Dream Baby Dream

Bands I Love: NIRVANA

NIRVANA

#1 on my favorite bands of all time list. (it was so obvious that you shoulda seen it coming 100 miles away).

number of years i have been listening to them: since 1991…just like everyone else my age.

how i got into them: when i was 13 years old Blond Jesus appeared to me in a dream and told me that listening to Public Enemy and Guns N’ Roses was cool and all but that if i was ever going to truly become a sullen and moody teenager with no real career prospects later in life that i needed to dedicate my teen years to a band with a depressed lead singer who talked more shit than a 15 year old girl and had some major drug addiction issues. and thus a young life was ruined just before it could ever start. punk rock obsession and poor fashion choices would follow..
also i saw the video for "Smells like Teen Spirit" one afternoon and it melted my brain.

favorite album: In Utero

favorite songs: radio friendly unit shifter, school, dive, aneurysm, drain you, oh the guilt, i hate myself and i want to die, negative creep, pennyroyal tea, dumb, etc. all of them.

direct influence on my musical taste: duh. i was 13 in 1991. Nirvana is WHY i love music so much. sure i might have very well become a music nerd without them, but it’s doubtful that i would have evolved so quickly and become such a sponge for new shit if it wasn’t for Kurt’s own music snobbery. all that would come after owe the debt. yeah, Nirvana is my favorite band in the same way that the Beatles are my dad’s favorite band. i’d be fucking lying if i tried to claim something else.

Bands I Love: SONIC YOUTH

SONIC YOUTH

#2 on my all time favorite bands list.

number of years i have been listening to them: since 1992

how i discovered them: the Nirvana effect. i bought 1991: Year Punk Broke on VHS for the Nirvana moments but fell in love with Sonic Youth.

favorite album: this changes every couple of years....but right now EVOL is #1.

favorite songs: schizophrenia, star power, the diamond sea, mote, genetic, 100%, shadow of a doubt, the world looks red, tom violence

direct influence on my music taste: if the term Indie Rock is in fact in a dictionary somewhere, then the picture right next to it would/should be Sonic Youth for their combinations of inventiveness (is that even a word), integrity, and overall quality output for nearly 30 years. if you are like me you probably discovered Sonic Youth as a result of getting into Nirvana. i bought a copy of 1991: The Year Punk Broke which starred Sonic Youth, Nirvana, and Dinosaur Jr on their 91 European tour together. i instantly fell in love with Sonic Youth, i went out a bought Dirty, Daydream Nation, Goo, and Sister (which took me about a month to find) and listened to them constantly. i then traveled farther back and bought a cassette copy of Confusion Is Sex which helped send me down a path into noise band addiction for a good long while. when DGC re-released all the bands old albums on CD i bought every single one that i didn’t already own. i also went and saw Sonic Youth every time they played Athens or Atlanta during my highschool years. thanks to Thurston Moore’s record snobbery and desire to namedrop his love’s and influences in interviews i learned about No Wave, Japanese punk rock, forgotten 60s Psychedelic bands, Sun Ra, and discovered that The Stooges’ Fun House was indeed the greatest album ever created. Sonic Youth was that band i listened to that i didn’t worry about the jocks and preppy douchebags getting into because other than Dirty none of their albums were that commercially appealing to your average 90s southern suburban poseur. and so they were more than any band i listened to in all of highschool, 100% mine.

Bands I Love: The Jesus and Mary Chain

THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN

#3 on my favorite bands of all time list.

number of years i have been listening to them: since 1992
how i got into them: saw the video for "Reverence" on 120 minutes. went out and bought Honey’s Dead the next week. that’s right kids. there used to be a time when you found out about cool bands via MTV. i know right.

favorite album: Psychocandy and Darklands

favorite songs: taste of cindy, the hardest walk, i hate rock n roll, april skies, kill surf city, everything’s alright when you’re down, far gone and out

direct influence on my musical taste: the whole reason i gotta into shoegaze, spacemen 3, and any fucking band that used feedback like an instrument.

Bands I Love: The Replacements

THE REPLACEMENTS

#4 on my favorite bands of all time list.

number of years i have been listening to them: 1986? this is a question i can’t give an accurate answer to. but pretty much since i was a kid.

how i got into them: my dad had Tim on record and so it's one of those albums i discovered when i started going through his music and stealing stuff.

favorite album: Let It Be, Tim, and Sorry Ma Forgot To Take Out the Trash are all equally tied.

favorite songs: can’t hardly wait (the unreleased tim version), i will dare, answering machine, left of the dial, sixteen blue, shiftless when idle

direct influence on my musical taste: my deep love of sloppy, drunk, heartbroken, rock and roll owes everything to these guys.

Bands I Love: Black Flag

BLACK FLAG

#5 on my all time favorite bands list

number of years i have been listening to them: since 1991
how i got into them: i was already aware of Black Flag from childhood thanks to their inclusion on the Repo Man soundtrack (which was one of my favorite movies when i was growing up. we owned it on VHS and although i knew jack shit about Punk rock…i did know i thought it was pretty awesome.) but i can’t say i really began listening to Black Flag until years later. as i mentioned before, 1991 was a big year of discovery for me. it was 8th grade and i had just been introduced to the world of punk rock. i honestly don’t remember what magazine it was, but i wanna say Guitar World, that had an issue where they listed the 20 greatest punk rock records of all time and on that list were both Damaged and First Four Years by Black Flag...and so naturally being a kid who likes owning the essentials i purchased both of these cds.
favorite album: First Four Years
favorite songs: depression, six pack, nervous breakdown, gimme gimme gimme, slip it in, black coffee
direct influence on my musical taste: they are the yardstick by which i judge all other punk bands.

Bands I Love: The Stooges

THE STOOGES

#6 on my all time favorite bands list

number of years i have been listening to them: since 1991
how i got into them: the year 1991 was a big year of discovery for me thanks to Nirvana and my subscription to SPIN magazine. i remember reading an article about the Seattle grunge scene and the two band names that got mentioned the most as being influential to it were Black Sabbath and The Stooges. i went out and found a copy of Iggy & The Stooges Raw Power at Wave’s music. the opening track "search and destroy" melted my face off and it was Iggy love ever since.
favorite album: Fun House
favorite songs: gimme danger, loose, tv eye, shake appeal, i got a right, real cool time
direct influence on my musical taste: my entire obsession with garage rock, proto punk, glam rock, and psychedelia can all be traced to my Stooges fandom.

Bands I Love: Joy Division

JOY DIVISION

#7 on my all time favorite bands list

number of years i have been listening to them: since 1994
how i got into them: i was listening to a mixtape i had made of my favorite New Order songs after school one day and this older goth kid from my drama class told me i should check out New Order’s original band Joy Division...and so i did. pretty solid move on my part.
favorite album: Closer
favorite songs: digital, she's lost control, twenty four hours, decades
direct influence on my musical taste: although i was already starting to get into post-punk, Joy Division sparked an interest in the darker/gothier stuff. also my first ever band in highschool (called the Prom) was a total Joy Division ripoff band. we were about 7 years ahead of Interpol...we shoulda stuck with it.

Bands I Love: The Nation of Ulysses

number 8 on my favorite bands of all time list

number of years i have been listening to them: since 1993
how i got into them: i was already a pretty huge Fugazi fan in 1993 and began buying every album by every band on Dischord because of that. i remember ordering Nation Of Ulysses' 13 Point Program to Destroy America, Shudder to Think's Get Your Goat, and the Faith/Void split album together. me = mind blown upon first hearing the NOU.
favorite album: PLAYS PRETTY FOR BABY!
favorite songs: Look Out! Soul Is Back, The Hickey Underworld, N-Sub Ulysses, A Comment On Ritual, You're My Miss Washington DC
direct influence on my musical taste: the Nation Of Ulysses influenced my ideas of what exactly a punk rock band could sound like, they also got me interested in Jazz (briefly) and most important of all they taught me about aesthetics in rock and roll and how important look and imagery can be.

Bands I Love: The Smiths

The Smiths "This Charming Man"

#9 on my list of favorite bands of all time.

number of years i have been listening to them: since 1990 (so 20 fucking years!)
first album i ever owned: Meat Is Murder
how i got into them: was watching 120 Minutes one night and saw the video for "How Soon Is Now?" and the next time my parents took me to the mall i went and found the album with that song and bought it.
favorite albums: The Queen is Dead & Hatful of Hollow
top 3 favorite songs: still ill, this charming man, asleep
direct influence on my musical taste: other than U2 and REM, the Smiths were the first "alternative" band i ever listened to. helped me get into lots of 80s British rock bands like The Jesus & Mary Chain, Echo and The Bunnymen, New Order, etc..., also thanks to Morrissey i discovered T.Rex and The New York Dolls as well as all the other 70s Glam rock that i love. also would make me open to all forms of whiny sad bastard music that i would cry myself to sleep at night listening to during my teenage years.

Bands I Love: Gang of Four

band: Gang of Four
genre: post-punk
year i have been listening to them: since 1994
how i discovered them: they were name dropped by Fugazi, Kurt Cobain, and REM
first album i ever owned: a brief history of the 20th century
favorite songs: damaged goods, anthrax, what we all want, i found that essence rare

live footage:

"he'd send in the army"


"to hell with poverty!"


"damaged goods"

Most Underrated Band of the 90s = Teenage Fanclub

Bandwagonesque came out in 1991 and SPIN magazine called them "THE SOUND OF THE 90s". like if Dinosaur Jr. and Big Star had a baby. it beat out Nevermind for album of year from SPIN...but we all know how that turned out in the end.

live footage of Teenage Fanclub at Reading 91. "God Knows It's True", "The Concept", & "Satan" included. the quality of this vid is total shit, but you get the idea. do yourself a favor and download some Fanclub. recommended jams (besides the songs in this clip) "Metal Baby", "What You Do To Me", "Star Sign", "Without You", "It's All In My Mind".

I'm Listening To Crime Right Now

if you don't own San Francisco's Still Doomed then you should probably do something to fix that, ASAP.

just sayin'.

footage of the band playing " Baby, You're So Repulsive". you are welcome.

Shocking Pinks "Emily"

one of my favorite songs in recent years is this little nugget of dream pop gold from New Zealand's Shocking Pinks called "Emily". if you don't own their stateside selftitled compilation then you are blowing it.

AGENDA 2: The ReAgenda-ing

The Agenda...now older, fatter, balder, and with beards.

so after 5 years of inactivity, my old band THE AGENDA is calling it a comeback...or at least an attempt at a comeback and entering into the whole rock n roll circus, again. we had our first band practice together in over 5 years and i suddenly remember that singing is actually kinda difficult, especially when you haven't done it in a long ass time. right now my voice is somewhere between sorority girl and throat cancer survivor after two hours of doing my best Iggy Pop and Mark Arm impressions. also trying to remember lyrics to songs you wrote when you were 23 and 24 is like way hard when you are 30 and havent heard any of them in half a decade. and they only have like 12 wors per song...short term memory loss is a motherfucker! regardless it's good to be back with a band again as i've definitely gotten bored and old in the last several years.

anyways we are playing Athfest at the end of this month and then possibly an out of town show or two before another show here in September.

thankfully we wrote a bunch of the stupidest easiest garage punk songs of all time, or else i might be worried about less than 3 weeks of practice until our first show.

Start The Panic - Agenda!

Bands I Love: The Monorchid

"like if The Fall & Motorhead got together and started a punk band" was the best way i ever heard to describe the sound of The Monorchid. formed from the ashes of legendary DC punk group Circus Lupus, the Monorchid were only active for a few years and released 2 records...97's Let Them Eat...The Monorchid & 98's Who Put Out The Fire? (my favorite of the 2), both on Touch & Go. after they disbanded some of the members formed Skull Kontrol, the band recently reunited for the Touch & Go 25th anniversary show. Monorchid had a big influence on the artpunk scene of San Diego that in turn influenced just about everyone in the early 2000s...some for the worse. here's a live version of the song "The Warmers" off their album Who Put Out The Fire?

Bands I Love: PANTHERS

Brooklyn, New York's Panthers fall into that category of bands that never will be huge...but are totally fucking rad and you should love them anyway. my old band toured with these cats in the UK back in the summer of '03 and got our asses handed to us almost every night. the Panthers are a post-hardcore supergroup that feature members of Orchid, Red Scare, and Turing Machine. their sound would be described as Nation Of Ulysses + 70s Spacerock (mostly Hawkwind & Captain Beyond) with a healthy dose of Jesus Lizard thrown in for good measure = your favorite dude rock band of this decade. they've got 4 releases under their belt, but the 1st album is kind of shitty. the best starting point for them for any new fan would be their 2003 EP Let's Get Serious...which features a 5 song sampling of some of their best work.

Let's Get Serious - Panthers