Vol 03 / Trk 09 / Lie Down on Landsdowne [Version] / Lifter Puller

I’m including these guys pretty much because they started in Minneapolis in the mid ‘90s, just like the Plastic Constellations. This song dates back to 1999, and still sounds an eensy little bit ahead of its time. Like I’m a little surprised that bands were making this kind of music even then, in various hidden nooks across the country.

It’s interesting to me that Lifter Puller followed the siren call to Brooklyn and morphed into the Hold Steady, while the Plastic Constellations stayed put. I suppose it’s a question every band faces: go to the scene’s epicenter instead of being an odd fish in a small pond?
m. joosse

Filed under: Vol 03, Lifter Puller, Mixtape, NEIMT

Vol 03 / Trk 08 / Phoenix and the Faultline

Are we even listening to each other anymore? Regardless it still looks like this is shaping up to still be a kickass mix. So in the vein of Fugazi guitars and awesome rhythms and keeping things distinctly upbeat, I give you The Plastic Constellations.

Balls. Out. Rock. Without all the pseudo-violence. I am still emo after all.
r.smigielski

Filed under: Vol 03, Mixtape, NEIMT, The Plastic Constellations

Vol 03 / Trk 07 / Without MSG I Am Nothing / Mclusky

Talk about muscle.
Mclusky could’ve beaten the shit out of the Minutemen and Cap’n Jazz at the same time.
My dad could’ve beaten the shit out of Mclusky, the Minutemen and cap’n Jazz at the same time.
I don’t fight, I just like to watch.
m.eppelheimer

Filed under: Vol 03, Mclusky, Mixtape, NEIMT

Vol 03 / Trk 06 / It’s Expected I’m Gone / Minutemen

Must…break away…from…emo…death spiral…
m. joosse

Filed under: Vol 03, Minutemen, Mixtape, NEIMT

Vol 03 / Trk 05 / Little League

Oh man, Mike really through the down the gauntlet with his post. Not liking Wicked Farleys is one thing, but slagging the entirety of late nineties-sensitive-emo-boy music and especially the almighty Cap’n Jazz was shocking. Shocking I tell you!

But in all seriousness, I love this band. Very, very much. So I have almost no choice but to use this moment to insert them into the NEIMT for the first and perhaps last time.

There are many great songs to choose from, but I almost can’t not pick “Little League”. This song is the epitome of their sound and is one of my all time favorite songs, period. It’s muddy but massive. I always thought it was the closest approximation of how music could sound like thunder. It also is the perfect blend of boyhood sensitivity and adolescent anger, with absolutely zero macho testosterone. The closing of this song never fails to get my heart rate amped up.

I also see Cap’n and other bands of this ilk, to be great examples of the punk ethos. How you really didn’t have know how to sing or played expertly to create great artful rock music that was powerful and moving. This was hugely influential into me growing UP and remains so to this day. That’s what great emo was all about, and these kids were fantastic at it.

I can only imagine that Mr. Joosse is not going to very happy following my posts this round, as this particular niche of music is one of my sweet spots and I have lots more to share.
r. smigielski

Filed under: Vol 03, Cap'n Jazz, Mixtape, NEIMT

Vol 03 / Trk 04 / No Sleeves / Les Savy Fav

This Les Savy Fav track sure feels like it’s right in line with the  previous tracks and you know I like that dance around Fugazi guitar territory. It’s groovy and angular and repetitive. I don’t know what the hell the song means but it contains these great lines: “this is the bishop’s finger” / “edison put the gun in our hands” / “this move was trademarked in 1892”.
m.eppelheimer

Filed under: Vol 03, Les Savy Fav, Mixtape, NEIMT

Vol 03 / Trk 03 / Slipstream / Silkworm

This is not to slam Robb by any means, but I just plain didn’t like his track. It takes me back to 1998, when I met my first college punk friends, Adam and Vince, and at the time they listened to a lot of Braid and early Promise Ring and Knapsack and Cap’n Jazz, which I had to tolerate gamely if I wanted to hang out with them. It always all struck me as superficial and monotonous. To me, that’s what true emo really is—kinda sloppy guitar rock featuring dudes who sang off key, recorded badly on 4-track. This music was a huge part of some people’s life experiences, and I respect that enormously. It just wasn’t my thing, and I’m glad those bands and that sub-genre evolved.

The second half of “Feel the Mores” reminded me of an airier version of Silkworm, who sort of began in that emo vein before finding their own style quickly as something far more muscular and interesting. I had several of their early songs to choose from for this post—one was a lot like the Wicked Farleys and one had some great time changes and one was an epic 9 minutes. But I’d rather use a song that evolved from that sound instead of followed it closely. So I went with “Slipstream,” which is perhaps two steps removed from “Feel the Mores,” but was my favorite of the options. Let’s face it—the 38 seconds starting at 1:34 are just fucking awesome. Coming in a close second: the line “Steve Albini, you’d better learn to take it easy. You know they used to call him Albini-weenie.”
m. joosse

Filed under: Vol 03, Mixtape, NEIMT, Silkworm

Vol 03 / Trk 02 / Feel the Mores

Well holy crap! Spartacus is my new favorite song. A song hasn’t kicked my butt like that in a long time. Not since… well I think i’ll save that for later in this mix.

Instead I’m gonna build on the angularity of Ungdomskulen, with the Wicked Farleys. This is a band from Boston that I saw play in some warehouse ages ago. The show was one of the best i’ve ever seen. It blew my furtive little mind. And this track from their first record (which is impossible to find nowadays) is one of the best. Lots of changes, noisy productions, jumpy rhythms and a soft vocal style that’s just downright pretty. And as with any good song it’s listened to loud. Enjoy.
r. smigielski

Filed under: Vol 03, Mixtape, NEIMT, Wicked Farleys

Vol 03 / Trk 01 / Spartacus / Ungdomskulen

To kick off round three I’m starting with a song that could take the mix in many directions. I discovered Ungdomskulen (junior high school) watching them make Spaghetti Bolongnese in their apartment on Current TV.  I’m not a big fan of prog oriented rock but holy crap do I love this goofball power-trio band from Bergen, Norway. “Glory Hole”, “Modern Drummer” and “Ordinary Son” are all stand outs from the Cry-Baby album, but “Spartacus” is my favorite, with lots of changes, some great Fugazi inspired guitar and the vocal delivery in the chorus reminds me of Album era PiL.

Last.fm member sabsludge described them thus: “King Crimson song structures + Black Sabbath riffs + Sonic Youth tone + Dinosaur Jr vocals = Ungdomskulen. In short, this band is better than eating at Burger King twice per week.”
m.eppelheimer

Filed under: Vol 03, Mixtape, NEIMT, Ungdomskulen

And Then it Hit Me / Vol 02 / 052010

This blog is as much a celebration of music as it is a celebration of the ah ha! moment when a solution presents itself. Throughout design school and as a professional, I always knew that the “right idea” would come along—the trouble was in not knowing when. So sometimes you’d have to wait days and stay awake until the birds started chirping just to reach it; other times it would show immediately. I just had to trust that it would come, and that the process—however long or meandering it may be—was worth it.

So that’s what this mix is like to me: an occasionally bewildering, frequently inspiring, always tremendously fun process of hunting for that ah ha! track. We hope you’ve enjoyed this second volume and will download the collection below.
m. joosse

Download the Mix as a 115 MB zip file.
Now using sendspace to deliver these massive files. Email me if the file expires.

The tracklist is as follows:

01 A Few Hours After This… (demo) by The Cure
02 Haunted When the Minutes Drag (USA Mix) by Love and Rockets
03 I Am the Resurrection by The Stone Roses
04 Chewing Gum Weekend by The Charlatans
05 Shoot Speed/Kill Light by Primal Scream
06 Strange Lights by Deerhunter
07 Clean Coloured Wire by Engineers
08 The Story of Yo La Tengo by Yo La Tengo
09 Departures by Half String
10 City of Bugs by The Cribs
11 Remember Me by British Sea Power
12 You Still Love Me by Cut Off Your Hands
13 Taking Tips from the Gallery Gang by Bound Stems
14 Interzone by Face to Face
15 Electricity by Spiritualized

Filed under: Vol 02, Mixtape, NEIMT

Vol 02 / Trk 15 / Electricity

So this mix was perfectly moving along its wall of sound theme and then Epp throws in a monkeywrench like that. Total curveball and totally fair game. But it made me think I have to re-evaluate my end-game-plan.

Then I ran across Spiritualized. And this massive wall of sound called Electricity. I think it nicely capstones the mix and even has a little of that bluesy energy evident in the Face-to-Face track. They both move at the same pace and have a similar franticness to them.

And the magic of this track is the bass line. What the hell low-end heaven does it hit in that chorus? and what the hell is it doing at the end of the song?Up and down the neck like a bat outta hell. Yum.
r. smigielski

Filed under: Vol 02, Mixtape, NEIMT, Spiritualized

Vol 02 / Trk 14 / Interzone / Face to Face

Well this track, um, changes abruptly. Since we started with the Cure and Love and Rockets, I thought a little Joy Division cover would help the closing of the mix and bring us somewhere punkier.

m.eppelheimer

Filed under: Vol 02, Face to Face, Mixtape, NEIMT

Vol 02 / Trk 13 / Taking Tips from the Gallery Gang / Bound Stems

A question to ponder: does this song change radically halfway through because it wanted to, or because it had to? The section built around the “we’re waiting to go right now” line is a sunspot flare, massive and powerful and blinding in its beauty. I listen to that 45 seconds and think that there’s no container big enough to hold a song full of moments like that. Not even one owned by Arcade Fire or U2. So the song has to mutate into something else to prevent us from melting away.

It serves a nifty purpose for me as my final entry in this volume: a wonderful anthem that supports previous entries that suddenly takes off in another direction. Maybe it’s just me fighting my nature, because I could stay in glorious-bombast-anthem land forever, blind and blissed out. But if Bound Stems can make a hard left into another territory—somewhere jaunty and sunny and with trumpets—then what happens when this mix does as well?
m. joosse

Filed under: Vol 02, Bound Stems, Mixtape, NEIMT

Vol 02 / Trk 12 / You Still Love Me

I can see now that we are fully diving into what I consider the new wave of spacious & sprawling pop. Bands unafraid of the reverb & digital delay pedals, upbeat tempos and plenty of faux (or perhaps real) english accents.

Despite the bombast of that amazing British Sea Power song, I am not yet ready to give up on the sweeter side of things. This track by the amazingly named Cut Off Your Hands brings together so many elements explored throughout the mix. It’s really straight-forward but seems to be hitting the right spot on this beautiful spring weekend.

Full disclosure: the song that really should appear here is CUYH “Happy as Can Be” but it appeared on an NEIMT just over a year ago and I thought that was just “too soon.”
r. smigielski

Filed under: Vol 02, Cut Off Your Hands, Mixtape, NEIMT

Vol 02 / Trk 11 / Remember Me / British Sea Power

So everything I was trying out was too psych, to heavy, too dark, with lyrics buried too deep to follow that awesome Cribs track. Then I scrolled past British Sea Power. They meld punk, goth, new wave and deliver it in big uplifting waves of crashing sound. When their debut, The Decline of British Sea Power, came out it grabbed me instantly. Bold and brash with a huge ass guitar sound (influenced no doubt by Joey Santiago, Kevin Shields and J.Mascis among others), the album and this track kick it hard.

m.eppelheimer

Filed under: Vol 02, British Sea Power, Mixtape, NEIMT