captain’s dead has some pharcyde mp3s available, reminding me of nothing so much as the 8th grade and my second love affair with hip-hop (first was in 1986 with raising hell and license to ill, an album i haven’t enjoyed since then.) anyway, it reminds me of moshing at the dude ranch, smoking camels out back of the dance floor, asking a girl to see City Slickers and a buncha other kinds of ‘magic.’
this was the era of the cypress hill self-titled and the chronic. back then crossovers like that of the Judgement Day soundtrack (let alone the almost helmet-infused check your head) lent a hopeful, interdisciplinary air to things. for a moment i thought it might be okay to be an indie fop in a ‘blunt’ hat. not so, of course, but we mustn’t forget the fleeting utopian promise hovering around all this mushy, messy history – around all histories, really.
The PrisonShip 
November 27, 2006 at 5:09 pm
Yeah, that was the period of the ubiquitous stockingcap or ski cap, emblazoned with things like “Thrasher” or “Cell.” Did you ever hear that band?
November 27, 2006 at 8:15 pm
i remember cell sucked. i saw them sort of, one night at the old knitting factory. i was 13. another band i dug during that period was Gumball.
weird how bands like cell – regular indie rocking blokes like scads of people we know – ended up on a major label amidst the ‘grunge’ feeding frenzy. what a weird 15 minutes that must’ve been.
November 28, 2006 at 4:25 pm
Yeah. That was a weird period, looking back. For a moment in time some people were able to like hip hop, indie rock, and the metal/grunge bands. I distinguish those last two carefully, cuz some of the metal/grunge acts were indie, but not in the sense of Fugazi. Now when I hear most Seattle bands of the period I think they’re terrible. And what about the whole shoe-gaze thing – Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, Verve, and uh…I can’t remember the other names. Those English bands that were always on 120 minutes.
I have to admit that I like that Verve number “Bittersweet Symphony” or whatever it’s called. That’s later 90’s, though.
November 28, 2006 at 4:34 pm
ben,
do you still have that jesus and mary chain tee?
November 28, 2006 at 5:31 pm
No, lost it. I liked them… Jesus and Mary Chain, that is.
Teenage Fanclub sux.
November 29, 2006 at 5:01 pm
The Lightning Seeds?
November 29, 2006 at 5:07 pm
wow, no idea about the lightning seeds? most of the bands you’re dropping had way larger followings in europa, right? weird that the jesus and mary chain has assumed canonical status, alongside joy division, my bloody valentine, spacemen 3 and all the ‘rockist’ british post-punk
i have a soft spot for teenage fanclub, to the extent that they kind of prepared me for big star, like john the baptist before the christ. not that the fanclub is fit to fasten big star’s sandal strap, mind you.
November 29, 2006 at 5:55 pm
I was gettin’ it in Belgique in those days, mind you. I actually saw J and Mary Chain in concert in 11th grade. To that experience I owe a series of permanently broken blood vessels across my chest.
You know what? On a completely different train of thought – I actually liked the Cult back then, for some reason. As in Electric.