Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Look Out! Soul Is Back

so i've decided to start doing a public service with this blog and highlighting a few bands a week that defined who i am as a music nerd and influenced my ears and my thoughts. i'm sure a lot of these bands you probably are already into. hopefully some of them you will grow to love as much as me.

my first band to highlight is one of my all time favorites, when i think about the coolest bands that have ever existed or when i think about bands that i have tried to rip off the most The Nation Of Ulysses is always at the top of the list. equal parts MC5, free jazz, and art school noise, The N.O.U. spawned from the very fertile DC hardcore scene to become something that was nothing like anyone had seen before. i got into them after the band had already broken up so unfortunately i never saw them live.

their live performances were notorius as the band would sometimes set their shoes on fire while they played as singer Ian Svenoius flayled around wildly and spouted his pseudo political ramblings to the crowd. the group emobodied a rejection of the 60's and 70's rock n roll culture and often called themselves "the real anti-parent culture sound". style was important as they often dressed in suits with their hair slicked up into pompadors. their debut album "13 Point Program to Destroy America" announced them as not a rock n roll group but as a politcal party of the teenage movement concerning themselves with a relentlessly provocative (and entertaining) jumble of teenage rock 'n' roll rebellion, leftist radicalism, anarchist punk polemics, and abstract intellectual rambling.

the band's second album "Plays Pretty For Baby" goes down in my top 5 records of all time. after that they broke up and most of the band went on to form the Make Up while former guitarist Tim Green formed the instrumental metal band The Fucking Champs. since the band only has two real records i just suggest you buy both of them. Plays Pretty is the best but 13 point is a little more straight forward and easy to digest.

here's a couple of live clips of the band
"cool senior high school"

"spectra sonic sound"

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