Ep. 205 - A Richness of Embarrassments, with Kelsey Lewin

goonbag

exodus though I would say there are bands with way more baggage. there’s racist bands! there’s bands fronted by murderers! etc. certainly more baggage, though their influence is smaller. But I certainly agree that any big popular band has the stink of popular culture on it, and there’s a certain baggage that comes with that.

The elephant in the room here is Bono. He might not be a known racist or murderer but he does have that celebrity-activist-whose-opinion-nobody-asked-for baggage, exacerbated by the common knowledge that U2 make enthusiastic use of tax havens.

Otherwise as far as I’m concerned they’re just like the Rolling Stones or Metallica or whatever, a rock band who got too big to fail and have cultivated a permanent audience for late-career dreck.

billy

I was 11 when Yoshi’s Island came out. Shows how much you know.

yeso

I wonder what rock type group was least diminished over the long haul. Maybe The Fall? Nothing else coming to mind …

goonbag

yeso If we’re talking vitality in particular I think that’s the only example, yeah. They broke the mould when they made MES

穴

yeso it may depend on who you ask but a band that comes to my mind is The Flaming Lips, they can be somewhat inconsistent sometimes but they’ve been like that for the entirety of their almost 40 years of existence. Some of their recent stuff is really good imo.

rainbowbattlekid

yeso LOW is on track for this, but obv hasn’t been quite as long.

The Fall I’d say had a couple valleys, and so did Bowie but he’s another one I’d say his later stuff imo is on par with the early stuff

rejj

yeso depends on how far one is willing to stretch “rock-type” to!
I’d put forward some stalwarts from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal: Judas Priest and Iron Maiden.

yeso

goonbag yeah I was thinking not that everything was consistently good without exception, just that into old age they were still actually interesting and good rather than just satisfactory

rainbowbattlekid true, but I’ve been listening to the late 90’s into mid 2000’s records and like them a lot more than I once did, maybe a result of getting old myself (62 years young)

TracyDMcGrath

Parliament/Funkadelic maybe?

rainbowbattlekid

Yeah I like U2! If you’re at all into more like, new wave/post-punk stuff, their stuff up through War is more in that vein than the big anthemic stuff, though I love Joshua Tree too. Them turning into Oprah is a good call, but yeah they have some good stuff before they because uhh very embarassing.

But like, I mean this is corny in its own way, but this is so not even the same band they are now really:

seasons

I think yo la tengo fits. Saw them a couple years ago and they’re still having a good time.

穴

If Yo La Tengo and Low (I can’t believe I forgot to mention both of those bands!) being great after almost 40 and 20 years respectively teaches us anything is that if you don’t want your band to start getting worse over time you should have a married couple in the band.

wickedcestus

穴 one is probably okay; two gets you into a fleetwood mac situation where you burn bright while exploding in supernova and then coast for like 30 years while hating each other

yeso

sound hypothesis since MES had three different wives in the band (not at the same time)

Dead Moon is another long running good married band

KennyL

I’m with Brandon regarding inhabiting game characters. I just cannot see myself being the characters I’m playing on screen. Separation between myself and beyond the screen is too great. Maybe I’m too self aware like I’m vegged out in my couch half naked in darkness thumbing plastic buttons here and you want me to think I’m goddamn Snake crawling through jungle of killer crocs and bees??? GTFO are you ok?? lol

I even find surround sound in movies kinda silly sometimes. I’m couchman Lakitu zipping through exploding buildings right behind Spidey!

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