Lifetime of Listening #24: 1995 - Archers Of Loaf "Vee Vee" - 52 Albums/Years/Weeks
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- Опубліковано 19 жов 2024
- Episode 24, 1995, and the choices aren't getting any easier....a personal favorite indie alt/album sneaking ahead of a retrospectively acknowledged classic this time around. One of those years!
THIS EPISODE...1995, Archers Of Loaf, "Vee Vee"
As usual, I'll also be stopping off along the way, discussing some of the other great LPs that I was listening to from this year. Thanks for watching!
PREVIOUSLY, ON LOL:52...
• Lifetime Of Listening
Long Fin Killie's debut still sounds good and modern after several decades
Great video once again! 1995 post Nirvana era was a downer for me. But of course i discover great records like Maxinquaye from Tricky, Post by Bjork and foremost PJ Harvey - To Bring You my Love. years later I discovered Guided by Voices Alien Lanes and Aphex Twin …I Care Because You Do, an album from 95 that I really, realy like. Thanks
I guess this period, post-Nirvana transitioning into Brit Pop, started me along the path of diving a bit deeper for interesting music. I found most of the Chapel Hill, Louisville, Chicago scene bands in the years following '94 and '95. I had friends in Bristol who were priming me with "local" picks (Tricky among them, but also Flying Saucer Attack), and others introducing me to some of the more interesting US post-hardcore acts (Unwound, Hoover, the Simple Machines label stuff). A bit of a grab-bag year for me. Finding my feet, I guess! Cheers, D
Wilco's debut A.M. would have to be my pick for 95. Leading to the rest of the decade being almost fully dedicated to the alt-country genre.
Heh, I was listening to Archers Of Loaf at work today. Not because I was trying to predict your choice, but because I woke up with "Harnessed ln Slums" in my head.
This is a year I can't make a favorite choice... Both of my two most listened albums in 1995 are still in regular rotation for me, namely King by Belly, and Example by For Squirrels.
Great video, as always, looking forward to 1996!
Tell me about it! Couldn't shake "Harnessed" throughout the whole narrowing down period of prepping this video. It might be the single biggest contributing factor to the Archers getting the nod! Cheers, D
Interesting year..This was the start of my becoming disillusioned with guitar music, . The breaking point was when I bought the vinyl double of Truemans Water ‘Smash Spasm’ in 93? I remeber listening to it & thinking ‘I can’t do this anymore’ 😂 I was now entering the Neil Kulkarni hip hop years & 95 was a peak year. Now that the dust has settled I’m going to listen to that ‘Archers’. I’m finding that after 30 years with the music paper context stripped away I’m starting to enjoy albums I viewed with disdain..often without even listening to!
Never quite been able to escape the pull of guitars myself. Even back then, always dabbling in electronica and hip-hop, guitars just felt like home to me. Trumans Water were always the one that bypassed me from that period, gotta admit. In my mind, they're the Frank Zappa of that era of US guitar noise bands...which probably explains my wariness!
The music press was a bit of a double-edged sword in that respect, wasn't it? An introduction to so much music I would never have heard otherwise, but a bunch of prejudices packaged up with it that coloured my opinions for a long time. Cheers, D
Like your "winner" pick! (a band I got into a bit later), heard some interesting mentions that I haven't listened to (yet) and appreciate you avoided the many well known releases! ;)
Two (more) underdogs from 1995:
Greenberry Woods - Big Money Item is a very underappreciated power pop album from 1995 IMO. Some absolutely gorgeous songs on there.
Geraldine Fibbers - Lost Somewhere Between The Earth And My Home is an album that has always captivated me with it's no holds barred avant country rock from hell, though it probably scares a lot of people away, Carla Bozulich is an amazing singer that does NOT hold back!
It helped that I saw AOL play in late '94, circa the tour for the "...Vs The Greatest Of All Time" EP, and they were an incredible, incendiary live band. "Vee Vee" coming along not too long after that made it one of the gotta-haves of '95. I still play it a lot...probably a good bit more often than I do Zowee. Probably goes some way to explaining how they ended up getting the nod for this year! Cheers, D
@@discellany That EP is great as well! Quite happy the re-issue includes it.
That EP is actually on the "Icky" reissue, I think...the "Greatest Of All Time" I mention in the video is a Vee Vee track, and not included on the EP that it sounds like it comes from...if that makes sense! D
@@discellany That is correct! It's on disc 2 of the Icky Mettle re-issue. Which probably makes the most sense as it was released in between albums.
The old fun tradition of albums (EP in this case) having their title track on another release instead! Waiting for the Sun anyone?
I never paid attention to Geraldine Fibbers until I saw them open for Pavement. 'Dragon Lady' and 'French Song' both grabbed my attention. 'Dragon Lady' especially - it hits so hard on the album, but live it was just next-level.
I genuinely can’t name an album for 1995. The year was consumed by the anticipation and then the overwhelming reality of becoming a parent 😀
I was a music history and lit major at this time, taking a deep dive into 20th century classical music by composers like Hindemith, Ligeti, Penderecki, Lutoslowski, and Messiaen. Anything of importance to me that actually released this year like June of 44, Mojave 3, and Radiohead I'd come back to later in life. The follow-up albums from this year by bands who's debuts I enjoyed, specifically Smashing Pumpkins and No Doubt, were quite forgettable and listening a few times to borrowed copies was good enough.
GvsB are one of 'my' bands so probably 'Cruise Yourself' for this year's pick.
Loving the 'Watchmen' reference too
Ha! I just needed a suitable image/reference to convey that idea of being a bit adrift, lost in your own bubble. Manhattan on Mars seemed the perfect fit! Cheers, D
I would probably go for the Nectarine No 9. Good video again. Thanks.
Yeah, I somehow managed to see NNo9 live this year too, supporting Edwyn Collins in Norwich...October, I think. They were a bit special live, too. Cheers, D
Great stuff, have Archers of Loaf - Vee Vee in the collection but never got into- so are going back for a relisten, plus again some UK bands I am just not aware of and will listen given I am in Melb Aust. Series is great, love the passion. From Oz very heavy but very good Mark of Cain - Ill at Ease - supposedly produced by Henry Rollins but he was very late to the party and didn't do that much. Its a great album.
God, '95 was such a good year. Couldn't agree more on "Engine Takes to Water,' 'Red Medicine' (the opening bassline to 'Long Distance Runner' is a favorite of mine to play), 'Wowee Zowee,' and 'VeeVee.' The album that really did it for me that year was Chavez's 'Gone Glimmering' though. That album still blows me away. 18th Dye's 'Tribute to a Bus' and Thurston Moore's 'Psychic Hearts' were both big ones for me that year as well.
Loving this whole series.
Cheers. Really need to revisit those two Chavez albums. Matt Sweeney's always popping up in those guitar player "moves" videos via UA-cam suggestions, and I remember for a bit, and then it's gone again! Cheers, D
I haven't heard much Archers of Loaf, their name has put me off checking them out! Girls Against Boys were an important band for me around this time and that June of 44 album is excellent. I was also listening to Grand Prix by Teenage Fanclub, Only Heaven by The Young Gods, Exit Planet Dust by the Chemical Brothers, and Hot Charity by Rocket from the Crypt. My album of the year is Clouds Taste Metallic by The Flaming Lips, their last of their albums as a noisy guitar band and the last of their albums I'm interested in.
Yeah, GvsB were right in the mix until late in the day. That side one of "Cruise"! I challenge anyone to sit through that and remain unimpressed.
CTM (totally agree...Drozd started calling more of the shots after this one) was one that just missed the cut for the video, purely for length reasons. It was that one, "Interstate" by Pell Mell and Tar's "Over And Out" that got the chop before filming. Really want to start getting these videos back under ten minutes, but this year that was never going to be feasible. '96, '97...maybe. Cheers, D
For me, it was The Geraldine Fibbers "Lost Somewhere Between the Earth and My Home," which also happens to be my all-time favorite album. I think critics if the day made lazy comparisons to X or (ugh) Lone Justice, but Red-era King Crimson by way of Velvet Underground, or "the sound of country music gone to hell" was always a more apt and perfect description.
That year it was GBV, Karate, the new Fugazi album and ‘Wowee Zowee’ for me. Picked up the latter from a nice record store in downtown Adelaide, South Australia. That record has great memories for me. June of 44 and the Archers I came across later. The Archers did not get a lot of praise in Dutch reviews of indie rock bands at the time. Focus was on bands like Pavement, Pond (with their underrated The practice of joy before death), Soul Junk/Trumans water, Seam, Cardinal, Yo La Tengo, Truly, Low, Railroad Jerk, GvsB, Tar, Chavez, Acetone….bands which also released killer records that year. Coincidentally, I was playing the exact same Spain album the other day.
1995 for me was also a year of fabulous music discoveries, concerts and festivals, including the Fast forward festival in Nijmegen with a super line-up of lo-fi artists, including Tall Dwarfs, JS Hall, Kramer, Peter Jefferies, the Cake kitchen, Barbara Manning, Beck and Roby Hitchcock.
Wowee Zowee was amazing. The last great Pavement album.
The best album of 1995 (for me) was Hi Fi Way by You Am I. Hard to even pick a “best song” on that album, but the final track “How Much is Enough” is just phenomenal.
Never got "Terror Twilight" at all, "Brighten" has its moments (Stereo, Starlings, Shady Lane), but totally agree, "Wowee" and out, for me...I guess it's the point where the REM analogy breaks down! Cheers, D
Damn, I have all of these bar NN9 and your actual choice. Gotta check it
Saw GBV at Reading that year and was an immediate and lifelong convert
Saw GVSB on 120 Minutes and bunked off school to get the LP. Taped it for the Walkman and ragged it on my paper round. Total killer
I have stories for all the others too but I shan't blather on
Ditto on Reading! '95 was the last year I went, and even tucked away on the Tent stage, GBV were an absolute standout for me. Cheers, D
Rocket From The Crypts ‘Scream Dracula Scream!’ destroyed everything else for me this year. GBV’s ‘Alien Lanes’ gets a look in s well as Quicksands ‘Manic Compression’, Jawbreakers ‘Dear You’, Fugazi’s ‘Red Medicine’, Team Dresch’s ‘Personal Best’, Lifetimes ‘Hello Bastards’, Dismemberment Plans ‘!’.
I didn’t get into the archers 2nd as much as icky… might have to go back and re listen.
The Archers never managed a "perfect" album, I reckon, but "Icky" and "Vee Vee" are at least on a par. I mean...I love the studio feel of their last two 90s ones as well, but they're entirely their own thing, and I get how people might not enjoy them so much.
Good shout with RFTC. Always liked them a lot, never got to see them live. Bit more into Hot Snakes to be honest, because that Froberg-Reis pairing was just magic. Cheers, D
Seen RFTC / Hot Snakes / Obits / Night Marchers a lot! Even got to see DLJ a couple of times. Ricks death hit me hard…
Also, if I told early nineties me that I’d end up being mates and playing on bills with John and Rick I’d probably give me a slap.
Definitely a transitional year, musically and also life-ily. I was doing those rolling shifts, sneakily getting a lost A-level so I could do that back to college thing, and so there was a lot of electronic music, shonky tapes of techno of the Plastikman and Orbital variety and the like, and Exit Planet Dust quite a bit because I was tired and it was big and easy and fun. I was very much out of touch and out of love with new guitar music at the time, with the endless glut of Britpop, the lingering sludge of a lot of heavier, to me pointlessier American alt rock. But I was also too lazy to listen out for things I'd be getting to later. That was... erm... for later. Whereas musically 1995 was an aside soundtracked by artificial energy and older things I loved more than what now sounded like then. This year was very much a "stuff Darren loves that I don't exactly share" but it's your tastes that were definitely vindicated over time. And then next year everything started to change again.
Wonderful stuff, old chum.
Additional. Your Pavement REM comparibang totally makes sense to me, not least because I'm a Reckoning/Crooked Rain (x2) adherent. Two points of correlation for an internet argument equals indisputable truth. You win music as a result. All hail our new leader
The shifts! I'd forgotten! Tough, but pretty good money at the time, as I (now) recall. I'd moved back into the Golden Triangle (late '94 maybe?) so no longer out in "Partridge" country. Just a weird year...working on the research park, so always on or near campus, which entirely fits with my between-and-betwixt recollections. Not tons to splash on music, which probably goes some way to explaining why any electronic/dance/hip-hop stuff I kind of liked, tended to (more often than not) get put on the backburner. But, always a few quid spare for sporadic Domino's to accompany late-night MTV-centred laugh-ins...
Did I ever balls this one up, though! I jogged my USB mic during recording (without noticing), and sat down to edit what turned out to be 95% silent video. The air was blue. Had to set up and reshoot the whole thing from scratch. If it's really "wonderful", it's more by luck than judgement this time around. Laters, 'taters! D
RE: REM vs Pavement. A sample size of two isn't gonna hold up to peer-reviewed scrutiny, I'm afraid. Nonetheless, I shall take your plaudits and bank them! Also, in my new role as supreme ruler, you shall be spared. Fear not. D