have been the worst show.
Today is the day everyone has been waiting for! The official release date for Dinosaur Jr’s new album I Bet On Sky. I’m not sure how this isn’t a national holiday, but make sure you get to the record store today and buy it! Unless of course you’re like me and preordered a fabulous deluxe package!
I hope this shows up in the mail today! Yippee!
In anticipation of the new Dinosaur Jr album in 33 days (digital download in 19 days) I’m gonna start hyping it with a link or two a day. Up first is this classic performance on the Letterman show from 1991. It’s so funny when the Letterman band guitarist gets completely owned by J. Best band ever.
My level of excitement for this album is through the roof.
Best band ever.
October 15th at the Bluebird! Whew!
This made my day. Read the full story here. These songs were written in the early 80s!