Soundgarden

A Quick Letter to Trent Reznor

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Tomorrow night, we here at Rust Is Just Right are heading up to the wastelands of southern Washington, which means our readers will soon see an end to the mentions of a tour we’ve been talking about since the beginning of this site.  That’s right, the mega-tour of 90’s powerhouse co-headliners Soundgarden and Nine Inch Nails is making its way to the Portland area (without the initially-invited Death Grips, however).  Though we saw both of these acts on their own respective tours last year, we were suitably impressed with their comeback performances that it was a no-brainer to shell out the big bucks to see these guys once again, if only for the possibility of a few changes to the setlist.  To that end, we would like to formally request for Trent Reznor to dig deep and play some cuts from The Fragile at tomorrow’s show.

Nine Inch Nails became superstars with the critical and commercial success of 1994’s The Downward Spiral (the album whose twentieth anniversary is nominally the impetus for this tour), but it wasn’t until they released its follow-up The Fragile in 1999 that I climbed aboard the bandwagon.  I was too young to appreciate TDS when it came out–it was simply too dark and scary for a kid who was still in elementary school, and I remember just seeing glimpses of the “Closer” video gave me nightmares (it didn’t occur to me that there was an actual song behind the video that could be played on the radio until years later).  I had none of these issues when The Fragile came out, and even though it’s a behemoth of a double album, I enjoyed devouring and analyzing the music for hours on end.

The reputation of The Fragile has suffered a bit over the years due to comparisons to the ridiculous sales numbers of The Downward Spiral, and this analysis has cast a shadow onto the album’s artistic merits as a result, with many now concluding that it doesn’t measure up as a worthy successor.  I would argue that as great as TDS is, it is with The Fragile that Trent Reznor truly proved his genius and bona fides as a composer.  The album plays as an industrial rock symphony, with melodic ideas and figures that pop up in different variations throughout, giving a musical coherence to the work.  Individual instruments are recorded with precision, providing ample space when required but also allowed to bleed together to create new gorgeous tones like a shoegaze record.  Reznor also balances between natural and artificial tones with expert mixing both live and processed instrumentation.  It is obvious to the listener that every second was planned and recorded with care, and the result is an album that even at its most brutal and devastating sounds absolutely gorgeous.

It looks that the band is playing a few of the usual suspects from this album on this tour, but I hope that Trent flips the script a bit and pulls off a couple of surprises.  The crowd, which is full of diehards like me that grew up with The Fragile and listen to it on a regular basis, would go nuts if the band whipped out the epic instrumental “Just Like You Imagined” and lose their shit if they got to hear “Into the Void” once again.  But I’ll be honest, the one song that I desperately want to hear is the one embedded above, the song that convinced me of the brilliance of Nine Inch Nails, “We’re In This Together”.  I love the relentless drumbeat that drives the song, utilizing a trickier pattern than appears at first listen, I love the ever-evolving vocal melodies that emphasize and build on the emotions of the lyrics, but most of all, I love the fucking guitar in this song, especially one of the greatest noise-freakout solos I’ve ever heard.  I realize the difficulty of putting all the elements of this song together live (which is why it’s only been done a handful of times), but I’m telling you, the fans would go crazy if it actually happened, and we will forgive any and all mistakes just for the gesture.

But don’t substitute “Gave Up”.  That one is great.

And if the guys in Soundgarden are taking requests, please play “Tighter & Tighter”.  It’s not necessary that you have Mike McCready come help you out, but we definitely would love it if he decided to help out on this one.

Over the Weekend (Aug. 18 Edition)

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Kicking off the week with a ton of new music and exciting news, as summer slowly morphs into fall…

It began with cryptic message from a giant blimp, but it’s official: Aphex Twin is releasing a new album.  Richard James most recently released music as AFX, (with the vinyl-only release of Analord, though a compilation of selected tracks was later sold as an Aphex Twin/AFX release on CD called  Chosen Lords), but even then it’s been a long time since we heard new music from him as those records were last released in 2006.  Syro will be the first Aphex Twin album since 2001’s Drukqs; no word on whether we’ll have any more creepy music videos, but the artwork announcing for the release seems to suggest as much.

Fans of the site should be well-aware of how excited we are for Death From Above 1979’s upcoming reunion, and a warm-up show brought us some additional material to help whet our appetite.  A fan has uploaded another track scheduled to appear from the new album The Physical World, courtesy of a free CD handed out to fans at the show.  “Government Trash” lives up to its name, as the song shows the harder-edged roots of the band, and is a perfect example of trashy punk.

Interpol today gave us another taste of El Pintor with the release of “Ancient Ways”.  It’s an uptempo track that shows that the band is really intent on piling up instruments on top of each other, similar to the style of Interpol, but with some of the edge of their earliest work.

KEXP has been uploading videos from a number of different groups that have stopped by their studios, and they’re definitely worth the time to watch all the way through.  So far I’ve watched Peter Matthew Bauer perform an excellent set with a full cast of backing musicians (which is sure to irk Rick Moody, since it contradicts his point) and Cloud Nothings rip through their latest, and I’m looking forward to checking out the Broken Bells and Wye Oak sets soon enough.

It’s always fun to hear bands talk shit about one another, and Kim Thayil provides quite a bit of it with these recent rips on Billy Corgan and the Smashing Pumpkins.

And finally, some sad news as Rick Parashar, a producer and engineer known for his work with the early years in the grunge scene in Seattle died a few days ago.  He helped out with Ten and the Temple of the Dog album among others, a contribution that which we all appreciate very much.

Over the Weekend (July 21 Edition)

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New music, new videos, goofy contests…let’s get this week started.

Spoon decided to hit the ground running as they kicked off their week.  They released a great (almost) one-shot video for “Do You”, which sees Britt Daniel slowly driving away from what seems to be the wreckage of the night before, until a surprising reveal at the end.  They also released a new song, “Inside Out”, which while not a full-fledged video, does include some trippy visuals.  And the band did a live chat with fans over at Consequence of Sound this afternoon, and you can find the complete transcript here.

Hamilton Leithauser stopped by NPR today and performed one of their Tiny Desk Concerts, which you can catch right here on the NPR website.

The recent death of Tommy Ramone means that there are no surviving members of the original group.  While this is a bummer, the folks at Funny or Die decided to look on the bright side of the situation, and imagine what the reunion in heaven would be like.  And it’s always good to see Dave Foley.

After that, you should probably go yell at The AV Club for saying unkind words about Next’s classic “Too Close”.  Yes, it’s about a boner, but it’s the best song about dancing with a boner ever.

BBC Radio 2 is having a poll to determine the greatest guitar riff of all time, and though those of us in the States are unable to vote, we can at least take a look at the possible selections.  Honestly, there are some pretty good choices on the list.

And finally, the Soundgarden/Nine Inch Nails joint tour kicked off this weekend in Vegas, and Rolling Stone has a rave review of the show.  I’m definitely excited to see these guys soon.

Over the Weekend (June 23 Edition)

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Some videos to help you get over that heartbreaking…tie against Portugal.

Interpol just released the video for “Anywhere” from their upcoming album El Pintor, and it’s a live version shot in an “amateur” style from one of their recent shows.  Musically, it sounds like one of their usual busier, uptempo numbers, but it should be enough to get the crowd pumped at future shows.

Courtesy of the Everybody Loves Our Town Tumblr, we have footage from a recent Pearl Jam show that has gone somewhat viral over the weekend.  As per their usual, Pearl Jam tagged the end of “Daughter” with their cover of “It’s OK” by Portland punks Dead Moon, but this time Eddie sang a bit of the Oscar-winning song “Let It Go” from Frozen.  Since I do not have any children, this is the first time I’ve actually heard the song, so I finally have an idea what everyone is referencing; Eddie seems to miss a couple of notes, but hey, it’s a live improv and he’s fitting it to the chord progression of a different song, so I won’t bust him too much.

We mentioned previously that Soundgarden did a special show where they played Superunknown in its entirety, and here’s the audio of that full show, with additional interviews from the band.

And finally, SPIN has a couple of videos worth checking out: one is footage of Real Estate performing a stripped-down set which includes a cover of Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So”, and the other is a joke interview of TV on the Radio with SNL’s Vanessa Bayer.  If you go to the YouTube page of the latter, there should be links to other “Sound Advice” interviews.

Catching Up On The Week (June 6 Edition)

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Lots of news and profiles and interviews for a weekend of #longreads.

Interpol announced that they will be releasing their new album entitled El Pintor this fall, on September 9.  If you’re wondering about the name, yes, it is Spanish (for “the painter”), but if you look closely, you should realize it’s an anagram of the band’s name (the stunning cover art helps a little bit in making the connection).  It appears they haven’t officially replaced departed bassist Carlos D, as Paul Banks assumed bass duties for the album in addition to his vocal and guitar work.

We finally got official word that the new Spoon album will be released on August 5, and it’s to be called They Want My Soul.  We’re still not exactly sure what the “R.I.P. June 10” business is quite yet, but it makes sense considering the album title.  Check out this great interview that the band did with NPR.

If you didn’t get your fill of Soundgarden from our Feats of Strength analysis this week, be sure to check out these interviews with the band.  At Ultimate Guitar the band answered questions from fans covering a lot of the technical details of their playing, and at Consequence of Sound there’s a retrospective about the production of Superunknown that’s fairly illuminating.  And if that’s not enough, SPIN has an extensive oral history that looks at the making of the landmark album.

AV Club takes a look at Travis’s The Man Who for their Permanent Records feature through the lens of their influence on Coldplay, while making a case for the album on its own merits.  I have long been a fan of that album, not just for their adolescence-ready lyrical themes (is there a more universal sentiment than wondering at some point “why does it always rain on me?”), but also for some gorgeous guitar work.  The solo in “As You Are” has to rank among the high points of music in 1999, not necessarily for its technical merits but for its ability to capture the emotional climax of the song.

This week saw some big new album releases for indie rock, and we’ll be working our way through reviews soon, but in the mean time you can look at multiple interviews with Parquet Courts, one with the New York Times and another with Stereogum, and if you’re looking to get into the post-hardcore sound of Fucked Up but are not quite sure you’re ready for it, Stereogum’s top ten should provide a useful guide.

As I’ve said before, 1994 was a huge year in music, so there’s going to be a ton of retrospectives this year.  This week, the eyes of nostalgia turn to Stone Temple Pilots, as Stereogum celebrates the release of Purple, probably their best album (though contrary to their claim, the band never was and never will be better than Pearl Jam; let’s just acknowledge STP was better than their detractors claim and move on).

And finally, since the weather seems to have officially changed into summer, now’s the perfect time to check out this look back at the beginning of Warren G’s career and his influence on the rise of G-Funk, courtesy of Pitchfork.

Feats of Strength: Soundgarden

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Soundgarden released several deluxe reissues of their classic album Superunknown today, and along with their recent rollicking performance of the album in full, it seems like now is the perfect time to spotlight the band for our Feats of Strength examination.  When discussing the brilliance of Soundgarden, it is absolutely required that one mentions the sheer musical talent of each person in the group, and how each contributed significantly to the group’s unique sound.  From Chris Cornell’s dynamic and immense vocal range, to Kim Thayil’s distinctive and exhilarating leads, to Ben Shepherd’s dark and groovy basslines, and to Matt Cameron’s complex patterns and fills, each member represents some of the finest talent to ever pick up an instrument.  For the young musicians out there, any one of those guys would serve as a fine role model for your playing.

The point of that glowing introduction was to illustrate that it would be pretty easy to point to just about any song in Soundgarden’s deep catalog and use it to show off a particular strength of the group.  Oh, you want an idea of Chris Cornell’s range?  Check out that ending to “Slaves and Bulldozers”.  You’re doubting Kim Thayil’s ability to shred?  I have no idea how you managed this, but somehow you’ve apparently ignored rock radio over the last twenty years completely, and so have completely avoided “Spoonman” or “Black Hole Sun”.  However, those examples are the kinds of displays of technical prowess that should be obvious to anyone with ears; you don’t need someone like me to point them out.  Instead, I’ve chosen to highlight something much simpler and easy to overlook over the first few listens.

As I mentioned before, Matt Cameron is known for some complex drum patterns, such as the one used for “The Day I Tried to Live”; part of that was unintentional, and the result of fitting odd riffs to a workable drum beat.  However, the one used for “Limo Wreck” [embedded above] is one of the most basic drum beats in music: the waltz.  Step-two-three, step-two-three; boom-chk-chk, boom-chk-chk.  The genius is not in the selection of the pattern itself, but its use as support for the lyrics.  The waltz pattern, with its echoes of stuffy and old high society, provides the perfect ironic backdrop to lyrics that celebrate the imminent demise of the gaudy and materialistic upper classes.

It took several listens over the years before I noticed this pattern; the waltz is not clearly telegraphed, as is often the case (either in title or in the opening drumbeat).  But now it’s often the first thing I think of when I listen to this song, and it provides an indelible image in my mind of a snooty ballroom dance, with each participant oblivious to the crumbling of society around them.  And while the band has claimed before that they often don’t think of time signatures when writing a piece, I can’t imagine that this subtle touch was spontaneous, but instead planned to perfection.

Over the Weekend (May 27 Edition)

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We took the day off yesterday in recognition of Memorial Day.  This is how we at RIJR celebrated, with Gary Clark Jr.’s superb rendition of the National Anthem from this year’s NBA All-Star Game.

The Atlantic had a nice piece where they asked musicians their thoughts on what the most influential song in history was.  Personally, I felt that Walter Martin, formerly of The Walkmen, gave the best answer.

Speaking of The Walkmen, Hamilton Leithauser’s solo debut Black Hours is available for streaming on the NPR website; they also have a stream of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s Only Run up as well.  Next week sees some other highly anticipated new albums, including Sunbathing Animal from Parquet Courts and Glass Boys from Fucked Up.  Pitchfork has the streams for both.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: it’s always worth seeing Eels live.  You never know what kind of set you get, from a somber strings-enriched performance to a retro-variety hour show, or having Steve Perry from Journey randomly showing up and performing live for the first time in nearly two decades.

Chris Cornell gave a quick interview to Rolling Stone talking about looking back to the days of Superunknown.  The best part of the interview was the discussion about his interactions with Artis the Spoonman, giving new insight into their relationship.

Finally, I think that I need to inform our audience that a banjo cover of Slayer’s “Raining Blood” exists.  And it’s not bad.

Over the Weekend (May 12th Edition)

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Considering the amount of material we have for our Monday roundup, this should be a very good week.  Let’s get to it!

Of course, as we’ve covered before, the biggest news coming up is the release tomorrow of the new album from The Black Keys.  They’ve been doing their part by performing on SNL this past Saturday, performing “Fever” and “Bullet in the Brain”, and by performing on Letterman tonight.  They did two songs for the show, and also treated the crowd outside the Late Show rooftop to a full set featuring songs from previous albums.  You can tune in to this link to catch one of the re-airings, though this is probably only temporary.

Speaking of the late night shows, Late Night with Seth Meyers featured another band on which we did a feature recently, as Parquet Courts visited last week.  Here’s their performance of the new song “Black and White”, from the upcoming Sunbathing Animal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQif4tE47dQ

Soundgarden is prepping for their big tour with Nine Inch Nails, and their warmup will include a special gig at New York’s Webster Hall where they will perform the entirety of Superunknown, and the tickets will cost only $19.94 (the year the seminal album came out, of course).  That’s a pretty damn cool venue, and to see a band of that stature in a relatively small place like that will definitely be a great experience for the lucky few who are able to go.

We had a link for a short article on Big Star on Friday, and today the Facebook page for the band posted a link to a rare track from co-founder Chris Bell’s early band Icewater.

Fender had a couple of cool posts worth checking out.  The first is a talk with Nile Rodgers about his legendary “Hitmaker” Stratocaster, a strange combo guitar that he picked up at a pawn shop decades ago but whose distinctive sound is what you hear on all those great records featuring Nile.  The second is an article about a recent show by We Are Scientists where they were joined by former Weezer bassist Matt Sharp.  It fit right in with last week’s 20th anniversary of The Blue Album, and together they performed several Weezer songs together, as well as “Friends of P.” from Matt’s other band, The Rentals.  I wish I could have been at that show, and I’d have to say I’d prefer the “Weezer Are Scientists” version of the band over their current incarnation.

In recognition of Mother’s Day yesterday, here is Eminem’s latest video, the Spike Lee-directed “Headlights”, which covers his attempts at reconciliation with his mother.

And finally, we’ve got yet another useless list from Rolling Stone, if you’re into that kind of thing.  I had been thinking that it had been too long since we’d had one of those, but they did us a solid last week by publishing their version of the “100 Best Albums of the Nineties”.  If you want to know whether or not you should give it a look, I’ll note that in their eyes that Bridges to Babylon (#76) is the superior album to In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (unlisted).  I think that’s all I have to say.

Catching Up On The Week (May 2nd Edition)

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We’ve got some nice, light articles for you this weekend, mirroring the gorgeous weather we’ve been experiencing this week (at least here in the Pacific Northwest).

Last week we had an article that provided some interesting trivia about Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures, and this week we have an article about its successor band, New Order.  The AVClub has an article about the single “Ceremony”, which bridged the two bands.  Kevin McFarland makes a convincing case for how the song provided an effective transition between the two eras.

The Wild Magazine has an extended interview with M.I.A. that’s worth checking out.  I didn’t get a chance to post anything about Matangi in the 2013 roundup, but I enjoyed the album and felt that it was a significant step up from its predecessor, MAYA.  But now I have a great excuse to post the video for “Bad Girls”, because it’s pretty damn cool.

Steven Hyden listened to the new Damon Albarn solo album, and while he hasn’t completely accounted for his sin of choosing Oasis over Blur in the mid-90’s Britpop battles, he does use the occasion to ponder why there aren’t any big band beefs any more.  Let’s just hope that this eventually leads to a listen of Parklife at some point.

The Flaming Lips recently fired long-time drummer Kliph Scurlock from the band, and Pitchfork has a message from Kliph that explains the situation and dynamic in the band.

And finally, great news for those of us in the Northwest, as the Nine Inch Nails/Soundgarden/Death Grips touring juggernaut announced additional dates in Sacramento, Portland (actually Clark County in Washington), and Seattle.  It feels good to not dread making a trip 800 miles down I-5.

Over the Weekend (Apr. 22 Edition)

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I hope everyone enjoyed the holiday weekend, whether it was spiritual, musical, or “miscellaneous”, and we also hope that you didn’t mind waiting an extra day while we recuperated.  I believe my stomach is proof that Costco should not be allowed to sell jellybeans.

Record Store Day was this past Saturday, and perhaps you scored some cool vinyl or just enjoyed a good excuse to spend a weekend afternoon scouring the racks at your local record store.  I only picked up a 7″ Mudhoney/The Sonics split-single, mainly in part to my reluctance to splurge on vinyl.  And now I have some ammunition when a so-called “audiophile” tries to insist that I’m missing out on superior sound, courtesy of Vox.  I’ll just be sure not to mention the Nyquist-Shannon theorem, because I have it on good authority that it’s not really handled correctly in the piece.  Otherwise, it’s a great scientific explanation of sound recordings in different formats; of course, if you prefer the sound of vinyl, feel free to keep rocking.

There weren’t really that many videos to share this week, but there was this footage from Soundgarden’s SXSW appearance that was just uploaded, with the band ripping through “Rusty Cage”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oh3ctsg_a3A

Next week marks the return of the Pixies, who will release their first album since 1991’s Trompe le Monde.  NPR has Indie Cindy available to stream right now, so be sure to check that out while you read a feature of the band from Crack Magazine.

Finally, it’s the 20th anniversary of Above the Rim, one of my favorite movies to watch whenever it shows up on cable.  First, there’s a look at the making of the film with the screenwriter, Barry Michael Cooper, courtesy of Complex.  When you’re done with that, have some fun with a more irreverent look with a roundtable discussion about the unique greatness of the film from Grantland.  If you’re wondering why we’re discussing a basketball movie on a music site, you should probably check this slideshow, then ask yourself why you bothered to pose the question considering this was one of Tupac’s great roles, and it featured “Regulate”.