The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Bender was wrong.
In the classic Futurama episode “Love and Rocket,” the anarchic android immediately deduces that someone had changed his preset radio station when the ship’s speakers bleat out the maddeningly unforgettable chorus of “Two Princes” by Spin Doctors.1
“Hey, who’s been messin’ with the radio?” Bender (the irreplaceable John DiMaggio) growls with suspicion. “This isn’t alternative rock. It’s college rock.”
Whiff.
“Two Princes” is a crowd-pleaser with playful scatting that rode strong radio play to No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100.2 While Spin Doctors’ jam band adjacency and wiseacre disposition appealed to young adults in the ‘90s,3 their most-enduring song is plainly the type of down-the-middle alternative rock that made radio stars out of the Gin Blossoms and Better than Ezra.
Who knows how this flat-out wrong assertion made it into the usually pointlessly well-researched sci-fi comedy. Maybe something else was supposed to play, but Superchunk’s biggest hit was too vulgar.4
Or maybe the problem is that when “Love and Rocket” aired,5 Out From Underneath by Prism Shores was still almost 23 years from being released. Had the Montreal quartet’s new album existed at the time, its slightly blown-out jangle would have been superb genre shorthand coming out of the Planet Express Ship stereo.6
Out From Underneath, Prism Shores’ second album, is 32 punchy minutes of tunes that sound like they were unearthed from some left-of-the-dial campus station’s vault after laying dormant for the past 35 years.7
Every charm associated with a strain of late ’80s college rock is present on Out From Underneath. Tasteful, gentle reverb is omnipresent, guitars alternate from IRS-era REM jangle to Kevin Shieldsian serrated swoon, a couple songs boast guy-girl duet vocals to great effect.8 “Southpaw,” the song that would be playing in that parallel universe episode of Futurama, manages to incorporate all of those elements in 182 seconds of melodic wistfulness. Other standouts include the fuzzed-out, relative rager, “Weightless,” and extra-crunchy album-closer “Unravel.”
Prism Shores don’t necessarily do anything revelatory with these unquestionably well-sourced sounds, but they do use them in service of an extremely winsome indie rock album that can go toe-to-toe with its influences without sounding out of place or outclassed.
About the writer
Ben Hohenstatt
Ben Hohenstatt is an Alaska-based dog owner who moonlights as a music writer and photographer.
For more information, consult your local library or with parental permission visit his website.
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The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
Kids In The Hall, Season Two, Episode Nine
– Headcrusher guy getting his hand broken was amusing (“I have no quarrel with you!”). Also think that was Scott Thompson’s funniest moment in drag.
– “Get a good night’s rest, and remember: I can murder you in your sleep.”
– “Why did Daddy give up drinking? He didn’t. Daddy drank for the government.”
– Bruce McCullogh in goth drag = exactly my type.
– Kevin Macdonald waking up after being knocked out with a slight beard is so funny even before the sketch gets into gear.
– “Make the naked choice!”
– “Love basketball. Love nudity.”
– “Marti, I’ll have to call you back, Gavin ate a fish.”
– “Hey, any of you guys ever beat up your dad?”
– “I’d let him beat me up. Then I’d let his guilt tear him apart.”
Lotta stuff about dads in this episode.
Kojak, “Souvenir from Atlantic City” – An informer for the Intelligence Division of the NYPD (then and now one of the branches that does counterterrorism) has been flushed out, and is on the run after a bombing meant for him kills two off duty cops. Kojak and the informer’s boss have to put aside their animosity to find the man, only tihngs don’t go so well. There is a decided hint of noir in the last scene and the overall story, sort of a South Bronx “Odd Man Out.” Very much of its time with the bad guys clearly inspired by FALN and other Puerto Rican radicals, a trip to Atlantic City before the casinos, and mentions of Cardinal Cooke and the new Yankee Stadium. Daniel J. Travanti is already typecast as a cop in this.
The Avengers, “Who’s Who???” – Agents for the bad guys use a device made by a former Nazi scientist to swap minds with Steed and Peel, as one did back then. Created in part to alone Patrick MacNee to take some time off and to start Diana Rigg’s slow departure from the show, we get a lot of time with other actors playing our heroes. Prolific character actor Freddy Jones is great as Steed, as is the less well known Patricia Haines (once married to Michael Caine). MacNee and Rigg have a lot of fun playing the hammy bad guys, who are a couple and a lot more couply than Peel and Steed ever get on screen. We also have a wacky pair of bits where an announcer tries to explain to latecomers to the show how Peel and Steed are not themselves, only the announcer himself is confused!
Didi – A poignant, frequently funny debut. Reminded me of another really terrific middle school movie, Eighth Grade with its scenes of well-observed awkwardness. The best virtue is its cast, Sean Wang gets fantastic performances from Izaac Wang as his surrogate and especially Joan Chen as a mother besieged by the generations on either side of her. Just a good movie, ya’ll.
The Brutalist – intermissions are cool. Seeing this epic at a busy screening with that break to decompress in the middle felt like a real Occasion. I definitely feel like the film itself falls short of the grandeur it’s clearly reaching for, which has been a deal breaker for me in the past. This one managed to stay on my good side though – despite its length I never felt it drag, and the performances, cinematography and music are all excellent. The writing stumbles a few times but there are enough memorable and strange moments that I think it’ll stick in my head for a while, not least the end credits song which is so unexpected that I think I kinda loved it?
A real intermission! Weren’t we just in a conversation about how those have disappeared?
Midsommar – More like MidSLUMBER. I dunno, I gave this 2.5 stars on Letterboxd because Florence Pugh is legit great and I can’t deny the best visual touches, but I quietly hated it: the characters, the Instagram version of folk horror, and the complete lack of real dramatic tension in two people who should JUST BREAK UP ALREADY. William Jackson Harper is the only character who felt like a grad student and he’s still dumb as shit. Can see the Von Trier influence, maybe Ari Aster also has a cruel and predictable mind and doesn’t know it. Eggers gets more shit than Aster does but he commits fully to his characters’ humanity or inhumanity, they have desires and loves, Aster sees them as pawns or puppets or mediocre boyfriends or inbred freaks (you know what’s scary, disabled and ugly and old people). I’m gonna stop, maybe worthy of a whole essay, but fuck this movie.
It does my heart good to see someone else disliking this. Aster’s view of people usually feels much too psychologically clinical for me (exception: “The Strange Thing About the Johnsons,” which is, oddly, much more explicitly psychological); the characters suffer and hit extremes of emotion, but it feels like I’m being invited to observe them as case studies rather than participate in their feelings. For all their mess, they never seem to escape Aster’s tight, analytical control of them. And I don’t think he has the deft comedic touch one needs, sub rosa or not, to make it satisfying when characters with banal sins meet brutal, extraordinary fates. Clearly a lot of people gel with his vision and think he pulls all this off magnificently, but with both this and Hereditary, I mostly came away feeling like I’d experienced something numbing and perversely belittling of the human experience.
Eggers I do love, even when an individual work doesn’t click for me, and it’s exactly what you said: his characters feel much more real on their own terms, and I think they have enough breathing room that you don’t feel the directorial hand guiding you to feel any particular way about them, which is something I really appreciate.
Yes … ha ha ha … Yes! I will stick up for Will Poulter here, absolutely hilarious as the douchebag who is also sorta right, hell yeah pissing on these dweebs’ ancestors. But this points to the big problem with the movie, it is slasher meatbag dopiness (fun!) at 1/3 speed and with fussiness as the aesthetic (not fun). As you note, these people all suck and should avoid each other (Poulter correct again!) and yet they do not. Pugh redeems herself with the last five minutes but is just as whiny as everyone else beforehand.
Remember how she gets mad at him for doing something in a dream, just like any other crappy relationship argument? Guh. I clocked it and pretty much nothing happens until the 90 minute mark, insane.
What did we listen to?
A Saucerful of Secrets, Pink Floyd
Not as strong as the first. It loses some of the novelty without adding many new ideas.
I quite like this one. It’s an uneven album because we’re listening to a band in flux in real time. It’s the only album with all five members with “Set The Controls…” the only track with both Gilmour and Barrett. The title track and the way it’s listed with different sections being titled and how they flow together hints at the multi arrangement of epic tracks a few years down the road. A bit crude but the future is there. Corporal Clegg is the only real stinker. The last song Jugband Blues is an amazing goodbye from Syd, a self diagnosis of delusions and schizophrenia. It also has some of Nick Mason’s best drumming which may be why he calls it his favorite and named his band after it.
Mostly car ride music as I ferry my daughter between activities. It’s interesting to hear her reactions to music of the aughts and early teens, which to me is still new and to her might as well be on wax cylinders (or at least is indistinguishable from the 90s). She was horrified by Pitbull’s remix of “Jump In the Line,” which I think is a fair reaction.
There are playlists on Spotify that are nothing but guitar or ukulele covers of rock songs. Useful as background music for working to, but who would have thought to create those?
The Iron Age of Comics marked its 50th episode with an examination of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Remarkably, there is still what to say about that comic.
One time I rabbitholed on bluegrass covers of metal and rock and it’s an oddly satisfying combination. I like the sound of pickin’ and it’s fun to hear familiar melodies (and there’s only so many lyrics about mixing up a batch of biscuits I can stomach). A band specializing in AC/DC covers called Hayseed/Dixie stood out to me, but mostly because of the name.
I know them! In fact, it sounds like a good idea to listen to them today.
I love a good cover, but for every good cover I find, there is one that adds nothing and one that makes me recoil. And what even is a good cover? I like the original Ballroom Blitz, and my wife prefers the Wayne’s World Tia Carrere version and I we really disagree.
Metal and bluegrass have a huge overlap as “stringed instruments played with great speed and precision” so they work really well together.
Music: Bat Boy The Musical 2001 Off-Broadway soundtrack, which is pretty terrific especially compared to other punk/rock musicals, most of which I find not dark or hard enough. This commits to the characters’ moral transgressions and a sense of tragedy, especially the final scene, and the songs are really catchy, especially “Hold Me Bat Boy” and “A Thing Or Two”, while “Dance With Me Darling” is the most purely Sondheim in it’s melodic cognitive dissonance. This team also wrote Heathers The Musical, I might check it out.
Trying to find more dread-based music and musicals – Redbird for Agnes Martin is compelling though a little too dry maybe, what other John Zorn should I check out?
Podcasts: Weird Studies rules as always, finally listened to their Conan episode and the new Siddhartha one is a pleasure just as I start The Glass Bead Game. They’re correct that the 20222/23 NYer article about Hesse is weirdly petty and reductive. Unclear & Present Danger is a pretty good podcast about 90’s Cold War/post-Cold War movies, though the slight whiney quality of two thirty/fortysomethings lamenting how things have changed is off-putting. Still puts a lot of films in good context, especially Mission: Impossible and 95’s Nixon.
Get on Heathers the Musical – especially if you already like the vibe of other stuff from the same team. “Our Love is God” is a standout for me as both a great ballad and incredibly, obsessively dark, “Candy Store” is catchy as hell, and “Dead Gay Son” is hilarious. The singer for Heather Chandler has one of my favourite voices.
1001 Albums etc. – just made it into 1973. The last batch of songs had the unfortunate honour of containing the first album that I gave the minimum rating on my somewhat arbitrary scale (I may yet add an even lower score when I reach Kid Rock, who is on this list for some reason). Anyway, congrats to Tim Buckley, whose album “Greetings From LA” I found absolutely repulsive. On the plus side, the next album on the list was Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon” and it has never sounded better, so it joins the elite ranks of albums I’ve given a 10/10. Other high scores from this round: Ziggy Stardust, Paul Simon, Roxy Music and Al Green. In the “surprised how much I enjoyed it” category, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band doing two solid hours of folksy country was way more enjoyable than I expected and I dug Alice Cooper’s “Schools Out” too. This section also included the final Rolling Stones album on the list (Exile On Main Street) and alas I give up hope that they will ever win me over – a band that top out at “pretty good” to me. The Eagles also showed up for the first time, are they the least cool band of all time? Gotta be in the conversation right? I don’t hate them as much as The Dude but I do want to bully them a bit.
Not been podcasting much lately.
The Eagles are lame but they are Funkadelic compared to James Taylor, so I suppose they have that going for them.
James Taylor surely gets at least a few points for his role in “Deep Space Homer” though. It’s a tough call.
The commentary on the episode was great, because David Mirkin was complaining about how funny James Taylor was – “It’s not fair he gets to be that musically talented and that funny.”
Ahaha I’ve tried to get into Tim Buckley and utterly failed.
I find his folky stuff tolerable if not particularly interesting but this is a wild swing that missed SO badly for me, haha
Lol yeah, much like Captain Beefheart, I know he’s doing SOMETHING radical and different, but I can’t say I like it.
I don’t remember when 1001 Albums was put together, but I think it’s been long enough that Some Girls has been rightfully reevaluated as a classic.
I found a list and see that #1 Record is on there but Radio City is not. I will probably have some future complaints as well.
First printed in 2005. They’ve regularly revised it since, but interestingly / annoyingly they only make changes to the later stuff – everything before the mid-90s has remained exactly the same every time.
Two Big Star albums on the list seems like pretty good going to me but then they’re one of the classic bands I’d already fully investigated anyway (I love them, of course!)
Radio City is just as good as #1 Record and the two are virtually inseparable for me.
I did a brief peek forward and the only other album I had to grumble about missing from the list is The Soft Boys’ Underwater Moonlight. So far. And I might have other complaints if I look more closely.
Agreed that they’re both fantastic albums but I’m all for picking a couple of albums max for artists and having a wider range of stuff on there. It’s definitely going for something slightly different than just “1001 greatest”, as exemplified by the latest album that I’ve listened to being Bongo Rock by The Incredible Bongo Band
Nice, I gave this one a listen last week because I like the label and was really impressed, way up my street.
Jeez, sounds way up my alley, you had me at “college rock.”
It really reminds me of Ex Cops’ 2013 album “True Hallucinations,” but with the shoegaze slider pushed up a bit, if that’s a helpful reference point.
This might be a good place to ask this: What are some good story songs?
Songs that tell a story? “Found a Peanut.”
Songs that tell a story, yeah. I’ve got “One Piece at a Time” by Johnny Cash, “The Chicken in Black” by Johnny Cash, “Sharon” by Johnny Cash (I’m kidding that one is actually by David Bromberg) and “The Hurricane” by Bob Dylan. Any others that you can think of off the top of your head?
The Devil Went Down To Georgia, of course. Amos Moses, by Jerry Reed and Jerry Was A Race Car Driver, by Primus. A ton of Drive-By Truckers, Where The Devil Don’t Stay and Daddy’s Cup come to mind. History Of The World Part 2, by the Minutemen. The Road Goes On Forever by Robert Earl Keen…
“Up the Junction” by Squeeze.