Tag: Alternative Rock

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Live music galleries

Live music galleries: Dum Dum Girls [2012]

(I got the idea for this series while sifting through the ‘piles’ of digital photos on my laptop. It occurred to me to share some of these great pics from some of my favourite concert sets from time to time. Until I get around to the next one, I invite you to peruse my ever-growing list of concerts page.)

Artist: Dum Dum Girls
When: August 3rd, 2012
Where: Tree stage, Osheaga, Jean Drapeau Park, Montreal
Context: After catching a crazy early afternoon set by a just-breaking-out Of Monsters and Men, at small side stage packed with curious onlookers, I had to bust my butt to get to the next stage over to catch the Dum Dum Girls perform just five minutes later. (These are the joys of musical festivals but one shouldn’t really complain after the last few years we’ve had.) I thought for sure that the L.A.-based, noise rock quartet would’ve already been well into their set by the time I got there, but they were still trying to get the microphones working. Despite their polished appearances and the perceived attitudes that they convey, the band was quite gracious and understanding in the face of all the delays. Once they finally got going though, their performance was beautifully loud and fuzzed out and angst-laden. Personally, I loved it, but there were many others that didn’t appreciate it as much as I did. I started off the set pretty far back because of my late arrival, but managed to get right up near the front by its conclusion. Dum Dum Girls finished their shortened set (eight songs early by their telling) with my favourite “Bedroom eyes” and a brand new track called “Lord knows” (though at the time, I had yet to listen to the recorded track). Technical difficulties aside, I thought Dum Dum Girls’ set was brilliant and definitely would have jumped at the chance see them live again. Unfortunately, they disbanded four years later and that chance never materialized.
Point of reference song: “Bedroom eyes”

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Tunes

100 best covers: #43 Ministry “Lay lady lay”

<< #44    |    #42 >>

Though I haven’t really followed them for a very a long time, I was actually quite the Ministry fan back in the early half of the nineties. I enjoyed so much of their early work, right up to their fifth album, 1992’s “Psalm 69”, but by the time they finally followed it up four years later, I had mostly moved on from my industrial kick. However, I still checked out “Filth pig”, borrowing a copy from my good friend Rylan. After a few listens, I recorded two songs that caught my ear for a mixed tape, one of which was this this rocking tune called “Lay lady lay”. It had this wicked ticky-tack drum line, a menacing melody and a shout-along chorus. I had no idea at the time that it was a cover.

I heard the original for the first time a year or so later when my friend Meagan, also one of my housemates at the time, got up to stop said mixed tape in the middle of this tune. “I know this song,” she said, as she popped in a CD and handed me the jewel case. It was some Bob Dylan compilation album and of course, I immediately spotted the song title in the track listing but the song she put on wasn’t quite reconcilable with the Ministry tune I’d rocked along to on countless evenings. It took some time before I was able to put the two in the same room together and I think it was the drum line that finally did it.

Bob Dylan originally wrote “Lay lady lay” way back in 1969 and it appeared on his ninth studio album, “Nashville skyline”. There is a definitely country feel with plenty of slide guitars and Dylan’s crooning vocals that sounds a bit different than on the popular classics I’d previously known by him. He’s imploring a lovely lady to stay with him the night, likely quite suggestive material back when it was released. It has been covered a great many time over the years but according to Ministry’s Al Jourgensen, Dylan found their version particularly “badass”.

I tend to agree. And I have to go with Ministry’s cover over the original on this one. Not my favourite Dylan recording at all.

Cover:

Original:

For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.

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Tunes

Best tunes of 1993: #6 Mazzy Star “Fade into you”

<< #7    |    #5 >>

A tired, late night acoustic strum is accompanied by the ghost of a slide guitar and what sounds like a tired pianist playing one-handed so as not to spill his half-empty mug of beer. And up there onstage with this motley crew of musicians is Hope Sandoval, trying to hide in the shade of the microphone stand, eyes closed and crooning softly, singing about someone that sounds like her, but isn’t her, perhaps someone she loved that never noticed her, never took the time to understand where she stood.

“Fade into you,
I think it’s strange you never knew.”

This is the sound of Mazzy Star’s big hit, the unexpected catapult into the mainstream. It was an unassuming song that somehow captured the imagination of many and encapsulated a feeling at the time. It boosted sales of the group’s sophomore album, “So tonight that I might see”, on which “Fade into you” was track one, so that two years after its release, it garnered platinum status in the States and Gold in the UK.

Mazzy Star was formed in Santa Monica, California in 1988 when David Roback enlisted the vocal help of his friend Hope Sandoval when his previous group, Opal, lost their lead vocalist. The duo released three albums between 1990 and 1997 before dissolving due to their collective unhappiness with the music industry. They reformed in 2012 and released another album the following year but things stalled after that, even more so after David Roback passed away from cancer in 2020.

Much of their sound remained steadfastly in the dream pop realm, a slow and lilting environment in which Sandoval hides behind behind the echoes of her lovelorn and breathy vocals. It is music that continues to haunt long after it is played but none of their songs, for better or for worse, have quite had the impact of “Fade into you”.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1993 list, click here.