Written by stoplovingeverything

Touch Me I’m Radiation Sick

Rain. Makes me sleepy. And crankier than usual.

X (the Aussie one) – I Don’t Wanna Go Out

And violent, especially about the traffic I faced yesterday getting in and out of NJ for a (good) wedding.

I’m staying inside, wearing an old WFMU t-shirt with a picture of a mole on it.

Hammerhead – Mole Boy

(from their first, Ethereal Killer, on the infamous Amphetamine Reptile label)

you’ll find both on emusic

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16 thoughts on “Touch Me I’m Radiation Sick”

  2. Shit, I could write a book about how Archers of Loaf were overrated, or rated at all. You can’t even compare them to Superchunk, which is embarrassing.I heard/have the new Dando single (Lemonheads? for me they exist no further than <>Lovey<>. It’s a nice song, although I’ve seen Dando’s girlfriend in person at a Frogs show and can’t really swallow hearing him complain in any way, but I think Mascis ruins the execution. Yet squak (sic) it’s not. Although I knew it was J Mascis immediately, the guitar is so undistorted, which was a horrible choice, and the riffs are so pedestrian I can’t decide whether Mascis’s style is now old hat, having been destroyed for my ears by every post-1992 thief on MTV, or whether he’s too old to care that he’s selling out via rehashed playing not fit for a <>You’re Living All Over Me<> outtake.

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  3. hmmm,I thought it was nice to hear Masic play along with Dando. Kind of like your childhood all stars finally getting in the same room. It also sounds like a good fit. As far as being “indistorted,” I think you mispoke. It is certainly distorted, just not bathed in wah wah, delay, and reverb. That Lemonheads single with Mascis is better than most anything I have heard recently.

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  4. It was nice to hear them play together, yeah. And I apologize – you’re right – upon further listens, the guitar isn’t totally clean – no VH here – but I always preferred Mascis via pedals and wah wah and gear and earsplitting stuff. But this sounds like Steve Vai, and not on PIL’s <>Album<> (i have the vinyl version). Again, the song’s pretty good. Dando’s always are. As for recent stuff that’s better, it exists – there are few things I’ve been surprised by – What Made Milwaukee Famous has a great tune called “Around the Gills” that bests ‘No Backbone” at its own game. Like a combo of Cheap Trick, Built to Spill (when they’re good) and Squirrel Bait. I also really like “To Go Home” from M.Ward’s new record. And “God’s Highway by Tobias Froberg. But I’m letting them digest for now. Posting in future.

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  5. Mr. Parnell:I think you are ignoring an interesting aspect of the Masic/Dando connection. In the indie pop world, there are very few musicians who one can name upon hearing them play their instrument. Sure, one can hear a song and say, “This sounds like the Bats.” But, when you hear a guiar and can say, “Hey, that sounds like Ira Kaplan” or “This has to be Robert Quine,” that is special. J. Mascis is in that special club. When he played on the first Buffalo Tom album, you knew it was him before checking the record sleeve. J. Masic does not sound at all like Steve Vai on the new Lemonheads song because as soon as you hear the guitar lead, you say, “That is J. Masic.” On his best or worst material, J sounds like J. Maybe S. Malkmus was close for awhile, but now many, many bands can pull off the slightly out of tune Pavement sound. For a time, the Sonic Youth boys had a sound, but now, if Lee R. or Thruston M. played on someone elses record, you would never know it unless you checked the liner notes. Your comments do not do J. Masic credit. The man has his fair share of shit, but his style of play is unique and quickly identifiable. Steve Vai he is not.

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  6. <>Shit, I could write a book about how Archers of Loaf were overrated, or rated at all.<>Finally, someone said it. They were always so average to me.Just gave the Lemonheads track a listen. I’m a bigger fan than you, I think, but I think I’m on your side on this one. It’s a good song (I even liked car button cloth), but Mascis isn’t Mascis enough. It’s him, sure, but so many people have copped his riffs/sound in the intervening years, he’s not so distinctive.And not everything is overrated. Pizza, for example. Boobs. Beer. Baseball. I sound like a bad bumper sticker, so I’ll add jazz. Very few of the youngsters have listened to it for decades, so it gets no attention, except for Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and John Colatrane. Let’s just ignore Sonny Rollins, Max Roach, Clifford Brown, Grant Green …

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  7. I can’t think of a single guitar player or band that sounds distinctly like Mascis. Bands like Broken Social Scene may attempt to, but they don’t even come close to succeeding.

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  8. Ok, I’ll give you Mascis sounding distinctive (but Built to Spill can ape him ably, as can Bettie Serveert, as can Nels Cline) over many other guitar players, but being distinctive isn’t enough to make for a good guitar player — you can throw a rock in any direction in NYC and find someone who can play Dinosaur Jr. leads, with or without effects. Or even write some new ones once they practice.Carlos Santana’s a guitar genius, but other than on one album pre 1972, there’s no use for him, although you still can tell it’s him playing when he plays. So it’s writing that counts, after all else, and J’s work on “No Backbone” sounds like he’s recycling any other solo before it, or the solo on the Buffalo Tom debut, to be closely specific. Why not break laws again, in a different way, like the solo on “The Lung”? That’s what made J exciting back then: The punk unprofessionalism cutting through such obvious talent.

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  9. “Why not break laws again, in a different way, like the solo on “The Lung”?”But Mr. Parnell, The Lung was a Dinosaur song in a J. Mascis dominated band. When you are a hired gun, as Masic is with the Lemonheads, you play your part. I remember when Matthew Sweet first starting making waves. I thought he was boring as all hell, except, he always picked great guitar players. The only interesting parts of Girlfriend are finding the Richard Lloyd and R. Quine guitar solos. With the new Lemonheads song, you actually have a nice Dando hum backed with some nice Masics squeal. From a guitar player standpoint, Mascis does his job rather nicely.And i think you got it backwards. Masic’s solos were talent cutting through punk unprofessionalism. I am ready for some more Lemonheads.

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  10. <>When you are a hired gun, as Masic is with the Lemonheads, you play your part. <>So now we’re blaming this on Dando?It’s okay to hear your idols stumble a bit. It’s expected. We’re all here for you. We were here when <> Experimental Jet Set …<> came out. We were here when <>Kid A<> came out. We were here when Fugazi went into a recording studio. We were here when Telelvision reunited. We were here when Mascis put out that Fog record. And we’ll always be here.

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  11. hmmm,The Lemondhead single (a whopping 3 minutes long) was a welcomed addition to the pop world, like a cool breeze pushing out the last days of summer (which can’t come soon enough). Of course Dando had Mascis on a tight leash, the same way that Reed put Quine on a tight leash. Let me correct a few errors. Sonic Youth made a few wrong turns before Jet Set came out. Radiohead is (and always has been) Coldplay for people cool kids. Fugazi (as you state) was a mistake from inception. But that group of ponies is Pro-life and would never abort. Television (like the Buzzcocks) cna play their old stuff for me on most nights, but yawn for the new stuff. J. Mascis hasn’t been interesting in years – the Fog, solo, Dinosaur Jr., all crap, but he certainly hasn’t lost his dexterity. Just look at some footage of recent Dinosaur shows with Lou thomping along.Dando with Mascis on a tight least is better than 99.9% of what you will hear on Brooklyn Vegan and other crap sites.

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  12. <>Ok, I’ll give you Mascis sounding distinctive (but Built to Spill can ape him ably, as can Bettie Serveert, as can Nels Cline)<>Hmmm. I always wondered if Masics was aping Built to Spill, but I have a soft spot for emo before it was emo. And I saw Bettie Serveert last year. And they made me feel old and dated.I’d listen to Dando sing the phone book, but I have to agree that the guitar sound didn’t scream J. Masic to me. I like the track–but it’s almost too busy; it feels like pastiche. Am I really old enough for music I liked to be aped by the people who made it the first time?The thing I liked about <>Baby I’m Bored<> was it’s nod to age. Dando sounded like a used up, fallen, drug adled heart throb with a gift for sweet, sweet melody on that record. It was honest, even if he wasn’t. And part of the honesty was his nod to his own dishonesty.And, hell, Jerry Garcia has one of the most distictive guitar tones ever. You always know it’s him; it is the sound that patchouli would make could it weep.

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  13. I’ll give you one Sonic Youth error pre-jetset – and that was <>Dirty<> or whatever that Butch Vig produced mess was, and some of <>Goo<>, but there’s nada else. Radiohead’s <>Ok Computer<> is magnificient, and I don’t really like them that much.Have you ever seen Fugazi live? Maybe they’re weak now, but I disliked their records immediately, and one live show, and holy moly. Who cares about their politics. The Sex Pistols were pro life. Would you avoid their shows in 1977 if you knew that? I don’t want to get into a political argument again, but disliking abortion (which is a horrible thing – ask any woman who tried to avoid one and couldn’t) doesn’t mean you support the restriction of rights to attaining one. Television’s early ninteties album was good – it was two years ago when I saw them reunite to do their old stuff that made me hate them anew – ohgod it was horrible – Verlaine is a total guitar wanker – Ficca kept trying to end songs that ended up endless. Wankers. Like a Yes concert. Hell like.I can’t speak for a certian blog like Brooklyn Vegan, but saying this Dando track is better than 99.9% percent out there is flat wrong. Wilderness. Shearwater. A Sunny Day in Glasgow. Etc. Of course, 80% else <>is<> crap. Thanks for the hate.Quine’s mistake was playing on Lou Reed’s solo records at all.The other anonymous (you are another, aren’t you?):I’m with you on the Dando – I like the Dando-ness, but it’s trying to hard to be all things, esp a single. I liked <>Baby I’m Bored<> also, and writing about what he knows is good. But I still want to be outside her house at three am, trying to think her out of there. You know what it is? When I was 17, if I heard this version of Dando/Mascis, would I have liked it? Nah. It’s akin to me, back then, hearing a new Robert Plant single with Page guesting, or the Traveling Wilburys.Sure, you can tell Garcia’s playing, but it’s easy to play distinctively when you have the fingers of Django Rhinehardt but not the talent. He’s a great example of a great guitar player being mistaken for one of the best guitar players. He wrote the same song (or covered it) for thirty years. And that wasn’t just because he liked to freebase in his Lotus on the Golden Gate. Sorry. I have special hate for Jerry. When he died, I made a wish and did a little dance.Mascis couldn’t ape Built to Spill, since whatshisface was still in Treepeople and not even playing well when the 1st two Dino albums arrived. Maybe even Treepeople comes way later than Dino. I can’t recall, because Treepeople bored me, as does most built to spill. Bettie Serveert needed to hang it up around 1995. But their 1st two, wow, want a guitar god not Mascis? He’s therein.

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  14. Mr. Parenll:Anonymous # 1 says:The Fugazi stuff was a joke, but I guess it wasn’t funny. Those guys are about as pro-life as kittens.Everything after the first half of Goo was a Sonic mistake. 100%, Dirty, Jet Set, yawn, yawn, yawn.I saw Fugazi and Sonic Youth, live, in a wharehouse in DC, in 1989 or 90. Both bands were absolutely fantstic. Fugazi was the only live band I ever saw that actually lived up to the hype, but their are albums are stinkers through and through. On Garcia, we agree. It’s not even that he is bad, because he is not, he is just Joe average. No better or worse than anyone else. Perhaps are hate is that Garcia got so far on so little (I don’t want to say talent)…interesting play. By the way, your qouting of mallo cup from lick was not missed. Of course, Lick and Lovey were very special. On those records, Dando hired the guitar noodler from Bullet Lavota to add some Zepplin into the songs, and he sure did. I liked Lovey a lot more than most people, Stove, Half the Time, Brass Buttons, great stuff. You said as much, but when your married to a walking godess, just what is there to play music about?And for the record, I like the new Dando/Mascis song because it is catchy and sounds like home. But I saw them play together with Mike Watt and one of the Stooges guitar players and it was just shit. That was a supergroup that was so busy trying to be super, that is just sucked. And as far as “aping Built to Spill,” that is akin to asking if Teenage Fanclub were aping Big Star.” Chicken and the egg my friend.

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  15. Anon. 2Big Star #1 Record: 1972. Teenage Fanclub, Badwangonesque: 1991. The egg and chicken are pretty damn clear.As for Garcia, not a fan, just noting that you can always tell when it’s him, and that doesn’t make for great.

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  16. I remember reading TF interviews when Bandwagonesque came out, and they addressed the Big Star influence, admitted to it heartily, because any band would give a nut or ovary to be similarly compared. And, it being their third album, they couldn’t be accused of being one-trick ponys. So the sognwriting style fit Big Star, somewhat; I never saw the comparisons sound wise.

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