harry Wrote:
boner pills Wrote:
we're not voting for a fucking live show.
Obviously... but how I hear music is filtered, altered by what may be non-musical elements (see ad nauseum comments about zeitgeist), that is popular music, in its cultural context, not pure music, concrete music. I think I've had this dialogue with others on the board before who claim to hear music "as it is" without the contextual appurtenances which on the surface mean nothing, but can color everything.
Or said another way, live BOH were a whiny, lightweight, derivative bar band, which made their carefully constructed recordings much less interesting to me. On the other hand, Wilco's albums are always disappointing to me until I hear them open the songs up in a live show. This is wrong?
You are not wrong. Context absolutely plays a role in how we hear things. It plays a role in all art.
That said, my experience is the opposite. I saw 'em in a small club in the dog days of summer about 6 months after "Everything All The Time" was out and thought they were great. No, they don't play extended jams of these songs or change them up much but why do you need to when the whole crowd is singing every word to "The Funeral" or "The Great Salt Lake" or you can hear a pin drop as they're doing "I Go To The Barn Because I Like The".
I voted Marah though. It was my entry to them the year it was released and it remains, IMO, their best album front to back. To me it's the best sounding album they have done. Nice middle ground between over-production and raw bar band. "Faraway You", "Point Breeze", "It's Only Money Tyrone", "My Heart Is The Bums on the Street", "Round Eye Blues", "Barstool Boys".....all among their best songs IMO.
More people should hear it. The Replacements, Springsteen, and Steve Earle are sitting in a bar in Nashville................
