Post-Game Talk: #13: Maple Leafs at FLYERS, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2019, 7:00 pm ET

[Captain Dave Poulin]

Nowadays people have everything. EVERYTHING. at their disposal. Underground stuff is just as easy to "find" as the charted tracks in the world of "type it into Spotify and listen". As such, there's an infinite amount of music to explore which eliminates that type of keeper of the arcane type of music brain. It almost spreads the music listener so thin that they're into these different random niches and subgenres, minding their own business because they can, instead of listening to EVERYTHING under some crazily broad umbrella of "classic rock". Dad knows all that **** because in some ways it's literally all he had to listen to at the time. If you couldn't physically find 30s jazz records, you truly had no way to listen to it.

There's something sort of connected to this that nobody has ever talked about enough. It's not that there is a lack of music coming out - even someone as incredibly ancient as myself occasionally hears something new to like. But there hasn't been a reall "movement" since the end of the alternative explosion in the 90s. Hip hop arrived in the 80s and has been changing and evolving ever since, but you can't say that it has been a "movement" once it settled in. I'm talking about big, sweeping tsunamis, not sub-genres and things like that.

We had the British Invasion of rock, then (and before, whatever) we had folk, then we had psychedelia/acid rock etc., then we had prog rock, then we had punk, then hip hop, then New Wave, then alternative rock ...

Then Britney Spears spread her legs and destroyed the world.

 

[flyersnorth]

What's nuts about Jar of Flies is that week time frame includes the writing as well as recording.

Don't forget the heroin trips!

 

[flyersnorth]

There's never going to be "music nerds" ever again.

Do you think music as we knew it - "organic" music played and performed on imperfect instruments by imperfect people - is going the way of the dodo?

It kinda feels that way.

 

[baudib1]

Yeah I feel like mainstream popular music has been stagnant for a long time. Occasionally I'll tune into the Grammys or something and it's like, who's performing? Who's gonna win? And it's Rihanna, Beyonce and some twit. How is that any different from 2012?

 

[Ghosts Beer]

One of my absolute favorite 90s songs is “Something’s Always Wrong” by Toad the Wet Sprocket. Masterpiece.

Another day I call & never speak
And you would say nothing’s changed at all
But I can’t feel much hope for anything
If I won’t be there to catch you if you fall
Again it seems we meet
In the spaces in between
You always say it won’t be long
But something’s always wrong

 

[Captain Dave Poulin]

Yeah I feel like mainstream popular music has been stagnant for a long time. Occasionally I'll tune into the Grammys or something and it's like, who's performing? Who's gonna win? And it's Rihanna, Beyonce and some twit. How is that any different from 2012?

You wouldn't believe how confused I am when I hear who the musical guests are going to be on some of these shows lol but I swear to ****ing Jobu, one of these days I will find out why Chance Rapper admits to being Lionel Richie's son, but Whizz and Mia Khalifa make adult films like they don't care whether Lionel will be embarrassed by them or not.

 

[flyersnorth]

One of my absolute favorite 90s songs is “Something’s Always Wrong” by Toad the Wet Sprocket. Masterpiece.

Another day I call & never speak
And you would say nothing’s changed at all
But I can’t feel much hope for anything
If I won’t be there to catch you if you fall
Again it seems we meet
In the spaces in between
You always say it won’t be long
But something’s always wrong

Wow, I thought I was the only one who liked TTWS!

They were catchy and quirky. Always liked the song Nanci too.

Kinda reminds me of Skinned by Blind Melon. Love that band, and that song in particular about a serial killer.

I'll make a shoehorn outta your shin
I'll make a lampshade of durable skin
And, oh, don't you know that I'm always feeling able
When I'm sitting home and I'm carving out your navel?
I'm just a sitting here carving out your navel
When will I realize that this skin I'm in? Hey, it isn't mine
And when will the kill be too much meat for me to hide on?

 

[Ghosts Beer]

Do you think music as we knew it - "organic" music played and performed on imperfect instruments by imperfect people - is going the way of the dodo?

It kinda feels that way.

Seems that way to me. Listened to a couple of the Who’s new songs & they sound so computerized.

I’ll give Dave Grohl a lot of credit for 2011’s Wasting Light. An excellent album with the explicit intent of going full-out garage band & getting away from too much digitization & polish. If I recall correctly he had Butch Vig produce & Vig had to “relearn” how to edit actual tape.

 

[flyersnorth]

Seems that way to me. Listened to a couple of the Who’s new songs & they sound so computerized.

I’ll give Dave Grohl a lot of credit for 2011’s Wasting Light. An excellent album with the explicit intent of going full-out garage band & getting away from too much digitization & polish. If I recall correctly he had Butch Vig produce & Vig had to “relearn” how to edit actual tape.

Yup, they went full analog throughout the signal chain.

I do appreciate both worlds, though. I've released half a dozen albums over the years that were mostly progressive alternative / alternative rock kinda vibe. Foo Fighters is probably the closest "what do we sound like" band I can think of.

Lately we've been writing more pop stuff with modern production techniques. Comparables like Sam Smith, Panic! At The Disco, Charlie Puth, Ed Sheeran, etc. Should be releasing singles soon.

I just like writing music, period. As long as it's got a great groove and melody, I'm in.

 

[Ghosts Beer]

Wow, I thought I was the only one who liked TTWS!

They were catchy and quirky. Always liked the song Nanci too.

Kinda reminds me of Skinned by Blind Melon. Love that band, and that song in particular about a serial killer.

I'll make a shoehorn outta your shin
I'll make a lampshade of durable skin
And, oh, don't you know that I'm always feeling able
When I'm sitting home and I'm carving out your navel?
I'm just a sitting here carving out your navel
When will I realize that this skin I'm in? Hey, it isn't mine
And when will the kill be too much meat for me to hide on?

TTWS was underrated.

I can’t believe you
You bend your words like Uri Geller’s spoons
Not quite safe here
When every judgment seems to smack of doom

(Kinda like a message board, eh?)

I’ll check out that Blind Melon one. Only song of theirs I know is No Rain.

 

[DancingPanther]

You wouldn't believe how confused I am when I hear who the musical guests are going to be on some of these shows lol but I swear to ****ing Jobu, one of these days I will find out why Chance Rapper admits to being Lionel Richie's son, but Whizz and Mia Khalifa make adult films like they don't care whether Lionel will be embarrassed by them or not.

Chance the Rapper is one of my favs, but his recent album was a bit of a dud

 

[DancingPanther]

Do you think music as we knew it - "organic" music played and performed on imperfect instruments by imperfect people - is going the way of the dodo?

It kinda feels that way.

In short, I don't believe that, no

 

[Captain Dave Poulin]

Chance the Rapper is one of my favs, but his recent album was a bit of a dud

I liked when that blind girl carved his dad's likeness in a block of milk chocolate.

 

[Ghosts Beer]

Yup, they went full analog throughout the signal chain.

I do appreciate both worlds, though. I've released half a dozen albums over the years that were mostly progressive alternative / alternative rock kinda vibe. Foo Fighters is probably the closest "what do we sound like" band I can think of.

Lately we've been writing more pop stuff with modern production techniques. Comparables like Sam Smith, Panic! At The Disco, Charlie Puth, Ed Sheeran, etc. Should be releasing singles soon.

I just like writing music, period. As long as it's got a great groove and melody, I'm in.

That’s awesome, man. What’s your band? Sounds like something I’d like.

I lean strongly toward melody.

Grohl has a great sense of melody, as did Cobain.

The Sky is a Neighborhood is a recent FF song that I thought went under appreciated. Tremendous chorus.

One reason The Who is my favorite band — it’s the songwriting above all — but I love how Keith Moon plays the melodies on drums.

Perfect example:

 

[DancingPanther]

There's something sort of connected to this that nobody has ever talked about enough. It's not that there is a lack of music coming out - even someone as incredibly ancient as myself occasionally hears something new to like. But there hasn't been a reall "movement" since the end of the alternative explosion in the 90s. Hip hop arrived in the 80s and has been changing and evolving ever since, but you can't say that it has been a "movement" once it settled in. I'm talking about big, sweeping tsunamis, not sub-genres and things like that.

We had the British Invasion of rock, then (and before, whatever) we had folk, then we had psychedelia/acid rock etc., then we had prog rock, then we had punk, then hip hop, then New Wave, then alternative rock ...

Then Britney Spears spread her legs and destroyed the world.

Very true.

I do believe in 15 years we'll be looking back at 2010 when Adventure Club put computer music on the map outside of its cult following, and once Skrillex and (especially) The Chainsmokers blew up it started the most recent movement, as you put it

I think we're in the baby stages of seeing computer music start to take over mainstream. Not dubstep, because that stuff is...obnoxious...for the mainstream consumer. I'm talking piano laden intro, added drum track with some-magnitude-of-talented female vocals, pre drop, then a "family friendly" drop. Then repeat.

And honestly, I'd be ok with that. I like that stuff. I think the chainsmokers are a little too sell-outy for my particular liking to be specific, but that is the genre of computer music I've taken a liking to.

Illenium, Said the Sky, Gryffin, Dabin...a lot of people still scoff at this stuff because it's not "organic" but it's just as creative as any other type of music out there. Besides, the piano isn't organic either. You just press a key and it makes a perfect note (so long as it's in tune of course!) in its most simple terms. Similarly, you press a button on a software, and noise comes out. In each sense, it's up to the creative genius of the player/producer to construct music. Those guys in particular can really, really take you away during their melodic drops.

Truthfully, Illenium is up there in my top tier, absolute favorite artists. The Beatles are #1, but then there's Pink Floyd, Elton, Illenium, and Led Zeppelin, and Eminem in some order.

 

[flyersnorth]

TTWS was underrated.

I can’t believe you
You bend your words like Uri Geller’s spoons
Not quite safe here
When every judgment seems to smack of doom

(Kinda like a message board, eh?)

I’ll check out that Blind Melon one. Only song of theirs I know is No Rain.

Skinned is the only song I know that uses a kazoo lol.

 

[Captain Dave Poulin]

Very true.

I do believe in 15 years we'll be looking back at 2010 when Adventure Club put computer music on the map outside of its cult following, and once Skrillex and (especially) The Chainsmokers blew up it started the most recent movement, as you put it

I think we're in the baby stages of seeing computer music start to take over mainstream. Not dubstep, because that stuff is...obnoxious...for the mainstream consumer. I'm talking piano laden intro, added drum track with some-magnitude-of-talented female vocals, pre drop, then a "family friendly" drop. Then repeat.

And honestly, I'd be ok with that. I like that stuff. I think the chainsmokers are a little too sell-outy for my particular liking to be specific, but that is the genre of computer music I've taken a liking to.

Illenium, Said the Sky, Gryffin, Dabin...a lot of people still scoff at this stuff because it's not "organic" but it's just as creative as any other type of music out there. Besides, the piano isn't organic either. You just press a key and it makes a perfect note (so long as it's in tune of course!) in its most simple terms. Similarly, you press a button on a software, and noise comes out. In each sense, it's up to the creative genius of the player/producer to construct music. Those guys in particular can really, really take you away during their melodic drops.

Truthfully, Illenium is up there in my top tier, absolute favorite artists. The Beatles are #1, but then there's Pink Floyd, Elton, Illenium, and Led Zeppelin, and Eminem.

You would know a million times better than me about that stuff, but it seems to me like people are just too scattered for any kind of movement to take broad hold of people. I could see a deformed version of it happening, where everyone is watching a show from their screens at home and a counter on the side is showing the millions watching it, etc., something like that.

It would be interesting to see music evolve away from melodies and harmonies and all the musical things that we recognize as music, and turn to a bunch of pretty random sounds and noise ... and then watch the rock journalists comes up with their fantasy reviews of it. Rock criticism is some of the most imaginative non-fiction writing you will ever see, but it rarely if ever makes an ounce of sense.

 

[flyersnorth]

That’s awesome, man. What’s your band? Sounds like something I’d like.

I lean strongly toward melody.

Grohl has a great sense of melody, as did Cobain.

The Sky is a Neighborhood is a recent FF song that I thought went under appreciated. Tremendous chorus.

One reason The Who is my favorite band — it’s the songwriting above all — but I love how Keith Moon plays the melodies on drums.

Perfect example:

This is from our EP in 2015.


The entire EP is on Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play, etc. I have a bunch of others from defunct bands or stalled projects that are not online for streaming, but our latest pop stuff will make it up there soon. Actually spent about 4 hours last night mixing and producing vocals on one of the songs.

Man, producing/mixing pop is *so* different from rock. I'm having to learn a whole new way of doing things.

 

[flyersnorth]

Rock criticism is some of the most imaginative non-fiction writing you will ever see, but it rarely if ever makes an ounce of sense.

Nailed it.

 

[Ghosts Beer]

This is from our EP in 2015.


The entire EP is on Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play, etc. I have a bunch of others from defunct bands or stalled projects that are not online for streaming, but our latest pop stuff will make it up there soon. Actually spent about 4 hours last night mixing and producing vocals on one of the songs.

Man, producing/mixing pop is *so* different from rock. I'm having to learn a whole new way of doing things.

Good work, man! Impressive.

 

[DancingPanther]

You would know a million times better than me about that stuff, but it seems to me like people are just too scattered for any kind of movement to take broad hold of people. I could see a deformed version of it happening, where everyone is watching a show from their screens at home and a counter on the side is showing the millions watching it, etc., something like that.

It would be interesting to see music evolve away from melodies and harmonies and all the musical things that we recognize as music, and turn to a bunch of pretty random sounds and noise ... and then watch the rock journalists comes up with their fantasy reviews of it. Rock criticism is some of the most imaginative non-fiction writing you will ever see, but it rarely if ever makes an ounce of sense.

I think you're right in that it won't be "sweeping" as you put it. I'm just saying I expect to see a bit of a paradigm shift on the charts

I agree, like I said before- too scatterbrained for a true earthshattering movement on par with British invasion, as opposed to Justin Beiber

 

[flyersnorth]

Good work, man! Impressive.

Thanks man! Such a fun project. It's just my cousin and I. He wrote the vocals/lyrics and some guitar parts, I wrote the bass, drums, guitar parts, and then we hired a friend of ours as sound engineer and guest drummer.

 

[deadhead]

You would know a million times better than me about that stuff, but it seems to me like people are just too scattered for any kind of movement to take broad hold of people. I could see a deformed version of it happening, where everyone is watching a show from their screens at home and a counter on the side is showing the millions watching it, etc., something like that.

It would be interesting to see music evolve away from melodies and harmonies and all the musical things that we recognize as music, and turn to a bunch of pretty random sounds and noise ... and then watch the rock journalists comes up with their fantasy reviews of it. Rock criticism is some of the most imaginative non-fiction writing you will ever see, but it rarely if ever makes an ounce of sense.

It's doubtful, the human brain is wired to respond to certain sound patterns.
Get too far from that and you'll be a dud.

I'd point out that Opera Singers, who are extremely "precise" singers, struggle to be as appealing when singing popular music as less skilled but more approachable amateur voices - maybe there's an emotional content that can't easily be duplicated by perfect electronics that we respond to in voices and maybe even in instruments.

 

[Captain Dave Poulin]

It's doubtful, the human brain is wired to respond to certain sound patterns.
Get too far from that and you'll be a dud.

I'd point out that Opera Singers, who are extremely "precise" singers, struggle to be as appealing when singing popular music as less skilled but more approachable amateur voices - maybe there's an emotional content that can't easily be duplicated by perfect electronics that we respond to in voices and maybe even in instruments.

My point was more about the fantasies that rock critics create in their reviews. I find it rather onanistic, if you catch my drift, and I know you will.

 

[DancingPanther]

Very true.

I do believe in 15 years we'll be looking back at 2010 when Adventure Club put computer music on the map outside of its cult following, and once Skrillex and (especially) The Chainsmokers blew up it started the most recent movement, as you put it

I think we're in the baby stages of seeing computer music start to take over mainstream. Not dubstep, because that stuff is...obnoxious...for the mainstream consumer. I'm talking piano laden intro, added drum track with some-magnitude-of-talented female vocals, pre drop, then a "family friendly" drop. Then repeat.

And honestly, I'd be ok with that. I like that stuff. I think the chainsmokers are a little too sell-outy for my particular liking to be specific, but that is the genre of computer music I've taken a liking to.

Illenium, Said the Sky, Gryffin, Dabin...a lot of people still scoff at this stuff because it's not "organic" but it's just as creative as any other type of music out there. Besides, the piano isn't organic either. You just press a key and it makes a perfect note (so long as it's in tune of course!) in its most simple terms. Similarly, you press a button on a software, and noise comes out. In each sense, it's up to the creative genius of the player/producer to construct music. Those guys in particular can really, really take you away during their melodic drops.

Truthfully, Illenium is up there in my top tier, absolute favorite artists. The Beatles are #1, but then there's Pink Floyd, Elton, Illenium, and Led Zeppelin, and Eminem in some order.

Not loud, not obnoxious, quite beautiful. Would recommend, 3 and a half minutes is nothing even if you don't like it.

Plus, Annika